It’s Cam’s pocketknife, the one he’s had since college, a scratched and beat-up thing that once belonged to his grandfather. Cam keeps it more for sentimental value than for its usefulness, storing it under a stack of wrinkled business cards in an antique box in his study. As far as I know, he’s never showed it to the kids.

But Beatrix knew where to look.

Not only that.

In the middle of a life-or-death emergency, when she had only a few seconds to scout out a hiding place, Beatrix went for a weapon. She found the pocketknife in Cam’s hiding place. This is the reason we don’t have a gun.

My smart girl kept her wits about her. While the three of us were downstairs searching the basement, Beatrix was in Cam’s study, gathering weapons and making signs. She’s my four-foot, curly-haired, levelheaded hero.

I close my fingers around the knife and twist around on my chair.

Beatrix’s seat is empty. She stands in front of it, bare toes digging into the carpet. Her hands hang loose by her sides, free from their bindings.

Behind her, the duct tape lies wrinkled and deflated on the leather. Sawed completely through, four messy slices in the metallic silver, by the pocketknife in my hand. It must have taken her forever, and all that time I didn’t see. None of us heard a sound.

Especially not Sebastian, watching from the other side of the coffee table. He has both hands raised, fingers spread wide, palms pushing against the air. “Don’t even think about it.”

My gaze returns to Beatrix’s hands, but I only see one of them. Her left hand, hanging empty by her side. The other is concealed by her body.

And yet I already know what’s in it.

I see it from Sebastian’s suddenly blanched skin, the way his eyes go twitchy. I see it in the set of Beatrix’s mouth, her rod-straight back and trembling shoulders. From the way my mind stops screaming long enough to hear what’s happening outside, the soft but steady sound, whistling like a distant wind.

I know what’s in Beatrix’s hand long before she lifts her arms and I see the gun. She grips it in two white-knuckled hands.

And that whistling outside? It’s not wind.

It’s sirens.

Sebastian’s earlier words echo through my brain: At the first sign of sirens, the bullets start flying. First the kids, then you.

And now it’s Beatrix holding the gun, her finger curled around the trigger.

Sebastian doesn’t move.

The moment slips into crystalline focus.

“Move back,” Beatrix says. “Get up against the wall. Do it.”