Another sprint, and the dark wood of the foyer entrance is just up ahead. Emma slams into the door like she’s trying to break it down.

“The key,” she cries, makes a beckoning gesture.

Kristin looks baffled. “I don’t know what you’re—”

“Coat pocket,” Bell wheezes.

Emma gives up, grabs for Kristin’s pocket, the hard, thin object inside. She pulls it out, sound of metal scratching metal as she struggles to get it into the keyhole with her hands shaking like this and one hand holding the revolver.

“Gimme the gun,” Bell says. He takes the weapon and braces his back against the wooden wall, right arm out and aiming down the hall, all color stripped from his face.

Emma gets the door open, it swings wide, they tumble through, slam it shut.

Calm dark under the stairs of the foyer.

Emma locks the door. Bell staggers forward, drops to his knees, bent over, propping himself up with the muzzle of the gun, breathing like he’s about to pass out or die. Kristin holds the wall as she edges away to give herself space.

Emma closes her eyes for the briefest moment, opens them.

Kristin is clutching an arm about her ribs. “My brother is still back there in that room, and he’s back there with him, and he’s—”

“Kristin,” Emma says. “Kristin. We’ll get your brother.”

Emma sees to Bell first, tugs him up gently, turns him around. His hand, placing the gun flat on the floor, is palsied with tremors.

“You need to lie down.” Emma yanks his shirt free, tears it down the front, ties it hard around his midsection over his undershirt. “You need to lie down, and Kristin’s going to open the front entrance, and SWAT will come in—”

Kristin is vomiting in a corner. Emma sees to her next.

“Kristin, look at me.” The girl’s eyes are glassy, and one pupil is slightly larger than the other. “Kristin, you have to help Travis. You need to get the front door open—”

“Simon!” Kristin shrieks. She clutches Emma’s arm. “We can’t leave him there, tell me you’re not going to leave him—”

“Nobody’s leaving anyone,” Emma says, and she feels very old in years as she picks up the gun.

“No,” Bell gasps.

“Yes.” Emma tries to get her heartbeat to slow. “He helped us, Travis. He helped me. I don’t want to go back—look at me, okay? But I’m not leaving him there to get his throat slashed. And he could still get loose—Hoyt has the keys to the cell.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters, Travis. You know it matters.”

“Emma—” He just breathes for a second. Then he gives her his tie to wrap around her arm, which is still bleeding. “Listen to me. You’ve only got two bullets left. That’s it.”

“Got it.”

“Check your corners. Remember what we practiced.”

“I will.”

“Don’t go.”

“Have to.” She checks the chamber like he taught her, confirms the two bullets. “I know what it feels like to be in a cage.”