Heidi’s voice was now increasing in anger. A simmering, slow-burning rage shone behind her eyes now, even in the dark gloom of the glass patio.

“I don’t remember,” Ilse murmured. Even as she said it, a jolt of guilt panged in her chest. She didn’t remember making a plan. Three weeks? What did Heidi mean by three weeks? Ilse had long felt guilt at leaving the others back in that basement. She didn’t recall their names or their faces. She didn’t recall much. But she did know there had been others down there. She didn’t know how she had managed to escape. She hadn’t known what had happened to the others. She couldn’t even recollect how she had escaped. Vaguely, she thought of a glass window. She remembered the sound of shattering. Screaming, the stomping of feet. She remembered hands at her back, pushing, pushing. A whispered, strained voice, yelling, “Go!”

Sensations and feelings and words. But that was it. She couldn’t remember much more.

“You should’ve come back like you promised, little sister. Not just send proxy help weeks later. Not so delayed. The police said you were half-starved when they found you on the side of the road. Having survived the forest. But you were slow, so very slow. When they found us,” Heidi said, swallowing, “it was late. It got horrible after you escaped. He killed two of our brothers. Hans and Dietrich. He beat them to death. He thought they were the ones who helped you!”

Ilse winced, reeling, desperate, the gag tickling her chin. Her hands strained in pain, wedged against the couch behind her. What was Samantha—no—Heidi talking about? Police? Three weeks? Had Ilse managed to call for help? How come she didn’t remember any of it? Not a whiff of a scent. Nothing. All of it gone, eaten up by a forgetful, traumatized mind.

She tried to twist, to glance over her shoulder, wondering if a car might pass by the forest road, wondering at the trees shaking and whistling with the wind, occasionally discarding an unwanted leaf, and watching as it fluttered, twisting and spinning to the ground to join the carpet of detritus.

Night still stretched across the sky, still peeked through the windows, still carpeted the trees, and the forest and the lake and everything it touched, washing it with shadow.

And the two of them were alone.

One of them remembering the horrors back in that little house, in that basement. The other stuck, lost in thought, memories fleeting. One of them full of rage. The other trembling with fear.

“Police? The police found you? At the house? Father? Was—what happened?”

Heidi stared at Ilse hard, as if trying to decide if she were playing pretend. Her eyes narrowed, though, and she sneered. “Yes… Police. Three weeks after you promised. Three weeks of horrors later. Two deaths later. Father is in prison, little Hilda. Are you telling me you don’t even remember that? They put that strange-eyed bastard behind bars, where I couldn’t reach him.” She snarled, spittle flying from bared teeth like some wounded wolf. “But he might be safe in jail… They never found the extent of what he’d done. You, on the other hand. My little sister. The one who waited three weeks to get help. Wandered stupid around a forest, stumbling into trees and over roots and eating your own shit, no doubt. You’re the one who caused those three weeks of hell! You should have stuck to the plan! You never came back!” Heidi screamed so loudly, one of the windows shuddered. She kicked at the blonde wig, sending it shooting toward Ilse’s couch. The pepper spray rolled under the furniture, out of sight. Another little tinge of hope vanishing.