“That’s how it always had to be,” sneered Heidi. The scissors flashed down toward Ilse’s neck. At the same time, Ilse surged up, hard.

Heidi hadn’t bound her feet. And while it had been a while since she’d gone to the gym, Ilse had trained for the last five years. Leaving a jujitsu practitioner their feet was always a mistake.

She went for the fifty-fifty position. A style of jujitsu where legs interlocked, allowing further access to one’s opponent.

Ilse slid her leg between her sister’s, and then twisted. Knees clashed. Legs buckled. Heidi yelled and stumbled, and at the same time, Ilse fell off the couch, using the full force of her weight to bring her sister toppling to the floor. The two of them hit, hard. The scissors went clattering. Ilse wasn’t done though. She pushed up, desperately, kicking away and extricating her legs.

She heard Heidi growl, felt fingers scrambling at her leg. Long nails dug into her skin, ripping.

She yelped in pain, but darted forward. Her sister moved to the scissors, lifted them, and swung hard.

Ilse knew what would have to happen next. She knew it would be painful. But it was also the only way to get some distance. She could picture the scissors slamming into her neck. While she was trained in jujitsu, she was only a blue belt. Without her hands, against an armed person, she wouldn’t last long at all.

And so she turned, bracing herself, and then flung herself through the window of the patio toward the lake.

Glass shattered. A jagged slice across her cheek. Then shards fell with her, into the backyard. Her shoulder hit the sodden ground. More sharp pain as shards of glass jammed into her shoulder. But Ilse was still moving. She could feel warm blood slipping down her arm. She could feel it slick and wet against her fingertips. Gasping desperately, her fingers scrambling now, moving through the dirt, the fallen leaves, and the old grass, she found shards of glass. Most of them too small. Some of them sharp, jagged, ripping and gouging at her fingertips. She was still fazed from the fall, wincing and shaking her head in the night. Would one of the neighbors have heard the sound? The lake houses were quite far from each other.

Heidi was coming, snarling. She pushed open the patio door and moved down the steps, scissors braced in one hand.

“I’d meant to kill you in a basement,” she said, snarling. “I should have guessed you wouldn’t have one. For all your psychobabble, you’re as scared as you ever were!”

Ilse wasn’t in the mood for further taunting, though. She sawed desperately at her ropes with a shard of glass. Blood slipped along her arm, past her elbow, tapping against the grass and the leaves. She winced as more glass cut against her hands and palms. She scrambled in the dirt, kicking back, trying to separate herself from her sister for just a few seconds longer. She could feel the glass shard between her hands, could feel it ripping against the rope binding her wrists.