“Yes,” I answer quickly. But then I remember. “Well, no. Someone texted me. I thought it was Gabriel, but…but…I don’t know for sure. It wasn’t a number I recognized.”

I must sound mad. I’m beginning to doubt that it happened at all.

“Call the police and tell them you have an emergency, then.”

“It’s not an emergency, though,” I almost whisper. “I escaped. And like I said, it’s not really proof….”

Ben’s hand reaches across the center console, finding mine.

“Then we’ll go in person tomorrow. We’ll talk it through tonight, and then we’ll go tomorrow, together,” he reassures me.

Away from the music, from the lights, from Gabriel, the world seems still once more. Peaceful, even. “You’re right. I know you’re right. We’ll go in the morning.” I give his hand a squeeze, grateful to have something solid to hold on to. “And where are we going now?” Dense clusters of houses outside the car windows have given way to nothingness, the smell of sea salt increasing with every passing mile.

“Somewhere safe. I was worried about him following us. But he won’t find us here.”

“Where?”

Ben jitters his knee, taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “We’re almost there” is all he says. And so I wait, until the nebulous black coalesces into the gray frame of a house once we finally slow to a stop. There are no lights anywhere—not in the driveway or coming from the house. An uncanny, haunted sensation passes through me.

“Is this your house?”

“Technically, I’m not supposed to be here,” he says, giving a nonanswer, then tips his head up to the soulless eyes of dark windows, breathes in the crisp air like a memory. “This is the only place I can still feel her.”

Loss streaks through me like a hunger pang. I think of our two-bedroom in Pasadena. How there’s another family living there now. Nowhere left to feel anything.

Keys jingle in Ben’s hand, and he opens the cranberry-colored front door with a crack.

“Is it safe?” I whisper.

“Ish” is Ben’s reply.

And in we step, into the frigid black. And it is cold.

“On account of the hole at the back of the house,” Ben explains. And then he promptly removes his jacket, places it over my shoulders like a gentleman. I retrieve my cell phone from my clutch and turn on flashlight mode. I ignore the unread texts from Bronte and Amber that wink up from the lock screen. Ben grabs a bulky flashlight from the foyer.