I rush to the door, clawing and pounding at it, until I’m sure it’ll break loose. Only it doesn’t break, it barely moves at all, the latch on the other side holding fast. I shove my whole body against it, but it doesn’t matter.

We’re locked inside, and there’s no way out.

It’s nearly sunrise now, and noise from the street seeps through the windowless walls. Someone’s outside on the sidewalk below. Two someones, and they’re arguing, their voices sharp and urgent. Rochester and Dracula. I crouch on the far side of the attic, my ear pressed into the plaster. Another moment of quarreling, something about the Buick, and then their voices go silent, replaced with the whir of an engine. From the rasp of the muffler, it’s that same Volkswagen bus from before.

They must have come into the city separately, Dracula meeting Rochester after he was finished with me. This must have been their plan all along. Dracula wanted the urn, and Rochester wanted the girls.

But they’re leaving our car behind now, and I know why. The fragment of his jacket I tore off in a frenzy. In the ripped pocket, something glints up at us.

The key for the Buick.

This is why they were arguing on the street, why they left together. Dracula lost this and couldn’t risk coming back for it.

I pluck the key from the floor and hold it in the palm of my hand. It’s worth more than a gold mine to me. For all the good it’ll do here, locked away in the attic.

It doesn’t seem fair. Bee and Jane and I are immortal, but we’re so vulnerable too. A turn of a lock, a flick of a match, a fragment of wood. That’s all it takes, and we’re undone.

Dracula and Rochester must know this won’t kill us. This is just a cruel prank, the best these men can do to hurt us. Force Jane and Bee to relive that attic in Thornfield. Force me to linger next to Michael where the only thing I can hear is the gentle murmur of his heart.

In the corner, Bee’s fingernails drag along the wall, plaster flaking off like dry flesh, her shoulders caving in like she wants to fold up and vanish.

“It looked just like this,” she whispers, glancing up at the rafters. “Only it was darker. So dark I could never see that thing coming.”

That thing, that gray tar that lives inside them. I can spot it crawling beneath her skin even now. Crawling beneath Jane’s, too. The two of them sit on the dusty floor, not looking at each other, shame hanging over them like an invisible veil.