She doesn’t say his name. She doesn’t have to.

My mouth goes dry as I glance at her in the rearview mirror. “We did,” I whisper.

“I’m sorry for you,” she says, all the joy drained out of her face. “I made that mistake already.”

An aching silence breaches the car, as Bee and I digest what this means.

“I’m not special,” Daisy says, as though we’re judging her for it. “He’s seduced half the girls in the Haight.”

This realization sticks in my throat like glue. All night we were asking for the wrong person. We inquired about Jane Eyre, but almost nobody knew her. She was just another conquest, another anonymous face in the crowd. If we’d wanted to find her quicker, we needed to ask about him. It’s the same as it’s always been, the same as the movies, the same as with Dracula: he’s the one everybody remembers.

We drive down the 101 for miles, nobody saying a word. At a stoplight, I give Daisy back her crocheted bag and clutch the urn in my lap, just to have something solid to hold on to.

“We need to go back to that house,” Bee says at last. “Tomorrow night. Jane might be home by then.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“But that’s where she’ll go, Lucy. Back to him. And who knows what he’ll do to her?”

Bee’s hands clench into fists, her eyes going vacant with rage. I’ve never seen her like this.

I park on the street in front of Daisy’s place. The house is quieter now, and inside, all the lights are out. It’s late, almost four in the morning, and most everyone is away at parties that never end or curled up in one of the bedrooms, resting up for parties about to begin.

The engine cuts out, and I turn to Bee. “Did you see those girls with him? How devoted they are? How dangerous?”

She stares off into the sky. “I don’t care.”

“Well, I care,” I say, my voice splitting apart. I squeeze my eyes closed, but all I can see are their terrible faces, the way they were watching us. The things they’ll gleefully do to Bee if she goes back to that house. The way they’ll take their time with her.

“They’re just kids,” Bee says. “We’re stronger than they are. You’re stronger.”

Without a word, I know what she’s asking me to do.

“I can’t,” I whisper.

“Then you don’t have to come with me,” Bee says, as if that’s a solution.