I ran through the butchering room. I ran past the table, holding my breath. I didn’t look at the animal parts. Whatever they were, they were dead now. My boots slid on the slick floor, but I didn’t look down or drop the lantern. Come with me come with me, I should have said to the girl on the bed.

But I didn’t. I just ran.

At the back of the butchering room, there was a row of metal roll-up doors. There was also an ordinary door on the side. It was not locked. I flung the side door open, thinking it would lead outside.

Instead, the door opened onto a small, windowless room. I shielded my eyes. The walls in the room pulsed with silver. Grow lights had been hung from the ceiling, over rows and rows of familiar plants.

Something was wrong. The plants were too pale. They looked stunted, diseased. They drooped in the stale and cold air. Dead yellow leaves papered the floor.

The men were in the building now, behind the plastic curtain. I heard them yelling at the girl. I heard the girl yelling back. Then a slap, and no more yelling.

I ran from the grow room, leaving the dying plants. I saw a butcher knife on a long table beside a deer skull; a tall boy rested in one of the eye sockets. I should have grabbed the knife.

But on the floor was a remote control with green and red buttons. I stamped on the green one. With a jerk, one of the garage doors rattled up. I ran out into darkness, into open, cold air. Little fistfuls of snow pelted me like the quarters Jake had thrown at the girls.

The hill ahead was in total blackness, broken only by the gray crowns of trees. I kept my eyes on them. My lantern light was weak. It lit the square in front of me and no farther. Then the ground changed.

I noticed too late. I tripped over the edge of the empty swimming pool—and then I was down, over the rim and tumbling. I bumped to a stop at the bottom of the skate park, and skittered into a small puddle of ice, which cracked. Cold seeped into my clothes. The lantern had fallen, too; I heard it crashing beside me. Breaking.

I tried to sit up. Already my damp clothes felt heavy, and the side of my hip burned, skinned or bruised badly. High concrete sides sloped up all around me. A light burned into my eyes.

Jake peered down from the rim. He held a flashlight, shining it in my face.

I scrambled across the concrete, trying to make it up the side. But the sides were smooth, made slicker with ice. I moved half an inch, then slid back down again.