For a second Beth was fully illuminated against the bookshelves, from the phone light in his hand, her breathing panicked, her pupils pinned, and then the light dropped to the carpet. Sarah heard the other boy, who she couldn’t fully discern in the dark, who had shrunken into a corner, let out a quiet, terrified cry—more of an exhalation.

She pulled the blade out, and stepped back, loosed her grip from the boy. She heard blood hit the carpet—like rain, she thought—a pained, sibilant moan from the area where his mouth was.

Holding the razor out in front of her, though she wasn’t quite visible, Sarah picked up the phone and turned the light toward the two invaders, broken before her.

Outside, in the garage, Rhea opened the back door of the Lexus, struggling to hoist Typhus. Tyler climbed off Thad, who rocked quietly back and forth, trembling, and climbed to his feet, using his right arm for leverage, his left shrieking at the shoulder, useless to him. Then someone from the crowd, a girl with long dark hair he didn’t recognize, stepped forward, and went to Rhea: she took Typhus’s legs and helped load her into the back of the Lexus. Rhea nodded; she closed the door with her left arm and climbed into the driver’s seat.

As she did, others from the crowd began to come forward as well, separating themselves from the group, to cross the invisible threshold into the wreckage, to the kids wounded in the garage. The engine started, and the white headlights flicked on, throwing their hunched shadows into the wall. A jagged puddle of gasoline pulsed across the floor, twining with the blood.

The Lexus slowly reversed from the garage, and the crowd moved away from it, seemed to channel around it. There was a loud crunch as its back end struck the Nissan, parked perpendicular to its route, shunting the smaller vehicle into the back of the Prius parked beside it.