“Liz, no. Please.” My voice was thin, and my vision clouded with pain. My knees buckled, and I wanted to slump to the floor, pass out. “I know you’re still in there. You don’t want this. You would never hurt our kids.” I took a deep breath as a wave of burning pain ripped through my midsection. Jess was leaning against the kitchen wall, her face gray, and Melissa was doubled over, hyperventilating.

“You would never hurt them. I know that. And we would never hurt yours.” I steadied my breath. “Your children are our children. We are a family.”

“Family,” Jess panted from the wall.

Melissa whimpered, her face hidden by a curtain of hair.

There was a murmur of pain as Jess put a palm on the wall and stood. The angry red gash on her face was illuminated by the hanging light over the kitchen island. The front of her shirt was dotted with blood.

“Family,” she repeated. “Mavis, we know it’s you. We know what you did. And we know what you want. You want to ruin our lives and destroy all of us, because you never had what we do. So I’m going to make you a deal: Take me instead. Not Liz.”

Melissa yelped as I put my hand out, reaching for Jess. “Jess, no!”

She didn’t look at us, staring at Liz, her arms still at her sides. “Take me instead.” She spread her fingers wide before putting them on her hips. “I’m stronger than Liz. I do CrossFit. I can do more damage than Liz. You don’t want her. Take me.”

The air around us crackled again, like sounds coming through a walkie-talkie. Mavis was considering it.

Melissa slowly stood, her face red, her hair plastered to her skull with sweat and tears. “Take me, Mavis. Liz is a better person than me—than all of us. I’m ruthless.”

My heart seized in my chest as a wave of emotion spread throughout my body. I opened my mouth and whispered, “Take me. I never appreciated anything here. I deserve it.” I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry, Liz, for never realizing how much you did for us. How much we all did for each other. So take me. Let Liz go.”

The kitchen was silent, and I opened my eyes. Liz’s face began to melt, her eyes moving down to her cheeks and the top of her head opening, like her skin was being unzipped from her bones. A dark cloud moved above her head as the dummy suit of our friend fell to the travertine floor.

The cloud buzzed like it was filled with a million flies ready to lay eggs in a rotting corpse. The shape contracted and then expanded, considering each of us. I shrank back against the wall, tripping over our bags of supplies.

Fire.