This isn’t a dream. And that isn’t my dad.

There are strangers in the house.

“Hello,” another man says, dangling my backpack from his finger. “We have your bag.”

“MOM, someone’s in the house!” I scream, unable to stop myself trembling.

“We need you to come with us,” the British man says. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” I don’t waste a moment. In the dark, I scramble upright, but my feet slip on the carpet and my hip collides with a rolling desk chair. “Easy way, then…”

My phone. It’s still charging in the wall. I’m inches away from the glow…I lunge, but the men pounce viper-quick. My arms and shoulders hit the floor as lifelessly as wet bread. I can’t even squirm as their powerful hands hold me flat. “MOM!” I shriek into the carpet.

Before I take another breath, I’m ripped from the room and hauled onto the upstairs landing. My feet leave the ground as one of the men hoists me—all 140 pounds—over his shoulder. We descend the stairs, and I clutch at the wall with numb, useless hands, dozens of family photos crashing down the steps as I slap them. A trio of crucifixes from Precious Moments fall, shattering into a pile of gold filigree and pink ceramic dust.

“Don’t ruin your mum’s nice things,” the British man grunts as I flail.

Make more noise, Connor. Wake Mom up!

Finally, my mom’s voice calls from the other room: “Buddy?” Upside-down, my head rolls around the intruder’s sweat-dampened back until I glimpse my mother standing in the kitchen archway, still in her nursing scrubs from dinner. “I love you.”

“Wait,” I say, spittle sliding across my chin. “What’s happening…?”

“He tried to run, Mrs. Major,” the intruder says. “Sorry, but this is necessary. Apologies for the mess.”

“I understand,” Mom says. “Please be careful with him.”

“Mom…?” I squeak.

“You’ll be okay, Connor…” Her face cracks as a torrent of sobs sweeps over her. She’s letting them take me. She wants them to take me.

“I’m not going anywhere!” But the massive Brit is already hauling me through the front door, held open by a shorter, heavier masked man. “Mom, what are they doing?!”

Outside in the cricketing night air, the British man hurls me off his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and my back smacks onto the front lawn, my breath flying out of me. Four gloved hands wrap under my arms, and I’m weightless again as two men carry me down our sloping hill to the farm road. My bare feet glide over the dewy grass until we reach a parked van.

The black van.

The one that circled our house during dinner but is now idling along the Packard fields, engine running, waiting for me. No way. No Goddamn way this is happening. The British man slides open the van door, and a dark abyss smiles at me.

“MOMMAAAA!” I scream, air returning to my lungs far too late.