Melissa woke with a gasp. A new light was on. She could see it from her position on the couch, a soft glow from a solitary pendant lamp, illuminating the onyx expanse of a bar.

She scrambled upright. Melissa had always thought of herself as a thinker and a fighter, the kind of person who would MacGyver her way out of a locked room with a safety pin, a rubber band, and some lint, or make a weapon from a paper towel holder and beat an attacker to death. Her time trapped in darkness had forced her to confront a very different reality. She was a fighter—for forty-eight hours. But she became a different sort of person after her anger and shock gave way to sadness and fear. She became someone who cried herself to sleep rather than continued to feel around for weapons or ways out. Someone who started to give up.

“I’ll tell them it was an accident.”

The words were meant as a salve rather than salvo. She had no way of fighting her way out of the room. It was too strong, and she was far too weak. Days had passed since her last meal. Her torso felt like a stretched accordion, bloated from all the water she’d been slurping from the bathroom sink to fill her empty belly.

“I’ll say that I saw the whole thing, and Nate pulled the gun on you.”

It stepped from the darkness into the light’s glow. “I’ve thought more about things,” It said. “The cops won’t believe that you ran off without Ava. You’re right.”

A chill ran down Melissa’s spine. Being right wouldn’t get her out of here. “I’ll make them believe it,” she said. “I’ll say how afraid I was and confused. I’ll claim that I went into shock.”

“It’s not going to work.”

“It will.” Melissa could hear the desperation in her own voice. “I’m a trained actress. Making people believe me is my job.”

It leaned forward over the bar, bringing its frowning face into view.

“People already think you’re responsible,” It said. “You’d have to explain what really happened to exonerate yourself.”

There were two implications to what It was saying, Melissa realized, though both indicated the same thing. It would be better off with her dead. She’d take the blame and the truth with her, leaving It to resume life as before.

But life would never be the same after murdering an innocent person. It had to know that. How else to explain why she wasn’t already dead?

Melissa stepped closer to the light, hoping the glow highlighted her face. “You don’t want to kill me. That’s why you haven’t already. And you don’t need to. What if I was to take the blame? I could confess to killing Nate myself.”

“You won’t do that.”