“I should rip you in half.” Charlie’s appearance flashed, the animatronic’s face and body seeming to break, then reassemble in an instant. For a moment her expression wavered, a vulnerability showing on her face, but she quickly collected herself. “She was his obsession.”

The animatronic twisted her hair around her fingers. “He worked on her day and night, the clown baby with bright orange pigtails. Petite enough to be sweet and approachable, but large enough to swallow you whole.” She laughed.

Jessica pulled the rope a last time: She had managed to undo the first knot. Breathing heavily with the effort, Jessica opened her eyes: The animatronic had not moved from the window—she seemed still to be watching with a kind of amused interest. Jessica gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, and started on the next knot.

“I wanted to be her,” the girl whispered. “The focus of his attention, the center of his world.”

“You’re delusional.” Jessica snickered as she struggled with the rope, trying to keep her distracted. “You’re a robot; you’re not his child.”

The animatronic pulled a chair away from the wall, and sat with a pained expression. “One night I snuck out of bed to see her. I’d been told not to a hundred times. I pulled the sheet away. She was gleaming bright, beautiful, standing over me. She had happy red cheeks and a lovely red dress.”

Jessica paused in her work, confused. Who is she talking about?

“It’s odd, because I remember looking down at the little girl as well. It’s strange seeing through both sets of eyes now. But as I said, one is no more than a data tape, a record of my first capture, my first kill.” The animatronic’s eyes flared bright in the darkness. “The little girl approached me and pulled the sheet away. I felt nothing; it’s no more than a record of what happened. But there is feeling, my feeling as I pulled the sheet away, and stood in awe before this creature my father loved, this daughter he had made for himself. The daughter who was better than me, the daughter he wished I had been. I wanted to be her, so badly.” Charlie’s appearance faded, revealing the painted clown, and Jessica sighed as a wave of nausea and dizziness passed over her again. “So, I did what I was built to do,” the girl said, and stopped talking. The room was silent.

When the last knot slipped loose and the rope fell to the floor, Jessica’s eyes popped open in surprise. She leaned forward, moving her numb, tingling arms down to her ankles as she watched the girl, who simply continued to observe her. Jessica undid the knots that held her ankles quickly—they were looser, done carelessly, and she put her feet flat on the floor, her stomach fluttering. Time to run.