It didn’t quite feel that way, though. Carly couldn’t stop fiddling with it in her mind. How could everything fly around in less time than it took your favorite song to play and then land in a different order?

What Carly remembered most, once the guy was inside the house with her, was an overriding, all-caps, red-font chant: NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

No. No in some animal way that wasn’t a word. It wasn’t even a thought, really, just an overwhelming refusal in every scrap of matter and energy that made up Carly Liddell.

No was her skin, and her eyes gone hot in her head. No was an itch in her teeth to sink into any warm thing that came close enough to bite. No to him. No to the terror rising up in her throat to choke her. No to the thought slashing through her mind like lightning—He’s too strong. I can’t stop him.

Any recollection of what she’d actually done in those few not-song moments was far away. Like on another planet far away. (And how long had it really taken, anyway—how many real minutes and seconds? It felt like infinity, as if in some way it was still happening, as if maybe it would always be happening. But no.)

In a memory that should have been fresh, almost every image and sound of the struggle in the foyer was vague and skippy. She’d kicked him or something and he’d fallen down hard. The wet thud of his head hitting the tile, that was kind of clear. But she wasn’t very big and she didn’t know how to fight, so it didn’t make much sense. She really did not know exactly how she’d gotten away.

The first clear impression, after he was down, was an electric giddiness that blazed up her every nerve. The doorknob in her hand, cool and solid, reeled her in from overload and let her catch the scream that was rushing up into her mouth. She wrapped it up tightly, that scream. She strangled it in her throat like her fist squeezing down on the brass. The only sound was the gasps of air sawing over her dry tongue.

The guy was silent. Carly strained to hear any movement behind her. He was—(NO!) The scream in her throat wriggled to be free at her instinct to turn around, to check to see if he was getting up.

She didn’t look. She cranked open the door. She still didn’t scream.