KATE HEWSON BALLINGER

She grabbed hold of Harold’s arm. Her husband was taking his group to an entrance a few blocks south, and she was leading hers to the north end of town.

She threw her arms around his neck, kissed him long and deep.

“I love you,” she said.

He grinned, his silver hair sweat-plastered to his forehead despite the chill, the bruises on his face beginning to blacken.

“Katie, if something happens—”

“Don’t do that,” she said.

“What?”

“Just get your ass to the cliff.”

Several blocks away, something howled. As she moved toward the crowd of people waiting to follow her to safety, she glanced back and blew Harold a kiss.

He snatched it out of the air.

JENNIFER

In her bedroom, Jennifer set the candle on the dresser and stripped out of the costume she’d worn to the fête—a black trench coat over red long underwear, topped off with a homemade pair of devil’s horns. Her nightgown waited for her, hanging on the back of the door.

Once in bed, she drank her chamomile tea and watched the candlelight dance across the ceiling.

The tea went down warm.

This had been her routine going on three years now, and she thought it had been wise not to break it tonight. When your world falls apart, cling to the familiar.

She thought of all the other residents of Wayward Pines.

They’d be going through some version of this.

Questioning all they’d been told.

Coming to terms with how grievously they’d been wronged.

What would tomorrow bring?

The window beside her bed was cracked, a stream of chill night air trickling in. She kept her room cold by choice, loving the feel of sleeping in a freezing room under a mountain of blankets.

Through the glass, it was absolutely dark.

The crickets had gone silent.

She set her mug of tea on the bedside table and pulled the blankets up over her legs. There was only a half inch left of the candle on her dresser, and she didn’t really want to be in total darkness just yet.

Let it burn out on its own.

She shut her eyes.

Felt like she was falling.

So many thoughts, so much fear pressing in.

A tangible weight.

Just sleep.

She thought of Teddy. This last year, she’d found herself remembering his smell, his tone of voice, what his hands had felt like on her body, far clearer than her memory of his face.

She was forgetting what he looked like.

Somewhere out in the darkness, a man began to scream.

Jennifer straightened.

She’d never heard screaming like this.