I open the closet, dragging Hazel out by her arms. She falls into me; her wrists and ankles are zip-tied. “Damn it!” I grab the hacksaw from the cot, dropping to my knees to yank the blade across the plastic binding her legs—once—twice—he’s getting up, using the cot for support.

Snap, the ties give. “Run!” I shove her at the door.

Sound of wounded rage as he comes at us, his hands dragging down my back, catching my clothes, bringing me down. Hazel’s fighting with the dead bolt—her wrists still bound—and I won’t roll over, won’t give him my face, my throat, hunching my shoulders against his blows as I crawl toward the door. Burst of fresh cold air—she’s out—fanning the radiant heat of the stove across me, so close. I see the silver coil of the burner lid handle above me, the disc-shaped surface for heating a kettle or pot.

I scream as I grab the handle, hot metal searing into my unprotected palm; then I wrench around, pressing the lid into his cheek.

He screams, pulling back. I’m on my feet and running, out the door, into overgrowth and reaching branches, where Hazel waits, terrified to leave, too afraid to go back inside.

The woods draw us in, covering our path.

Twenty-Nine

THEY SAY IT’S over now.

After all the shock, the outrage, the questions, the interviews, we’ve been informed that we can all feel safe again. Mr. Mac confessed to the murders of Ivy and Dabney Kirk. He claimed Dabney was his first, followed by Ivy, who he picked up while she was walking home that night, ready to apologize to her stepmom and dad after their fight; Mr. Mac offered her a ride. Acting out his revenge fantasies, they say; getting back at the bullies from his teen years, the kids who picked on him, made him miserable, the same ones he couldn’t separate from even as an adult, insinuating himself into the school, the community.

That’s why he targeted our group, so he told the police. Because we were that kind; he could just tell. Bad kids. He was in the woods, his hunting ground, that night we carried the jack-o’-lanterns to the bridge. He stalked us through the marsh, watching Kincaid and me from the opposite bank, later seeking us out at school, learning where all of us lived, our routines. Casually asking Mrs. Mac about me, learning I was new, had fallen in with a bad crowd. A perfect candidate to go missing.