I kneel down to close the distance between us so that I can whisper something I didn’t think I would ever say to him, not even in the beginning when I thought a time would come when Martin and I might at least be friends. “You don’t even know why I’m not afraid to leave you like this, do you?”

“I . . . know . . . ,” he murmurs.

Only the slimmest sliver of doubt pierces me. “No, you don’t.”

He tries to spit. Red foam forms at of the corner of his mouth. “I . . . know,” he says in a gasping whisper. “You’re running.”

I stare down at him.

He returns the stare, daring me to prove he’s mistaken. But I do not speak of my secrets. To anyone. Not even to myself.

Besides. I owe Martin nothing. Nothing. What I owe is an easy exit out of this house for Kat.

“You should have left when you had the chance.” I stand and turn to the sink. I wet a cloth to wipe up the bloodstain at the bottom of the stairs, my mind spinning. I don’t know what I will do with his body if he’s dead when I get back. And if Martin is still alive when I return? I look down at him. He is staring up at me and struggling feebly to rise. If he’s alive when I come back, perhaps he and I can strike a deal in exchange for my summoning a doctor.

But, no. I don’t think Martin is the kind to strike a deal.

It is all too much to consider at once, and I whisper aloud what I told Belinda last night when she was asking too many questions. I’ve whispered it to myself before. I only need to get through this day. Just this one.

As I wring out the cloth I must push away the image of finding Martin’s corpse when I return. A shudder runs through me as I attempt to shake off that repulsive thought. The trembling strangely intensifies, and it’s as if the very house is quivering at what might await me when I come back to this house.

But then the floor beneath me begins to tremble, and then heave, and then a deafening roar like a gale over the ocean fills my ears. For one lone second I think the earth is going to open up beneath me and swallow Martin whole to save me the trouble of having to do it later, but in the next second I know it is not just for me the world is shaking.

It’s an earthquake, and not just a gentle rocking akin to what I’ve experienced a few times before. This is like a beast, huge and loud and monstrous, awakening enraged from slumber. The house rumbles angrily and I suddenly remember Kat is on the second floor.

I pitch forward on unsteady feet and run sideways, careering into walls as I stagger away from Martin and out of the kitchen.