It occurs to her that they were all supposed to split up and search for Anna, but he has come searching for Maeve instead.

“I should go—” she begins, meaning to break away.

“So we’re all right, then?”

She’s about to say, Yes, whatever, just go back to looking for Anna, when she hears the shouting.

At first, she thinks it is good news.

Maeve spins, leaving Sim to jog behind her as she goes flying down the stairs and arrives breathless in the lobby. Not only shouting. A pounding noise—Dan is kicking at the glass, the whole door shuddering with the effort. Anna’s frozen body in his arms.

The lock has engaged after all. Sadie has to push the door open from the inside to let him in.

“We need blankets!” He’s cursing as he rushes inside: “Move! Where the fuck was everybody?”

He saw something from the third-floor window, he says—the words pouring out almost too fast for them to catch. A shadow or some weird chunk of ice. He ran outside and that’s where he found her: Anna, half burrowed against the wall, almost out of sight. Her knees curled tight into her chest.

Dan lays her down by the fire to start CPR, but her legs are still half pulled into her body, and he has to try and straighten them to give himself room. Close by, Sadie sinks to the ground as though her own legs have given out.

She is not wearing a coat. Anna. Her hair and shoulders frosted with the night’s snow.

Maeve stares, stunned. Maybe Karo was right—Anna went for a smoke. But then something happened. Something went wrong.

Dan is already pounding on Anna’s chest, counting under his breath. The violence of it: fingers splayed, arms and shoulders rigid with exertion. Hard enough that Maeve is afraid he’ll break Anna’s ribs. His face twists. One-two-three-four—

No one is running for blankets.

Karo drops to her knees beside him.

“Dan—” She wraps one hand around Anna’s wrist and lays the other at her throat, waiting for the throb of a pulse, even a weak one.

But Anna is beyond blue. Her limbs flex stiffly under each thrust, like she’s made of hard plastic, a CPR practice mannequin he’s throwing around.

“Dan,” Karo says again. Less gently this time.

It doesn’t register; he just pounds and pounds and pounds, still counting.

“Dan!” Karo pulls back. Her hand on Anna’s wrist loosens; her other hand, at Anna’s throat, has a tremor in it. “Dan, it’s too late. It’s too late, she’s gone. She must have been dead for hours. Dan!”

But he still goes on as though he hasn’t heard. It seems to Maeve he really hasn’t, that he can’t hear anything but his own voice.

“Stop!” Maeve yells. Her hands are clenched tight.