“You have to. You have to get him out of here.”

Jack arches his back and rolls his eyes and bends his limbs in unnatural directions, doing his best while also wondering how much longer he can put on a show. Having a seizure is exhausting. He should have tried a coronary instead.

“He’s dying!” Nora says. “You’re just going to let him die?”

The guard’s voice is slurred with sleep but certain when he says, “You made the choice to go in there. I don’t have a choice when it comes to letting you out.”

It isn’t working. They’re not going anywhere.

Jack flops his body over so that his back faces the observation window and goes still. He tries to slow his breathing. Hopefully he looks like he’s dying. His eyes settle on his daughter. She stares at him blankly. He mouths the word Sorry. He tried.

It is then that she hops off her seat at the edge of the table. She pads her way barefoot across the floor with more surety than he has seen in her so far. A straight spine. Level steps. A determined path. When she moves past him, he can’t help but sit up, forgetting for a moment that he’s supposed to be suffering a medical emergency. Nora too has gone silent, distracted by Mia’s approach.

Their daughter stands centered before the observation window. The guard on the other side of the glass blinks expectantly, as if waiting for her to ask something of him. He has mussed brown hair, bloodshot eyes, and a sloped chin.

Mia raises her arm as if to throw a punch. Something has happened to it. The color and texture have shifted. It appears now like something plated, armored. Chitinous. She swings her fist forward and the glass fissures in a sudden web of silvery lines. She swings again and it shatters altogether. After several hours of stasis, this happens with a speed Jack can barely process.

The guard is so surprised that he barely remembers where his firearm is located. As he fumbles for his belt holster, Mia leans through the ragged hole in the window. Her back arches. Her throat surges. There is a damp rush and she vomits—or maybe spits is the right word—a splatter of gray right in the guard’s face. It slimes across his mouth, nose, and one of his eyes. The substance has a glue-like consistency. He tries and fails to wipe it away. He falls to the floor, clawing at himself, and Mia wastes no time climbing through the shard-edged hole after him.

Fifteen minutes later, they are in the locker room—the changing station where they originally donned their hazmat suits. Their wallets and keys remain in the cubbies here, and they collect them. Their phones are gone, but Nora’s service pistol is still there.