“Gunfire will draw them out. Any loud noises will. Don’t use it unless you absolutely have to. That’s all I was going to say.”

Grace turns back to Trace. “Use discretion. Sounds reasonable.”

Trace gives a grudging shrug. I look around the library. Walls, ceiling, doors that are locked and barricaded. Soon we’ll be trading them for the ugly outdoors. I can’t help but feel a certain nervousness about what’s coming the day after tomorrow.

On the way out of the library, Grace asks me if I’ve thought about what I’m going to do when we get to Rayford. I tell her I haven’t and she looks disappointed. I know it’s awful and ungrateful to leave her hanging after she can say something as extraordinarily generous as I’ve always wanted a sister to me but I am afraid to tell her yes. I can’t promise to stay with her when I don’t know if I will. I couldn’t do that. I’m not like Lily.

Still, the guilt I feel about it is like a thousand needles all over my skin and it doesn’t go away. It lasts through dinner, after dinner, after the sun sets. I take a shower in the dark to get it off me. The cold water hurts, but it’s a better hurt.

Soon there will be no more showers, none. Nothing.

I sit on the bench in the dark, naked. I run my hands over my body, feeling out my bruises without being able to see them, and I think about what Rhys said, how we’re not made of anything. I wonder if my father felt the same way about me, Lily. Maybe once he realized it the first time, he wanted to realize it over and over because it made him feel like he was made of something. I get dressed slowly and make my way back.

The halls are pitch dark. I let the flashlight guide me but I go the long way around, taking corners, pausing at exits, studying the barricades we put up.

I keep walking, letting the light trail over the floor.

My heart stops.

I jerk my hand up, washing the ceiling with light. I think I must have been imagining what I just saw, like I’ve imagined my father’s cologne and I have imagined his voice. I did not just see—what I thought I saw. I squeeze my eyes shut and count back from ten, until I’ve calmed down and then I direct the ray of light from the ceiling, over the wall. It spills into the open basement door.

The open basement door.

My hand shakes. If I don’t move, if I don’t move the light, if I keep the light off it, it will go away. I open my mouth to shout for help but if I shout for help, I might wake it.