Shannon’s heart hammered in his chest. Adrenaline flogged at his muscles and he staggered to his feet, his eyes peeled in the night, his fingers trembling.

He blinked. Where was he? For a horrible moment he didn’t know. He was on the top.

A voice groaned near the burning, twisted wreck that had been a helicopter, and it all came back like a flood. He’d killed them, hadn’t he? Sicko Sula.

He threw the weapon down and tore for the trees. He would go now, he thought. To the river. To safety. And then he didn’t know to what.

FOR THE fourth time the switch to the strange visions had been thrown, and Tanya was floating above her house. Each time, her father had worked alone down there. Each time, his voice was the only sound she heard. Each time, it said, “Look beyond your own eyes,” as if it was information she needed.

Well now, what exactly could that mean? For starters, she could not look anywhere—she was trapped in her black box, dying. She could most definitely not look beyond, because there was no getting beyond the box. That was the whole problem. Father was saying look beyond, but he had locked the box. And as for the own eyes bit, well, she wasn’t positive she had eyes any longer.

So the dream was nonsense. Unless it wasn’t a dream. What if she were really seeing her father down there and he was really telling her to look? Imagine that! Now, what would that be? A vision, maybe?

Tanya heard a thumping below her, down on the ground near the house. Then it occurred to her that the sound came from her own chest, not from the dream or vision. Her breathing thickened and she might have shifted, but she’d lost touch with most of her body so she couldn’t be certain. The parts she could feel moaned in protest. Her throbbing arm, her aching head, her bent spine.

If this were a vision or some episode of reality, then she should follow her father’s suggestions, shouldn’t she? She should look beyond her own eyes. Maybe look through the dove’s eyes, if indeed this was a dove through which she peered. And what could she see? The clearing, her father, the house with all its framework.

Look beyond.

A thought struck her and she dove toward the house. Her heart now filled her ears. Why hadn’t she thought of this earlier? If this were real, then she should be able to see the closet that Father had built. And the crate below. Her crate. Maybe she was already in the crate!

She swooped low and flew between the rafters—through the living room to the framed hall. The stick closet looked tiny without siding. The box rested in the floor, minus its trapdoor. Sure enough. There it was. Her box. Or an image of her box. Either way it didn’t matter—she didn’t see anything new here. Only a box that should have been labeled The box in which I will lock up my only daughter until she dies.