The furrows at Mara’s eyes deepened, her expression pained. The artist was a white woman, but her skin had always appeared sunbaked and leathery to Calliope. Mara had seemed tough, and Calliope liked that Tía had a partner and wasn’t alone on this big hacienda. Now Mara seemed waxen, nearly opalescent, unstable. She gave off the aura of a radioactive isotope. Calliope thought of the crazy hunter, the rapist. Chance’s words echoed through her mind, what if she’s changed? Calliope wished that mentirosa Amy hadn’t taken her gun. A sick swishing in her gut. She’d trusted Amy. She couldn’t trust anyone—not even her tía’s girlfriend.

Mara’s voice on edge, she didn’t answer Calliope’s question but repeated, “Come in. It’s not safe.”

It didn’t seem any safer inside with Mara. Calliope didn’t move, the heat rising in her face. “Where’s my family? Why were you shooting?” Ready to reach for Chance’s gun herself, she asked, “Have you done something?” She shouted past Mara into the cabin, her voice shrill, “Tía? Phoenix? Are you here?” No one answered. She searched past Mara, her limbs tingling with cold and fear, imagining them cowering on the ground somewhere inside, their mouths duct taped. Or worse.

She glanced emphatically at Chance, asking him with her eyes to cover her, and he nodded, then he moved quicker than Calliope had ever seen any human move, pulled the gun from Mara, and held the older woman tightly in his grasp, her arms behind her back.

Calliope rushed past them into the cabin, screaming her family’s names. Wood piled on the floor, dishes on the coffee table, blankets on the couch. It was messy but not unusual. No blood. The cast-iron fireplace was roaring, crackling with burning wood, but the house was otherwise quiet. No voices answered back. “Where are they?” she screamed at Mara, whose arctic-blue eyes brimmed with tears. She didn’t wait for an answer, but tore through the living room into the kitchen, half fearing she’d find the source of blood staining Mara’s clothes. There was an underground pantry past the kitchen. Calliope considered grabbing a knife from the carving board but decided Chance’s gun was enough. She opened the pantry, her body shaking, and called her family again. It was the twisted hide-and-seek of three days ago, in the sweltering dark of her own empty house—except they had to be here. This was their sanctuary. Their escape plan. Their last resort.

She returned to the doorway where Chance still grasped Mara tightly, though the woman wasn’t struggling. Calliope’s voice trembled. “What have you done with them?” The tears were pouring freely down her face, her whole body wracked with sobs.