The silver keypad flashed in the dark. She was so close; she could nearly reach it—and then she was there, her hands slapping against the metal, her fingers punching at the buttons. But the light was off, the mechanism dead.

Over Aurelia’s horrific cries came the sound of heavy footsteps in the distance, pounding the earth, closing in fast.

“Come on!” Emily tried to yank Aurelia away, scanning the walls for a way over, but Aurelia was pulling in the opposite direction and eventually she broke loose, tearing blindly away toward the woman she thought was her mother.

“No! Come back!” But Aurelia was gone. With nothing left to do, Emily dashed away into the bushes to the left. Breaking free of the foliage, she skittered back and forth along the wall, searching for a foothold. After a few seconds she noticed a brick a few meters up, sticking out just slightly farther than the rest—and just meters away, Yves’s wheelbarrow stood next to the compost bin. She pushed the bin onto its side and emptied the contents, then hauled them both over to the wall and placed the bin inside the wheelbarrow.

Somewhere behind her, Nina yelled her name.

Taking a run up, Emily threw herself at the shaky structure, climbing it for all she was worth, scraping her bare toes against the stone, reaching for the brick, and pulling her own weight up, up, up, until her hand slapped over the rim of the wall. By some miracle, she managed to haul herself over onto her stomach and swing her leg over to the other side. Straddling the wall, she looked back toward the house.

Illuminated by the security lights, Nina was running toward her. The flashlight caught Emily in its beam, momentarily blinding her, but not before she caught sight of Nina’s tight, snarling face—and something shiny in her other hand.

A gun.

Time seemed to buckle and bend.

Emily let out a short bark of disbelief. The thought of kind-hearted, animal-loving Nina wielding a weapon was hilariously incongruous, like a machete in the hands of Snow White. Emily’s rational mind told her that this whole crazy situation would dissolve in a matter of seconds, because it had to, right? Things like this didn’t happen in real life. People you knew—people you liked—didn’t just turn into gun-toting lunatics overnight.

But it was happening. Nina was powering over the sand, her face full of hatred. And then she slowed her pace and raised her arm, and suddenly the gun was real, everything was unbearably real, and Emily’s brain clicked into gear. She launched herself off the wall, and as she did she heard a deafening crack, like a hammer hitting a sheet of steel.

Hitting the ground hard, she crumpled and rolled into a ball. Pain shot from her ankle to her hip bone, but she scrambled to her feet and bolted over the cracked ground, her mind shattering into a million different thoughts: she shot at me did she get me am I hurt am I bleeding not fast enough she’s coming she shot at me I’m going to die she’s going to kill me is she coming where the fuck am I going run run run run run run.

All she could hear was the roar of blood in her ears and her own ragged breath … and then, in the distance, the clunk of the gate.

She’s coming.

Emily kept running. Keeping the fading lights of the estate at her back, she plowed into the undergrowth, searching for the track. Somewhere ahead—many miles ahead—was the road.

Sticks and stones assaulted her bare toes. A low branch whacked her in the head, sending her spinning off to her right, where a clump of spiky thorns raked at her legs. She thrust her arms out in front of her, trying to feel for obstacles, but more things hurtled out of the dark like spears; branches, nettles, hard mounds of earth, a section of rotting fence. A roaring sound to her left made her stop—Is that the ocean? I’m going the wrong way—and change direction, stepping down hard into a hole. Her ankle twisted sharply. Pain blasted through her already injured leg and she cried out for help that she knew wouldn’t come.

Somehow she kept going, but she was up to her knees in bracken and there were rustling sounds everywhere.

Then something brushed against her arm, warm and solid. A human body. She shot backward and tried to run, but hands were grabbing at her, grasping her wrists, scratching her arms, and a voice was saying, “Stop, it’s okay, stop stop stop, it’s me, it’s me, I’m here.”

Scott. It was Scott. She had no idea how, but there he was, her white knight, her superhero, come to rescue her again. Part of her went loose with relief, while another part, the part that knew better, kept struggling.

Behind them, the rustling, snapping noise continued, getting louder and louder until Nina crashed through the scrub, holding the gun out in front of her. Pulling up short, she narrowed her eyes. “Scott? How did you…?”

Emily wrenched her arms free of Scott’s grip and backed away. Nina twitched and aimed the gun. Emily could feel the barrel following her every move. She scanned the darkness. They were in a sort of clearing; thin silver-barked trees hemmed them in like the bars of a cage.

She looked from Scott to Nina and back again, searching their shadowy faces for some shred of reason, but their features were warped and misshapen, glistening with sweat. The three of them stood in a breathless, trembling triangle, each one poised like a sprinter on the starting blocks, waiting.

“What the fuck, Nina,” Scott said, at last.

Nina looked at the gun in her hand as if she was surprised to see it.

“Give it to me.” His voice was low, rational. “I have this under control.”

“Under control?” Nina waved the gun at Emily. “She tried to take my baby!”

Emily looked again at the trees. If she took off, how far would she get?

Nina glanced back in the direction of the house, at the lights glinting through the trees. “I have to get back. Aurelia’s all by herself.”

“Great idea, Nina,” said Scott. “You go on back. I’ll take it from here.”

But Nina shook her head violently. “No. I have to fix this first.” Her eyes darted wildly between Emily and the house.

Emily’s rib cage began to heave. Somewhere on the property, she realized, Aurelia was alone. Terrified. Confused. Little sister. Was she still outside in the gardens? Or had she gone back to her bedroom, crept under her bed, and jammed her hands over her ears? Suddenly, Emily was filled with something like memory, visceral but indistinct.

Scott inched toward Nina, reaching for the gun. “Leave it to me. Let me fix it.”

“No.” Nina spoke through bared teeth, her eyes bulging. “You’re too attached. You think you know her, but you don’t. Not like I do. She’s sneaky. I’ve seen her poking around the house.”

“She’s a housekeeper,” Scott said, still creeping forward. “That’s what we pay her to do.”

“Is that right? Do we also pay her to sit outside police stations?” Nina fixed Emily with an ugly glare. “That’s right. I know where you went this morning. Yves followed you.”

Scott froze, then turned to Emily. “Is that true?”

Emily felt her insides start to slip and slide. There would be no point in running. No one was around; no one would hear. “I’m sorry,” she said, the words spilling unbidden from her mouth. “I’m so sorry I found out. I’m so sorry.”

The wind picked up, sending dry leaves flying through the air.

“You’re sorry?” said Nina, taking a step away from Scott and out of his reach. “You broke into my house. You tried to steal my child from me. You lured her out of bed in the middle of the night and dragged her off into the woods.” Her mouth contorted with disgust. “We trusted you.”

“No!” Emily shouted, her frayed nerves starting to snap. “No, you didn’t! I trusted you! I loved you, all of you. And you lied to me.” She sobbed and her chest rattled. “How could you do this? How could you take someone else’s kid?”

Nina reeled back as if slapped, and the injured look on her face filled Emily with rage. “Oh, drop the act,” she said. “I know Aurelia isn’t yours. That’s not even her name.” She turned to Scott. His eyes were down. He couldn’t even look at her.

Nina shook her head once. Twice.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Emily yelled. Little specks of light had started to gather at the edges of her vision. “How did you do it? Did you sneak in through her bedroom window? Snatch her off the street?”

Nina blinked. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, I do. I’m talking about Amandine fucking Tessier.”

“No,” Nina whispered, clawing at her chest with her free hand. “You don’t know anything about it. You don’t understand.”

“Tell me, then! Tell me what happened.”

“You—”

“Tell me!”

“Stop!” A spray of saliva flew from Nina’s mouth. “You’d never understand. You have no idea.”

“You have to let her go.” Emily moaned as a horrible blackness rose inside her like a filthy tide. “You have to let her go.”

Nina stepped forward again, her shoulders shaking.

Scott’s voice: “Nina, stop. I’ll handle it.”

“Do you hear her, Scott?” Nina kept moving. “She’s crazy.”

“I said, stop.”