The world was passing in jump cuts. Darkness. She curled her fingers under his mask. Darkness again. And then his mouth open, roaring, enraged: a monster’s mouth.

She pulled.

THIRTY

There was the sound of a thousand shattering windows, a scream so high and terrible Dea thought her head would explode. Connor’s uncle released her, staggering back from the bed, ducking his head as if he could keep her from seeing his face.

But it was too late.

There was a blast, a tremendous force of wind, and the room broke apart. The bed disappeared; the walls and floor and ceiling, gone. Connor’s uncle and the man beside him went spiraling into the darkness.

“Dea!” Connor’s uncle was screaming, howling her name, even as he vanished, even as he withered and dispersed, like smoke on a wind.

She let go. She let the wind carry her. She was floating in a dark pool. She just wanted to sleep. But screaming—the screaming kept rupturing the darkness, shocking her into temporary awareness.

“Dea, this is Kate. Blink if you can hear us.”

A huge shock ran through her: it lit her body up all at once, toesfingerschestlungs, and she came awake, gasping.

“Come on. Wake up. Stay with us.” Connor’s face was hovering above hers, white and huge as the moon. It took her a minute to realize she was on the floor. Connor was kneeling, holding her head on his lap. Next to him was Kate Patinsky. Gollum was standing, talking urgently into a cell phone. Dea thought that was funny. Gollum didn’t have a cell phone. A Styrofoam container of waffles was overturned on the ground, seeping maple syrup into the carpet. That was funny, too.

“Dea?” Kate was practically shouting. “Can you hear us?”

She opened her mouth and rasped a reply. Her mouth tasted like ashes. She swallowed and tried again. “Yes.” Then, a little louder: “Yes.”

“Stay with us, okay?” Connor’s voice broke. “You’re going to be fine.”

Her head hurt. She could still hear screaming, a high, distant wail. Then she realized: sirens.

She struggled to sit up. But it was like forcing her way into Connor’s memory. Her body was iron-heavy.

“You called the cops,” she said.

“We called an ambulance. We didn’t have any choice.” Connor kept an arm around her. “You weren’t breathing. I couldn’t get you to wake up. I thought—I thought you were . . .” He couldn’t finish his sentence. She noticed, for the first time, that he had been crying. His eyes were red and his voice raw.

“No.” She was too tired to fight. She leaned into him. She closed her eyes. She was so tired. “No, not dead.”

The sirens were getting closer. The noise reminded her of the shrill whine of an overgrown insect. But she was too tired to run anymore and she’d done what she had needed to do.

It felt nice to lie in Connor’s arms. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry for what she had done, for what she’d uncovered. But she couldn’t make the words take shape.

“I won’t leave you.” Connor ran his fingers through her hair. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I won’t let him take you away.”

She knew he was making promises he couldn’t keep, but the words sounded so nice, she let herself believe.

“It was . . . it was Briggs,” she managed to say. “It was Briggs all along. He lied. . . .”

“Shhh.” Kate put a hand on Dea’s knee, patting her gently, as if she were an animal. “That’s all right. Just rest.”

She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the sirens, trying to ignore everything in the world but the feel of Connor so close. She felt his lips skim hers—lightly, gently, as if he were afraid she might break.

“I love you, Dea,” he whispered.

I love you, too, she said, or tried to say. She was drifting again, this time into the warm tide of sleep. She let go of the shore; she let herself be carried into the soft waves; she let darkness reach out its arms and enfold her.

She knew she was back in the hospital even before she opened her eyes. The smell of bleach was a dead giveaway. Distantly, she could hear the squeak-squeak-squeak of gurney wheels on linoleum, and the rhythmic clicking and humming of dozens of machines.

She opened her eyes and saw Connor’s uncle sitting in the corner. As soon as he saw she was awake, his expression changed, became concerned and even polite. But she had seen, a split second earlier, his true face: ugly, calculating, brutal, watching her like a frog watches a fly.

“Why are you here?” she said. She wasn’t afraid of him anymore—only disgusted. “Where’s Connor?”

“Good morning to you, too,” he said, putting both hands on his knees to stand up. His fingers were thick and patchy with hair. She looked away, ignoring the sudden tightness in her chest, the memory of choking. “Connor’s at home. He’s in a lot of trouble. You both are.”

“That’s funny, coming from you.” Dea sat up. She was happy to see she was unfettered this time; no IVs, no tubes, nothing keeping her strapped to the bed. She swung her feet to the ground. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You interfered with an investigation. You tampered with evidence.” Briggs crossed his arms. “You ran away. Connor helped you.”

Dea was glad, too, that she hadn’t been stripped down and forced into a hospital gown. She was still wearing her own clothes. She grabbed her jacket off a peg in the corner. “Arrest me, then.”

“We’re not going to arrest you,” Briggs said, still doing the concerned-parent act. Of course, he didn’t know she knew. “I just want to have a talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Dea said.

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” Briggs said.

They stared at each other. Dea took a step toward him, consumed by a sudden sense of rage. “Connor knows,” she said. “He remembers. He knows all about what you did.”

Briggs drew back an inch. For a half second, the mask fell, and Dea knew he was afraid. Then he was smiling again, easy, condescending. “Connor doesn’t know what he remembers,” he said. But his voice was strained. “He’s been under a lot of stress, and spending time with the wrong people.”

It was a bluff. Dea knew that. Briggs was afraid because Connor was talking. He was going to tell people what he remembered. Kate would talk, too. And eventually, people would listen.

She felt a sudden ache, a longing to see Connor. She wanted to hear him say that he loved her again. She wanted to say it back.

“He’s a good kid,” Briggs said. “He drove himself crazy with worry over you. If you really care about him, you’ll leave him alone.”

Dea had nothing to lose. She said: “You should have left his mother alone.”

There was a long beat of silence. A smile twitched at the corners of Briggs’s mouth, like a kind of tic. At last, he said, “You’re very confused.” It was a struggle for him to keep the mask on, now. She kept seeing flashes of his real face—the face that had panted inches above hers, enraged, cruel. “I don’t blame you. You’ve had a very hard time.”

She was tired of playing games—tired of hospitals, tired of Briggs, tired of Fielding. It was all a big game—Briggs was pretending he wouldn’t find the first excuse to chuck her in a mental ward or juvie, make sure she never got within fifty feet of Connor again. There were probably other cops standing guard outside her room, to make sure she wouldn’t bolt.

And Dea was pretending she was going to cooperate.

She pulled on her jacket. “So. When are we going to have our talk?”

“Whenever you’re feeling up to it,” Briggs said, obviously relieved by her change in tone. “The doctor’s cleared you to go.”

She shrugged. “Sure. Right after I . . .” She nodded toward the bathroom, which was no bigger than a closet, and totally windowless.

Briggs made a gesture like, be my guest.