The room outside grew quiet. Lyra needed to stand and stretch her legs again to keep the blood circulating. Getting stiff or having her legs fall asleep wouldn’t be a good plan right now. The girls had fallen asleep though, each with a heavy head on her lap. She hated to wake them. Hated to have them go through the realization that this nightmare was anything but that. That it was really happening and they were still stuck in the dank room.

She heard movement in the room outside, maybe a chair scraping. Definitely the sound of footsteps. The footsteps weren’t coming toward the room she and the girls were in, but she sat still, straining to hear them anyway. Lyra shook the girls awake, finger pressed to her lips as they sat up and stared at her. She wanted to cry when she saw their faces, saw dawning come. Saw the fear there as they remembered what had happened and where they were.

She didn’t. She pressed them behind her and then stood, shaking her legs out as silently as she could, then sat again, her right hand sitting on the floor near where she’d stashed the metal bar under the bed. She needed to be ready to slide it out and use it if she needed to.

She didn’t look at the way the girls huddled behind her. Doing that would break her heart.

The footsteps stopped for a bit and then began again, this time leading to the door to their room. She heard the lock turn and the door swung open. There was more light outside the room than in, leaving her looking at a silhouette, but she recognized it.

Murphy.

The girls crept into her lap but Lyra stared at Murphy, her right hand still ready to move if he came forward. She would need to stand in one motion, pulling the metal bar out without putting the girls down gently, but they shouldn’t be hurt from the fall, if she needed to act. All of her being wanted to wrap her arms around them protectively, but she didn’t dare.

He stood in the doorway for what seemed like an eternity, and Lyra could hear soft whimpers from Prentiss and Alyssa. In what seemed like an agonizingly slow move, Murphy slid a tray he’d been holding in one hand toward them, then scanned the room before shutting the door.

The girls were on the food in a heartbeat, before Lyra could think to stop them. They’d been given water bottles earlier in the day, but with those she’d been able to see that the seals on the bottles hadn’t been cracked.

The girls were wolfing down peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before she could stop them, and Lyra closed her eyes and said a prayer that there wouldn’t be anything in them to hurt the girls. She would let them eat their fill before eating any. They’d been hours without food.

“Slow down, girls,” she said quietly. “You’ll get a belly ache if you eat too fast.”

Prentiss nodded and pushed a sandwich toward her mom.

Lyra shook her head. “You eat first, baby. I’ll eat whatever’s left over.”

“I have to go potty, mom,” Alyssa said, putting down the last of her third sandwich.

Lyra bit her lip and looked to the door and back. By the way Prentiss was crossing her legs and bouncing, she knew both girls had to go. So did she, for that matter.

Lyra crossed to the door and banged on it with her fist. “The girls have to go to the bathroom.” She didn’t use Murphy’s name. She didn’t want to remind him that she knew who he was and could identify him if he let them go free. It was something that had been hanging over her this whole time. She knew perfectly well that they were aware she could identify Damon and Murphy if they released her. She needed to find a way to convince them that she wouldn’t do that.

Maybe if she talked to him about his grandmother. Got him to see how disappointed she’d be in him. What Lyra couldn’t figure out was why in the world he’d be working with Damon. Murphy was a man who brought his grandmother her groceries once a week, for heaven’s sake. What on earth would make him do something like this?

She heard footsteps coming toward them and stepped back from the door. It opened and Murphy glared at her, annoyed, then looked toward the girls.

“One at a time.”

“No.” Lyra spoke firmly. “We go together.”

He stared her down and she wondered what the outcome of this would be if Damon were here. It had been clear to her that Damon was the one in charge.

“Fine.” He stood back and let her and the girls come through the door and out into the outer room. “Be fast about it, though. And no fucking around. I’ll make you sorry if you fuck with me at all.”

The words seemed out of place coming from him, as though he were a little boy playing in an adult’s clothing. Like the fight with Damon had made him feel the need to prove himself to her.

Lyra moved out into the room, one twin on either side, pressed against her tightly. She realized with a start, the walls of the room they were in were all lined with some sort of heavy foam. Her eyes moved to a long desk with machinery on it and she recognized sound mixing equipment. They must be in a recording studio.

As Murphy swore and shoved her toward a dirty bathroom on the other side of the room, she realized something. A recording studio meant sound proof walls. Tears burned her eyes but she refused to let them fall. As she and the girls used the facilities, she took deep breaths. When she moved back through the room with them, she wanted to be ready to take in every detail she could. Everything from furniture placement to phones, weapons, exits. Every small scrap of information that might help her formulate a plan. She needed to stay calm to do this right.

Inside the bathroom, Lyra scooted the girls to the potty, while she quietly opened the drawers and cabinets, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon. There was very little there. The bottom drawer was filled with empty toilet papers rolls and a few crumpled tissues, as though it was being used as a garbage can. The next drawer up was empty.

The top drawer held dental floss and a substance that looked yellow, sticky, and gross. Lyra wasn’t about to try to figure out what it was. As Prentiss and Alyssa switched places so Alyssa could go to the bathroom, Lyra opened the medicine cabinet. A bottle of Tylenol and black eye liner. It was the kind with a brush tip that was more like a marker than the typical crayon type of liner.

Alyssa finished using the bathroom and Lyra looked at the pen in her hand. She didn’t want to think about what could happen to her, but if she and the girls were separated, she wanted a way for someone to get them help. A way to get them to safety if she was—

She swallowed and refused to think about what it would mean for her if someone had to use this. She turned Alyssa so her back was to her and lifted her shirt, writing Uncle Luke and Luke’s cell phone number on her daughter’s back. She waved the shirt back and forth to dry the liner as Murphy banged on the door for her to finish up.

Lyra reached over and turned on the faucet. “Almost done.”

She repeated the procedure with Prentiss, not looking her girls in the eye as she did it, but she knew each of them watched as the words went on the other’s back. She couldn’t explain to them that they might be on their own if something happened to her. She couldn’t do it.