In a blink, I scroll back seven years, and I’m in that house, clutching that box and staring down at the man handcuffed to the register.

“Okay, I’ll help you,” I say.

Charles, I remind myself. He has a name. He isn’t just a thing owned by my mother.

The front door rattles, and my heart launches up into my throat. It’s my mother. Or Anthony. Either way, they can’t find me here like this. And the man should be unconscious.

He wheezes.

“You have to be quiet,” I whisper. I kneel next to him, clutching that wooden box. He stinks of sweat and urine and desperation. “I’ll help you, but I can’t help you right now.”

I flip open the box. Syringes carefully line the inside, filled with something clear and nestled against yellow fabric. Such a cheerful color for something so dark. I pull out the first one.

Charles’s eyes widen at the syringe. His handcuffs rattle against the register.

“What are you…” He rolls away from me.

“I have to,” I hiss, and glance back at the open door. Someone would be here any moment. “I can’t help you right now. You need to pretend it’s already worked on you.”

“No.” He tugs on his handcuffs. “You don’t understand. I see everything. I know everything she’s doing to me. I just can’t move. Can’t react. I won’t—”

The rattle is so loud. The sharp edge of the handcuffs strip white paint from the register.

“You have to be quiet,” I whisper.

But it’s too late. There’s no way the sound went unnoticed. I slip out the syringe and take off the cap.

“Don’t—” His hands fly up as far as the cuffs let him.

“Quiet. Pretend you’re asleep.”

But he just keeps pleading. I jab the syringe out, not even sure where it’s going to hit. I have to silence him. The needle digs into the bottom of his palm. I push the plunger down, and he yelps.

I pull the syringe back and stare down at it for a moment.

What did I do?

But I had to. I had to.

Charles gurgles and rolls over. It’s working on him fast.

Good.

I throw the syringe on the ground, disgusted with myself for the thought. What have I done? I’ve become her. In one sudden flash, I’ve become exactly what she wanted me to be.

Movement out of the corner of my eye makes me spin.

Then my heart floods with relief. Anthony.

He stands in the door, looking from me to Charles and back again. One thin hand rests on the doorframe. Anthony has always been skinny and tall, but recently it looks as if he’s about to fall over. As if he’s close to having nothing left. Dark circles are under his eyes. He was probably on a binge last night. He’s been doing that more often recently.

It’s part of why this can’t go on any longer. It’s not just what my mother’s doing to the men. It’s what she’s doing to us.

“Elly,” he says. His voice is rough, like he just woke up. But a familiar sharpness is under it, and I can already tell I’ve done something wrong.

I stare down at Charles. We both know I’ve done something wrong. But what is that wrong thing? Drugging Charles? Or letting him wake up?

Anthony crosses to me and bends down to pick up the syringe. “Give me the box.”

I hold it out in a shaky hand. He takes it and carefully sets the empty syringe inside. He snaps the box closed and lets out a deep breath.

“I should have been here.” His voice is softer.

I nod. Yes. But is that really what I want?

Life is so hot and cold with our mother. It isn’t as if this is the way things are all the time. Most of the year, our lives aren’t that different from anyone else’s. Anthony and I walk to school in the morning and argue about homework in the afternoons. On the weekend, we fly kites.

My mother loves kites. She’d stash them in the car so that when a windy day blesses us, we’re ready. A whole assortment of kites—butterflies and princesses and superheroes. Her favorite is a two-handed rainbow bird. She doesn’t allow Anthony or me to fly that one. He usually picks the butterflies, and I pick the superheroes. The poor princesses get left in the car.

My mother says the majesty of kites isn’t to keep them, but to let them go. When the last of the string would roll off the spool, she’d yell to set it free. I’d let the string wind off, and we’d watch the kite disappear into clouds, and she’d laugh and take our hands, and we’d play soccer in the grass or find a playground with ladders to climb and slides to fly down.

I try to picture the kites up there now—floating lazily up to the atmosphere. Finally free.

In those long moments between, it felt like things had changed. That there wouldn’t be any more men. That maybe it had just been a mistake. A made-up story. And I would sink into it—wishing so hard that things would be different. That it wouldn’t happen again.

But it always happened again. And then it would be Anthony who took care of me. Making sure I had food and clothes and things for school. Making sure that I was tucked in the closet—as far away from the men as he could get me. But then I grew up. Fourteen years old is old enough to do all those things for myself. Old enough to decide for myself.

And now, I’m standing above Charles.

Anthony toes the mattress. “She’ll see the mark on his palm. She’ll ask questions.” He glances over at me. “Just tell her you got confused.”

I shake my head. No. If I admit to it, then she’ll blame Anthony.

“I can’t,” I whisper. “She’ll hurt you.”

He laughs. I don’t understand how he could laugh, but he does. It isn’t a kind laugh or one that has humor. It’s this sharp, barking thing that ends abruptly.

He reaches out and pulls me into a hug against his skinny chest. “It’s okay, Elly. It won’t be any worse than last time. I’ll be fine.”

I wrap my arms around him and hold on. I’ve kept quiet for so long. Stayed hidden in that closet like she told me to. Done what she asked to keep my brother safe because I love him more than anyone.

But he isn’t safe. And neither am I.

“We could leave.” My voice shakes. It’s a dangerous thing to say.

“Elly,” he says, and I can’t decipher the tone of my name this time.

“Do you have a way to unlock the handcuffs?” I ask. Leaving is the right decision. We can’t do this anymore. Anthony is barely hanging on. When my mother pulled me from the closet, maybe she woke me up. Or I woke myself up.

“She’ll find us.” Anthony kneels next to Charles and rolls him over. But his hands dart away when the man starts to moan.

“Shit.” Anthony sits back. “He’s waking up again. Did you skip his earlier doses?”

I nod. “I couldn’t… W-we can’t stay.” I stare down at Charles, who’s breathing raggedly, starting to move again. One of the cuts on his wrist has opened and blood dots the mattress.

Anthony reaches for the wooden box.

“Don’t,” I plead.

He pauses, his hand over the lid.

“The police station isn’t far.” I swallow, trying to stop my hands and voice from trembling. “We could walk there.”

“No,” Charles whispers.

We both jump away from him.

“He doesn’t want to be drugged.” I’m not sure if I’m convincing Anthony, but I can’t leave my brother alone. If I walk out that door without him, I know I will never see him again.

“No…” Charles rolls toward us, his eyes jumping around—not landing on any one thing for more than a second. He licks his lips and starts again. “No cops.”

“But you need help,” I whisper. And what are we supposed to do? Just shove him out the door? Let him find his own way?

“No cops.” He tries to reach out toward me, but the handcuffs stop his movement. “Please. Drop me in a field somewhere.”

Anthony stands up, turning toward me. Afternoon light breaks through the smashed mini-blinds and cuts lines of light across his shirt. “If we do this, then there’s no going back, Elly. We have to hide. Forever. Or she’ll find us.”

I nod. “Okay,” I whisper. It’s hardly a word, but it feels like the first one I’ve ever really wanted to say. “I want to be free of her. Both of us to be free.”

Anthony stares at me for a moment longer. Maybe waiting for me to change my mind. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t seem relieved.

Maybe he knew the truth that at fourteen I didn’t yet know—there was no escaping this. Even if we ran to the other side of the world, it would always follow us.

And it has.

I blink, and I’m looking up into ocean-blue eyes, panicked eyes roving over my face.

“Dean?” My voice feels rough, like I’ve been using it too much. But I don’t think I’ve said a word.

“Ella. What happened? You didn’t answer me for a full minute.” His hands are clasped around my shoulders, pulling me close to him. A partial hug. “It was like you were just gone. It was only for a blink, but… Are you okay?”

I nod, vacantly. He’s so warm around me, a protective circle that I could tuck into. That feeling of being safe lights again, and I don’t want to push it away. I don’t want to push him away. He’s like this cushion. Against Carly’s words. Against my mother’s scrawled handwriting and the threat that she could be back here. Back in my life.

“What’s going on?” Dean grips my arms tightly, his forehead lined with worry. “Is it the name? Mira?”

“It’s just a name.” I shake my head. “A woman who used to live here. I was thinking about her. She… she went to prison.”

“Holy shit.” He tilts his head toward me, his voice dropping. “For what?”

“Kidnapping and attempted murder,” I say. “It’s, um, a local legend. Happened years ago.”

Dean blinks at me. “You knew this woman?”

“Just a little. She had a daughter. I, um, knew her daughter.” I bite my lip, staring up at him and waiting for his reaction. Distrust. Disgust.

But all I see is concern. A lined forehead, focused attention.

Below, I hear Renee call my name, followed by a riff of female laughter.

He pulls me closer to him. “What happened to her daughter? You were friends with her?”

“I…” I stare up at him, searching him. “Yes, she was a friend of mine. Her mother was arrested when she was fourteen. And then she was separated from her brother and went to live with a father she’d hardly met.”

His lips tighten—but it doesn’t look like anger. “That must have been tough for her.”

“It was. She moved around a lot. She saw…” I set my hands on his forearms, not wanting him to let me go. Especially not now—not after this half-truth that’s bouncing around us. If I can just keep talking, maybe I can get to the point where I tell him the full truth.

He looks at me—waiting for me to finish talking. But his forearms tense slightly under my touch.

“She never really talked about it,” I finally say.

Renee calls again, louder this time. Did Dean’s jaw tick a little? Or was that my imagination?

“A true ghost story.” Dean’s hands run from my shoulders down to my elbows and back up again. A soft caress. “Those aren’t the kind of ghosts I like to believe in.”

I clutch on to him. Lemon truths and buttermilk lies. My mother used to say it all the time. Lies that go down better than the truth. I’d forgotten until just now.

“My mother must have known her,” Dean says suddenly. “I thought it was—”

“Ellaaaaa,” Renee shouts. “Stop making out and get down here.”

Oh, no-no. I shake my head, dropping my gaze so that Dean can’t see my face.

He laughs. “Come on.” He lets go of my arms, but his hand finds mine, wrapping around it tightly. He turns toward the stairs and tugs me away from my mother’s name.

Fifteen minutes after we step out of the lighthouse, Ella agrees to let me walk her home. Her and Renee, to be exact. And, well, Dev and Sebastian are there too. But the important part—the part I can’t stop thinking about—is that she’s letting me walk her home and she’s holding my hand the entire way.

Yep, I’m going fucking insane over hand-holding. With any other woman, I probably wouldn’t even think about it. Actually, not to be a total dick, but it would probably be a disappointment to get to the end of a night and only be hand-holding.

But holding Ella’s hand feels like some kind of monumental achievement. Like maybe I’ve finally found this tiny “in” with her. And her hand feels so secure in mine, warm and small, and something I don’t ever want to let go.

As soon as we leave the Harborwalk, there’s no streetlights or sidewalks, and we walk down the quiet streets illuminated only by the porch lights. The other three stay ahead of us for most of the way. Dev being his loud, obnoxious self. Until he gets on the subject of Matty, and then his voice deepens. He’s telling Renee about the different treatments he’s been trying. Hydrotherapy and some type of heated wrap.

Ella’s fingers squeeze mine. “Is Matty okay after…” she whispers.

“Yeah, he’s been fine.” I squeeze her hand back. I can’t help it.

“Did you tell Dev?”

I nod. “He wasn’t too happy. But I had to be honest, right?”

It’s a heavy disappointment when we stop outside a first-floor apartment, and she turns to me with a thin smile before she takes her hand from mine. Renee bounces up the uneven cement walkway to the door. The building is one of those long, low apartment types. Hanging gutters and mismatched paint. The front window has a crack fixed with duct tape. I guess I didn’t really see Ella living in a place like this. And street level. There’s not a lot of crime in Portage, but I worry about the locks on her door anyway, and I’m glad that Renee’s with her.

I step around her so that Dev and Sebastian are to my back.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” I ask. Holy fuck, my heart just about stops beating as she looks up at me. It’s a hit to my confidence that she has to think for so long, but the question’s already out there.

“Okay,” she says after a minute. “Stop by the bakery. I’ll bake something for you.”

And that seals what I’ve suspected all along. She’s perfect.