“What the hell is going on?” he demands. But then his eyes travel over us, noting our clothing, our backpacks. His expression grows darker, his mouth flinches.

He grabs Annalise violently by her backpack strap, lifting her to her tiptoes. She cries out and I shout for him to let her go.

Guardian Bose turns his hatred on me and pushes Annalise away, knocking her into the wall. “And where do you think you’re going?” he asks. And it is hatred in his eyes—possessiveness that’s turned to resentment. To cruelty. He’d rather see us dead than gone.

Still, I debate lying, making some excuse in hopes of a reprieve. But the truth is, this was our only chance of escape. We won’t get out. Not now. He sees us with our backpacks. With our sneakers on.

“We’re leaving you,” I say, fear shaking my voice. “We’re leaving you, and we’re never coming back.” Even as I say the words, I know how impossible they are. But it feels good to say them nonetheless.

For a moment, Guardian Bose is shocked, but then he crosses his arms over his chest. He has complete control, even now.

“Without a goodbye kiss?” he asks, and laughs to himself.

“We hate you,” Annalise says suddenly, her face red with anger. “We hate you.”

He smiles at her. “Yeah,” he says simply. “But . . . I mean, you know you’re not leaving, right?”

The Guardian reaches to put his hand on Brynn’s shoulder, bringing her in front of him to face us. He squeezes her muscle, making her wince.

“Think about poor Valentine,” the Guardian continues. “She thought she was getting out too. Played tough right until the end. Just like you.”

Sydney’s expression weakens. “Why hurt her?” she asks. “Why hurt any of us? We didn’t do anything to you!”

Guardian Bose lets Brynn go, and she immediately goes to Marcella, who wraps her arms around her. The Guardian takes a step toward Sydney, but she doesn’t back down. She faces him head-on.

“Now, Lennon Rose . . . ,” he says. “She was a precious little thing, wasn’t she, Syd?” He does this to make her flinch, taking pleasure in her pain. “I know you liked her. I did too. I offered to take her off their hands, you know.” He shrugs like it’s too bad.

“Just let us go,” Sydney begs, tilting her head. “We won’t tell anyone.” She’s trying to appeal to some sense of humanity she must think Guardian Bose has left. He smiles in response.

“Let you . . . go?” he asks. “Go where, Sydney? Where could you—” He looks around at each of us. “My God,” he says. “You really don’t know.”

“Know what?” Marcella asks, shielding Brynn.

He turns to her, disbelief clear on his face. “I thought that’s why you were trying to escape,” he says. “Why you started reading that fucking book. This changes things.” He takes the walkie-talkie off his hip.

“Know what?” Marcella asks again, louder.

The Guardian turns to her, about to answer, when—to my horror—there is a ringing. It takes a second for us to realize what the sound is. Guardian Bose straightens.

“What is that?” he asks.

The phone rings again from my pillow, our clear connection to the outside world. Guardian Bose and I dive for the phone at the same time.

We crash together on my bed, my hand the first to slip under the pillow. I click answer and scream for help, when suddenly Guardian Bose punches me hard in the jaw, making both me and the phone fall to the floor beside the bed.

I see stars. Lying on the hard wood, I blink up at the ceiling, disoriented.

Guardian Bose gets up, slamming his heavy boot down on the phone and shattering it to pieces. He hauls me up by the fabric of my shirt, and I’m a rag doll in his arms.

Sydney shoots forward, slamming against him so that he drops me. I reach for the nightstand, pulling myself up.

The Guardian turns on Sydney, wrapping his big hands around her throat. He slams her into the wall. Sydney’s eyes immediately widen as she gasps for breath, scratching at the Guardian’s forearms. Marcella and Brynn scream for him to stop, but Guardian Bose is unfazed.

“Let her go!” Annalise shouts. She punches frantically at his arms and back. Instead of listening to her, Guardian Bose pulls Sydney away from the wall and then slams her back against it again, her head making a dent in the plaster, her eyes momentarily unfocused.

He lets Sydney fall to the bed, and then turns to grab the lamp from the nightstand, pulling the plug from the wall. The Guardian spins around and smashes it against Annalise’s face, sending her backward in an explosion of broken glass. She moans and rolls to her side on the floor.

I scream, charging the Guardian. But he is formidable. I jump on his back, wrapping my forearm around his throat and leaning back with my entire weight.

He grunts and reaches behind him to grab me by my hair, knotting his fingers close to the scalp. I cry out just as he flings me over his shoulder and onto the floor.

I slide along the wood until my head strikes the bottom drawer of the dresser. I immediately look at Sydney and see the finger-sized indents in the skin of her neck from being strangled. Her eyes are streaming tears.

Marcella and Brynn attack Guardian Bose, both of them frantically hitting and punching and kicking. I get up to join them, feeling pain in my jaw with each hit. Annalise crawls along the floor, trying to sit up, her hair hanging in her face and sticking in the blood.

We’re no match for the Guardian—he’s a mountain.

He puts Brynn in a headlock, punching Marcella hard enough to knock her squarely to the floor. He slams Brynn’s head into the nightstand, and she falls unconscious.

But I’ll fight until we’re free. Or until he kills me.

I run at him, and he knocks me aside easily. I crash into the nightstand, tripping over Brynn’s body.

Guardian Bose stands taller, looking down as we crawl across the floor, trying to get back to each other. He sniffs a laugh, spitting out some blood. He turns to Sydney. She slides down on the bed, holding up her hands defensively.

The Guardian knocks her hands aside and climbs on the bed to straddle her, his thighs on the outsides of hers. As she tries to push him off, he leans in to put his hands around her neck, pressing her back into the pillow.

“Leave her alone!” I scream, ready to fight for her. Die for her, if I have to. I won’t let the Guardian kill her. Behind me, Marcella stirs Brynn awake while Annalise crawls toward the bed, not giving up either. We’ll fight for our girl. We’ll fight for our lives.

Sydney gags, swatting the Guardian’s shoulders, trying to push him off. But he’s too big. He’s too strong. Sydney swings out her arm, slapping her hand along the nightstand until her fist closes around something shiny.

A pair of scissors.

And then suddenly, violently, Sydney jams the pointy end of the large metal scissors into the side of Guardian Bose’s neck. A small arc of blood squirts around the shears, landing just shy of my shoes.

Brynn screams from the floor, covering her mouth. Marcella turns her eyes away from the horror. I stand motionless with shock, staring down at the growing puddle of blood.

The Guardian stumbles off the bed, falling to one knee in the center of the room with a heavy thud. “You’re . . . dead,” he chokes out, blood spurting between his lips. “All of you.”