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Vivienne lay on her stomach, a clean satin pillow pressed over her head. It didn’t do much to drown out the sound of her mother’s knocking.

She’d been out there for nearly a quarter of an hour, hammering on the door without end. She could stay out there all night, if she wanted. Vivienne wasn’t going to open the door. She wanted to be alone, left to lick her wounds in private.

She deserved at least that much.

At the edge of the bed, Judd began to whine. She reached out a hand and rubbed him soothingly between the ears, until his crinkled brow lay flat. Next to them, Molly let out a sleepy rumble. It had taken Vivienne the better part of an hour to coax them into the tub. Another to scrub the blood from their muzzles. They were still damp hours later, their fur as sleek as a seal’s. If her mother knew she’d let them on the bed like this, she’d have a coronary.

Out in the hall, the knocking came to an abrupt stop.

It was replaced by Philip’s voice, low and angry. “What the devil is going on up here? I sent you upstairs fifteen minutes ago. Can you not manage your own daughter?”

“She’s refusing to open the door,” whined her mother.

Vivienne rolled onto her back and pressed the pillow over her face just as a fist began pounding heavily at the door.

“Vivienne! Open up this instant!”

“She’s locked us out,” said Amelia, emboldened by Philip’s anger now that it wasn’t directed at her. “I heard her do it.”

Another set of knocks sounded, louder than the first.

When she was very small—before the gorge—she used to stomp her feet when she didn’t get her way. She’d stand in the middle of the floor with her fingers plugging her ears and hold her breath until she turned purple.

She wondered if she’d learned that trick from Philip.

Annoyed by the disturbance, Molly began to bark. Judd’s ears pinned flat.

“I know you’re in there,” called Philip, who sounded as though he’d pressed his face right up to the gap at the bottom. “And I know you hear me, so listen closely. If you ever want to see Thomas Walsh alive again, you’ll open this door.”

Hope bloomed horribly in her chest, though she knew she had no right to it.

He’d come for her.

After everything she’d said—everything she’d done—he’d come.

Just like he’d promised.

She bounded out of bed and toward the door in a single leap, prying it open. A harried-looking Philip shoved into her room, sleeves cuffed and smelling of tobacco. Her mother followed, ghostlike in her robe and slippers.

Where is he? Vivienne signed.

“I hope you’re happy,” snapped Philip, in lieu of an answer. “Do you have any idea what kind of danger you’ve put us in? What kind of favors I had to call in to ensure you came back to your mother in one piece?”

Her mother stood by the door, her lower lip wobbling. “Don’t act like you did this for me. You did it for you. For your precious career.”

“For us ,” shouted Philip. “Mother of God, woman—look at yourself. What do you think pays for all that plastic in your face? Who fronts the money for your shopping sprees and your tennis lessons and your nice, cozy spot at the country club? Me and my precious career , that’s who.”

Molly was barking wildly now, her hackles raised. Behind her, Judd slinked across the floor, his hindquarters trembling.

“You should be on your knees with gratitude,” said Philip, raising his voice to be heard over the dogs. “Another man would have cast the two of you out. Another man did .”

“Don’t bring him into this,” snapped Amelia.

“Your daughter brought him into this,” roared Philip. “The very moment she ran off with that godforsaken club of his. Do you know the risks I took, phoning that sociopath? How exposed I’ve left us? How— For the love of God, shut that dog up!”

Vivienne let Molly bark, reaching instead for a bottle of cologne on her vanity. With just enough force to shatter, she lobbed the perfume at the adjacent wall. Glass exploded, tinkling across the hardwood. Both Amelia and Philip looked up at her in surprise.

Where is T-h-o-m-a-s? she signed.

Amelia cleared her throat. “She wants to know—”

“I know perfectly well what she wants,” bit out Philip. “I have no goddamned idea where Thomas Walsh has gone. It was a bluff. I didn’t want to go to the trouble of breaking down your door.”

Hope extinguished like a wick, leaving the taste of ash in her mouth.

“If that boy has any brains,” said Philip, “he won’t show his face around here again.”

Because you’ll kill him , she signed, and her mother translated.

Philip’s smile was thin. “No, because I paid him well for his time, and he knows better than to compromise that. He has an infatuation, but futures can’t be built on infatuations. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll collect his final paycheck and go home.”

Vivienne stared, hurt creeping into all the dark spaces.

“You don’t believe me,” said Philip. Reaching into his back pocket, he procured a rolled file, foisting it between them. “You think I’d lie to you? You think Walsh was at the cathedral that day of his own accord? You were a job to him, and he came to collect you at my bidding. The night of the gala, he signed a hefty NDA in exchange for the biggest severance package he’ll ever see in his life.”

Vivienne took the file, flipping through it until she came to the end.

There, signed and dated, was Thomas’s signature.

Vivienne took a step back, sinking into the chair by her vanity. She thought of Thomas in the confessional, his profile broken up by the lattice divider. Thomas in the reconciliatory room, his heart beating into the palm of her hand. I’ll always come for you.

She’d believed every word he said, but then maybe she shouldn’t have. All she’d done from the start of the summer was deceive him. Betray him. Leave him.

Why shouldn’t he deceive her right back?

A tear slid unchecked down her cheek. Beneath her bones, her heart sat in tatters.

Funny, she’d thought she’d left it behind.

“You like to pretend you’re the damsel,” said Philip, smoothing a hand over the oil slick of his hair, “but you’re the monster, Vivienne. Most men would have put you in the ground, once they saw what you’d become. But not me. I gave you a purpose. A place in my home. You will not spit in the face of my generosity again.”

She raised her eyes to his, fury beating in her blood. Or what?

He didn’t need to speak her language to understand the insolence in her stare. He smiled, watery and thin. “Next time, it won’t be a bluff. You step a toe out of line, and I’ll track down Thomas Walsh myself. You and I will take another nice little fishing trip, and you can sing him to the bottom of the Long Island Sound.”

Silence permeated the room, absolute and funereal.

“Your mother came upstairs to tell you that as of today, your privileges are revoked. You will withdraw from your summer program. You will not answer your friends when they call. From here on out you are not, under any circumstances, to leave this house unaccompanied.”

She felt the commands twist through her, the way his instruction always did—like he was tugging on some preternatural string, the length of it woven along the river of her spine.

She couldn’t disobey. Not without incurring significant hurt.

“For years, I was merciful,” he said. “I let you have your little pantomime. I let you play at girlhood. You’ll find my mercy has run out. It ends now.”

When he left, her mother stayed behind. The dogs settled, though reluctantly. They sat rigid at her side, twin sentries guarding a tomb. And that’s what she was. A living mausoleum, the ghost of who she might have been knocking around inside her.

“Philip has always looked out for us,” said her mother. She wrung her hands, her eyes rimmed in red. “You’ve lived in this house all your life. You don’t understand. You’ve never wanted for anything. You have no idea what it’s like—scraping and scrounging for every little thing.”

Vivienne stared dead ahead. She wished her mother would go away.

“Your father was my first love,” she went on, in a voice so soft it trembled. This got Vivienne’s attention. Her mother never spoke about her father. “It was all-consuming. First loves can often feel like that—like there’s nothing else in the world but the two of you. That’s what you’re feeling now, isn’t it? All you can see is that boy.”

That boy.

As though Thomas Walsh was no one. A passerby. A blip.

She wanted to tell her mother that she could live a thousand lifetimes, and she’d never know anyone as good as him. She stayed quiet instead.

“I thought your father loved me the way I loved him,” said her mother, “but he had a wife and two young sons at home. He wouldn’t leave them. He put in for a transfer—moved to a firm in Boston to be closer to his family. I let my entire universe revolve around him, but I was little more than a shooting star in his. I was left alone in New York, newly pregnant. Terrified. Philip stepped in. He didn’t need to do it. He was under no obligation. But here we are. He has given us a home. He stood by us, even when the unthinkable happened.”

Vivienne. Vivienne was the unthinkable. Her silence. Her obstinance. Her face in the mirror. Her wretched, ruined voice. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did to hear it.

“You should be grateful,” said her mother.

Grateful to spend her life inside a cage. Grateful to be used like a weapon. Grateful to be subservient and pretty and quiet. To keep her eyes down and her teeth sharp, poised to kill on command.

She should be grateful that she’d never see Thomas Walsh again.

When her mother finally left, it was a relief. Vivienne headed into the bathroom, the dogs slipping silently behind her. The mirror stretched out along the wall, its surface as flat and still as a lake.

Nothing peered back at her.

No leering eyes, no too-sharp grin. The glass was empty.

“Where are you?” she asked aloud. Her voice was pebbled, ground as if beneath a pestle. “Come and look me in the eye.”

If the creature heard her, it didn’t answer.

“Coward,” she called, though she didn’t know who she meant.

The creature, or the girl.

Exhausted, she slumped against the door until it fell shut, tugging up the hem of her pajama shirt. The scab cut an ugly crescent across her abdomen, scales dark and gleaming. It looked wider tonight, as though whatever horrible thing she carried inside her was slowly devouring her from the inside out. Quickly, she tugged her shirt back into place.

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t sit here, idle and waiting, staring into a looking glass and waiting for something to look back. Playing the part of dutiful daughter and lethal weapon until there was nothing left of her but a last, lonely gasp.

A thought occurred to her, wicked in the twilight. Philip had been right about one thing—she’d never been the damsel. She’d always been the monster.

And so, she’d behave monstrously.

She burst back out into the bedroom and changed out of her pajamas, fell to cramming a few of her belongings into an old dance bag. Molly and Judd circled her as she went, restless and wary.

In the cluttered mess of her vanity, she found a familiar tangle of white gold. She lifted it for inspection, the flat medallion spinning before her. A winged angel stood in profile, wielding a sword. She’d stolen it from Thomas’s room the day she’d kissed him. She hadn’t meant to—it was only that she’d left in such a panic. She hadn’t even remembered she’d slipped it on until long after she’d fled. By then, she’d been far too humiliated to give it back.

She ran her thumb over the words etched into the border.

St. Michael Protect Us.

On a whim, she slid the chain over her head. The medallion sat cold and heavy against her chest. When it was done, she sat out on her balcony and watched the sun go down. The sky was so flush with color it looked as ripe as a berry. Slowly, the color drained to a velvet dark. The humidity broke, and the air held a crispness that signified the approach of fall. Already, the first of the maple leaves had fallen to the driveway, curling in on themselves like dark, dying buds.

Downstairs, the house went slowly quiet.

Vivienne had several things working to her advantage. For one, Philip never ended the day without a nightcap. If he was stressed—which he usually was—he ended the day with two. Similarly, her mother never went to bed without an Ambien and several glasses of ice-cold Riesling.

They’d be dead asleep in no time, which meant neither of them would notice when she slipped into Philip’s office.

It was full dark by the time she finally headed downstairs. The dogs followed like two silent wraiths, flanking her around each corner. Her mother was in her room, door locked, lights out. Philip was in the sitting room, an empty tumbler balanced on his stomach, his chin touching his chest. Dozing, but only just.

She’d have to be quiet.

Fortunately, she’d become very, very good at being quiet.

She slipped sideways into the office, thankful for the moonlight that filtered in at the window. She wouldn’t risk a lamp. Setting her bag on the floor, she took a seat at his desk and felt beneath the wood until her fingers snagged on a well-hidden button. A tiny compartment kicked open just above the topmost drawer.

She slid out the papers Philip kept inside, knowing already what she’d find. Bracing herself. Several sealed coroner’s reports sat in a chronological stack. Philip’s marks. Her kills.

If the reporter was right, they’d all have had the same toxins in their blood when they died.

If he was right, there was evidence. Maybe enough for a case.

Her stomach sank at the abundance of names—some she knew, most she didn’t. All of them had been friendly enough. They called her doll . They gave her sweets. They taught her how to bait a hook, how to watch the scanner for fish.

And in turn, she sang for them.

Pretty as a bird.

The last two names in the stack struck her cold. Mikhail Popov, fished out of the sound. Bryce Donahue, dead on arrival. She stuffed the papers into her bag and shut the drawer. She left the way she came. Quietly.

At the front door, she stood on the threshold and stared up at the night sky. It glittered above her like a dome, stars diamond bright. Tightening her grip on the leashes, she stepped out into the driveway. Immediately, Molly and Judd darted toward the grass to relieve themselves. She stood still and waited for the pain to hit—for the dull ache of disobedience, the fracturing feel of insubordination.

Nothing happened. Philip told her she wasn’t to leave unaccompanied.

He hadn’t considered the dogs.

···

For all their hours and hours of expensive training, Molly and Judd were terrible walkers. They tugged her along on their leashes, darting at every rabbit and leaf and shadow. Overhead, the sky became swallowed up by the streetlamp glow. No cars went past. It was mercifully quiet.

Hadley Appelbaum lived at the opposite end of the gated development, in a handsome brick house with white trim and black shutters. The sprinklers were on, and Vivienne let the dogs pull her through the spray, shivering in the cool kiss of water on her skin. By the time she knocked at the front door, she was soaked to the bone.

A light clicked on overhead and Hadley pried open the door, already dressed down for the night in a silk robe and curlers.

“Oh,” she said. “I thought you were the pizza guy.”

Can I come in? Vivienne signed. I need to give your dad something.

“I don’t know,” said Hadley, eyeing Molly and Judd. “My mom will flip if I let the dogs in the house.”

I’ll be quick , Vivienne promised.

But Hadley didn’t open the door. She kept it wedged like a barrier between them.

“Do you have any idea what you put me through?” she asked suddenly. “Frankie and I thought you’d been kidnapped . Do you know terrifying that was? We talked to Hudson, and he says you planned that whole thing. All of it. It was just a prank.”

It wasn’t a prank , signed Vivienne, deflating slightly.

“So then, you weren’t the mastermind behind that paintball raid?”

Vivienne didn’t answer. What could she say that didn’t make her sound guilty? She was guilty. And her reasons why would only drive Hadley further away.

“That’s what I thought,” said Hadley, when she said nothing. “Your loser friends ruined my dress, by the way. Even the dry cleaners couldn’t fix it.”

I can pay for it , she signed.

“Don’t bother,” said Hadley. “Look, Viv, I love you, and I’m sorry if you’re going through something. I really am. But this has been a lot for me to deal with. I think it’s for the best if you go home.”

But I need to talk to your dad , signed Vivienne, and fished the file out of her bag. Tucking it under her arm, she added, I need to give him this. It’s important.

“Then you can give it to him at the police station,” said Hadley. “Tomorrow, when he’s at work. He’s off duty right now.”

The door swung shut in her face.

In the yard, the sprinklers clicked off. The porch light extinguished. Even the moths took flight, scattering into darkness as though they sensed a predator in their midst. Prying a pen loose from her bag, she jotted a note along the front of the file: Found these in Philip Farrow’s home office. Thought you might be interested. When she was done, she tucked it into the mailbox. She hoped that would be enough.

Coaxing the dogs to their feet, she headed down the driveway. The vast dome of starlight overhead no longer seemed wide and inviting. Now it seemed to mock her. She’d never felt so small. She’d never felt so alone.

She made it halfway down the driveway before a set of headlights clicked on.

A car idled several houses down, its lights pinning her in a spotlight. On the end of her leash, Molly went as still as a statue. She sniffed the air, her hackles raised. Judd let out a questioning woof.

The headlights clicked off.

With a tug, Vivienne urged Molly to walk faster. They picked up the pace, Thomas’s medallion swinging like a pendulum against her sternum. The strap of her bag cut into her shoulder. She didn’t know where she was going. Frankie’s house, maybe, though that was a far longer walk.

The car pulled out into the street. Headlights off, it began to tail her.

She walked faster, sticking to the sidewalk. When she turned, the car turned. When she exited the gated community, it followed. The land became a suburban sprawl, the lots unfolding around her in steep hills and sloping valleys, yellow-and-gray cookie-cutter homes stacked on artificially flattened parcels of grass.

Rounding a corner onto an older street, she drew up short. Another car idled in the middle of the road. She heard a car door click shut. In the gloom, the figure of a man materialized. Multiplied. Tripled. Suddenly, there were four of them.

Both dogs fell to barking.

“We’re looking for the girl responsible for the murder of Jesse Grayson,” said a man. The voice wasn’t one she recognized. “You match the description.”

“Don’t goad her into speaking,” said another. “Not unless you want to gouge out your own eyes.”

A serrated terror cut into her. She backed up, tugging the dogs with her as she went. The car behind her turned on its headlights. So did the car in front of her. She was pinned between spotlights, her heart thudding wildly in her chest.

To her right was a wide wall of rock, leftover from where workers had once blasted through the hillside to lay down road. To her left was a poured concrete sidewalk and then a gully, deep and dark. It pitched downward into a forested snag, thick with pine. She could lose them in there.

“The chairman has been looking for you,” said the man nearest her. “It’s time to come home.”

Directly in front of her, the car’s alarm began to sound. Lights flashed as the vehicle let out a shrill warble. The men whipped around, startled by the intrusion. Behind her, the second car followed suit. Judd began to bay along, his howl arcing high and clear.

Vivienne didn’t question her sudden stroke of luck. She seized the opportunity, throwing herself down the gully and tugging the dogs after her. They were far lither on their feet than she could ever hope to be, and in the dark, she’d misjudged the steepness. She plummeted down the hillside, hitting the ground with a bone-juddering impact. Her temple smashed against a rock. She saw stars. She tasted stars.

A wet nose snuffled at her hair. A second pushed into her ear with a snarl, teeth snapping. Get up , it seemed to say. Move. She drew herself unsteadily to her feet, her right leg crying out in pain, and launched into the trees at a limp. Above her, in the street, the alarms had gone silent. Now the night was full of shouting.

She broke into a run, the dogs dragging her along in their wake, staggering over root and bramble. When she finally burst free of the trees—scraped open by branches and breathing hard—she was in a neighborhood she recognized.

The towering Georgian mansions rose out of the dark like Goliaths, spotlit in washes of yellow. She didn’t slow, and neither did the dogs. They carted her along faster than she thought herself capable, until a stitch formed in her side.

She didn’t stop until she drew within sight of Hudson Turner’s family home. Close to collapse, she hammered on the door, hoping against hope that Hudson’s parents were working the late shift at the hospital.

The door pried open to admit Hudson, his T-shirt halfway on and his sweatpants cuffed at the ankles. His eyes looked bleary, as though he’d been dead asleep. He took one look at her, taking in the trickle of blood on her brow, mud spattering her clothes.

“I should slam the door in your face,” he said. “It’s what you deserve.”

She wanted to tell him she was sorry. Sorry she’d lied. Sorry she’d hurt him. Sorry she’d ever made him play a part in her scheme. Sorry for all of it—for how it started. For how it ended. For everything in between. She couldn’t say any of that, of course. He wouldn’t understand. She could only blink up at him and wait for him to decide what to do with her.

Finally, he groaned. “I guess we’ve all been a little guilty of using each other, haven’t we?”

She held still and let herself hope. Shoulders sagging, he held the door wider.

“Come on,” he said. “You’re letting the bugs in.”