Page 75 of The Chain

“It’s so obvious: two-one-nine-four.”

“What’s that?”

“Harry Styles’s birthday! Oh my God, I have a million messages.”

“You have to tell people you were sick.”

“I will. But I want to go to school Monday. What day is it tomorrow?”

“Monday.”

“I wanna go to school.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I want you to get checked out by a doctor.”

“I’m fine. I want to go to school! I want to see everybody.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t want to be cooped up in a house again.”

“Well, no school bus, not anymore. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Hey, where’s my stuffed bunny? Where’s Marshmallow?” Kylie asks.

“I’ll get Marshmallow back for you tonight.”

“He’s not lost?”

“No.”

Kylie sends texts to her friends, who are probably all sleeping. She and Rachel lie in bed and watch her favorite YouTube clips: A-Ha’s “Take On Me” video, the Monty Python fish-slapping dance, half a dozen videos from the rap group Brockhampton, the bit inDuck Soupwhere Groucho is suspicious of his own reflection.

Kylie showers and asks for some alone time, and when Rachel goes to check on her half an hour later, she is fast asleep. Rachel collapses on the couch and weeps.

Pete comes back at six in the morning and puts a couple of logs on the fire. “Everything OK over there?” Rachel asks.

“Amelia is still asleep.”

Pete makes a pot of coffee and they sit by the fire.

Everything seems back to the way it was before. Fishing boats heading out into the Merrimack. Bernstein on WCRB. TheGlobearriving in its plastic wrap in front of the house.

“I can’t believe she’s home,” Rachel says. “There were times when I thought I’d lost her forever.”

They watch the logs whiten and slowly turn to ash. Rachel’s phone rings.Unknown Caller. She answers it on speaker.

It’s the distorted voice. It is The Chain speaking directly to her: “I know what you’re thinking. It’s what everyone thinks when they get their loved ones back. You think you can release your hostage and end this. But the thing is, you can’t fight tradition. Do you know what a tradition is, Rachel?”

“What do you mean?”

“A tradition is a living argument. A living argument for a practice that began a long time ago. And it works for our particular tradition. If you mess with The Chain, it will be sure to get you and your family. Leave the country, go to Saudi Arabia or Japan or wherever. Change your name, change your identity. We’ll always find you.”

“I get it.”

“Do you get it? I hope so. Because it’s not over. It won’t be over until the people you’ve recruited do what they’re supposed to do without screwing up and the ones they’ve recruited do their job without screwing up. We haven’t had a defection in The Chain for a few years now, but they happen. People think they can beat the system. They can’t. No one can, and you’re not going to.”

“The Williams family.”