Pure terror had a regressive effect. Emily was crawling like an infant and yearning for someone to come and take care of her. Her childhood, with all its feelings of helplessness, came back to her. It was a feeling she had worked desperately to avoid as an adult. She had learned to be independent through strength and deception, resilience and cunning. And for the times when self-reliance failed, Emily had made sure to tie herself to people who would protect her. But Lauren had abandoned her long ago. And where was Max?

Had something gone horribly wrong?

Had he failed? Was that what this was about? Did his plan backfire and unleash Armageddon down on her? If this wasn't the Torrealba's trying to put an end to her once and for all, who were these people, and what the hell was this about?

As much as Emily tried to figure it out, rational thought was being drowned out by the screaming in her head. There was a horrible wet feeling coming from her shin that was triggering an alarm inside of her. The trickling rivulets on her skin felt like a flood pouring from the throbbing gash on her leg. She clenched her teeth together hard enough for her jaw to ache and focused on just making it to the safety of the office wing.

It was two floors of cubicles and workstations on the north side of the building. She had never been in there, but she knew it should be empty this time of day. The only people who entered that area were the contractors, who labored under the mistaken belief they worked for the NSA. They showed up every day pretending to be clerks and accountants, PR men and data entry personnel when their work was really just window dressing for a con they weren't even a part of. Emily hoped she could get to an office or a meeting room and lock herself in.

So long as the doors weren't locked. So long as she hadn't gotten turned around when she tripped over the table.

Everything beyond the hands in front of her was lost in the smoke. For all she knew, she was heading toward some dead-end or back toward danger.

The distinctiveness and the direction of the shots were lost in the constant rat-a-tat. She glanced back over her shoulder. In the deep fog, black figures with the weight and substance of shadows spit fire at one another. Two mysterious forces were battling for some unknown prize.

Emily continued to shuffle forward unable to make any sense out of what was happening but hoping that they would be too occupied with each other to notice her.

It was the perfect metaphor for life: crawling along, moving with agonizing slowness toward the goal, and trying not to get killed because of other people's shit.

There was a change in the tiling. The uniform four-inch square terracotta changed to smoother marble. The grout lines were thinner and spaced further apart. She was past the lobby area. Another twenty feet and she'd be at the glass doors. She picked up her scrambling pace.

Do it for Aaron, she repeated to herself. She had to be here when he came home. He will come home. She spoke the words in her head as though to bend the universe to her will.

The chrome handle appeared before her as dull gray in the mist. She was less than ten feet from it. The sight represented life and safety. It felt like she just had to get to the door and everything would be okay.

Then, it exploded.

Glass shattered like a cataract of water. The handled dropped to the ground, falling through the air as though in slow motion. Her mind was playing a trick on her. Or maybe it was just teetering on slivers, before tumbling to the ground. Shards and diamond chips washed over the floor and surrounded her hands. A twinge made Emily reach instinctively for her face.

With trembling dread, her fingers found a spear of glass embedded in her cheek.

It missed my eye. Thank god, it fucking missed my eye. The frantic murmuring calmed her, while the splinter sliced into the fingertips that pulled it free.

The thin triangular fragment of glass left a dark smear where it clattered on the marble.

A ragged breath escaped her. As she inhaled again, it felt like her lungs were full of thick, acrid fluid. Fear was breaking her body down, eroding it into a wasted husk. And things weren't going to get any better. The only way forward was to crawl through broken glass.

At least I don't have to worry about the door being locked anymore. She smiled bitterly. Do it for Aaron.

Emily put her palm down in front of her and took her first painful step toward the empty doorway, the spot someone was shooting at.

The realization triggered a new wave of panic. Then the sound of a boot crushing glass into stone came from right beside her.

***

It was one of those unnaturally quiet nights in the bunker that brought feelings of claustrophobia and despair. The kind of night when even the music didn't disturb the still shroud blanketing her cage. No outside noises were ever heard through the walls, but it felt as though activity created a vibration that traveled through the steel and rock. When that imagined sound was absent, the prison became a tomb.

Amy didn't trust the man asking her questions. He wanted her to talk to him, to share her feelings with him. She sat in her chair, twisting a strand of hair between her fingers, pretending to be completely mesmerized by the Pink song playing.

Even if she did talk, how would she ever make sense of her thoughts?

She had once seen a documentary about the ice caps melting. It showed massive glaciers breaking apart. Calving, the process was called. Huge chunks calved off into the sea. They avalanched on top of themselves. Crumbling and crushing in a pattern of relentless destruction. Ever since she was brought here, her mind had felt like that: one crumbling idea crushing another, over and over without end.

"Is there anything you want to ask me?" he attempted again. He was trying to put her at ease by getting her to ask him something. Deflecting the focus of the conversation to what she wanted. But it was all the same to Amy: he wanted her to talk about things she'd rather leave alone.

He was so desperately earnest that Amy felt bad not answering. A twinge of anger sparked inside of her. She was supposed to be the one in need. She was the twelve-year-old in prison, not him. How dare he make her feel concerned for his feelings?

But frustratingly, she found herself caring. Maybe, despite what she told herself, she was happy to have someone talking to her and interested in what she thought. And he did bring her music to help endure the endless boredom. What would happen if she succeeded in driving him away?

For the sake of saying something, Amy grasped at the latest passing thought before it was lost beneath the glacial waves.

"Why am I not dead?" she asked.

He hesitated. Without looking at him, she could feel his eyes widen with discomfort. "Why would you ask that?"

"Everyone who loved me is dead. Why am I still alive?"

"God's plan isn't..."

"No." She stopped him. "I don't want to hear about fate, Jamie. I want to know why they didn't kill me when they had a chance. Why bring me here? Why keep me alive knowing what I am? Tell me the truth."

"Well..."

Since they locked her up here a month ago, no one wanted to tell her anything. Not Jamie, not the therapist, not the silent men in spacesuits that shoved her about. The only one who had been honest with her was that awful woman doctor. But she didn't talk to Amy anymore either. She just poked and prodded her wordlessly like the other people who entered her cell. They treated her like a baby.

Amy folded her arms and stared him down, waiting for him to talk, like he had been so eager to do just minutes before.

"They brought you here so we could find out what makes you the way you are. Most of us are scientists. We're here to figure out how you are able to do the things you do."

Somehow she knew this but had never thought about it long enough to connect the dots.

"And what happens when you get your answers? What happens to me then? Will they kill me when they're done with me?"

"No. Of course not. I mean, there will always be new questions? Amy, you're a miracle. You—"

"Don't! I'm no miracle. It wasn't a miracle that made me this way. No one would want this. This thing I'm cursed with is a...horror. I'm a horror." She pressed her knees to her folded arms, curling into a ball.

So that was it. She would die of old age in this hideous pink room. It was a life sentence she was to serve.

"Amy, you almost sound like you want them to kill you? You don't want to die, do you?"

Jamie's voice came back to her now as the door opened wider and the two yellow spacemen stepped carefully into her room. They didn't say anything. They only raised their arms to point their guns at her. The deep smell of burning sulfur coated the weapons like a cloud of death.

But was it Jamie's voice? Already it sounded different in her head. It was a woman. It was Ylva.

Her heart shook her chest with a rattling thump-thump. What she did next would answer the question. Did she really want to die? She could be weak and this would all be over. Or she could be strong and live on, trapped in this cage. Or she could be strong and except death, or weak and give in to fear. What was right? What did she want?

In the space between one thump and the next, everything grew quiet, as silent as a winter wood. A moment of serenity where no thought disturbed the stillness, but the air was full with the answer she sought like heavy snow.

Ylva, I need you.