“I can’t believe you,” Finch snaps, walking even faster than he already was. “Why didn’t you say anything about those texts?”

“Who’d believe me?”

“You literally didn’t delete them!”

“I’ve got experience with people thinking I’m crazy.”

“Because you do actually kill everyone you live with.”

I pull at the gloves he’d forced onto my hands after the injections, not wanting to think of what they could do. He notices, even in the dark of the moonless night, because of course he does.

He can read my mind, after all, and they even think controlling it is a possibility. Not that he wants to consider such a thing.

“How long until we get to your place?” Finch asks eventually.

“Few more streets.”

“Who’s home?”

“Emma, hopefully.” I think for a second. “Her mother might be.”

“They know where you live. What if nobody’s home?”

“Surely they’d have taken them—?”

“It’s a worldwide thing, idiot.”

After that, we walk in silence. I’m trying not to panic, but it’s so difficult.

What might have happened?

Every bad outcome runs through my head, over and over and over, a cycle of bad and worse and worse still.

Will we find nobody?

Will we find dead bodies?

Will we find a room covered in blood?

Or what if it’s not just Emma and Danielle that they hurt?

What if they repeat their little ‘gift’ to Finch?

Not that I know what that was. I also don’t think I want to know…

The door is the same as ever, and yet a thousand times more threatening than it has ever been. Even when I first moved here… it didn’t seem that scary.

I knock, mostly because Finch refuses, but also because I don’t actually have a key yet.

I’ve been here for months.

That’s… odd, I guess.

“Oh my god, it’s Lexi!” Emma grabs my hand to pull me inside, eyes shining. “And his boyfriend, hi Finch.”

“For crying out loud… my name is Alex! And I’m not dating him!”

She laughed, and if I hadn’t been so relieved to see her alive, I might have laughed too.