“They must think,” Arne growled, clenching his fist, “that we’re complete idiots.”

  “That’s a good sign,” Brittney suggested, stirring a fifth teaspoon of sugar into her espresso. “It means we’re on the right track. If even the rang-ers are in on it, it has to be a government conspiracy. If those were real rangers,” she added darkly.

  “They weren’t,” Mijo said. “Like I said, they were chicks. You ever see two lady rangers together? The blonde one looked like she walked off a film set.”

  “You think so?” Brittney asked. “I thought they looked pretty tough, like they could beat you up without breaking a sweat. Not that that’d be hard, in your case.”

  “Which says government agency or military, not ranger,” Mijo pointed out. He let the insult roll off. It was pretty early in their acquaintance for Brittney to be rude to him, but everyone got there in the end. People couldn’t help but get defensive in the face of superior intelligence.

  “I think we all know what’s really going on,” Arne said. “Taylor was right: it’s the NDA.”

  NDA: an organization so secret only its initials were known. The letters probably, it was said by people in the know (Mijo eschewed the term “conspir-acy theorist”), stood for National Defense Agency. For safety, many people referred to it as the Non-Disclosure Agency, but Mijo had come up with a better nick-name:

  The Denials. Not men in black, because you noticed black. Denial agents blended into everyday society, with their manufactured smiles, fabricated uniforms, and laminated identification cards as perfect as the real thing because they were the real thing, though they had been printed only the day before.

  It had been pathetically obvious that those rangers had wanted Mijo and the others to look no further, to bury their heads in the sand, to act like ordinary people. To be sheep.

  Taylor hadn’t let threats deter her. Mijo could do no less.

  Mijo had first met Taylor when the press of the orientation week audi-to-rium had forced them into adjoining seats. He had asked her out imme-diately, because she was pretty, and because if he didn’t wait, he could pass it off as a joke after she rejected him. She’d laughed, and he’d laughed along and assumed he’d never see her again.

  Two years later, they took the same political science course and were assigned to the same discussion group. Mijo probably would never have worked up the courage to ask her out for real had not Taylor said something that could have been—that seemed to be—that she admitted was a reference to the Arctic Plains Conspiracy. The one about the government’s top-secret breeding program for genetically modified blue-finned nanosharks.

  Cautiously, yet not hiding the stars in his eyes, Mijo had brought up the Davey Salem Wilderness. It wasn’t natural, he’d hinted, how many people had disappeared into it over the past few months. When Taylor had, wonder of wonders, instantly agreed, Mijo had suggested they meet and investigate in person.

  A date, in other words. Which she had unhesitatingly helped arrange.

  He’d only learned she meant it as a double date when Brittney and Arne had shown up.

  Those two! He’d always dismissed them as sheep, when they were kindred spirits! Not only in their knowledge, but in their attitude. He’d despaired of them, when they’d obeyed the rangers and left. He’d informed them that if they were too cowardly and na?ve to know what was really going on, then he’d follow Taylor alone.

  “Of course we have to follow her,” said Brittney, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “But we can’t do anything hasty, and we mustn’t discuss this anywhere They might hear.”

  “There’s no time to wait,” Mijo argued. “They could pick up their base and vanish by morning, and then we’d never find them. Or Taylor.”

  “Use your brain,” Brittney said. “Those rangers were guards, and now they’ll be watching for us. We’ll have to sneak back in—and we’d better estab-lish where we’ve gone, or they’ll disappear us, too.”

  It took some time to devise a coherent plan, and Mijo had to concede several points that’d have been better left intact. Fortunately, Taylor’s network was extensive, and Arne knew how to contact most of it and which code words to use. While Mijo fetched sandwiches for dinner, Brittney scrounged up a copy of the topographical map Taylor had annotated. “We were working on this together,” she explained, “but then exams happened, and you know how it goes. She shouldn’t have tried investigating without backup, but that’s just like her.”

  Mijo distributed the ham-and-cheese subs as they drove.

  It was a couple of hours before sunset when Arne parked in a pull-off spot half a mile short of the trailhead. He poured a gallon of water in the dirt, to make mud for his license plate, and Brittney shared her bug spray. Then the three of them tramped east into the woods.

  They didn’t notice when they passed from ordinary wilderness into the scenario’s infection zone. They could neither feel nor see the fine web curtain, even when it clung to their cheeks and hair. They had way to know when they reac-tivated the Heart seconds before it would have been destroyed forever. Only Brittney reacted at all, and that was to shiver, once, in the August heat. “Someone walked over my grave,” she laughed.

  Mijo rolled his eyes and kept walking. He had always had an instinct for the truth, and it was in overdrive today. He seemed to know exactly which way to head without checking, and every time he bothered to consult compass and map, they reinforced this opinion. He soon gave up on them entirely, leaving them to Brittney and Arne as he strode ahead.

  The woods were fresh and piney, the air summer-clear. Mijo inhaled hugely, his legs crossing the miles in powerful strides. Instead of tiring, he felt more and more alert the closer he got. The others must have caught his excite-ment, because they soon sped up also. Together, they crested the final rise stopped to behold their goal.

  “There it is,” Brittney breathed in awe, resting one hand against the rough trunk next to her.

  “It looks haunted,” Arne said, the words only partly a joke.

  “Stupid,” Brittney snapped. “The facility must be underneath. They made it look like that so no one’d go wandering in.”

  “We’re going wandering in,” Arne pointed out. “Besides, it could be haunted also. Maybe they’re experimenting on ghosts.”

  “You can’t experiment on ghosts! They’re dead.”

  “People experiment on dead things.”

  Mijo half-listened to their conversation while surveying the area with keen eyes. This was the facility? The Denials’ hidden base? Was Taylor being inter-rogated in there, or had they already moved her? He couldn’t spot the cameras or laser sensors, which proved how well they’d been hidden.

  Should he suggest they approach the last few yards stealthily? No, it was too late for that; sneaking would only alert the Denials to their special knowledge. The best bet was to make the Denials think the camouflage was working, that Mijo and the others were dumb sheep college students.

  Mijo raised his disposable camera and clicked twice. He’d have to remem-ber to hide his eyes if any Denial came close, or they’d never mistake him for a sheep.

  “You’re such a baby!” Brittney told Arne. “I’m not afraid!” Without another word, she ran down into the tall grass of the meadow and twirled there before tilting her head back up at the men. Waving mockingly, she said, “See?” and stepped back.

  Metal clanged. Brittney screamed and crumpled out of sight.

  A dragonfly buzzed near Mijo’s ear. Sweat stuck his cotton t-shirt to his back. Then he was suddenly in the meadow also, kneeling next to Brittney. Blinking rapidly, trying to understand. On her leg, something massive and black. With iron teeth. A bear trap, but not quite like the ones Mijo had seen in video games. If those jaws snapped on his fingers—

  Mijo dug his hands between the teeth anyway, straining to pry the trap open.

  “Not like that!” Brittney screeched in his ear, because she just had to be rude even when he was helping her. Tears streamed down her face, and she panted as if running. “The sides! They’re springs! You have to push down on the sides. Don’t you know anything? Arne? Arne?”

  Arne was where they’d left him, frozen and bloodless. He started with his name, as if awakening.

  Mijo levered his weight onto the sides of the trap. “Brittney,” he rasped.

  Brittney, swearing wildly, eased her leg free in time for Arne to stagger down into the meadow to meet them. He looked ready to faint as Brittney sat back with a sigh of relief and worked up the cuffs of her jeans.

  The leg beneath was nowhere near as bad as Mijo had expected: the trap had not penetrated the thick denim, and nothing was broken. She wasn’t even bleeding, though she’d be bruised to the bone.

  “You need to see a doctor,” Arne said gruffly, like he knew any-thing. “I’ll carry you inside.”

  “The people inside are the ones who set the trap!” Brittney rasped. Tears brightened her eyes, but excitement brightened her lips. “People, Arne, not ghosts. Ghosts don’t need beartraps.”

  “Proof,” Mijo whispered.

  “Proof,” Brittney agreed. “Help me up. I’ll walk.” She grasped Arne’s hands, and let him lever her up. When she stood, she swayed, lean-ing against him, taking comfort in his solidity.

  Mijo averted his gaze. “I’ll get a stick in case there are more,” he said. He crunched back through the grass to look at the base of the trees and think without the others jabbering at him.

  So. A bear trap. Wasn’t it just like the government, to use some-thing so crude? But he couldn’t assume all their security was crude. They probably just wanted him to think it was, but they’d never deceive him.

  He pushed through more bushes and found a promising pair of sticks wedged against the ground. Each stick was about three feet long and surpris-ingly straight. Upon closer inspection, Mijo realized that some-one had begun whittling their ends, though the artist had abandoned his project soon after. He wondered what the sticks had been intended as.

  Heaving a breath, Mijo returned to the others and clapped his hands. “Okay, you two!” he said. “Let’s go on carefully. Stay clear of traps, and don’t forget to take pictures. We’re stupid students looking to write a ghost story for the college newspaper. Right?” He winked broadly at them and handed one stick to Brittney.

  “Right,” Brittney agreed, winking back. She swept the stick over the grass and stabbed repeatedly before each step. Mijo walked beside her with his own stick, to make sure the clearing was done properly. About halfway across the meadow, bear traps sprang on their sticks in tandem, and Mijo about jumped out of his skin. He laughed so he wouldn’t lose his nerve, and they progressed until they reached the center of the meadow and stepped into the cleared area encircling the cabin. Creaking steps led them up to the porch, and then there was only the warped old wood of the door. Mijo didn’t spot any obvious traps, but only a fool barge in obliviously. He stepped to the side so Arne could go first.

  Arne pushed the door violently and then jumped back, waiting for something to happen. Nothing happened, except that the door swung inward with a long creak. After a heart-beat, Brittney waved her stick inside and poked at the floor, but noth-ing flew at her. Satisfied, Mijo strode past her too the center of the single room.

  Someone had painted the walls once, and gray strips peeled sadly. Dust gathered in corners. Despite this, the cabin clearly wasn’t abandoned: a gener-ator grum-bled in the corner, and dirty plates were piled on the floor, table, and miniscule kitchen counter. To the far left lay a mess of blankets and pillows, and closer was a giant leather chair. The whittler’s chair, Mijo observed, seeing the knife on the arm and the wood curls around the feet. A strip of hair deco-rated the filthy neck rest. The hair was nearly black, like a bear’s, except that it was too long, and it fell in rumpled ringlets.

  “Is that . . . real?” Arne wondered. He stood staring at the far wall. Someone had mounted a human head there: blonde, female, and unfamiliar.

  “Probably,” Brittney said. “Look, here are taxidermy tools.” She pointed to the table. “That’s a lip tucker; that’s a fleshing knife. I think you use that for hair. Geez, someone went all out on this.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “It’s a good thing we told so many people exactly where we were going,” Mijo said. “They’ll search for us in droves, if we go missing. Then whatever secrets this place is keeping will be revealed.”

  “This leather stretcher is made of human bones,” Brittney said.

  “I’m not sure about this,” Arne said. “Maybe we should head back.”

  “Or that’s what it’s made to look like,” Brittney said. “How much do you want to bet this leather is real human?”

  “We should definitely go.”

  Mijo pressed his hand to his chest. His heart was going like mad, pain-ing him, but not because he was afraid. He wasn’t! He was excited about uncovering the truth!

  “Don’t be a baby,” Brittney said. “I was joking.” She saw Arne’s expression, sighed, and set down some pliers with a clink. “Yeah, okay. But don’t think—”

  She broke off, staring past Mijo. White rimmed her irises, and her lips parted. Mijo’s head swiveled of its own accord, and he saw a giant filling the doorway.

  It wore flesh-colored leather, and a smile of red paint decorated its porce-lain mask.

  Arne bolted first. He made it halfway to the window before the giant caught him, grabbed him by the neck, and hurled him into the wall. Arne banged into rope and iron. With a hollow thud, he collapsed in a pile of sticks.

  Attacking Arne had made the giant abandon the open doorway. Brittney dashed for it, only for the giant to appear before her. She ran straight into him, and the giant caught her on the rebound, one leather glove clamping on to her face. She thrashed, kicking and clawing, but he hardly seemed to notice.

  That left Mijo. He spread his hands and tried to look enchanting. “We are not your enemies,” he explained. “We know all about the NDA—”

  The giant tossed Brittney at him. Their heads banged, and her elbow drove his gut into the floor. She dug in her hands and feet, levering herself up, and the giant seized her face again. He strode to the corner of the room, tore open the lid of a trap door none of them had spotted, and tossed her down.

  “Hey, you don’t have to—I can walk—” Mijo protested as the giant loomed again. The giant whipped him aside, and Mijo fell after Brittney into the cool darkness. He landed on a jumble of squawks and knees and rolled away, across splintery wooden planks.

  It smelled really, really bad down here, of urine and raw meat and sweat. That smell seared Mijo’s brain magnesium white and sucked the marrow from his bones.

  Another body flopped through the square of light above, and the giant him-self followed. His heavy footsteps descended wooden rungs one by one. He reached to the side, and naked bulbs hissed to light across the basement.

  They stood in a nightmare of torture and death.

  Laid out on a steel table in the center of the room was a form that had once been human. Its chest and belly were stapled open, its innards coiled around spindles. To one side of the table, a metal stake jutted from the floor, its low top ending in four chains, each with a neck manacle at the end. On the other side, a bar ran parallel to the ceiling. It had been hung with dozens of meat hooks: shining steel S shapes with vicious points. They were each about ten inches long, but barely a third of an inch in diameter. They hardly seemed strong enough to support a human body—but there they were, side by side: nine men and women in various states of decay. They had been inverted and stripped, a hook thrust behind each Achilles tendon.

  Taylor dangled from the last one. Or what had been Taylor. Holes had been torn in the dirty, bruised skin, and skin fell in shreds off one leg. Her hair had been shorn, its ponytail lovingly displayed on the wall behind it. Mud and feces stained the legs and torso, and teeth had ripped chunks from the soft flesh.

  Mijo was distantly aware he was screaming, that he had gone mad. And then Brittney scooped up a dissection knife and launched herself at the giant.

  With one hand, the giant caught and broke her wrist, sending the knife clattering to the floor. He seized her with the other hand and carried her to the steel stake, where he manacled her around the neck. He went for Arne next, and Mijo used the oppor-tunity to fling himself onto the ladder. He was halfway up and lifting the trap door when a hand closed around his ankle. Mijo’s chin slammed into the ladder rungs as he was dragged back. Cold steel closed around his neck, and he lay there, stunned. Brittney sobbed beside him, but Mijo didn’t pay her any mind. For a long time, he couldn’t. Then, slowly, sheep-ishly, coherent thoughts began creeping back.

  The giant made himself busy with the body on the table. Mijo stopped look-ing at that, because if he looked, he wouldn’t be able to think, and he had to think.

  He was too good for this, too smart. He couldn’t die here, and he definitely didn’t want to die like that. Like a sheep.

  He closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. First things first: what exactly was going on here? Clearly, he was in the basement of the Denials facil-ity, in one of the secret hidden rooms. But in that case, where were the Denials? Was that giant one of them?

  Impossible. Even the Denials wouldn’t have hired this monster. Not because either brutality or ruthlessness was beyond them, but because he had clearly gone out of control. People had started noticing the disappearances, and the last thing the Denials wanted was to draw attention to themselves.

  Then there had been those rangers, warning him away. They had known Taylor was dead, although they had lied about the details.

  A base in the woods . . . a monster stationed there . . . mysterious strangers . . .

  This is a coverup.

  That had to be it; it made perfect sense. This had been a base, but something had gone terribly wrong. The giant must have been a scientist here. They had been experimenting on humans (that explained the tools), and the giant had volunteered, but the experiment had gone horribly wrong. He had grown huge but deformed, and had lost his speech and reason. Now, in his near-mindless state, he had continued to do what he had always done: experiment. Try to finish his work.

  Mijo glanced up and swiftly away again. The wall next to him was plain wood. Just wood and age, splinters and dirt. It’d be safe to look at that. He covered his ears, but it didn’t seem to help.

  The NDA leadership must have figured out what was going on, but not soon enough. The other scientists were the first victims. Then there had been that girl—the hiker who had escaped, who had gone to the police with her story of a giant with hooks for hands. She had clearly been hyster-ical, too trau-matized for accuracy, but her story had been close enough for the NDA to get suspicious.

  If some ignorant chick can escape, so can I, Mijo knew. But how? What could he say, that the giant would listen to—that he’d even understand? Sometimes, Mijo thought, there were disadvantages to being too smart.

  Arne moaned, and the giant was back in a flash, examining them.

  Mijo gathered up his courage. “You were a scientist, weren’t you?” he croaked.

  The giant paused. It was the first real response they’d had from him.

  “Shut up,” Brittney hissed.

  The giant glanced at her, then knelt by Mijo’s feet. Mijo flinched, but the giant only unlaced Mijo’s boots and socks and set them care-fully aside. Then he returned to the bar of hooks and chose the first empty one in line, the one nearest Taylor. He latched the hook to his belt and then returned to Mijo. Casually, he unlocked Mijo’s neck manacle and prodded him over to the ladder. Mijo headed up after another prod. If what was going on was what he thought, this was his best, his only, chance at escape. He pushed up the trapdoor and scram-bled out, across the room, and onto the porch.

  The giant made no move to stop him, and for a moment, they stood together on the porch, the giant reaching for his hook.

  “Give me a good head start,” Mijo said, “and I’ll give you the best hunt you’ve ever had.”

  The giant’s hand wavered, and Mijo took his chance: he turned and sprinted across the meadow, showing off his speed. He didn’t bother look-ing for traps. If he hit one or if he was slow—either way, he’d die. The only way to survive was to be lucky and fast.

  At the edge of the trees, without pausing, Mijo glanced back. The giant was waiting on the porch, hands to his sides. Mijo seemed to meet those eyes behind their eyeholes, and knew the giant was so confident in his abilities that he’d give Mijo a nice, long head start.

  Mijo ran straight into the setting sun, in part because the road lay that way, and in part to blind his pursuer. He didn’t care if he came out near the car; on balance, he preferred not to. The giant would anticipate that, and Mijo didn’t have the keys anyway. He should cut northwest, toward the town. Or would the giant be expect-ing that?

  “Watch it!” snapped a woman, appearing from nowhere. She grabbed his wrist and dragged him to the side, away from a smooth, grassy area that would have been gloriously soft under his bare feet. Mijo squeaked and dug in his heels. “That was a tiger trap!” the woman said. “Run this way. It’s coming!”

  Mijo’s brain flipped, reorienting. His legs pumped.

  It, she had called the giant. It, not he.

  She still wore the ranger outfit. She was the dour one from before, the one who had tried to scare them off. The one who had lied about Taylor.

  Dozens of pinpricks burned the soles of his feet as pine needles worked into callouses and smooth flesh alike. His toe caught a rock and he yelped. Could the giant track blood spore? Mijo theorized he could.

  Adrenaline dizzied him, pushed him on. And yet there was excitement too, a wild giddiness. “You’re one of them,” he told the agent.

  She didn’t answer. Trees passed him left and right; the way forward was wide open. The low sun drove tears from his eyes, and squirrels laughed at him.

  “I know you are! You’re from the Agency, sent to stop that monster.”

  By the glance she spared him, he knew he was right. He was right! He had been right all along, whatever people said! He was vindicated!

  . . . Taylor’s carcass dried in the basement, hung from hooks through her ankles. No way to know if she had died before or after being hooked.

  Mijo shuddered. “I know I’m right,” he explained to the agent, because it suddenly felt over-whelmingly important to tell her. “I’ve been right all along.” He glanced back at the broad, airy walk-ways between trees. He the land dipped and then sloped up again, slowing him. The tree trunks, sticky with sap, were unscalable. He could dive into one of those bushes, hide. Maybe the giant wouldn’t notice him.

  . . . Did Taylor try that?

  “There,” the agent said, letting go of his arm to point. “Run in exactly that direction. Circle to the right of any obstacles.”

  “Don’t leave me!” Mijo gasped. “You people created this thing! You have to protect me!”

  “Do what I say,” the agent warned, “or I’ll let you die, and we’ll use the next victim as bait.”

  This was so much in line with Mijo’s special knowledge of the Denials that he understood instantly. He nodded and promised obedience, but couldn’t stop himself from asking, “You’re not going to kill me for learning about you?”

  “No,” the agent said with a funny, cold lilt. “That would defeat the point. Besides, who would believe you? Hurry!” She shoved him forward. He danced to keep his footing, and by the time he looked up again, she was gone. He spun, searching for her—

  And there he was. It was. The giant. It stood behind him, at the top of the crest beyond which the meadow lay. Far though Mijo had come, he could still see it the giant clearly. The dying sun beamed full upon it, making the mask glow white, spark-ing off the steel in its hand.

  Mijo snarled and spun, sprinting away. He whipped around trees, keep-ing to the right. Cramp streaked down his side, and white-hot fear burned his brain.

  Mijo glanced back again, and saw the giant was halfway down the slope, loping easily, painted lips smiling. So fast. Mijo put his head down and ran harder, choking for breath, fighting the screaming in his thoughts. He could hear the giant now, thud-thud, closer and closer and closer.

  He had to time this just right.

  Closer and closer. Thud-thud.

  Mijo jolted to the side, and the hook hissed past, scratching a line through his shoulder. Mijo threw himself forward, whipped around the next tree. His ankle caught—he flew—he sprawled, breathless on the ground. He rolled to the side, and the ripping agony of the meat hook never came. Instead, a tree branch whipped through the air, and the giant howled.

  Mijo curled onto his side, gaping. The giant stood nearby, its leg in the ground up to the knee. It seemed to be struggling, and Mijo had no idea what had happened to it.

  From her perch, Daisy knew exactly what was happening.

  What are hunters vulnerable to? Being hunted. While the Heart was dormant, conventional weapons were enough, especially with specially agency-issued ammunition. But with the start of the victim cycle, the rules had changed. During an active cycle, Lawrence said, slasher-types were vulnerable to only one thing: their own weapons. In the case of a hunter, the agents needed hunt as it would hunt: flush out their prey with a lure, snare it, and attack it with its primary tool.

  When the cycle had activated, Daisy and Lawrence had aban-doned tree and rifle and rope. Without yet having the right weapons with which to fight the Heart, they could not allow it to spot them. They lay in the long grass of the meadow as it left the house in favor of the woods beyond, searching for them. Once it could no longer see the house, they had snuck in. Daisy had taken its rope; Lawrence had visited the basement. Then they had again hidden in the long grass and stayed there as it returned to wait for its prey.

  They waited for nearly two hours, until the giant had dumped its victims through the trap door and followed them down. Only they did they squirm out of the meadow and race into the woods. Lawrence swiftly identified a promising snare and pointed it out to Daisy before setting about building a whip trap. Daisy climbed the tree and lay with binoculars over her eyes, keeping watch for the hunter. When it had emerged with Mijo, Lawrence had ordered Daisy to stay put and run to meet Mijo and give him the instructions he needed before returning and swarming up a different tree.

  Without knowing what he was doing, Mijo tripped the wire, activating the whip trap. The primed branch snapped out and t struck the Heart, driving it back so that it stepped in its own snare: a narrow pit full of overlapping, downward-facing barbs. Stepping in such a trap was bad enough; getting a leg out again was infinitely worse.

  The Heart howled as it tried to pull free, and Lawrence dropped from her perch above its back. As she fell, she drove in the hooks she had stolen from the basement: one through its neck, one through the wrist that held its own hook. The Heart’s back thudded to the forest floor. It flailed, but it was weak against the snare and weaker against those hooks. In fact, Daisy saw as she dropped out of her own sheltering tree, its life was leaking out around the steel tips. This, then, must be how Lawrence would have defeated it solo: wiggling those hooks, widening the holes until its life gusted out of it—kill-ing the Heart and its victims with it.

  Daisy shut her eyes to violence and opened them to ensor-cellment. The hooks parted lips in the Heart’s invulnerability, especially in its neck. Near-ing it as if in a dream, Daisy reached in. With gloved thumb and forefinger, she punched inside the vulnera-bility, drawing out a slender streak of thread like spiderweb. She worked slowly, with infinite care lest it snap. The vulnerability widened infinitesimally as she pulled. The thread caught, a clump behind the opening. She worked it back patiently, untangling and smoothing.

  At first, she could ease out only the tiniest, most delicate frag-ments. But like pulling stuffing through a torn stitch in a teddy bear’s side, the process went faster and faster. Nearby stitches tore open, until Daisy had to hold the seam lest it burst. She unraveled the Heart in cotton puffs until only a cloth shell remained, and then she worked that out through the vulnera-bility, the hook last of all. The Heart dispersed, and nothing remained.

  Daisy closed her eyes to nothingness and opened them to the first chill of night. A shiver of air tickled her lungs and dried the sweat on her fore-head. She looked at her expressionless partner and wondered how much time had passed.

  “The cabin was real,” Lawrence said.

  “Yes,” Daisy agreed. She had not had to draw it out. “Only the hooks were part of the Heart. The hook. It was all one.” She blinked. Night cooled her eyes. “The basement was real. The other victims are still trapped.”

  “We will retrieve them.”

  “Of course,” Daisy said. She had crouched as she worked, and her legs had gone numb. She stood and would have fallen, had not Law-rence caught her. “Ugh, thanks. I’m so sore. And don’t tell me Romance fitness doesn’t pass in Horror! I know that! Romance likes pretty, not fit!”

  Lawrence said nothing, but it pleased Daisy to imagine she was amused. It was hard to tell, among the darkening trees, with every-thing shades of gray.

  Insects buzzed. An owl screeched. A breeze eased the pine needles above. An ordinary night in an ordinary wilderness, with only ordinary dangers. They had survived.

  Mijo had survived.

  “Um, excuse me,” he said, “but could you explain—”

  Daisy turned a dazzling smile on him. “We’re going to go rescue your friends,” she chirped, “and then leave without explaining any-thing, so you’re left wondering about us for the rest of your life!”

  “Oh,” Mijo said—and thought, gratified, that that was exactly what he would have expected, from the National Denial Agency.