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Okay. Think.

Daniel’s getting sluggish. He’s trying to say something but it’s not working very well, only coming out pain-slurred and panicked. An adult male can lose like thirty percent of his blood volume before it starts to mess with him and yeah, it feels like there’s that much, holy shit. It’s starting to smell in here.

His promise not to tell doesn’t mean anything. There are a thousand eyes on me, all waiting for me to mess up. When I say why I did it, I won’t be believed. It was overkill anyway. I was asking for it. I agreed. And this is exactly the bloodshed Hexagon Productions and my mother have been looking for.

I’m so fucked.

The apartment complex has a back door. I nudge my way out into the dim evening light, find the Red Line, and try to muddle my way back to Eastern Market. Every sideward glance makes me nervous. I am very very good at not flinching.

The path is Red Line toward Glenmont to Metro Center. Then I have to wait for half a fucking hour because there’s a delay on the track, and I nearly shatter my teeth with how tight I’m clenching my jaw. I consider walking but it’s like two miles and it’ll take a whole hour and I can’t be on the surface right now. I can’t.

Instead, I keep checking my phone. For anything. A text reading I know what you did from an unknown number. Daniel calling to let me know that he’s stable and awake and told the cops everything. I even do a Google search of my name across the past twenty-four hours to make sure Felicity hasn’t blasted their recordings across every social media platform in existence.

It takes too long to get from Daniel’s apartment to home. And the entire time, there’s nothing.

I did it because I had to. Because I said stop and he didn’t. I was protecting myself. The ambulance has to have arrived, and he’s at the hospital, and he’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.

I barrel in through the front door of the town house and barely manage to get it shut behind me. It’s fully dark. According to the kitchen calendar, Mom was supposed to be doing something tonight. Meeting with a ghostwriter, I think, so she could hire someone to write a novelization of the documentary. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I kick off my shoes, throw the bloody sock in the trash under a pile of paper towels, hide the driver’s license and photo in my backpack, strip off my uniform sweater and check it for any stains I might have missed. Clean. I chuck it onto the couch.

Into the kitchen. Down one glass of water, then a second. Dig in the freezer for a handful of ice to press against my throat.

If there’s anything Dad taught me, it’s that there’s always a way out of every situation, as long as you’re smart enough or can throw enough money at it. Time to take a page out of his book. With what’s in front of me, with what I know, what can I do? What are my options?

First option: Daniel keeps his mouth shut. He gets fixed up, and he doesn’t call the cops, and neither of us has to do anything. If the documentary continues, we pretend it never happened—if it suddenly grinds to a halt, we never see each other again. Or he dies, and he never gets the chance. Easy, if not borderline improbable. So I can’t count on that.

Second option: He tells, but I counter that it was self-defense. Maybe I tweak the details—alter it enough to meet the standard that men require from sexual assault cases. But this requires that sexual assault cases be believed at all, and that everyone isn’t already salivating at the chance to see me taken apart. So. There goes that one, too.

Third option: Fuck. I don’t know. Run away? I don’t have a car—I don’t even have a learner’s permit—or a bank account that doesn’t have Mom’s name on it. I could start pulling cash now, before anyone catches on, but that’ll raise red flags with the bank’s security. It’d get cut off quick, probably with a call to Mom to boot. And where would I even go, without the trust?

There are thirty-five thousand security cameras in Washington, DC.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know, I don’t—

I don’t hear Mom approaching until she’s already grabbed me by the hair and slammed me temple-first into the kitchen cabinets.

My head bounces off the wood. The entire cabinet shudders and I try to catch myself before I hit the ground. I can’t. My body has been looking for an excuse to give out and it has one. Knees crumple. I drop the switchblade when it falls out of my shallow uniform pocket. I don’t realize it’s Mom, it’s Mom, until she’s grabbing me by the shoulders, by my shirt, dragging me across the floor.

It’s Mom. I grab her wrists. On instinct. Try to pry her hands off my clothes but can’t get ahold of anything.

She snapped off her manicures and painted the nails underneath with red polish. My red polish.

“Mom,” I wheeze. My head throbs. My vision blurs. She hit me hard enough that I felt my brain bounce around in my skull, shaking me like a baby she’s trying to kill. “Mom, Mom, wait, what are you doing, Mom—”

At the mouth of the basement, she loses her grip. My back slams diagonally against the top step. My shoulder blazes with pain.

“Mom!”

She shoves me down the step.

Thud, thud.

I catch myself on the third stair. Snatch the railing. Keep myself from sliding all the way to the bottom.

The door slams.

And locks.

What? No. The basement door doesn’t lock. I checked. I checked it during the interview. I know every lock in the house.