12“Holy shit,” Wes exclaimed as they pushed out of the crowded theater and into the crisp mountain night. “Did you see that decapitation?”“Of course I saw that decapitation,” Sidney said, taking long strides to match his excited pace.“It was so slow,” Wes continued. “So visceral. That’s why horror still needs practical effects. CGI couldn’t capture all the textures of flesh and bone and veins that way.”“I agree completely.”“And the way the eyes just sort of twitched and went dead. Amazing. Just amazing!”“So, you liked that one then?” Sidney joked.“Strong start. It was a very strong start.” Wes finally caught up to himself and slowed his steps. “So, now what?”“Oh shit!” Sidney threw her hands up.“What?”“Adam,” she exclaimed. “I haven’t checked my phone.”“You haven’t what? Are you sure you’re OK, Sid?”Sidney playfully shoved at Wes’s shoulder as she extracted her phone from her back pocket. It had snuggled against her so long it left a dent in her flesh. Her anxio

14Sidney’s hands trembled as she cupped the steaming coffee mug on the breakfast bar in her condo. She gently touched her palms to the mug then retracted as the heat singed the scabs that had hardened there. Exhaustion lay heavily on her muscles, the painful drain of all her flight response adrenaline, yet her mind sprinted in several concurrent and colliding circles. Her thoughts whirled as she stared blankly into the dark liquid in front of her.Her eyes drifted out of focus, her memory assaulting her in staccato bursts. The weight of her attacker climbing up her. Her heartbeat banging so desperately in her ears. The gravel grating against her and digging into her palms as she clawed. The lights of the condo parking lot so far away. She was back in that moment when Wes opened the door, and her arms flinched so hard she nearly spilled the coffee on herself.“Just me,” Wes said, gently.“Was there anything out there?” Sidney said in a shaky voice.Wes answered by holding up

16Adam: Good morning, beautiful.I miss you.Sidney smiled to herself, reading the messages through bleary eyes. She felt relieved to hear from him, to read the affirming words, like an addict getting a fix.She lay on her back in bed as the dawn painted along her ceiling. No alarm waited on her phone since it was the weekend, but she had been watching the light creep into her window, developing the room out of the darkness. The hours had dragged out above her. She had counted the seconds tick off as her mind refused to plunge into sleep, as her brain flexed hyperaware of every noise and creak inside and outside her room.Sidney let a heavy, frustrated breath dribble out of her lips and lifted the phone to her face to read Adam’s messages again. She typed I miss you too into the field then tapped the delete button until it disappeared again. The cursor blinked, mocking her.Sidney ran her fingertips along the vacant sheet beside her. She turned her head to look at the empty

18The house looked restored with the new screen, locked window, and cleaned mess. The house even felt normal with Kendra and the kids back within its walls. Their energy filled the looming vacancy Sidney had felt the night she interrupted the break-in and the morning that followed when Jordan escorted her back to her ransacked room. Yet below Sidney’s casual smile, as she sat on the couch beside Kendra and listened to their children play through the hallway, her heart and mind were at odds. Her brain reasoned that the danger had passed and life was back to normal, yet her heart could not relax in her chest. Her anxiety, warranted or not, nibbled at the edge of her brain in the quiet moments between her and Kendra’s words. Donning fluffy pajama pants, Kendra folded her legs beneath her as she piled her curls on the top of her head. She loosely gathered the tresses before winding a rubber band around them. When she released her hands, the strands fanned out like the pointed leav

20Just go home. They had been told to just go home. Sidney and Aiden had told the same story and answered the same questions, described their son on repeat. They had texted the most recent photos to the officers as the AMBER alerts began chirping on their phones describing their own boy. They had watched the coach, beset by officers and questions of his own. They had filled out the missing person report, tears threatening to blind Sidney as she scribbled. Now they were supposed to let them do their jobs, let them send out a BOLO and set up checkpoints, let them question the others from baseball practice. And just go home.The words had not made sense when the officer said them to Sidney and Aiden. Sidney stared at him dumbfounded, knowing he was saying words but unable to discern what they meant. They held no meaning at a time like this. They sounded like instructions to do nothing, but she could not do nothing. When she did nothing, she only inventoried all the awful things