Committed to telling Glen next week about her premonitions, Rachel celebrates by eating dinner on the couch while streaming a movie. Woo-hoo! Also, she eats her Black Bird Café dinner straight out of the to-go containers; washing dishes is not celebrating.

Rachel suggests five thirty, after she gets off work, and rattles off the address for her dad’s house. More spacious and, at least, there will be one other person to share the normal contacts. Her dad is an expert on diversionary handshakes and greetings on Rachel’s behalf.

“Deputies don’t exactly have thriving social lives. Except with other deputies. Cops put people on edge.” So do people with ESP.

“I’m going to the restroom,” Rachel says, tipping her head in that direction. Her dad starts rubbing his temples as if he has a splitting headache. I am his splitting headache, Rachel thinks. “Well … you’re too old for me to go with you,” he says. “Please—be careful.” 

Ruby’s tail eagerly thwops against the leg of Rachel’s chair. It isn’t Rachel’s imagination; Ruby knows what “work” is, and she loves it. Rachel can relate; work is her great distractor.

I wonder why her solitariness makes me feel so much better about myself. Hey, I haven’t done all that badly. Look at my mates. Look how cool they are . I still have that thirteen-year-old-girl thing of wanting to belong, which is ridiculous in a thirty-seven-year-old woman.

We never talk about the thing we did and, most of all, the thing we didn’t do. Our silence about that summer is the thing that binds us together. The reason the four of us are still friends twenty-five years later.

When Maddie returned to the kitchen after five minutes, Sonia was reaching up into the top cupboard to put away a packet of Coco Pops and Maddie was in possession of a leaflet for summer camp , and a piece of knowledge that she intended to use later if she needed it.

A world in which friends played fun tricks on one another was all very well in theory – it was the kind of thing she lapped up in books – but she wasn’t at all sure she liked it in practice. After all, it meant it could happen to you at any point. And you might not find the trick fun at all.

As if secrets somehow lose their power with time. But the opposite is true – the longer you keep a secret, the more potent it becomes. The harder it is to imagine ever revealing it.

Blaming yourself doesn’t mean you’re guilty. We blamed ourselves. With good reason. Perhaps, after all, blame does mean you’re guilty; it’s just a question of what you’re guilty of.

...how can you let the dead bury their dead when they might not be dead at all?

Maddie was fearless. That was what they all said. The trouble with fearless people, Lucy thought, was that they sometimes did very dangerous things.

She hovered awkwardly beside him. She didn’t have long. But something about the way he’d said he didn’t want to be alone made it impossible to leave him. He looked at her properly then. Brown eyes with big dark circles under them.

Everyone I’ve seen in the last four months asks the same question. They stare at my missing patch of hair, which I’ve combed over without much success. Then they say, “Why did you do it?”

Breaking into a sweat, I scream. “Let me out.” A woman chuckles. “See if you can find your way out. No one has yet.”

A woman with a wrinkled face and long gray braids sits beside a circle of stones, meditating. Her index fingers and thumbs touch, resting in her lap. “Who are you?” I say. “And where am I?” She opens her eyes. “Did you bring the cat?”“Yes, I did. Does it matter?” She arches her eyebrows. “You’d be surprised how few people bring Brutus with them.”

I shiver, and goosebumps prick my flesh. I’m trapped and caught in a game I don’t want to play. I’ll have to try all the exit doors until I break through one without the retinal scan security.

I shrug. “I’m nobody special. I’m an average person with an average family who has made mistakes and is getting her life back together. Or so I’d hoped before I came here.”

I stand there, open mouthed, taking it all in. My feet don’t move. This last bit is almost too much for me to take. I’m not sure I have the stamina to keep going. When will this game end?

She pulls out her phone and types a text. The clicking makes a satisfying sound as she taps out a message. A hunger to cradle a phone rises within me. I miss my device.

Tears wet my cheeks. His words sucker punched me. If only I had that day to do over.

Spit flies and sprays my cheeks when he says, “You think you can refuse, but it’s not an option. You entered at your own risk and ignored posted warnings. You’ll give us all the information we seek at any cost. You’ll help us improve our model, whether you like it or not.”

The trickle becomes a flood, rushing in and swirling around my feet. I don’t see a door or a window. I’ve got to figure this game out before they kill me.

This is my fault. I invited the monster into my house.

“In addition to food being provided, we have special lights to emulate sunlight. Each person underground must sit in front of a happy light to read or work on their laptop for two hours each day. Otherwise, we’ve found workers get cranky without actual daylight.”