DEE LAY ON THE floor, pretending to sleep. Twice now, Kimmi had shown up in the white room, emerging through the hidden door while Dee was sound asleep. Last time, she’d woken Dee with a fierce kick to her lower back, the pain from the blow almost as terrifying as the unpredictability of her captor’s mood, but Kimmi’s state of mind seemed to swing violently back and forth, and as soon as Dee sat up, Kimmi was all smiles.

“Sing me a song,” she’d said sweetly. “A song about your pretty new sister and how much you love her. You have to earn nice things.”

Dee had played along, inventing lyrics on the spot about how pretty Kimmi was, and how lucky Dee was to have her as a big sister. Dee had been made to beg for food. To braid hair and paint toenails and “play” other “games,” Kimmi’s code word for torture. But somehow that stupid little song about the wonderful and beautiful Kimmi had been the last straw.

So while she’d continued to sing, inwardly she’d been plotting.

The door. She’d searched for it, tried to trigger it, but without success. The only one who could open that door was Kimmi, and so Dee would have to be ready the next time her kidnapper entered the white room.

After Kimmi had left that day, dropping a greasy bag of cold french fries on the floor as she retreated through the hidden door, Dee had tried to act as normal as possible. She’d opened her eyes as she spun around from her place in the corner, then pounced on the bag, scarfed down its contents. All exactly as Kimmi would expect. When she was done, Dee had sat down on the floor and waited.

It was hard to know how much time had passed, since the lights were always on and Dee had no sense as to the passing of day and night, but she tried to mimic her daily “routine” as closely as possible. After staring at the walls for a while, she executed a perimeter search of the room for at least the dozenth time, feeling her way down the smooth walls as she sought an escape. She pretended to be excited in one corner, as if she thought she’d found something, but after a thorough examination of the area, Dee pretended to give up, breaking down into fake tears. Then she curled up into a ball and, making sure her hair was artfully covering her face, she acted as if she was asleep.

Only, Dee was wide awake and on alert. She regulated her breathing and lay utterly still for what felt like an eternity. Her muscles ached, desperate for a change of position. The cold, hard floor felt as if it was stabbing her body in a million different places, but she didn’t move. She was sure that Kimmi was watching her somehow. Waiting. And Dee had to be ready to act the instant she heard…

Click.

The door release. Dee had memorized the sound, which meant that Kimmi was about to creep into the white room. Through her tangled hair, Dee saw a section of the far wall crack open.

Now!

Dee jumped to her feet and rushed the door. She arrived just as Kimmi stepped through. The older girl was shocked to find Dee barreling toward her, and it dulled her reaction. Even though Dee was smaller, she had momentum on her side. She shoved Kimmi so hard, she stumbled, falling back against a steep flight of stairs.

Dee ran for her life. She pumped her weakened legs as fast as she could, racing up the stairs. She heard a shriek of rage from behind her, then pounding footsteps.

Kimmi was in pursuit.

“Help me!” Dee screamed. Maybe there was someone home. But was that a good thing? Kimmi had told Dee that her dad used the white room to kill people. Would Dee be next?

She had to take the chance.

“Somebody, help!”

The door at the top of the stairs was closed, but as Dee wrenched the knob, it turned easily.

“Stop it!” Kimmi cried. “You’re mine!”

Dee tumbled through the door and into a hallway. Bright sunshine flooded the space. It was the middle of the day, which meant even if nobody else was in the house, there had to be people outside: gardeners, stay-at-home parents, deliverymen. Her sneakers squeaked against the shiny hardwood floors as she bolted down the hall, searching for the front door. “Help me! Someone help me!”

A knock in the distance. “Hello? Is everyone okay in there?”

Someone was at the front door. Someone heard her.

Dee ran in the direction of the voice, through what looked like an expansive kitchen into an arched foyer. “I’ve been kidnapped!” she cried. She saw the front door, saw the body of someone outlined in the beveled glass window beside it. “My name is Dolores Hernandez and I’ve been—”

Dee’s hand was on the door handle when someone grabbed her from behind.

“No!” Kimmi hissed. “I won’t let you go. I’ll never let you go!”

Kimmi dragged Dee away from the front door, away from freedom, back toward the white room. Dee struggled against her but was too weak to fight her off. “Call nine-one-one!” she cried, tears streaming down her face. “Don’t let her take me back. Please!”

There was a sound of splintering wood. A flood of sunlight. A man raced across the foyer toward her, his body outlined by the sun. His hands were around her, pulling her free of Kimmi.

“I’ve got you,” he said, racing out of the house. He had a van parked out front, and Dee was just able to recognize the US Postal Service logo on the side before he deposited her in the driver’s seat.

“Hello?” he said into his cell phone. “Is this nine-one-one? I’d like to report an emergency.”

Nyles isn’t Kimmi, Dee said to herself. Neither is Mara or Griselda. You can trust them.

Dee’s skin was icy cold as she walked down the middle of Ninth Street, her toes partially numb from the ridiculous shoes, and though she’d intentionally left the house without a jacket so as not to cover up her thematic outfit, she silently cursed that decision, wrapping her arms around her waist to stave off the shivers.

“Would you like my jacket?” Nyles offered, peeling the black corduroy off his shoulders. Which was totally and adorably sweet of him.

“No, thanks,” she said. “This outfit is clickbait, remember?”

“More like bait for pedos,” Griselda said.

Ahead of them, Mara stopped. “Here it is.”

The abandoned elementary-school auditorium was oddly out of place. In a compound that appeared to be cobbled together from portables, corrugated metal storage units, and a few other single-story structures, the auditorium soared above everything, a hulking mass in the darkness. And not only was it taller than the rest of the school, but its art deco style was completely anachronistic. Heavily adorned with sculptural flourishes and ornate geometric lines, it must have been a remnant of the world’s fair that had prompted the building of the island in the first place.

Nyles took Dee’s hand and led her up a short set of steps, their crumbling masonry precarious beneath Dee’s unstable footwear. They stopped at metal double doors, more modern than the rest of the building and in significantly better shape. Even in the subdued light, Dee could see that the material was sound, rust free, and most likely impenetrable.

“Are they meant to keep strangers out,” Nyles mused, “or victims in?”

Dee sighed. “Only one way to find out.” She swung open the door.

The smell hit her first, a mix of wet dog and manure that instantly reminded her of field trips to the Los Angeles Zoo, and as Dee stood on the threshold, she half expected to hear the deafening roar of a lion or a howling hyena cackle echoing from inside.

But the auditorium was blessedly quiet.

The moonlight streaming through the front door illuminated a small patch of the lobby, just enough for Dee to discern the threadbare carpeting, stained and ripped from years of neglect. She followed Nyles inside, ears straining against the oppressive silence, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the doors leading from the lobby into the main body of the auditorium stood wide open.

The interior glowed a dull blue from a dozen tall, thin windows that stretched nearly to the vaulted roof, giving the old auditorium the appearance of a small cathedral. The bottom floor of the multipurpose room had been cleared of the chairs and tables that would have filled it during school lunches or holiday performances, leaving a vast empty space.

Well, mostly empty. There were notable exceptions: two large animal pens stood down center on the auditorium’s stage.

“I’ll give you this one,” Griselda said, at Mara’s side. “This is definitely Molly’s setup.”

“Thanks,” Mara said. In the pale light, her skin looked positively transparent. “But where’s Molly?”

Nyles and Dee crossed the auditorium, her kitten heels clacking against the tile floor. The cages loomed before them. They were identical: rectangular, about ten feet high, with thick iron bars pitted and marred with use and age. One side of each cage was missing entirely.

“Weird.” Dee climbed up onto the stage for a closer look. “The hinges on this side are gone.”

Nyles joined her. “Looks as if the doors have been removed.”

“Why would Molly dismantle her cages?” Griselda asked, mounting the stairs beside the proscenium. “That’s her thing. It’d be like Robin’s Hood burning his bow and arrows.”

“The doors must be around here somewhere.” Dee searched the darkened area upstage.

“Look!” Nyles pointed at a set of deep grooves in the splintered floorboards where something had been dragged on or off the stage recently.

Griselda folded her arms. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Dee’s eyes drifted from the scratch marks to a dark patch beside them, as if the old wooden stage had been stained by something.

Blood.

Dee could easily picture the scene that had played out. An inmate, probably drugged during the kidnapping, wakes to the deafening roar of Bengal tigers, famished and ready for mealtime, pacing menacingly in the cages. A moment of panic, the desperate search for an escape, Molly’s taunting. Then, the inevitable. Screams of agony, a body torn limb from limb, gore spilling from the victim’s remains, the coppery metallic tang of blood filling the air as…

A thud broke Dee from her thoughts. She froze, visions of mangled bodies and ravenous beasts forgotten. What was that? Footsteps? A door closing? Was Molly here after all?

She spun around toward the open auditorium. “Did anyone hear…” But the rest of the sentence faded on her lips. The floor of the auditorium was empty.

Mara was gone.