DASH AND DYLAN are hiding in a corner of the Hollywood studio, away from the glare of the hot set lights. The cast and crew mill about, ignoring them. The brothers play a game, tossing Skittles at each other, only they’re laughing so hard that they miss most of them.

Chewing on a candy, Dylan says, “Everyone’s looking at us like we have two heads.”

“It’s all your imagination,” says Dash, rolling his eyes. “Stop being weird.”

Dylan stops smiling. He leans close. “You don’t really think I’m weird, do you, little brother?”

Dash feels his face heat up. He hates it when Dylan calls him that. But Dylan won’t cut it out. Ever. “Well, yeah,” says Dash. “You’re weirder than me, for sure.”

Dylan’s eyes grow dark. “You’d never leave me alone here, would you?”

Dash shakes his head, confused. “What are you talking about?” Something in his hand feels suddenly heavy. He glances down and sees that he’s clutching a metal tool with sharp blades at the tip. He looks up to find his brother standing only inches away from him now, eyes glaring—or pleading—suddenly watery. “Okay, okay, geez … I’ll never leave you alone! Not here. Not anywhere.”

Dylan grins, and Dash feels chills tickle his lower back. “Promise,” Dylan says.

The set has changed around them. It no longer looks like a living room in the suburbs, but instead, like a dusty shed.

How did we get here? Dash wonders.

The lights blink out, and the set is thrown into darkness.

Never leave …

“Promise!” But Dylan no longer looks like Dylan. He looks like a clown, with a white plastic face, a red gash of a frown, and two black pits for eyes.

Before Dash can answer, Dylan has wrapped his fingers around Dash’s throat. He’s squeezing. Squeezing. Dash’s eyes water. He can’t catch his breath or move his hands. Something is trying to pull him to the ground.

“Promise!” the clown hisses again.

But Dash can’t—

“Dash!” someone shouts in his ear. “The bolt cutter!”

And Dash swings his hands upward, feeling the hard connection as the bolt cutter smashes into Dylan’s chest. He tumbles backward, groaning in shock.

Air rushes into Dash’s lungs, and he collapses against the door of the burned-out car. Poppy and Azumi appear at his side. And reality crashes in around him.

* * * 

Azumi didn’t have more than a second after being torn from the vision before she saw that the Specials had arrived. She was leaning over Dash when Matilda, Irving, and Dylan came back.

Poppy rolled to the floor, slipping away from Matilda’s outstretched arms. Azumi ducked around the side of the car to avoid Irving. But Dylan tackled Dash. The boys flailed in the dirt and the mud.

Azumi called out, “Dylan, leave him alone!” Irving wheeled around the car after her. She shifted her weight to avoid him and immediately lost sight of the twins. “Poppy, help him!”

From the other side of the car, Poppy cried out in frustration. Matilda was crouching, about to leap toward her. At the last second, Poppy raised her foot and steadied her leg, and the sole of her sneaker smashed into Matilda’s chest. Kicking out, Poppy knocked the girl to the ground. Without thinking, she turned over and then scrambled toward the bolt cutter, which Dash had dropped. The boys continued to struggle, Dash groaning under the weight of his twin. Poppy swung the heavy tool at Dylan. It almost hurt to listen as the bladed tip swiped at Dylan’s shoulder. Distracted, Dylan turned to her and snarled.

A weight dropped onto Poppy’s back. Matilda yanked at her hair and pulled her head backward. The cat mask stared down at Poppy, only inches away. She could feel Matilda’s breath on her forehead, puffing through the small slit in the plastic. She swung out her arms, trying to find the bolt cutter, but it had fallen somewhere out of reach.

Matilda jerked Poppy’s head so hard, Poppy heard a crack. Pain shot down her spine and panic flooded her veins. It was the first time that Poppy feared that Matilda no longer only wished to scare her … or even hurt her. The girl was actually trying to kill her—to pop her skull off her neck, like a piece of fruit from a tree branch …

“Help me!” Poppy screamed.

Dash heard her cry out but he couldn’t reach her, not with Dylan clinging to his side. Poppy’s swing of the bolt cutter had knocked Dylan askew, and Dash had turned over and crawled toward the car. Despite the flat tire and rotted carriage, there were still several inches of space beneath it.

With another flash from the sky outside, Dash could see that the bolt cutter was only about a foot away. He grabbed it and then scrambled forward. Dylan lost his grip as Dash forced himself under the car. Pressed to the sour-smelling dirt, he felt a little safer. If he didn’t catch his breath soon, he wouldn’t be able to go on.

Under the car, he began to approach Poppy and Matilda from a different angle. Poppy cried out as Matilda pulled her head back again.

Dylan reached toward Dash, swinging his arm back and forth, but Dash darted out of the way. “Azumi!” he called out. “Do something!”

Dash heard footfalls to his left. They were headed around the front of the car, toward where Matilda was gripping Poppy.

But another pair of feet followed close behind. These were linked by a short length of rusted chain. Irving!

Dash used the last of his strength to push himself forward. He shoved the bolt cutter out from under the car, the tip of it catching the chain, and Irving fell forward, slamming to the ground.

The bear mask turned to look at him, snarling deep and low. Dash was paralyzed with fear. He could hear Dylan scurrying toward him from the back of the car. If Irving came at him from the front, there would be no escape. Irving’s chain rang out as he tried to shake the bolt cutter away.

Azumi stood frozen as Poppy squealed in agony.

An idea struck Dash like a blow to the temple. He wiggled forward quickly and then grasped both handles of the tool. Irving’s bear mask seemed to smirk before its plastic mouth opened wide, rank breath pouring out of a deep hole.

Dash squeezed the bolt cutter shut, the blades closing on the rusted links of Irving’s chain. Before Dash could blink, the chain snapped.

The bear’s jaws closed, and a gasp came from inside the mask. Seconds later, a long, thin crack appeared in the center of the bear’s head. The crack spread, crumbling faster and faster, as the mask fell apart.

Matilda and Dylan screamed as if in pain.

Glancing back, Dash watched Dylan pull himself out from under the car. Matilda fell off Poppy and scrambled away from her, focused on Irving. Poppy clutched at her neck. “You okay?” Azumi asked.

Poppy groaned. “Just keep her away from me …” Azumi rushed over, helping her sit up, watching Matilda and Dylan in case they came at them again.

Dash stared at the boy who’d been chained up like a circus animal for decades. His brown eyes were barely visible, but Dash could see tears glistening. Irving reached toward Dash, and Dash allowed the boy to take his hands and pull him from the wreck’s undercarriage.

Crouching beside him, Dash managed to ask, “Are you … you?”

Irving touched his own face, then smiled and nodded.

“I didn’t take off your mask,” said Dash. “How—” But before Dash could finish, Irving began to fade, his skin growing translucent.

“You gave me what I needed,” said Irving, his voice soft, as if coming from a distant room, “what Cyrus took from me … my freedom … Thank you …”

Then he too was gone. Just like Randolph and Esme and Aloysius. All that was left were the links that had enclosed his ankles. He’d never wear them again.

A scuffling sound made Dash stiffen.

Matilda and Dylan were standing side by side, several feet from where Azumi sat with Poppy, the expressions on their masks even more exaggerated than before, eyebrows tilted downward, their smiles full of teeth.

“Over here,” Dash whispered to the two girls. “Hurry.”

Poppy held her neck tenderly. Azumi slid backward along the ground, wrapping an arm around Poppy’s waist, pulling her along. But for every move the girls made, Matilda and Dylan took a threatening step forward.