“Think you’re smart?”

“Yes!”

“How about this?” Pennywise reached behind him, pulled a gun out of his waistband. “Does this look real, you little bitch? You want to test it?”

Wolfman snarled at Pennywise. “Now you chill. And you—”

He added a second snarl for Cate. “Little smart-ass. Eat that soup, all of it. Same with the milk. Or when I come back, I’ll start breaking your fingers. Do what you’re told, you go back to being a princess in a couple days.”

Leaning down, Pennywise grabbed her hair with one hand, yanked her head back, and pressed the gun to her throat.

“Back off, you fucking clown.” Wolfman grabbed his shoulder, but Pennywise shook it off.

“She needs a lesson first. You want to find out what happens when little rich bitches back-talk? Say, ‘No, sir.’ Say it!”

“No, sir.”

“Eat your fucking dinner.”

He stormed out as she sat on the floor, shaking, sobbing.

“Just eat the soup, for Christ’s sake,” Wolfman muttered. “And be quiet.”

He went out, locked the door.

Because the floor was cold, she crawled back onto the bed. She didn’t have a blanket, and couldn’t stop shaking. Maybe she was a little hungry, but she didn’t want the soup.

But she didn’t want the man in the clown mask to break her fingers or shoot her. She just wanted Nina to come and sing to her, or Daddy to tell her a story, or her mom to show her all the pretty clothes she bought that day.

They were looking for her. Everybody. And when they found her, they’d put the men in the masks in jail forever.

Comforted by that, she spooned up some soup. It didn’t smell good, and the little bit she swallowed tasted wrong. Just wrong.

She couldn’t eat it. Why did they care if she ate it?

Frowning, she sniffed at it again, sniffed at the glass of milk.

Maybe they put poison in it. She trembled over that, rubbed her arms to warm them, to soothe herself. Poison didn’t make sense. But it didn’t taste right. She’d seen lots and lots of movies. Bad guys put stuff in food sometimes. Just because she was kidnapped, she wasn’t stupid. She knew that much. And they didn’t tie her up, just locked her in.

She started to run to the window, then thought: Quiet, quiet. She eased out of bed, padded to the window. She could see trees and dark, the shadow of hills. No houses, no lights.

Glancing behind her, heart thumping, she tried to open the window. She tried to unlock it, felt the nails.

Panic wanted to come, but she closed her eyes, just breathed and breathed. Her mom liked to do yoga and sometimes let her do it, too. Breathe and breathe.

They thought she was stupid. Just a stupid kid, but she wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t going to eat the soup or drink the milk that they’d put drugs in. Probably.

Instead, she took the bowl and the glass, picked her way carefully toward the bathroom. She dumped it in the toilet first, then peed because she really had to.

Then she flushed it all away.

When they came back, she’d pretend to be asleep. Deep, deep asleep. She knew how. She was an actress, wasn’t she? And not stupid, so she slipped the spoon under the pillow.

She didn’t know what time it was, or how long she’d slept before. Because he’d—one of them—had stuck her with a needle. But she’d wait, just wait, until they came to take the tray away. And she’d pray they wouldn’t notice the spoon wasn’t there.

She tried not to cry anymore. It was hard, but she needed to think about what she had to do. Nobody could really think when they were crying, so she wouldn’t.

It took forever, it took so long she nearly did fall asleep. Then she heard the locks click, and the door open.

Breathe slow, steady. Don’t squeeze your eyes, don’t jump if he touches you. She’d pretended to sleep before—and even fooled Nina—when she wanted to sneak and stay up and read.

Music played, and nearly made her jump. The man—the wolf because she knew his voice now and recognized it from when he helped boost her up the tree—said a bad word. But he answered in a different kind of way.

He said:

“Hi, lover. You’re calling from the idiot nanny’s phone, right? So if the cops ever check it, she’ll get blamed? Good, good. What’s the word? Yeah, yeah, she’s fine. I’m looking at her right now. Sleeping like a baby.”

He gave Cate a sharp poke in the ribs as he listened, and she lay still. “That’s my girl. Keep it up. Don’t let me down. I’ll go make the next call in about thirty. You know I do, lover. Just a couple more days, and we’re home free. Counting the hours.”

She heard something rustle, didn’t move, then heard him walking away.

“Morons,” he muttered with a kind of laugh in his voice. “People are fucking morons. And women are the biggest morons of all.”

The door shut, the locks clicked.

She didn’t move. Just waited, waited, counting in her head to a hundred, then another hundred until she risked letting her eyes slit open.

She didn’t see him or hear him, but kept breathing her sleeping breaths.

Slowly, she sat up, took the spoon from under the pillow. As quietly as she could, she crept to the window. She and her grandpa had built a birdhouse once. She knew about nails, and how you could hammer them in. Or pry them out.

She used the spoon, but her hands were slippery with sweat. She nearly dropped it, nearly started to cry again. She wiped her hands and the spoon on her jeans, tried again. At first it wouldn’t move, not even a little. Then she thought it did, and tried harder.

She thought she had it, nearly had it, when she heard voices outside. Terrified, she dropped down to the floor, her breath coming out in pants she couldn’t stop.

A car started. She heard wheels on gravel. Heard a door slam. The house door. One in the house, one going somewhere. She eased her head up, watched the taillights weave away.

Maybe she should wait until they were both in the house again, but she was too afraid and, teeth gritted, went after the nail again.

It popped out, flew up, then hit the floor with a click that sounded to her ears like an explosion. She jumped back on the bed, fought to lie still, to breathe deep, but she couldn’t stop shaking.

No one came, and tears of relief spilled out.

Her hands had gone sweaty again, but she set to work prying out the second nail. She put it in her pocket, wiped her sweaty, hurting fingers. She managed to turn the lock on the window. As she opened it a crack, it sounded so loud. But no one came, not even when she opened it more, opened it enough to stick her head out and feel the cool night air.

Too high, too high to jump.

She listened, listened, for sounds of the ocean, of cars, of people, but heard nothing but the breeze, the call of a coyote, the call of an owl.

No trees close enough to reach, no ledge or trellis or anything to help her climb down. But she had to climb down, then run. She had to get away and get help.

She started with the sheets. At first she tried to tear them, but they wouldn’t tear. So she tied them together as tight as she could, then added the pillowcases.

The only thing to tie them to in the room was one of the bedposts. It would be like Rapunzel, she thought, except sheets instead of hair. She’d climb out of the tower.