Now

I swerve and release a sharp yelp. Yank the car back into the lane, my headlights weaving like spooked animals on the dark road. Adrenaline follows, burning through my gut. Shit. I was milliseconds away from plummeting down a dark embankment.

"Wake up, Julia," I say, giving myself a dry smack on the cheek. I fumble for the fast-food bag on the passenger seat, but the French fries I fed myself one at a time to try and stay alert when I cleared Chicago are long gone.

I roll down all the windows, bringing in a blustery chill. Just a few more minutes. I can stay awake. Have to stay awake. I break into a full-volume rendition of "Bad Romance," which gets me to the County Road HH turnoff. Then I hit the brakes.

The reporters. What if they're camped out in my yard? I can't risk getting closer, so I pull the car onto the dirt shoulder and kill the engine. Almost home. And also, not. Without Josh and Annaleigh, I'm just heading toward a place to sleep.

Purse slung over my shoulder, I emerge into the night and lock the car. It's 10:30 and the moon is playing peekaboo with the clouds. A humid chill is already seeping through my sweater. The trees are quiet, the sinews of their branches disappearing into the black above, like instead of trees they're the roots of the sky, and the world at night some dank underground.

I turn on my phone flashlight and head straight through the grassy strip that lines the road, soft with mud, making my way toward the woods that curve around this whole little section—my best hope at approaching my own house without being spotted. A final glance behind me shows the black hulk of my lonely car, and the lonelier road behind it. I try not to think about the horrors these woods have seen. Did Royce do his deeds at night, under this same moon? On that stump over there—or that one? Did he swing true and make clean cuts, or did he hack...and hack... There's a nasty edge to my heartbeat as I step into the inky trees. It feels like being swallowed alive. Would anyone bat an eye, passing my remains? Will my synthetic skin last, year after year, under the sun and rain and snow, or have they programmed it to imitate the natural rot of human flesh?

My pulse pumps in my ears as I walk through the trees, the ghost-white light from my phone jittering with each step. The forest dances around me like a creature in its death spasms, with me creeping between its ribs. I'm trying to see if I've already passed the first house when my flashlight falls on something white. I gasp, recoiling—a bone? No—just a reflection off a beer bottle. I scan my light around and see evidence of people. A scorched area where there must have been a bonfire. A pile of ash. More beer bottles. Keep going.

A disturbance in the air becomes a hum, which soon becomes something deeper: the growl of machinery, churning like a restless creature. Snatches of dull, orange light appear through the trees—and there's the shape of Bob's barn, backlit against the glow. Is he grinding up deer meat? At this hour?

I use the cover of sound to hurry forward a little faster without worrying about how much noise I'm making. The black finger-shapes of the trees make his barn jump in and out of sight as I run, like a skipping projector. What does Bob do, exactly, in that barn? With no one to watch, what might he be feeding into his machines—

My mind jumps to the baby monitor, the male growl of his voice. Shhhh, little lady... I shiver. Annaleigh is safe now. For all I care, Bob can spend the rest of his days singing his lullabies into the fucking void.

His property is much wider than ours, and I'm soon surrounded by more trees and zero light. It feels too silent, and my footsteps overloud.

"C'mon, it's not that hard to find your own house," I whisper to myself, though I'm also dreading my arrival. Walking in alone. At least Captain will be there.

"No! She didn't kill him!" comes a clear voice, so sudden that I stop in my tracks, immediately pressing my phone's flashlight into my jeans to conceal my presence. "I've told you already. I saw him leave Saturday night with my own two eyes. She was home drinking and like...watching Netflix!" There's no mistaking Eden's voice. "Three strikes you're out means there was a third time. There were only two." Her breathing is quick, agitated. "No. I have a view into her house, for fuck's sake...From the woods...Yes...No...No...I'm in her house all the time. I would have known."

My heart is like a revving engine. There's black behind me. Black in front. And somewhere in that blackness is my babysitter. I try to breathe evenly, quietly. A fiery glow briefly lights the darkness and I try to estimate the distance between us. Thirty feet, maybe?

"No, she's not home yet." Silence, another burn of orange. The earthy smell of weed filters toward me. "Of course I'll call you...Anything new...Sure, boss."

There's a brief illumination from her phone that casts her profile in white light. Then the woods go dark again.

Do I stand here? Wait for her to leave? Something tickles my ankle and I move my foot. A twig cracks. Fuck.

"Who's there?" she calls out.

Should I try to hide? But it's so dark, I can't see what to hide behind.

"Who's there?" Eden repeats. "Don't move! I have a gun!" There are sounds of fumbling, then a bright light shines in my eyes. I whip out my own phone, shining its light on Eden. She looks small and pale in the darkness. She's wearing an oversize sweatshirt over jeans and holding her joint in one hand, her phone in the other. Definitely no gun.

"Julia? What are you doing here?" Her look of fear melts into concern as she tromps toward me. "Are you okay? Is Annaleigh safe?"

"Who were you talking to about me?" I say, my voice shaking. I can't tell if it's exhaustion or rage at this point.

"Fuck, Julia." She sighs and walks closer, her steps cracking and crunching. "It was the sheriff, okay?"

"At this time of night?"

She stops in front of me. "He's been on my ass to tell him when you got home. I'm sorry. I'm not helping him, though! I'm just playing along."

I don't buy it, not for a second.

"You call the sheriff boss?"

"I call everyone boss," she says with a regretful tone, like this is a habit that annoys even her.

"What did you mean, telling him you're in my house all the time?"

"He keeps asking me about Saturday night. He's obsessed with this idea that you killed Josh that night. I keep telling him the same shit I told you. I'm at your house all the time and I can see through your windows. I think I would have noticed if you murdered someone." She exhales a frustrated breath. "Do you think I could sue him for harassment? Because—"

"Forget the sheriff. You lied to me."

In the cold light from my phone, her face goes still.

"About what?"

"You worked for Andy. For WekTech."

She makes a pained expression. "How did you—"

"A picture in the robotics building at IU."

"I mean... I never told you I didn't work for WekTech. Error of omission, okay? Like I said, my career ended in a fucking trash fire. Can you blame me for not advertising my most embarrassing disaster to everyone I meet?"

"What exactly happened, Eden?"

"What do you already know?"

"No. You tell me. Now."

She fits the joint to her lips and draws in, hollowing her cheeks. She holds the smoke in for a few seconds, then slowly puffs it out. "Want some?" Her tone is resigned.

I reach for the joint. Why the hell not. I'm alone in the woods with someone who may or may not wish me ill, steps away from a neighbor who sure as hell does, with a sheriff on my ass and my daughter hundreds of miles away. If anything, this may help ease my anxiety enough so I can get one good night of sleep. I inhale deeply.

"Easy there," she cautions. "If it's your first time—"

"I'll be fine." I hold the joint between my fingers as I release the smoke into the night air. "Talk."

"Right. WekTech. Well... I got this dream internship there. Like, six years ago? Anyway. Might as well be a lifetime. I got this massively stupid idea to prank the CEO by hacking into his phone. Pure attention-getting. I was pissed that he didn't know my name. I was just the intern, you know? Like, hey, intern, can you run this down to Marketing? Hey, intern, where's my coffee? Anyway. I got his attention, that's for sure. He fired my ass, and my stellar career came to a quick and violent conclusion."

I take a second drag, then return the joint to Eden.

"Okay." I nod slowly, smoke billowing from my mouth. "So what happened next? You went back to school and—"

"I didn't go back. I bartended in LA for a few years, but cost of living was so high... Then the pandemic hit and the restaurant I worked at closed, and it made sense to move in with my aunt and uncle."

"Right down the road from me, on one of only six adjacent lots."

"Weirder shit has happened?" she says tentatively, with the face of a child who's just hoping her parent will buy her lie and move on.

I don't even answer.

"Fine," she concedes. "If you must know, I did move here for you. I'm a robotics nerd, okay? And I'm working on my own robotics shit in my spare time. At some point, I'd like to have a real career."

"Then you've been spying on me."

"No, actually," she says. "It was stupid. Impulsive, like a lot of the shit I've done. At this point, you're just a person who lives down the street, Julia, and I love watching your kid. That's pretty much the extent of it."

I raise my phone so it shines right into her round brown eyes.

"Eden, I need you to be totally honest with me now. Are you still working for Andy?"

"I just said, he fired me."

"Then who are you working for, Eden? Just tell me the truth."

Her eyes go glassy, like maybe she's holding back tears. She touches my arm. Presses. Her hand is small. Its pressure, soft. I can't help but remember that these are the same hands that have cared so tenderly for Annaleigh. That this is the same girl who has seen me at my weakest and not turned away.

"You," Eden says, her voice breaking and a tear slipping out. It sparkles in the light. "The only person I'm working for is you, Julia."

For the space of two seconds, my brain is so caught up in conspiracy theories of Eden working for BotTech or Eden spying for some lobbyist, or even Eden and Andy lying to me together, I have no idea what she means. Then it hits me.

She works for me. Babysitting Annaleigh.

I deflate on the spot. "Right."

Eden's fingers scritch my arm a little before releasing me. "Let me walk you home, okay? You look like you're about to collapse."

"Yeah," I agree. "Home."

We walk together through the woods without speaking. Soon there's a glint of glass and a piercing reflection from my flashlight. My windows. Finally.

Eden walks me to the back door. "Want me to see you in? Check the closets for monsters?"

Half of me wants to invite her to sleep on my couch, just so I'm not alone.

The other half thinks that couldn't be a stupider idea.

"No thanks," I say.

Because even though I believe with all my heart that Eden doesn't wish me ill, I know she's still hiding something.

And this time, it's more than just an error of omission.