I stood there, beginning to shake and trying not to reveal how terrified I was. Could I do it? Could I actually kill myself? I was pretty sure that was a no . . . but they didn't know that. They didn't know how desperate I may or may not be. These weren't the masked people--I just knew it. These two didn't wear disguises except that over their mouths they had some sort of plastic half-mask. It most likely was protective, but it made them look like they were rabid.

For a brief moment, the two stood staring at me, guns in arms, unsure what to make of me. They looked from Henry to me, then at one another, no doubt assessing the gravity of the situation.

Please . . . please fall for it.

One of them, the woman, left the room and said something to someone. The man stared at me, his eyes boring into my face.

"She has to come back," I insisted. "Tell her to come back. Put down your guns!"

My voice sounded strong, but they had to have seen through to my terror. They weren't going to listen. They were going to grab me, or kill me, or chain me up, or kill Henry, or do any manner of things and I had nothing but I at least could try to shoot them before they fired at me--

Just as my panic nearly caused me to pull the gun away from my head and aim it at them, the woman returned to the room and, bending to the ground, placed her weapon down. She nodded at the other, and he, too, put down his gun. This was beyond good luck--I nearly let down my wall, but then I regained my composure. I had to keep control. "Kick them over there, into the corner." They obeyed. I was elated. Was this all it took? Threatening to harm myself? If I'd only known when we were up on those cliffs . . . my heart hurt. Paolo might still be alive. But now came the real test. "Unchain him." They looked again at one another, but I practically screamed, "Do it! Do it now!" and the woman retrieved a sort of magnetic key fob and knelt next to Henry, undoing the lock at his ankles.

Henry was able, regaining enough strength, to get to his feet, though it took real effort, and he had to steady himself against the wall. The guards stood and watched us, and I marveled at this newfound power. They'd let us leave; of course they would. They'd have to.

I put my free arm around Henry's waist, moved the other to put my gun up under my chin, and helping him (with difficulty, for he was so much taller than I was), we moved past the watching guards and into the adjoining room, then past the machines and out into the tunnel, where a low, open vehicle with a sort of cage on top was waiting. The cage was open; the seats were vacant. I had no idea how to operate the thing, but I would find out. I could do this, but I knew I had to move fast. Whoever that guard had spoken to would no doubt be recalculating plans. They'd find a way to work around my threats. We had to get out of there.

I helped Henry into one of the seats; it was so low I pretty much dropped him into it. Then I hastened to the other side and entered the cage. The seats were facing the end of the passage I'd come from--the house, the pool. It was all too fortunate. I scanned the dashboard for some idea of how to work the thing; never having driven any sort of vehicle, I was at a loss. I thought cars used keys, but I didn't see any. I freaked out at the thought of having to go back to those two guards and asking for the keys.

"There," said Henry, pointing to a switch. "And then you use the lever; it just goes . . . forward . . . and backward."

I could handle that. Flipping the switch at which he'd pointed, I was thrust back into my seat instantaneously. The car sped forward quicker than I'd expected. We raced through that tunnel, far, far from the room Henry had been held in, the lights along the passage trying to turn on to keep up with us. The distance I'd walked was covered in mere minutes, and I suddenly realized we'd crash into the end of the tunnel if we didn't slow down fast. "How do we stop it?" I shouted, but my voice was lost in the rush of air. I tried to find something that looked like a brake, but there were very few actual knobs and buttons. Just the lever for backward and forward, the on switch (pressing it again didn't stop the vehicle), and some dials that seemed to show speed and gas. I could see no obvious stopping method. Pedals, though! Of course--pedals. My left foot found one and slowly pressed down--even in my frenzy I had enough sense not to slam it--and the car decelerated, almost too quickly; we were slowing to a stop. We weren't near the end, yet, though. I felt we were close, but I didn't see the stairs in the distance. Fortunately, next to the brake, I found a second pedal, and that happened to get the thing going again. Between the two pedals, I managed to get us to the end of the tunnel without smashing us into the end.

It had been only moments ago that we'd left the room behind, but here we were, back beneath the pool by the beach, and thankfully, the opening was still there, water still parted down the middle on either side of the stairway leading up into open air. With effort, I climbed up out of the car and offered to help Henry, though he was regaining his strength faster than I'd expected, and, while he was a little slow, he was able to get out of the car and walk up the stairs on his own.

"Hurry," I told him, feeling some remorse at having to push him. "When we get up there, we'll get on these things and leave. Do you know how to use them?"

I was several steps ahead of him but stopped and looked down into the gloom. It was still night, or perhaps very early morning, and everything was so dark, but I could make out Henry, who looked like a ghost in the shadows. He'd stopped moving. I'd have to help him. Descending a few stairs, I reached out my hand to him, but he shook his head and started to move again. I was put off by his refusal to take my hand, but I tried to ignore my own insecurities and just keep going. I wished he were more able to help--but then I scolded myself for thinking that. I couldn't imagine what he'd been through.

Up, up we went, until the rectangle of lighter darkness above our heads grew and grew and suddenly, we were in it. On the patio, by the pool--ready to fly . . . I placed my bag on the ground and started to reach for the hoverboards, but I should've paid more attention to our surroundings--someone gripped my upper arm, twisting it so I dropped the gun I was still holding.

In the moment, I thought it was Henry and was shocked, but when I was spun around, I came face-to-face with a terrifying black mask, blacked-out-eyes and a mouth hole blocked with mesh, a hood pulled down around its head. The hands on my arms were gloved in black leather; the figure was more chilling in this watery pre-dawn light than it had been in daylight on the cliffs, something out of a nightmare.

I screamed in protest, but nothing I yelled mattered. One had me; the other stood next to Henry, an arm around his neck. The one holding me dragged me backward to a deck chair and literally threw me down onto it. I tried to stand and fight back, but the person holding Henry tightened its arm around him. Henry was pulling at the arm, but the figure behind him was tall and large and much stronger than he was at the moment.

"You're hurting him!" I cried.

The one next to me pointed at the chair, and I sat back down into it. I felt like screaming, like sobbing . . . all of that--for nothing? I was so sure--so hopeful that we'd gotten away. It had all been too good to be true. The minute we'd left, of course the guards told them. I should've shot the guards. I should've killed them the moment they'd entered the room; I would've found the key on them.

"Please let us go. Please . . ." Tears did come; they began to form in my eyes, run hot down my cheeks. I didn't know what to do anymore. "I don't know what you want. Just . . . stop hurting him."

"Once upon a time," came the deeply mechanical, inhuman, measured voice from the thing before me, "there was a girl."

I looked up at the mask, having wanted to avoid it before, and lowered my brow. What was it doing? Telling . . . a story?

"She was taken to live with a white bear, who gave her everything she could want. Each night, he would come to her, telling her not to turn on the light but let him lie down and sleep. The girl began to care for the bear, and for many nights, she obeyed his command. But she became curious, and one night, when the bear slept beside her, she lit a candle and looked over the sleeping form of not a bear, as she'd expected, but a beautiful prince."

I sat in awe of what was happening. I knew this story . . . I knew it! But to hear it drone so monotonously from the monster before me--I didn't know what to make of it. Why was it telling me this fairytale?

"As she stood staring," continued the stranger, "wax dripped from the candle onto the prince's cheek, and he woke with a start. He was furious, for he'd been placed under a curse that stipulated no one should see him in his true form, and the girl had cast him and herself into darkness forever. Her selfishness, her curiosity, destroyed all that she cared for."

I was beginning to realize that this was probably some sort of message--it wanted me to learn something from this story, but what? I was being selfish and curious? Was I the girl? Henry the bear? Or were they the bear? My mind was racing with potential analogies, but I was in no place, mentally, to make inferences.

Could I pull the same thing with them as I had with the guards? Could I threaten to hurt myself? But my gun; it was on the ground, near Henry. I wouldn't get to it in time, if I dove for it.

"Would you like it here or the house?"

My blood chilled at the voice that had spoken. I turned, and there, coming from the direction of the wall I'd shattered, was someone I'd seen only in memories--a looming man, tall and dressed in jeans and a black shirt, rolling up his sleeves as he approached and buttoning them as if he had something dirty to do. I noticed his arms were covered in tattoos, but what I noticed more were his teeth which, when he grinned at me, were filed into points. The cabin--in the woods . . . the night they'd taken my mind from me. He'd been there, towering over me as he seemed to be about to do now. His voice was higher than it looked like it should've been, his features severe, like a bird of prey.

He reached where we were, repeated himself about the house, and the figure next to me replied, "Inside is better."

"Doc couldn't make it," said the man, speaking to the mask but looking at me. "But I remember this one. Stubborn, isn't she?" His teeth gleamed as he gave me the creepiest grin I'd ever seen.

Fear blossomed in me. This man had something to do with erasing memories--they couldn't be . . . they couldn't be talking about wiping my mind! My god--if they did, would I wake up at Oliphant again? Or somewhere equally terrible? I'd have to start all over; I'd remember none of this--not Paolo, or Henry--nothing! I was nauseated just thinking of it. No, no, no. I couldn't let it happen. I would rather die than lose my mind again.

They started to move--the one robed figure started pulling Henry toward the house, the other grabbed hold of me. Henry struggled, falling to the ground at one point, but his captor easily pulled him back into his control. Everything seemed to be underwater--I was in a total stupor, allowing myself to be walked to the house, but then the slow-building rush, fueled by the frenetic understanding that this was it, this was my last chance before everything was taken from me again, came to a head, and I surfaced from my apathy the moment I saw the glass of the broken wall glittering in a million shards around me. Reality set in, and I totally lost it. I just lost it. I suddenly fought back like there was nothing to lose because there wasn't. I clawed at the person's mask, screamed, kicked, even tried to bite--I don't know what all it was, but I felt like I was being led to my own execution, and I'd be damned if I was taken back into that house quietly. If they were going to rip my memory from me again, I'd go out fighting.

I must've surprised them--I'd been acquiescent, but my sudden flip caught them off-guard, and for a moment my arms were free. Glass was everywhere, and I grabbed two giant shards from the ground and separated myself from them, taking steps back, holding the glass to my throat.

"I'll do it!" I screamed at them. "I'll do it! I will never let you take me in there--I'll kill myself first!"

The person holding Henry was already in the living room, but it stopped and stared my way, and the other disguised figure stood with the tattooed man, both of whom were frozen as if I'd just turned them to stone.

Putting up its hands palms-out, the masked figure spoke. "Calm down . . ."

Its eerie voice shook me a little but I was going anywhere but calm. It was working, again. They didn't want to lose us--or me, at least. There was no time to consider why. "Give me Henry--give him to me! Or I swear I'll end it right here!"

The world hung in suspension . . . they were trying to figure me out, I was sure, trying to figure out if I'd really do it. If I had the guts. In that moment, I did--they had no idea how desperate I felt.

"She's bluffing," said the sharp-toothed man. "I'll get her."

He made to come at me, but I wasn't having it. I pressed the glass so close I felt pain, thought for sure I must've drawn blood, and in that insane moment, the robed one who'd been handling me pulled out a gun and shot the tattooed man coming toward me.

I watched him crumple, clutch his leg.

As he swore and cried out, the one who'd shot him nodded in my direction, hand up, palm out, placed the gun it held on the ground, looked back to me. "All right--all right," it said. Then it tilted its head toward the other, and, I suspected grudgingly, it let Henry go.

Elation surged through me, but it was paired with the terror that this might be another ruse--I couldn't be sure. My body felt on fire, and as Henry drew near to me, my heartbeat was so loud I was sure everyone could hear it. The closer he was, the louder I heard his own heart, and ours seemed to be in sync. He came and stood at my shoulder, and the world was beginning to feel right again, but I couldn't let down my guard until we were far away from this place. As much as I wanted to reach out and hold onto him, I had to stay focused. I lowered the glass from my throat, my skin stinging where it'd been, but I kept the shards in my hands.

I glanced at Henry out of the corners of my eyes, and we slowly began to back away from the house, from the people who'd been trying to erase us, from everything and everyone. Back, back, stepping cautiously, not taking our eyes from them . . . until we were past the short wall and rim of trees that marked the edge of the patio. Where only days earlier I'd stood in heated argument with Paolo. Where I never again wanted to be.

We had to move fast. I flung the glass to the ground, nodded to Henry, and we turned and ran. He followed without any questions, keeping up better than I could've hoped. I had in my sight the edge of the cliffs where I'd first seen him, where Paolo had gone over.

The sun was rising, dawn was coloring the world, and when we reached the edge, I swung my pack off my shoulder, reached in and retrieved the hover boards. There was no time to ask whether he knew how to use it--I just prayed to whatever powers there were that he could manage. I'd do what Lucas had done with me. Their little wings flipped to the sides, I positioned Henry on one and myself on the second, and, arms around one another's waists, we dipped over the cliffs and plummeted toward the beach below, steadying ourselves against the wind and the world and everything that had happened and was to come.

I turned back only once, after we'd straightened ourselves and were gaining horizontal rather than vertical distance, and I thought I saw two dark figures standing on the cliff, watching us fly away.