A Maidens Grave

us into the back of the factory. Haven’t you seen his eyes? Don’t you know what he wants? No, you probably don’t. You don’t have a clue—
    She risked a look toward the front of the room. Theattention of the men was mostly turned toward the TV. Occasionally Bear glanced at the killing room but didn’t seem to notice that two of the captives were missing.
    Glancing again beneath the legs of the machinery, Melanie caught a glimpse of blond hair. There she was, Kielle, making her way inexorably toward the three men near the window. Crawling, a smile on her face. She probably did think she could kill all three.
    Struggling to catch her breath from the blow of the pipe, Melanie scrabbled down a corridor, hid behind a rusted column. She turned the corner and saw the blond girl, only twenty or thirty feet from Brutus, whose back was to her as he continued to gaze out the window. His hand casually gripping Shannon’s collar. If any one of the three men had stood and walked toward the girl, they’d only have to look down over one of the large vats, which lay on its side, to see her.
    Kielle was tensing. About to leap over the vat and charge Brutus.
    Melanie thought, Should I just let her do it? What is the worst that would happen? She’d get a few feet toward them, Bear would see her, take the knife away. They’d slap her once or twice, shove her back into the killing room.
    Why should I risk my life? Risk Bear’s hands on me? Risk Brutus’s eyes?
    But then Melanie saw Susan. Saw the dot appearing on her back and the puff of black hair, like smoke, rise up.
    She saw Bear looking over Emily’s boyish body, grinning.
    Shit.
    Melanie pulled her black shoes off, pushed them under a metal table. She started to sprint. Flat out, down the narrow corridor, dodging overhanging hunks of metal and rods and pipes, leaping over a piece of butcher block.
    Just as Kielle stood and reached for the top of the vat Melanie tackled her. One hand around her stomach, the other around her mouth. They went down hard and knocked into the hinged lid of a vat, which slammed closed.
    “No!” the little girl signed. “Let me—”
    Melanie did something she’d never in her life done: drew back her open palm and aimed directly at the girl’s cheek. Kielle’s eyes went wide. The teacher lowered her hand and glanced through the crack between two overturned vats. Brutus had turned, looking in their direction. Stoat was shrugging. “Wind,” she saw him say. Unsmiling Bear was on his feet, carrying the shotgun, walking toward them.
    “Inside,” Melanie signed fiercely, gesturing toward a large steel vat nearby, resting on its side. The girl hesitated for a moment and they climbed inside, pulling the lid closed, like a door. The sides were coated with a waxy substance that disgusted Melanie and made her skin crawl. The smell was overpowering and she struggled once again to keep from vomiting.
    A shadow fell over the vat and she felt a vibration as Bear stepped into the corridor. He was only two feet from them.
    Halfheartedly, he glanced around and then stepped back toward Shannon and the other men.
    Kielle turned to her. In the dim light Melanie could just make out the girl’s words. “I’m going to kill him! Don’t stop me, or I’ll kill you too!”
    Melanie gasped as the little girl lifted the razor-sharp blade and pointed it at her. “Stop it!” Melanie signed brutally. What should I do? she wondered. Images of Susan were flashing through her mind. Mrs. Harstrawn, her father, her brother.
    And de l’Epée.
    Susan, help me.
    De l’Epée . . .
    Then Melanie thought suddenly: There is no Susan. She’s dead. Dead and already cold.
    And Mrs. Harstrawn may as well be.
    De l’Epée? He’s just a lie. A phony visitor to your phony little room. Another of your sick, imaginary friends, one of the dozens you grew up talking to, going out with, making very solitary love to while you hid from everything real. I get everything wrong! I hear music when there is no music, I hear nothing when people speakto me inches away, I’m afraid when I have to be brave . . . .
    A Maiden’s Grave.
    The little girl reached for the lid of the vat.
    “Kielle!” Melanie signed angrily. “Jubilee . . . All right. Listen.”
    The girl looked at her cautiously, nodded.
    “You really want to kill him?”
    “Yes!” Kielle’s eyes glowed.
    “Okay. Then we’ll do it together. We’ll do it the right way.”
    A ragged smile blossomed in