The Never List

God,” I heard Christine say from the back of theroom, as Tracy stood there stunned, only able to mutter a quiet “What the fuck?”
    “But that is Sylvia,” said Ray again, in an almost pleading voice. “It is .”
    The woman with the gun walked closer to us.
    Finally, she spoke. “Everyone get close together. Sit on the floor. Hands up in the air.”
    I felt confused, disoriented, split apart. And yet what I felt most was joy, a sensation of completeness that I hadn’t experienced since before our abduction all those years ago. It was Jennifer. Jennifer. It was really her. We were reunited again, after what was surely only an aberration, a fluke, a thirteen-year detour in what should have been our lives together. It seemed to me I should be able to run over to her, throw my arms around her, and whisper into her ear the way we always had. She was safe. We were safe. We were both alive.
    I was whispering her name, despite myself. I thought somehow that once she realized it was me, she would put the gun down and we could all go home, and the past thirteen years could be erased. We could write up a new Never List, and we would follow it to the letter and be safe, together, forever. Surely she was not the one who had imprisoned us again. Surely we had all the facts mixed up, and there was another explanation.
    The gun did not waver, though. We did as we were told.
    Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. The front door of the house was wide open behind Jennifer. Even in my shock, my mind, so set to self-preservation, immediately started calculating the odds. How could I get past her and out that door? Then I recognized that once again all I could think of was saving myself, leaving the others to their fate. I’d save them if I could, but only as an afterthought, once I had secured my own future.
    The realization of what I was doing, even in that moment, forced me to face something about myself. Tracy and Christinewere right. What had Jack Derber done to me? In that instant, a part of me was ready to give up. Now anything could happen, and in a way I didn’t care what did.
    But no, I thought, pushing away that despair, I wanted to live. I wanted to be strong. And I needed to understand.
    “Jennifer, I thought—I thought you were dead … the body … with me in the box …” I stammered.
    “Yes, I know you thought that. There were other bodies, Sarah. That one wasn’t mine.”
    “‘Other bodies’? Where were you then?” I could barely process the implications of what she’d said. I had thought I was the turncoat. Now I realized Jennifer had made it much further down that road. “Did you know … did you know I’d been left in that box?”
    Jennifer’s eyes flickered for a moment, and then she turned away from me. Tracy stirred, and Jennifer trained the gun on her.
    “Don’t move, Tracy, or I will kill you first.”
    “‘ First’? ” shrieked Christine, who was right behind me.
    “Shhh … shh …” I tried to calm her, careful not to turn all the way around and not to take my eyes off Jennifer.
    I saw Ray’s look of utter confusion, but there was no time to explain to him what must have happened. That there was a real Sylvia Dunham, but this was not her, and he’d never met her. That Tracy and I had met the real Sylvia Dunham’s parents and seen her photograph. That she must have been abducted too, long ago. That Jack had handed over her identity to Jennifer, so she could be out in the world, acting under his orders. That they must have needed marriage documents for her to enter the jail. Anything could have happened to the real Sylvia, and everything probably had.
    Then I saw her. Adele was walking back into the room behind Jennifer. I wanted to signal to her but wasn’t sure how. She was our only hope. I could see she’d been crying, that she was lost in thought, not even looking up as she walked along the hall.
    I hoped against hope the others would not show any sign that they saw her.
    Christine caught her breath, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Tracy nudging her knee into Christine’s leg. We all saw at once how our fate now lay in Adele’s hands. The seconds were painful. Adele’s steps, one, two, three. Jennifer in front of her, staring at us with an odd sort of victory playing in her eyes.
    Look up, Adele. Look up. I knew we were all thinking it. No one was breathing.
    Then Adele looked up. Don’t scream , I thought. Don’t fucking scream.
    After that,