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I know that face.

I do not say the name into the phone. I say it at that face.

“It’s you.”

The phone goes on the step by my head, face down, so the real voice does not go into it. Rhys is still there. I can hear him, thin, through the glass of the case.

“Ivy. Who? Say who.”

That mouth is by my ear.

“Yeah,” it says. The real voice. Calm. “It is.”

I open my mouth for Rhys. A glove covers it.

The glove comes off my mouth.

“Rhys,” I say. “It’s someone from—”

A hit to the side of my face stops the rest. My mouth fills with the taste of blood.

That mouth stays by my ear so the phone cannot have it.

“Clothes,” the real voice says, quiet.

“No.”

“Yes.”

I fight. The figure is stronger. The knife sits on my throat while the glove pulls my coat off, then my shirt, then the skirt I pulled up in the car for a man who is already dead. Then the rest. Not a game I asked for. Cold air on my skin. I try to cover myself. The gloves move my hands.

“Rhys,” I say. I can hear him shouting now. “It’s making me— it’s—”

The phone turns. The close voice comes back, low, for Rhys.

“I want you to hear her. I want you to know I can take your building apart and still have time for your house.”

The knife leaves my throat and draws a line across my stomach. The pain doubles me over. I cannot stand up straight. I hold my stomach and the blood is already warm in my hands.

I scream into the phone. I hate that it sounds like pain and something else. The white face is gone. The real face watches mine for that.

One word, in my ear, not for the line.

“Pretty.”

A glove pulls me up by the arm. My cut thigh will not hold. I get put at the top of the next flight like I ran and missed the step. My clothes are on the landing behind us in a pile that will look wrong to anyone who looks twice.

“Ivy.” Rhys’s voice is broken. “Stay with me. I am coming. Do not—”

That mouth is almost on my ear again. The phone is still open on the stair. When it speaks for both of us, it is the close voice.

“Pretty when you bleed.”

The gloves let go.

The stairs take me.

I hit once. I hit again. The world goes thin at the edges. I can hear Rhys saying my name like he can hold me with it. I cannot hold the rail. I cannot say the name that would help him. I cannot say anything.