The children’s game followed Rozie into her dreams, of course. She ran about her parent’s old home, but she couldn’t remember who she was hiding from or who else was playing. The thrill of being pursued overwhelmed her, and she frantically searched for a hiding place. But the house grew darker, and the lights dimmed from the usual cheery bright white to a sickly yellow.

  Rozie froze on the threshold of her and her brother’s bathroom. She heard footsteps—bare feet flapping on wood. The seeker stumbled——a tangle of limbs thundered against the walls. Getting closer. Trapped, she scanned the small room. Too much junk filled the cabinets beneath the sinks. Even with the heavy texture, the glass shower door offered no safety. That left the hamper built into the linen closet. Rozie flinched as her pursuer hammered into another wall at a drunken sprint. She crouched and dove as far as she could, heaping the dirty clothes on top of her. Nelis’s stank—an acrid, musky scent, as he changed from child to adolescent.

  It didn’t matter. Fear and dread drowned her excitement as rasping breath, thick and wet, approached the bathroom door. Despite the dirt caked on Nelis’s jeans, she threw them over her head. In a surge of panic, she realized she had left the light on, rookie mistake—never leave a clue of your presence.

  The seeker pounded against the hollow door. Then a hand dragged down cheap painted plywood to the knob, every sound magnified by the flimsy hollow-core ‘contractor’s special’ barricade. She heard the spring in the knob creak as it turned. The door swung in hard, hitting the front of her hiding place.

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  Rozie held her breath. A soft click plunged the bathroom into darkness. The dim light that leaked in through the edge of the hamper’s cabinet door vanished. Her eyes ached to see, and she opened wide against the black. Beyond the hamper, the bathroom door slammed shut, causing the entire room to shudder.

  She wanted to scream, but sleep had locked her throat and paralyzed her body. Frozen and waiting, Rozie heard the top door of the hamper lower. A putrid stench, like old garbage, filled her cage. She felt the air move as the seeker reached in, an arm patting the pile of clothes, searching. A hand, long fingers dove through the pile of fabric and grabbed her shirt and jerked her forward. Rozemarijn felt the hand soften, the fingers extending, to caress her now swollen abdomen. Little Lowry kicked and thrashed.

  “Rozie,” a ragged voice croaked.

  She awoke.

  “Rozie, you’re having a bad dream,” Dom said.

  He leaned over her in the half-light that streamed out of the bathroom. Her head spun as she struggled to remember the room, the black canopy floating above Dom’s head. His eyes glinted in the darkness. Rozie reached up and pulled him down to kiss him. He smelled like a cloud of second-hand cigar smoke and tasted like whiskey.

  “Let me wash up.”

  Water ran in the bathroom, and Rozie turned, putting her back to the light. She didn’t realize she had drifted off again until he climbed into bed. Dom gave her another kiss and held her, their baby pressed between them.

  A dreamless sleep washed over her.