I started shaking. I couldn’t help it.

“Yeah, baby,” Dez said in my ear, twisting my arm tighter behind me so that it felt it would pop out of the socket. “That’s how I like it. I like you scared. I like you trembling. That’s going to make this so much more fun.”

I’d taken a self-defense class once in college. My mind scuttled about, trying to remember what I learned, what you were supposed to do. “No!” I yelled. That was the main thing I remembered from the class. “No!” I yelled again. It wasn’t super helpful given that the fire alarm was still shrieking outside the room.

Yank. Dez twisted my arm tighter. I tried not to whimper, but a grimaced moan escaped from my throat.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Dez pulled my arm up and even tighter. “Feels nice, doesn’t it? You’re into pain, aren’t you? That’s good.” His breath was hot, moist in my ear. “I don’t care who you work for. I really don’t. You stepped into the wrong pile of shit here, because I make an example of people who mess with me. I am going to fuck you up, girl. Bad.” He chuckled. “I mean really bad. But you’ll love it.” His wet breath was whispering in my ear now. Yank again with my arm.

I turned my face away from his, then decided to try and use the momentum to my advantage. I swung my face back, and before he could react, Crack! I hit my forehead hard against his nose.

“Goddamn it!” he said. One arm still clenched mine, but he raised his other hand to his face as if searching for swelling or blood. Suddenly, I remembered another tactic from that self-defense class. I raised my foot and brought it down hard on the top of his.

“You cunt!” The blow to the foot seemed only to anger him, not to slow him down. The arm he’d raised to his face shot to me now, but in that second, I ducked fast and managed to squirm out of his grasp. A huge urn with an exotic tree was just to my left. It was about as tall as me. I grasped it at the top and heaved it. I couldn’t lift it, but I managed to get it rolling on its base, right at Dez.

It hit him, but he deflected it and the urn crashed to the floor, breaking into hundreds of shards of pottery, water pooling around our feet. I turned to run toward the entrance doors, but right then they opened. The guy dressed in black stepped inside. He looked over my shoulder for a second at Dez, then lunged toward me, pulling both arms behind my back, and facing me toward Dez.

Dez grinned coolly. “Isabel McNeil, meet Ransom. Ransom likes redheads, don’t you?”

The guy behind me murmured something I couldn’t exactly understand, a garbled, guttural string of words.

“After I get you, he gets you,” Dez said. “And he likes pain as much as you.”

I started trembling again. What in the hell should I do?

Dez took one step toward me, then another. I kept shaking, and Ransom kept gripping his meaty hands tighter around my arms, pulling me back against him.

Just then I saw something above Dez-one of the massive moths that had been on the glass ceiling. It fluttered behind Dez’s head, almost as if it were dazzled by the sheen of his overapplied hair gel.

“Dude,” Ransom said, followed by more guttural-sounding words. I could only make out, “You got some-”

“I got some what?” Dez said, his voice coy but menacing. He stared at my breasts. Took a step toward me. But then the moth decided to land. Right on Dez’s head.

“What the fuck?” Dez screamed, batting at his hair. “What the fuck?”

But the moth wouldn’t leave. In fact, it fluttered up for a second, then landed again, this time on his face.

“Fucking bug!” He squashed the thing with his hands, but it was as if he’d angered the moth’s posse, because suddenly there were four of them, all flapping around Dez’s face, while he swore and smacked at himself.

Ransom tried to drag me over to Dez, I guess to help him, but the minute his grip lessened the tiniest bit, I surged out of his clutches and dashed to the doors. I pushed through them and started running, yelling for help. But there was no one in the museum, just the screams of the fire alarm. I heard another sound behind me, though, and I looked over my shoulder. Dez and Ransom, sans the moths, were running after me and fast. I turned and kept hauling.

“Help!” I yelled once or twice, but I knew it was pointless. I ran downstairs, past an exhibit about rainwater. I could hear the footfalls of Dez and Ransom at the top of the stairs. I had to find somewhere to conceal myself before they got to the first floor. My eyes careened wildly around the place. But the floor plan was open-made so children could enjoy themselves and their parents could keep an eye on them. There were no nooks or crannies.

I kept running. I had to get outside before they did. I turned a corner and just then an arm shot out from a photo booth and pulled me hard. Shit! Was it another one of Dez’s guys? Then I thought, Dad?

Still, my instincts made me struggle against it, until I heard a fierce whisper. “Jesus Christ, McNeil. Relax.”

“Mayburn?”

He clamped his hand over my mouth and pulled me into the booth, one of those old-fashioned ones that print little strips of photos. Over the sirens, we heard footsteps pounding down the hallway.

“Quiet,” Mayburn whispered.

I held my breath, froze my body.

The footsteps stopped. Where were they? What were they doing? With the sirens still ringing, we couldn’t hear them now that they weren’t running.

I held my breath so that I wouldn’t move. With Mayburn’s hand still over my mouth, I felt I was going to pass out. I shook his hand away from my face. Sucked in quiet lungfuls of breath.

“Hey, Ransom,” I heard Dez say loudly. He must have been fifteen feet from us. “Ever get your picture taken in one of those booths?”

Ransom gurgled a response, which sounded like a sickening laugh.

“Yeah, let’s get a picture.” Dez’s voice was closer now. “We’ve never had our picture taken together.”

Ransom gurgled again, sounding closer, too.

I tried to turn to see Mayburn, so we could figure out what in the hell we were going to do, but then we heard a crash of glass, followed by shouting.

“It’s the Chicago Fire Department!” someone yelled. “Is there anyone in the building?”

We heard the banging of boots on the floor.

“Sir! Sirs!” It must have been one of the firefighters yelling at Dez and Ransom. “Sirs, we have to evacuate the building. This way.”

“We’re okay,” Dez shouted.

“Exit this way, sirs.”

“Yeah, just a minute.”

“Now!” yelled the firefighter. “We need you out of here.” Boots pounded closer.

“Hey, don’t touch me,” Dez said.

“We’re just evacuating you, sir. Follow me and I won’t have to touch you.”

Boots passed by the booth.

“We’ll go,” Dez said.

Mayburn and I sat frozen for a few minutes, the sounds of boots trailing down the hallway. When they were gone, I extricated myself from Mayburn and turned around. He wore jeans and a gray T-shirt with a Buddy Guy logo.

“Why didn’t Dez tell the firefighters we were in here?” I asked.

Mayburn shrugged. “Probably because then he’d have to explain why someone was hiding from him and that would look suspicious. Might make the firefighters hold him for questioning, and I would guess that a guy like Dez doesn’t like being questioned by the authorities.”

“But he could be waiting outside for us right now.”

“Yeah. We’ve got to get out through some other exit.” Mayburn poked his head out of the booth. “It’s clear.” We heard footfalls from the floor above us. Probably more firefighters. “Let’s go.”

Mayburn and I ran down the hallway, farther into the museum. Most of the sirens had been turned off, although there were a few still shrieking. We found a glass door at the back of the building with a sign above it that read, Emergency Exit Only.

We pushed through it, and it set off another alarm. But finally we were outside. We ran along the footpath that hemmed the pond.