She cried out and stumbled backward, tripping over the rock and hitting the ground hard. Her head cracked against a stone and her vision swam. She tried to get up, but she couldn't stay upright. Her heart was pounding in her ears and through her fingertips, pounding out a message: Stupid, stupid, stupid. You're going to die. And you deserve it. And then, riding on an even higher wave of panic, I don't want to die.

She struggled and got to her feet, but her ankle wouldn't hold. It was twisted, or broken. It buckled beneath her and made her scream in agony. She went down again, landing on hands and knees, panting. She wanted to move but she wasn't even sure which direction to go.

"Marah?"

The voice was muffled, heard through double-paned glass. Mort's voice. But in her mental haze, she couldn't tell what direction the voice was coming from, what direction she should flee in. The voice seemed to surround her, reverberating in the air, repeating itself over and over. She moaned, making another effort to stand, but ended up flat on her stomach and in more pain than ever.

"Marah? Marah!"

It wasn't just her imagination; the voice was repeating itself. It was growing louder, too, escalating in intensity, changing from a question to an exclamation. Suddenly a door slammed, and there he was, framed in dim porch lights, running toward her. He was still wearing the same clothes as that morning.

"No!" she cried. But she knew she couldn't get up. She shuffled back a few yards, but after that she could only hug her knees, her shins and her slim curved back her body's only protection. "No, don't!"

She didn't even know what she meant to say—don't what? But she said it again. "Don't." And then she whispered. "Please. Please don't."

He had stopped dead on the lawn, less than a body length away from her, but he wasn't approaching any more.

"Marah," he murmured, and his voice was soft, sane, a voice that came from a heart full of longing and brokenness. She remembered the voice, now that her mind was no longer swimming and she could think through the flaring pain in her ankle. It was the voice he'd spoken in sometimes when she'd first come, when intimacy and love still reminded him of loss and betrayal, when he needed her, clung to her, buried his hands in her hair and breathed her in. She had thought, vainly thought, that she'd healed him—but who could have known he'd had such a monster within him all this time?

That voice was seductive. It was a liar. It had lied then, and it was lying again now. The thought filled her with terror. His eyes were locked on her, filled with shimmering grief in the moonlight. She couldn't look at him without shuddering, yet she couldn't look away. They stayed there, motionless except for her trembling.

"Let me," he said, so soft she could barely hear him, "let me… call you a doctor."

She barely understood the words. It was as if she was under a spell; she could do nothing, say nothing, only keep looking at him with wild and terrified eyes. He slowly turned back toward the house, and reached the door in a few steps. With a long last look at her, he disappeared inside.

As soon as he was out of sight, she came to life again. Not that it made much of a difference in her mobility; she still couldn't get to her feet, much less walk. But she tried to crawl, scraping her bare hands and knees bloody on the sharp little rocks of his gravel driveway. Her ankle was in agony, her head was throbbing where she'd hit it and a trickle of blood was making its way down her temple and cheek. Progress was painfully slow, and she had only made about ten yards before she heard the door squeak open again behind her. She turned around in a flash, and saw Mort standing indecisively in the doorway; then suddenly the world was swirling at the edges, working its way into a vortex, and everything went black.