"All right! All right, they can go!"

This is the one thing that Grace had sworn that she would never say. She had sworn it, not aloud, but in the shadows of her words. She had sworn it to everyone — her children, her husband, and most of all, herself. Over my dead body, she had thought to herself as she lay awake in the dead of the night, over my dead body. And that isn't a plausible statement — that she would rather die than have her kids back in that hell — since if Grace dies, they'll all go down with her. She works seven days a week and puts food on the table for five people aside from herself. Without her—

The main thing is that Grace had never, ever wanted to have to say those words. Saying those words is her worst fear— was her worst fear. Because those words mean letting her kids go back into the darkness. It means putting a tremendous weight on her son again. It means sleepless nights spent sitting at the kitchen table staring at the stain on the tablecloth, wondering over and over again, How did it come to this? What did I do wrong?

And those rats— those people, they— they must have known this. They must have known all of this, or they wouldn't have gone to such lengths, would they? They wouldn't have driven her family screaming and panting out of the apartment with the rattle of claws and the gnashing of teeth ringing in their wouldn't have cut the phone line and blocked the door. They had forced her hand, damn it, and maybe, maybe if she hadn't been so hell-bent on the foolish endeavor it is to keep her family safe, maybe, maybe…

"We can go?"

"You can go," Grace says. She can barely get the words out. "But this time, I'm going with you."

Because she can't let her kids do this alone. Not again. If her hands are tied, then so be it. But this will be on her terms.