I found a bottle opener in a low drawer, a cheap rusty thing, and I fit its edge to the first screw, and I began to turn.

I want to pass over the next hour quickly, because it was long, and it was hard, and there is nothing to be gained by dwelling in it.

I will say only that it took everything I had, and that several times I nearly stopped, and that the thing that kept me turning that screw was the sound of Garrett’s voice in my memory saying then we can finally control her. I would rather have died in that yard than let them.

That, it turned out, was the one thing they had failed to account for.