Dana sprawled on her bed in her room upstairs, reading the assigned parts of Hamlet for class. She wanted to talk to Stacy about Aiden, but if she got another C in English her parents would ground her again. They’d given her a lecture before they left on vacation about how they were trusting her and she needed to prove herself and—

A noise from downstairs made Dana’s nerves twang. It sounded like someone was in the kitchen. She held her breath and listened. She was about to exhale and laugh at herself for being a scaredy-cat when she heard the noise again.

Slowly, quietly, she got up and closed the door to her bedroom. It locked with a click. She winced. The person downstairs must have heard it, too, because the house fell into an uneasy silence. Then, she heard the creak of the bottom stair.

Dana grabbed her cell phone, purse and keys, opened the window, climbed down to the front yard and ran as fast as she could. She didn’t stop until she reached an open convenience store, where she called the police.