“We have to go.” He picks up Junior’s backpack, wagging it like a TV lawyer would a damning piece of evidence. “Is this all you brought? Is this everything?”

When the boy nods, Henry lifts him by the armpits, sets him on his feet, straps the backpack onto his shoulders. It’s quick work gathering his own belongings now that he’s already wearing the suit. He shoves crewneck, socks, undies, and jeans into the duffel bag, and when he splashes into the flooded bathroom to shut off the faucet and rinse his bloodied hand clean, in this frenzied clarity he even remembers to snag the unopened tab of soap. He scans the room one last time, his own heartbeat replacing the thrum of the bathtub faucet. Their everything is so little and they’ve gathered it all, and so he lifts the boy up, pressing Junior’s face into his collarbone, chest, pulse, telling him not to look, okay? Everything’s okay, because Henry is right here.

“Don’t look at what?”

Henry muzzles the boy’s face against his chest. “Nothing.”

Outside the gasps have twisted into a soggy wheezing. Still twitching, lying on his side, the dogmonger reaches for Henry, watching him open the suicide door and ease the boy onto the bench seat. After tossing their luggage over to the passenger side, Henry tucks the boy in, pulling the covers up into a full-face blindfold.

“What’s going on, Pa?”

“Junior, listen to me.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just close your eyes and keep them closed, okay?”

“Pa?”

Henry doesn’t want to yell, and so through clenched teeth hisses, “Please.” Runs a palm tinted pink over the boy’s face, then drags his eyelids shut.

The inside of room 9 looks exactly as expected. Crushed Coors Light cans used as ashtrays line the TV stand. Any vacant surface is clouded white and smudged by fingerprint swirls. Bleachy smoke hovers by the ceiling. Gnarled bedsheets whiskered with fur. In the corner is a mat made of torn-out Bible pages drenched in dog piss. He finds the telephone on top of an upturned terra-cotta pot. Dials 911. Only rings twice. A woman’s voice answers while Henry is still deciding whether to disguise his voice in a high or deep pitch, so his voice yo-yos when he tells her he needs to report an emergency. There’s been an accident. A head injury. Bleeding really, really bad. Unresponsive. It was an accident, he swears it was an accident. No, he doesn’t have an address, doesn’t even know the street name. It’s a motel off a service road about maybe three miles after exit four if you’re coming west off County Road O. No name, just a sign that says motel and $39.99 and hurry because it’s serious, it’s bad.

“And your name, sir?”

“It was an accident,” he reminds her, then hangs up.