Dragging open her bedside drawer, groping inside for the flashlight, Della yanked it out, her hands trembling so hard she could barely coordinate her fingers to push the button on the bottom. But she did it, she managed, a beam of weak light forming a pool on the ceiling.

Della stared at it as if it was the sun, trying to control her rapid breathing just like Selena had taught her as relief washed over her in a wave. The thorns fell from her flesh, and the vines untangled. They retreated, slithering back into the dark shadows of the room.

She was okay. She was safe and well in Credence. At Arlo’s. She was okay.

The sound of the rain started to filter through as the loud wash of her pulse began to settle, and she remembered the storm. Remembered The Suck-u-buzz and the orgasm.

Orgasms—plural.

She glanced at the bedside table, at the device that had given her so much pleasure just sitting there. On the floor, she could see the other two BOBs and a candle. Yes, that’s right. Candles. They’d still been lit when she’d drifted off to sleep, but they’d obviously burned out, and the storm must have caused a power outage, which was why she couldn’t turn on her lamp.

But it was okay because she had her flashlight.

Arlo’s idea—of course. One he’d come up with after the first time the power had gone out in the middle of the night and she’d woken in the dark with that hand around her neck choking again and she’d screamed. He’d strode straight out of her room and come back moments later with a flashlight and pressed it into her hands.

“Keep this in the drawer for when you need it.”

Just like that, so matter-of-fact, taking her bogeyman and neutralizing it, just like he’d done with Todd. She hadn’t needed the flashlight a lot, but it had been her lifeline that night, just as it was tonight.

With her pulse slowly returning to normal and her head out of fight-or-flight mode, Della remembered other things. Like Tucker. In her house. She hadn’t heard him arrive. Unsurprisingly, considering. Hell, a herd of stampeding bison could have crashed through the house and Della wouldn’t have heard.

Was he still here, or had Arlo come home and he’d left? She wasn’t usually a heavy sleeper, but she’d slept so deeply after she’d slid back into bed post-kitchen chat, those bison could have trashed the house again and she’d have been none the wiser.