“He’s a dead man.”

“You better pray he’s not.”

“He’s been stealing our women for years. Remember Tessa? Wanda? Gone. Do you know what he does with them?”

I do know, but when I see the tower of the red brick church creep over the tree line, I lose interest in the question. I have to turn when I get to it, but I forget which way.

I point his handgun at his head, still trying to keep my eyes forward. The car moves like a snake in the road.

“We can fix the pain in your leg right now.” With my thumb, I click back the little lever because that’s what they do in movies to get things moving.

“Jesus!”

“The phone.”

“It’s in my jacket.” He’s wearing his jacket. “Side pocket.”

“No. You want me to move the gun away. Then when I get close enough, you’re going to grab me.”

“I can barely move, Sarah.”

“Take the phone out and toss it in the front seat.”

“You’re not as smart as you think you are.”

I don’t feel smart. I feel scared and out of my depth. But he slowly does what I tell him, as if I’m a bomb that will go off with the slightest unexpected movement.

I may not be smart, but I have power, and having power is better than knowing things.

He tosses the phone onto the front seat. It bounces and flips screen-side up to a picture of him with Daddy and me on my first Armistice Night.

What different people we were.

No. We were the same people under different circumstances.

“Do you know how to use it, Goody? I can show you.”

“No.” His phone is different than the one Dario gave me. I take too long staring at the time and the picture of two people I knew in a different life and have to swerve back into my lane.

“That fucking hurt,” he groans. “Can you take it easy?”

I flick my thumb in every direction over the screen. A keypad shows up. I put in the shape of Dario’s number, but the image just shakes and shakes.

“Why don’t you know how to do this?” he cries.

“Because of you! That’s why! You wanted me useless and now I am, and you can just bleed until I talk to Dario.” Spit flies through my clenched teeth. The road curves. I’m too late on the turn, ending up in the totally wrong lane. I swerve back. “You can just bleed.”

In the rearview, his expression cuts through pain and injury. It’s not quite shock. It’s the aftermath of that shock—the realization that what surprised him is a permanent change in reality.

“I don’t know who you are,” he says.

“Neither do I.”

Even through his agony, he seems to finally understand me.

“Our address,” he says. “From StuyTown. That’s the code.”

I hesitate. Maybe it’ll make the phone explode or give our location to someone I don’t want to have it.