and get some clothes ordered for Graves.

It looked like I was going to be here for awhile.

I was in the little box of a kitchen when Augustine came back. Two weeks and I’d just gotten him to

buy some bread. I once tried for flour so I could make it, but he’d hustled me out of the grocery

store like I’d made some sort of strange bodily sound. I was just putting the pan from my dinner—

beans and biscuits, since he’d finally brought back some flour last night—in the hot soapy water

when I heard the scratching at the door.

I froze and looked at the end of the counter where the snub-nosed .38 sat. If you are in here, sweetheart, and you think it may not be me coming back, you use one of these.

I’d asked him what the hell would happen if I shot him by mistake, and he grinned at me and told

me not to be silly. It was kind of like Dad.

Not really.

Brooklyn breathed outside the window. The kitchen looked out onto a blank brick wall. But there

was a ledge outside, and August had made me look out at the handholds going up to the roof or

down to another window in a hall two floors below. No sunlight ever got in here, but the bedroom

window sometimes had some. It was like living in a hole. And he never let me go outside for very

long, and never alone.

The touch told me it was August. And that something was wrong.

The door scraped open. He must have been fumbling with his keys. That wasn’t like him.

I bolted for the door. There was a gun on the spindly little table right beside it, tucked behind a

dusty vase of artificial flowers. He was a hunter, like Dad, so he was always prepared. And he’d

taken me through where all the weapons were, just in case.

August spilled through the door, shoving it shut behind him and almost overbalancing. I caught

him, and I smelled something coppery.

I knew blood when I smelled it, even at this age. “Jesus Christ.” I found out I was saying it over and

over again, found something different to say. “What happened?”

He shook his head, blond hair moving oddly, as if it was wet. Was it raining out there? I didn’t

know. August was tall, muscle-heavy, and almost tipped both of us over as his legs gave out. He

was muttering in Polish. At least, I guessed it was Polish. As if he was drunk. But he wasn’t drunk.

He was hurt bad, and there was nobody here to help him except me.