He knows me too well.

The branches creak above me. When I listen, I can’t hear anything else. No crackling steps racing through the woods. Thea isn’t coming back. I’m alone.

“That’s how this started,” Flynn goes on, in his calm, cool way. He might as well be telling me about the history of Fender guitars. “You wanted this. You asked for it. You got it. Now you’ve got to give something in return.”

I’m gulping air, but I feel like I’m drowning. “How do you know all this?”

Flynn holds up both hands in an innocent shrug. Then he wiggles the fingers of his strumming hand. The finger that’s just a stump. “You take something from them,” he says, “you’ve got to give something up.”

My mouth fills with sourness. I can hear my heartbeat.

I’ve got all the answers now, loud and clear.

So Flynn was like me once. He made the bargain. He let them in.

“What did you get out of it?” I spit. Flynn tilts his head, mildly puzzled. I plunge on. “You made a deal with the devil, and for what? You teach guitar in a basement.”

Flynn’s eyes narrow to glinting slits. “I had exactly the life I wanted,” he says. “I’ve seen the world. Played for millions. Made a living with music. You should be so lucky, kid.”

He sounds angry. I can’t tell if it’s at me, or at them, or at something else. I can’t tell whether it’s a lie or whether he believes it.

It doesn’t matter anyway. I can save my family and friends plus have everything I’ve always wanted, and in exchange, I give up myself. There’s not even a choice.

“So—what?” I croak out. “What do I have to do? I need to make some kind of flesh sacrifice?”

Flynn nods once. “But that’s just a gesture, really. It’s their way in.”

“And then . . . they have me?” My mouth can barely form words. “They have my soul, or whatever?”

Flynn grins. “‘Or whatever.’ Yeah.” He steps toward me. “You’ll be theirs. You’ll share in their power. And that’s a pretty amazing thing.” Flynn reaches out and grabs the knife. I’m so numb, it slides right out of my fingers. He holds it up, squinting at it in the faint moonlight. “This should work,” he says.

Flynn reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small and square. When he flips it open, I see that it’s a silver Zippo lighter. He crouches on the ground, a few feet from Yvonne’s case, and starts scraping together a pile of dry leaves and twigs. In a minute he grazes the tinder with the lighter’s flame. It sparks to life. The twigs catch. Flynn looks around for some larger sticks, adding them to the fire one by one until a bright, steady blaze is burning.

“What are you doing?” I ask. “Why do we need a fire?”

Flynn looks up at me. “Got to get rid of what you cut off, don’t we?” he says. He’s wearing a smile that makes my stomach churn. “Can’t have you taking it to the hospital, trying to have it reattached, either. You’re giving it up. For good.”