Jojo and Haribo were standing at the base of one of our biggest trees, the hair on their backs standing up in a rigid line as they barked at the branches above. Haribo kept making attempts to leap up, but those squat legs couldn’t lift him more than a foot off the ground. I rested my bat against my shoulders, narrowing my eyes. I could barely see a figure clinging to the tree, wedged between the branches.

I frowned. The intruder looked smaller than I’d anticipated.

“You’re going to be swallowing your own teeth, dumbass,” Jason said, his voice low enough that I doubt the intruder even heard him. It was a promise more to himself than anyone else.

But something wasn’t right here. There was something familiar about the intruder’s desperate panting breaths and the little whimpers of fear that came out with them.

Vincent noticed it too and shone his light up into the branches. “What the hell?”

Wide green eyes stared back at us. Jessica had her arms clung tightly around the branch she was wedged beside, precariously balanced in the narrow V between two tree limbs. Her blonde hair was disheveled and her cheeks were red, her face frozen in an expression that was partially terrified and partially relieved.

“Jessica?” Manson’s voice was breathless, heavy with disbelief. “Hey, Jojo! Bo! Heel!” He snapped his fingers and the dogs immediately stood down. Jess’s eyes flickered over us, dodging between our shocked expressions and the bats in our hands.

“Why do you have those?” she finally said, and I think something in my brain snapped.

“These?” I said, my voice heightening the closer I got to laughter. I held up the bat, stalking toward the base of the tree to stand alongside Manson. “Why do you think? What the hell do you think these could be for?”

She clenched her jaw, prideful little brat that she was. Her fear was dwindling, replaced with something far more foolish.

“You wouldn’t,” she said softly. My teeth were clenched so tightly I could imagine them shattering. I glanced over at Manson, but his expression was dark, shuttered as he stared up at her and flipped the knife closed, tucking it back into his pocket.

“Come down from there,” he said. His voice was far calmer than I was capable of right then, but there was an edge to it that couldn’t be missed. “Now.”

Jess quickly shook her head. “Nope, I think I’m safer up here.”

“You’re perfectly safe,” Jason said, tapping his bat repeatedly against the ground. “Come down.”

“You guys go back inside,” she said. “Take the dogs too. Then I’ll leave.”

“Leave?” Vincent said. “No, no, no, Jess, you’re not leaving. We need to have a little chat.”

“No, thanks. I don’t think that — Ah, shit!” She’d tried to readjust her position, but her shoe got stuck between the limbs and she slipped, tumbling out of the branches face-first. Lucky for her, Manson was there to catch her. He managed to grab her before she hit the ground, stumbling a bit but keeping his feet. She immediately started wiggling, but Manson was having none of it. He hauled her up over his shoulder, pinning her legs under one arm.