“It’s getting dark,” the older woman said, retracting her gun barrel. “I’m sorry, Billie. I’ve got to lock myself in.”

“Wait.” Stiles picked a handful of rounds from one of the bandoliers and dropped them into the well where she could reach them. “There aren’t many. Use them only if you have to.” He took Billie by the arm again and led her away.

“No!” she said, fighting him. “We can’t just leave her there.”

“Right now she’s safer than we are. Look at the sun, Billie. There’s no more time.”

They hurried to the truck and he gunned the engine, and they covered the several blocks to the Platter Drive cul-de-sac in just a few minutes. The school bus was already parked outside. Stiles’s van was where he’d left it in the driveway. Bean was standing outside the first house’s basement, his trusty full-length Mossberg cradled in one arm. The extra belts of shotshells were in a pile at his feet. “They’re all in,” he said as the two approached, “and I mean all of them. You really put the fear o’ God in ’em, bub.” He pointed to the other basement, just across the side yard. “The others are secured already. Billie, you and the boys will be in here with some of the others.” The heavy door was still open. She could see Del and Bart and Ted standing just inside.

She turned to the hard-featured man beside her and could not deny the obvious; in this present incarnation he frightened her. He was cold and stony-faced, an assassin every bit as familiar with death as his prey. But at least he was human. And somewhere deep inside him there was something more. Something she needed. “I don’t really know what to say,” she stammered, wanting his arms around her but not daring to ask. “Be careful.” She started to go in, but not before throwing her arms around his neck and whispering in his ear. “I love you.”

He put an arm around her middle but it was not holding her, not the way she wanted. But in pulling away, she saw it. Something in his eyes. A flicker perhaps, the slightest glimmer of what lurked behind that wall of armor. The man she knew. And he had heard her. It was gone just as abruptly, leaving only the look of the assassin in its place, but she had seen it. And she kept that thought with her as Charlie closed the door behind her and she threw the heavy bolt.

Outside, Stiles addressed the lone figure that now stood before him. “You too, Charlie,” he said. “Get inside.”

“Nope.”

“You heard what I said earlier.”