The boy turned with a start at his older brother’s voice. Half brother, actually. Their mother had been married, and widowed, twice. That’s why they looked so little alike. Bart was tall for sixteen and wiry like a runner, and his flame-red hair went in every direction. Del, on the other hand, was small and stocky and wore his dark hair short and parted on the side like Mom wanted. He looked like his father that way, she insisted. Back before the cancer.

“This is your last chance, Cap,” Bart repeated, ignoring the snickers and ghost sounds from the front seat. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. We can take you on home.”

“Hey,” Baugh muttered, “that wasn’t part of the bet.”

“Screw the bet,” snapped Bart without looking at them. “It’s up to you, Cap. You can pull out if you want.”

A sigh of relief almost escaped the boy’s lips but he held it in check. Bart was giving, him an out—he did know Del was scared. Was it that obvious? No, probably not. Bart was just being Bart, covering all the bases. But which was he doing, trying to save him from the bet or trying to get rid of him, to get this scared little kid out from under his feet?

Easy out, said his conscience or his common sense or whatever that little voice was that always turned pussy and pragmatic at the first sign of trouble. Have them take you home. You’re a little kid, you don’t have to prove anything. Not to these jokers, certainly not to Bart. He won’t think any less of you.

Will he?

“C’mon, let’s take the baby home,” Hovi sneered, “it’s prob­ably time for his bottle.”

“Shut up, lard-ass,” Bart said in a soft but steel-edged voice. Despite Hovi’s being a year older at seventeen and half-again Bart’s weight, the taunting stopped.

Del’s temper flared as well, making his decision for him. “I’m sticking,” he snapped, flipping Hovi the bird. Bart grinned.

“Get your stuff, Cap. It’s time to go.”

Everyone piled out of the T-Bird, with Tommy opening the trunk to extract their supplies. Bart took their sleeping bags and tossed them over the wrought iron fence, then strapped a knapsack across his back and secured a Mag-Lite to one of the shoulder straps. Del zipped his down jacket and hugged the warmth of a thermos bottle close to his body. It’s the cold that’s making you shiver, he told himself. Yeah, that’s it. The cold.

“Just remember, Miller,” Baugh harped from his perch on the car fender. “You stay in the house—not on the grounds, not in the woods, not even on the stoop. And you bring something out with you to prove it, or the bet’s off.”