“Oh, get real, you little dick.”

“Screw you, Bart. I’d rather be a dick than an asshole.”

“Hey, squirt, how about I stomp a mudhole in your ass here and now?”

Stiles stopped and shined his light back on the tall redhead and the short dark-haired child. “You’re brothers, right?”

“How did you know?”

He shook his head. “A lucky guess. C’mon.”

It was even darker in that stretch of the woods than along the drive where the boys had come in; the trees were dense, mazelike, and they couldn’t take three steps in any direction without fighting off the grope of low limbs. More than once Del shrieked, only to find in the glare of Bart’s Mag-Lite that he’d been snagged by a particularly unterrifying sticker bush. Stiles slipped through it all with quick, sure steps, as if the path had been burned into his memory on the way in. But to the boys it was bewildering—for all they knew they were going in circles. The tendrils of fog became opaque in the glare of the flashlights, not only obscuring their path but closing in behind them, hemming them in. “How much further?” Del kept asking anxiously.

“We’re here,” Stiles said, leading them under the bough of a leaning dogwood. They found themselves facing a seemingly impenetrable obstruction of weeds and vine. A dead end. Del started to hyperventilate but then the soldier reached out with his gun barrel and pulled aside some of the creepers to reveal brick beneath. A wall . . . the privacy wall that surrounded the Danner estate. The boys sighed heavily as Stiles threw their gear over the top, then held out a gloved hand at waist level while keeping the machine gun ready with the other. “Step up, Del. You’re first.”

He had to lean down to get the boy’s shoe in his hand but, once in place, Del locked his legs and was boosted to the top of the wall. From there he could see the man’s van, rusted fenders and all, parked just off the road in the underbrush and concealed by it. He dropped to the other side just as Bart stepped up. Despite Bart’s larger size, Stiles lifted him to the top as well. Then he handed up his rifle, took a few steps back and vaulted to the crest himself. From there, they dropped to the ground next to Del.

“Now what?” the boy wanted to know.

Stiles walked to the van with them still in tow. At least they’d let go of his coat. “First I put something on Bart’s wounds.”

“And then?”

“Then I take you home.”

“And then?”

Stiles turned and looked at them squarely. “Just what are you getting at, kid?”

Del was incredulous. “Aren’t you gonna do something about that . . . that thing?”