Apparently coming to the same conclusion, Williams reached for him and let me go. Thank god. The barrier vanished from my perception.

We started moving again. Zion and I wrestled the deer along, which wasn’t easy — it wasn’t a big one, but it certainly weighed a hundred pounds. Fortunately, Zion was pretty strong.

There was no sign of the green man pursuing us, but I got the sense Williams was keeping the shield up, anyway.

When we reached the cars, we dragged Kara out of mine and put her in Zion’s backseat. Then we stuffed the deer into my backseat. Williams took shotgun in my car, and we peeled out. I drove as fast as that little Le Mans would go.

The wheel vibrated in my hands. The temperature gauge was near the red. I’d been going between eighty and ninety for six hours. Even so, Zion kept surging ahead and then slowing down when we dropped too far behind. I was afraid the Le Mans wouldn’t last much longer — if it had ever been built to go this fast, it wasn’t up to it now.

I wished Graham were still in my car. I had some questions I wanted answered. No way was I asking Williams.

As though he could hear me thinking about him, he turned from the window and leaned over toward me. My heart rate sped up, and I shrank away. He looked at the dashboard in front of me, then sat back. I relaxed.

I wish I weren’t so scared of him, some part of my brain said.

I wish he weren’t so scary, the other part answered.

Good point — it wasn’t like I was being unreasonably wussy. He was genuinely terrifying.

He got out his phone and placed a call. Up ahead of us, I saw Zion bring her phone to her ear.

“Get off at the next rest stop,” he said, then hung up.

We were somewhere in western Ohio. A rest area came up in about fifteen miles. Zion exited and parked at the very edge of the lot. I pulled in beside her. She and Williams both opened their windows. Hers glided down smoothly. His squeaked as he cranked it open in fits and starts.

“Go get another vehicle,” he said to Graham.

Graham got out. He looked a little pale. It had taken us almost fifty minutes to get back to the car with the deer in tow. Maybe he was feeling the strain of having helped power that strong a shield for that long. He walked slowly across the parking lot toward the building.

I saw with a pang that this particular rest stop had a Wendy’s.