Peach ran to the Mercedes over the rocky ground and practically dove into the back seat. She took a fleece blanket she’d used and threw it over her head. She curled into a corner, hugging herself so tightly she thought she could squeeze herself into a ball and roll away. She waited, and she had no idea how much time passed before Deacon got into the front seat again.

She could feel him looking at her, even though she couldn’t see him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I apologize for yelling at you.’

She didn’t dare say a word.

‘We hit a deer. I freaked out.’

Peach let the blanket slip off part of her face, enough to free her eyes. Her voice muffled, she spoke into the fleece. ‘Did it die?’

‘Yes, it died.’

‘Oh, no. Oh, was it a big deer or a little deer?’

‘It was a big deer. It lived a long life. Don’t be sad.’

‘But what do we do—’

‘We don’t do anything,’ Deacon told her. ‘It didn’t happen. Do you understand me? It never happened.’ He leaned way far back, until his body was almost over the seats, and he was practically in her face. ‘I mean it, Fruity. You never tell a soul about this. It’s our secret. Okay? Promise me.’

‘I promise,’ Peach told him.

It was the promise of a scared little twelve-year-old girl, but she kept her word. She never told anyone. After a while, she even stopped telling herself. The accident became a kind of odd little dream from her pneumonia, something that might have been real and might have been a fantasy. It wasn’t even until she and Justin drove to Lake Wales again, and she came upon that isolated section of Highway 60, that she even remembered that anything had happened.

Deacon hit a deer. Right there in that dangerous section of road. It had nothing to do with the little white cross.

Peach drove. She might as well have been flying, with Chayla lifting her on its wings. She kept hearing an echo of voices, as if they were stuck in the clouds, raining from the sky. Deacon’s voice. And Lyle’s voice, too. Arguing. They always argued, but this was much worse.

‘I can’t protect you anymore,’ Lyle shouted. He didn’t know Peach could hear them from her sick bed. That she was listening to things that made no sense.

Deacon: ‘You’re supposed to be my brother. This is my whole life!’

‘Blame yourself, not me,’ Lyle told him. ‘You didn’t give me any choice. I’m sorry, but you have to face what you did. I talked to a lawyer. She says there’s no way to escape this.’

Except there was an escape.

With Lyle dead, it all went away.