Asher is trembling. “Bell, if I’m going to work here for you, I just need us to keep to ourselves.”

“I wasn’t pumping him for information,” she says, a little laugh in her voice. “I couldn’t care less what you’re up to as long as—”

“I’m not up to anything.”

Bell fixes a knowing look on him. “Well, that’s not how you’re acting,” she says. She steps off the porch without another word.

Justin is lying on his belly on his bed, Shady snuggled close in beside him.

“What was she asking you?”

“Nothing!” Justin shouts into the mattress.

Asher sits on the bed beside him. “Justin, it’s important you tell me.”

“We were just talking about Shady.”

“What about him?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Justin yells.

“Be quiet!” Asher takes hold of his arms (so small), thinks better of it and lets go. “Calm down. Why are you so upset?”

His eyes are red; he looks like he might cry. “You’re the one freaking out.”

“We have to be careful, Justin. We can’t talk to people. We can’t—”

“And I’m supposed to stay locked up in this house all day while you work. It’s summertime. I need to be outside. I can’t stay in the house—”

“I don’t have any other choice.”

“We can’t even eat supper with Bell and Evona. We can’t even be friends with them—”

“We can’t—”

“Because the law is after us. Right?”

For a moment there is nothing but the sound of their breathing.

“We have to be careful. We have to make sure—”

“We wouldn’t be in this mess if you and Mom could get along! If you all wouldn’t act so stupid!”

“Your mother and I can’t stay married—”

“You two can’t even have a conversation! You can’t even be in the same room with each other!”

“Because she took you away from me!”

Justin jumps to his feet, standing by the bed, his hands balled into tight little fists so that his whole body turns red. “Because you went crazy!” These words boom out of him. “And it was all over the internet!”

“You don’t understand,” Asher starts to say, but he has no idea how he might explain to a nine-year-old boy what it’s like to be convinced your whole life that your purpose is to judge others instead of being kind to them. How can he tell his son that one day he awoke, but that this awakening took years? That living like that for so long nearly made him into a hollow thing? That the hollowing out caused him to collapse?

“Now I’m your prisoner,” Justin says, dropping to the bed again, scooting up against the wall like he can’t get far enough away from his father. He is acting like a wild thing. “I can’t even get online!”