I crumple into my mound of bedding and stare up at sagging plaster ceiling. I replay the last few moments. Clay so close. His fingers on my arm. The change in atmosphere when his father called him, like a switch flipped inside his head. One minute he was mine, the next he belonged to the Sheriff. I curl into the musty blankets and close my eyes. I may have Ethan and Clay back, but we’re no better off than I was before.

* * *

I wake stiff and groggy. Orange firelight flickers dimly from the metal barrel. A lump beside me shifts. It’s Ethan, curled in the sheets, one smooth pale cheek peeks from beneath a flowered blanket. I curl toward him.

Something stirs in the hallway. Someone’s there. I look, but at first in the dark all I catch is a giant, lurking shadow. Hatch. I stare, barely breathing. His raspy breath and the creak of the floorboards under his weight seem deafening in the silence. I wrap my arms around myself and watch his shadow increase until it’s massive, a thundercloud blotting out the moon. If he comes in, I’ll scream.

Moments pass with nothing but breath and the fear creeping up my shoulders. Don’t let him come in.

The floor boards creek. Heavy footsteps thud away. I pull the blankets up to my chin and scoot closer to Ethan. It takes me hours to fall back asleep.

* * *

“Riley, wake up.”

I open my eyes to my room bathed in day. Sunlight dances through a battered cobweb across the window. Birds chirp somewhere in the distance. I’ve overslept.

I stretch the kinks out of my back as Ethan plops down a plate of breakfast—a lumpy mound of yellow eggs and a thick slice of brown bread. I want to gobble it all the minute he sets it beside me. Instead I take the fork and try to eat like a lady. Two bites and I’m shoveling the eggs into my mouth. It’s so much better than hospital food.

My brother watches me eat, poking his fingers through holes in a moth-eaten blankets. The rose pattern of large pink flowers and cascading green leaves reminds me of the one stretched across my bed at home. Will I ever see it again? I turn my attention to Ethan. I’ve seen that wrinkled forehead before. He’s stewing about something. I put down my fork. “What’s cookin’, bacon?” It’s an old Auntie phrase. Just saying it makes me homesick.

“What does that mean?” He cocks his head to the side. His chin-length hair hangs off the side of his head like a brown curtain. He doesn’t remember.

“What’s going on in that noggin’ of your’n?” I rap on his head lightly with my knuckles.

His face tightens. He looks to the door and then leans in close. “I heard something, but I—”