Ethan looks up at me through a dark lock of hair. “You sound like Mama.”

“Well, it’s true.” I twirl a piece of hay around my finger. “As long as we’re there, you’ll be safe.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” he whispers.

I mull this over. The worry I have every night for my family weighs so heavily on my chest I can’t breathe. How big that must feel for a little boy? I put my hand on his boney shoulder. “You knew I was coming back, right? I wouldn’t leave you.”

Ethan looks at me, his round, dark eyes shining in the dimness. “Promise?”

“Of course.” My chest tightens at the thought of Ethan watching my dust cloud recede as I drove away. I ruffle his hair, trying to lighten the mood. “Besides, who’d make fun of you for picking boogies and wiping them under the bed?”

“Shut up,” he says without emotion. He smiles with his mouth, but not his eyes. So serious, my little brother.

I stand up. He gives Superman one more carrot and then stands, brushing the hay off his pants.

“I wish there was a way to keep Superman,” he says, sighing.

“Maybe you can fold him in your suitcase like this.” I scoop him up and turn him upside down, so his knees are at my face and his head dangles toward the ground. When he giggles, his belly shakes beneath my arms. He nearly kicks me in the face as he struggles to right himself. In a month, he’ll be too big for me to do this any more.

When he starts tickling my ribs, I nearly drop him on his head. Instead I roll him into a pile of hay near Bounty’s stall. When we walk out, he slips his hand into mine.

“Maybe you can talk to Dad for me. You saved his life. He owes you.”

I tug a piece of hay out of his hair. “Nah,” I say, shaking my head. “After all the crap I’ve put Arn through, I bet he figures we’re ’bout even.”

* * *

I dream I’m back in town searching for Arn. I run up the dusty street, but my legs droop like useless sandbags. In the dirt, I claw through the scrub on my belly. My heart pounds up into my throat. Someone’s after me.

I feel eyes on me, sending shivers up my arms. The deserted street is empty. The hot sand burns my hands as I dig forward. I have to get away. I have to find Arn.

A hand circles my leg. I scream and claw through the sand, but the hand snags my pants and drags me backward. I wheel around, unable to breathe.

Greased, black hair, watery green eyes the color of bile and a mouth full of jagged, white fangs. The Warden has found me. I gasp and struggle, but his fingers are tentacles circling around my legs, dragging me to his mouth, which unhinges like a copperhead’s. He will swallow me whole. Every part of me screams. My fingers claw through the dirt, but it’s no use. His fingers scratch up my legs and cut into the soft flesh of my stomach. He drags me towards rows and rows of sharp, white fangs.