Timon the Gentle Giant wasn’t being so gentle at the moment, but he was still very much doing the giant thing. He had his porky ham bone of an arm wrapped around Isaac’s neck, holding Isaac’s right wrist and elbow sharply against his back, bending in a way that seemed contrary to nature’s intention. It hurt all around, but every time Timon took a step—he was evidently performing the very important task of escorting Isaac back to the woman named Letti—each jounce sent a bolt of pain up Isaac’s arms and into his shoulders. It was a dreary ache, not helped by all the jostling.

“Could you just let me walk,” Isaac said through gritted teeth, his face frozen in a perpetual, rigid wince. “Please. I’m not going to run away or . . . OW! Just let me go! I can walk!”

Sadina marched along next to them, tears of anger in her eyes, looking like a raged-up lion waiting for the right time to spring in for the kill. She could do it, too. Isaac knew her better than anyone except maybe Trish and Ms. Cowan. She was tough as an iron bucket full of iron tools, especially when she’d been done wrong.

“Why are you doing this?” Sadina asked, her teeth just as clenched as Isaac’s. “I thought we’d come to an agreement, to hear you out, stay with you, keep things peaceful. Ya know, go along for now. Let him go!” She stepped closer but then seemed to think better of it. Maybe the Sadina versus the Gentle Giant boxing match needed a little more time to marinate.

“You know what you did,” Timon grumbled through heavy breaths—apparently doing the walking for two people was about twice as hard as just doing it for yourself. “Told me you’re going to take a dump, next thing I know you’re scratching words on walls with a big chunky rock? That wasn’t part of our sweet compromise, sorry.”

Isaac wanted to respond but he couldn’t get enough breath in his lungs to sputter out a single word. He just kinda squawked and groaned. So Sadina took over for him since she practically read his mind all the time, anyway.

“They’re our friends, Timon,” she said with an ocean-full of sincerity. “They’re our only friends in the world right now. Hell, one of them is my own mom. Can you imagine what she’s going through? We just wanted to reassure them that we’re alive.”

A new voice entered the fray from up ahead.