He nods at the door behind him. “Go in,” he says. He moves his hand down the front of his jeans, stroking.

“Not until you leave,” she says. She watches his eyes dart.

“The keyhole’s right there,” he says, and traces his finger over it. “Go ahead.”

She looks down the stairs. She could just leave. Get back in her car, drive to the station, make Hurt come back with her. Except that she’s incensed at having Miller at her own house, blocking her door. She was off guard. She wants into her own home.

Instead, she tries to leave, her purse on her shoulder, the Walmart bag on the floor, but when she turns just a fraction, he hooks his finger into the back pocket of her jeans and pulls her in, switching their spots, Kateri with her back against the door and Bear in front of her. He holds her hand that has her keys, by the wrist, hard. When she wiggles her fingers, he presses on her tendons and her arm shoots with pain, but she won’t let go.

He pushes his knee between her legs and has her pinned against the door. She can feel him against her leg. She turns her face away, her eyes on the pines across the street, her hand going numb, his whiskey breath near her ear.

“You’re strong,” he says. She feels his tongue along the folds of her ear. Her stomach tightens, her spine stiff.

“Fuck off,” she says, flinching away.

“Don’t be coy,” he says.

She gathers strength like a coiled spring, appearing to soften beneath him so that he presses harder against her. He pushes his lips into her collarbone and inspects the scar under her chin.

“What’s this?” he asks, and runs his cold finger along it so that she shivers.

“What didn’t kill me,” she says.

He sniffs into her hair. “Did it make you stronger?” he asks.

“Try me,” she says.

Then, “I can smell that you want it.”

She lurches and pushes him back. It might be just enough to let her duck and run, she thinks, just enough to break the spell and give her a chance to get away. But when he steps back to regain his balance, his foot lands on the candle, the cylinder rolling, shooting his leg out in front of him, throwing him off, sending him in a tumble down an entire flight of porch stairs.

She unlocks the door, slips inside alone, and turns the bolt.

She covers her mouth, trying not to scream in anger, to release some of what has built up in her racing heart, and she hears him in the driveway, yelling, “Fuck. Fuck you, Fisher,” he yells. She barely breathes, trying to listen for the sound of his feet in the gravel. She doesn’t know if he’s hurt. He yells it again, and then after a moment she hears the roar of the engine of the small car that was parked alongside the road. His. She didn’t realize. She thought he drove something more substantial.