More pressing, she had no means of travel besides Murderguy’s SUV, but at least she still had his key, so he wasn’t driving anywhere. Then there was the issue of Murderguy himself, who had run outside “to pee” but had likely run off, as any sane person would do. Ampersand had been in such a hurry to hunt for Obelus that the only way she could keep him from doing something deeply unethical to this guy was to volunteer to take care of him, on the condition that if he ~*~tried anything~*~ he’d get zapped in the worst possible way. She’d assumed Ampersand had been exaggerating. She hoped he’d been exaggerating.

She’d already forgotten what his name was, save that it was long and kind of South Asian–sounding. Indian, perhaps? If she got back to civilization before he did, she might be able to figure out who he was based on what she knew about him. The fact that he worked for The New Yorker was a clue to finding out who he was.

Then she remembered; hadn’t Nils had some affiliation with The New Yorker?

“Hello?”

Cora gasped and turned around, shocked to see Murderguy standing a respectful twenty feet away, palms facing her. Suddenly, the gnawing parasite headache exploded into a firework, and before she knew it, her breath was coming hard and fast, picking up speed with each inhale.

Fuck no, she thought. Now was not the fucking time for a panic attack.

“I don’t mean any harm,” the guy said, taking a baby step toward her, his eyes big and as innocent as a man his age was capable of. Thirtysomething? At least thirty. Cora held her breath in an attempt to halt the hyperventilation and backed herself into the wall. Her body was screaming for air, outraged at the interruption of its regularly scheduled panic attack. She closed her eyes and held her breath tighter.

The next thing she knew, she was on the floor, and the pain in her head had now migrated to the outer left parietal bone, as if she’d been bashed in the head with a baseball bat. Murderguy was standing over her holding his hands up like he was being held at gunpoint, his eyes the size of small moons.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” He spoke with such terror that she was pretty sure that whatever had just happened to her, he hadn’t been the cause of it.

“I’m fine,” she croaked, an obvious lie.

Did I just fucking black out?

“Can you tell me who the president is?” he asked, crouching down a few feet away from her, hands still up.

She felt her head to assess the damage. It felt like she’d been clubbed like a baby seal. “What?”

“You just . . . had a pretty bad fall. It looked like you hit your head pretty hard. Can you tell me who the president is?”