I can’t even start to understand how that would work—how it would even be possible.

“Mattie,” I say.

But she shakes her head before I can go on.

“I need to think about this,” she says. “About what we’re going to do to you. Maybe we can give you to him, and he’ll leave us alone.”

“No,” I say. “We need to face this together.”

But I’m too late. She and the bear are gone, and I’m alone in the woods again.

I look around myself, starting at every sound. Bird calls make me turn my head quickly, looking for the source. Because Del used to be able to mimic bird calls.

The rustle of a squirrel in the underbrush sets my pulse into quick time.

This is crap, I tell myself. I’m a grown woman now. I can deal with Del. My brother’s just your everyday human freak with a yen for abusing his sisters, not some otherworldly monster. These days he’s nothing more than a fat old drunk, arms covered with jailhouse tattoos, living in a trailer park where, according to my sister Raylene, folks call him Bottle.

Except, Mattie’s still scared of him, and she has a giant protector at her side.

And I don’t have to work too hard to call up the way I saw him as a little girl: big as the world and twice as mean. If that’s the way he is here, no wonder Mattie’s scared of him, even with Grath to protect her.

I don’t have anyone to protect me.

I don’t have anything.

Grey

After a fruitless night of walking Newford’s streets, dawn finds us on Palm Street near Vine, standing by the entrance of Jimmy’s Billiards. Officially, the pool hall on the second floor there above us would have closed at three, but looking up, I can still see light spilling from its windows. That’s the way it is—it’s always open for cousins.

Jack leans against the brick wall of the building as he rolls himself a cigarette.

“You want to grab a beer?” he asks.

“Sure, why not. It’s not like we’re doing anything useful on the street.”