He grabs my shoulder and squeezes it. I shrink in anticipation, but it’s all gone. The broken bones are mended, the pain is gone except for the memory of it.

“Whatever I break,” he tells me, “I can fix, too. Isn’t that a comfort, little sister? Knowing that no matter what I do to you, I can bring you back just with a snap of my fingers and we’re ready to start all over again.”

He waits for me to make some smart remark but I’ve got nothing. I’m too numbed by the enormity of this hell I’ve made for myself.

He laughs, knowing just what’s going through my head. Knowing he’s got me beat. Then he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.

“Time we were getting back to the house,” he says.

He sets off across the field, my head bouncing against his back. He smells of sweat and cigarettes and something else, something vile and awful that’s rotting there in the dark void of his soul.

“We’ve got so much catching up to do . . .”

Lizzie

Before the priest carried her away, Lizzie saw enough of what was happening to Jilly to break her heart. But there was nothing she could do to help her. She had her own problems with the priest. But whether the priest simply wasn’t as strong as Del, she was more determined or stronger than Jilly, or he simply hadn’t been expecting her to bite his arm, she was able to break free of his grip. He grabbed at her as soon as she got loose, but she scrambled out of his reach.

She glanced over to where she’d last seen Jilly. Del had her slung over his shoulder now and was already carrying her away—to the house over in the next field, Lizzie assumed. She took a step in their direction.

She wanted to help Jilly. She wanted to knock that smirk off Del’s face and show him what it meant to be helpless. And she would have, too—or at least she would have tried—but then the priest was lunging at her again, and she had to dodge out of his way.

This was so insane.

Surely, when her car had stalled at that crossroads, she’d fallen asleep and was only dreaming all of this.

The bogans and Grey. Siobhan’s tumble down the stairs. Being kidnapped into some fairy world. Killing a bogan and meeting the doonie.

And this.

This.

It couldn’t be real, not any of it, but especially not this.