She got to her feet, ready to pit her child’s body against him.

“Oh, you care,” Del said. “You say you don’t, but bottom line, everybody cares. Everybody’s looking out for number one.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Do whatever you want to me. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“And why’s that, little sister?”

Her gaze went to my transformed remains, scattered the length of the room now.

“You’ve already taken the only thing I care about away from me,” she said. “What does it matter what else you do?”

I don’t know why, but it took me a few moments to realize that she was talking about me. Then I understood. I might have thought I hadn’t heard her right, but I’d already realized the same thing myself: she was the most important thing in the world for me as well. I’d always known that. I just hadn’t known it, if you know what I mean.

How was that for a kicker? Here it was, too later for either of us now. I was dead, or at least a disembodied spirit with no body to return to, and she was locked in this monstrous nightmare taking place inside her own head where it was impossible to escape. And now we admit this to ourselves?

“You really think I’m going to believe that?” Del said. “Everybody cares what happens to them.”

“Sure they do. But at what cost? Everything I believe and am stands against freaks like you. I won’t let you control me again. If I give in to you, you win. But if you hurt me and I don’t give in, then I win. If you kill me, I win. No matter what you try to do to me, so long as I stand against you, you can’t really hurt me.”

“Jilly, no!” I cried. “Look what he did to me. Don’t push him like this.”

But she couldn’t hear me any more than he could. My words rang only in my own ears. I don’t think it would have mattered even if she could have heard me. This was Jilly in full fierce mode.

“Bullshit,” Del said.

Jilly’s gaze was steady, unflinching. “Try me.”

They locked gazes for a long moment until Del shook his head.

“I still don’t buy it,” he said. “But it doesn’t really matter. I don’t need to hurt you to make you do what I say. I can just tear apart your red-haired friend instead.”

“That’s right. And I can’t stop you.”

“But you can, little sister. All you have to do is say the word and I’ll leave her alone. But if you don’t . . . “ He moved a finger across his throat. “Well, then she’s just history.”

Jilly shook her head.