“So we can go now, can’t we?” Lizzie says. “We’re all done here.”

This is my home, Honey says. I’ll stay here and go back to my family. Unless you think you still need my help.

I hadn’t even thought of her having a family. It hadn’t occurred to me that the crap of my life had spilled over not only onto her, but her family as well.

“No, we’re good,” I say. Then I turn to the others. “We should go back, except . . . I can’t go with you.”

For once Geordie reads me wrong. I can see it in his face. He thinks I’m scared of going back to being the Broken Girl again, but that’s not it. That’s not it at all. I’m a little scared of that, sure, after having had the freedom of not being the Broken Girl. But the problem is, I’m the Broken Girl here, too. It’s just not so easily seen. I’ll always be broken—until I face the monster that’s set up house in my head.

“I have to back and . . . you know. Deal with Del. Just me and him.”

Everybody’s shaking their heads.

“You can’t face him again,” Timony says. “The moment you reappear, he’ll have you under his thrall again.”

“I don’t think so,” I tell him.

Translation: I hope not.

I look to Honey. “You understand, don’t you?”

I do, she says, but I still think your going alone isn’t the wisest of decisions.

“But if I don’t go alone, nothing will have changed. I’ll still be dependent on others for my safety from him.”

Is it so bad to accept the help of others?

“No. Of course not. But if I don’t deal with it myself, how do I get him out of my head?”

I know. But—

“I think I’ve got it all figured out. You know, what you were telling me about not believing in his power. I can do this.”

She just looks at me.

“What?”

If that’s true, she says, then why are you still a human pup instead of a grown woman?

“I . . .”

I look around at them. No one wants to let me go.

I’ve been blessed with friends—ever since the day I stopped living on the streets. Real friends. True friends.

That’s never seemed a liability until this moment.

I can’t let any of them come with me. I just can’t.

I can go, Honey says. He can’t hurt me.

We both know that’s a lie. If I hadn’t shoved Del, if she’d caught that shotgun blast, she’d be dead. He might not be able to manipulate her the way he did the rest of us, but he could still hurt her. He could kill her.

I shake my head.