“Do you think that those children will be his as I am his?” Zander’s voice was bitter with something that sounded very much to Anna’s ear like jealousy. “Those creatures are selfish. They will keep their bargain—because they know the Singer does not trust them. But they are black witches. Evil. Their children are taught vileness with their mothers’ milk.”

He paused. “He trusted the people of Wild Sign. They gave him form and they worshipped him with music. My father loved them and they betrayed him. I told him not to trust them, that he could only trust me. That I am the only one who loves him. Now he believes me.”

His gun had been gradually lowering as he spoke, but he jerked it up, aiming it at Leah’s head. “I told him that he would need children better than those the black witches will carry. Children who will love him. My children. He told me to find women to bear them. So I have.”

Anna wondered if there were other unsuspecting women carrying the Singer’s children.

“Nonconsensual sex is rape,” Leah said. “Twisting someone’s memories around makes them incapable of consent. You are a rapist. We are done here.”

He said, “Yes, we are.” He pulled the trigger a hair slower than Anna did, even though she had to step around Leah first.

Anna’s initial bullet hit his hand, making his shot go wild. She’d considered the dangers of that before she’d fired and chanced it anyway. Better being hit by a chunk of rock than a bullet; the rock would do less damage. Her second and third shots went through his left eye. She hit him in the heart, too, as he was falling.

Six left, she thought. She shoved Leah, who had not moved.

“Out, out,” she sang instead of “rock you.” She had no intention of letting her memories get stolen again.

They had to step over Zander to escape.

Leah had quit even trying to sing. But she was running with Anna in the right direction, so Anna figured that Leah was in charge of her own mind.

Rain was still pelting down sideways as they scrambled out of the cave—a different opening than Anna and Zander had used to enter earlier. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed too close together. Anna quit singing.

Leah said, “If we head directly to the highway, we can make it faster than if we take your SUV.”

Anna shook her head. “The SUV is dead anyway. Pretty sure he took out the oil pan on a rock. But we don’t have to make it to the highway before we get help.” She pointed. “Charles is over there. Maybe a quarter of a mile away.”

Leah half lidded her eyes—Zander’s eyes. Once Anna had noticed the resemblance, she didn’t know how she could have missed it. Then Leah nodded. “Okay, I feel them, too.”