“Stop,” I said. This was torture. “I don’t deserve this.”

She scooted closer to me, bringing us face to face, nose to nose. “No one deserves anything, but we get it all anyway. The good and the bad.”

“And the ugly?” It came out before I could hold it back. I’m an idiot.

Snot bubbled from her nose when she snorted. “What are you, Clint Eastwood now?”

My choppy laugh sounded robotic, but at least it was real. Cassie and me and our gallows humor. I forgot she could laugh at anything. “Wish I was. I’d get us out of here while smoking a cigarillo and leave a row of bodies in our wake.”

She smiled and fell against me, drained. Her head now on my chest, me stroking her hair. We stayed like that for a while, both of us with our eyes closed, the Ouija board forgotten, neither of us having anything left to say.

I pulled back and stood. Walked to the door and gripped the knob. If this thing didn’t open, I’d burn the place down around us. The door swung in on loose hinges.

“Holy shit,” Cassie said.

It was mid-afternoon. As good a time as any to reclaim our son.

“Ready?” I said.

She took a deep breath and stood. “No,” she said.

I smiled. “Me either. Let’s go.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

The woods appeared empty, but I knew we were under watch. I felt confident that we’d be given safe passage to that not-so-abandoned town where they were keeping Rox, however. Getting me there seemed to be the goal. But that didn’t stop me from searching for the deadliest branch I could find, looking underneath the hardwoods until I found a broken limb that could crater a skull. I found a solid, yet smaller branch with broken spikes sticking out from the business end, and handed it to Cassie.

She looked dubious. “You honestly think these two sticks are going to defend us against a horde of beast-men?”

“Better than nothing,” I said.

“Actually,” she said, dropping the branch and brushing bark from her hands, “I think we’d be better off not antagonizing anybody.”

“Suit yourself,” I said, but knew she was right and now felt silly holding a branch like I was some prehistoric warrior.

“You didn’t need to cut through the woods, you know,” I said.

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“There’s a road,” I said. “In fact, you must have crossed it.”

“I could have passed Dorothy on the road to Oz and wouldn’t have noticed. I was in a blind panic just following those guys.”

I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been for her. And here she is, doing it again, with only me to defend her. Given my status with this freak organization, she was probably better off alone.