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But Danny focused on the woman. This was important. He tried to talk to her again. His lips moved, but he couldn’t get the words out. Couldn’t hold on to her arm either. His hand slipped, and he couldn’t even lift it back.

The door was over there. He kept looking at it.

Even after his eyes closed and his body gave up, he kept looking at it.

He would guard that door.

Anyone who wanted to get to Walt would have to get past him first.

But there was no one there now. No one trying to get in.

There was a kitchen table and a medium who was trying to talk to him.

Danny held his head in his hands.

Walt’s brothers weren’t coming.

He knew that. He knew there was nothing to guard anymore, that he’d spent years and years in this house all by himself. But he could still hear Walt crying. Still feel how badly he needed the woman to understand.

Someone called his name.

No, not his name. Another name.

He shook his head. He needed a moment.

He needed to check the basement.

No, he didn’t.

Walt was an old man now. Danny had seen him. He’d stood in this house and looked at the man Walt had grown into, and he hadn’t known what to make of that.

Now he remembered the young man too.

Walt had gotten away. He’d lived all those years.

Danny didn’t need to watch over two empty beds.

Something tugged at him.

You’re done. You can go now.

Could he really?

For so long, there had always been something keeping him here. Someone to protect. Something he needed to remember.

Not so now.

The pull grew stronger, and with it came a feeling of relief so sudden that he almost followed it without thinking.

He could stop listening for footsteps. Stop looking for faces he couldn’t quite remember. He didn’t have to keep trying to make sense of what had happened to him.

It was over.

“Leo?”

Danny turned toward the man calling him by the wrong name. A cat’s name.

Red hair, bad attitude, you look like a Leo.