Page 9

She locked herself in the bathroom for an hour. When she came out her knuckles were bleeding. She'd been hitting the tile wall.

His answer comes fast.

What do you need?

I don't know.

I stare at the screen, then type the rest.

She won't eat. She won't talk. She keeps looking at the door like something's going to come through it.

Then stand between her and the door.

He means between her and whatever's coming for her. I look down the porch steps at the empty drive, with my rifle in reach and her door at my back.

I'm already there.

I put the phone away and stay where I am.

Not long after, I hear her through the door. She's right on the other side of it, near enough that she has to be sitting on the floor with her back against the wood. She's talking just above a whisper, and the cheap door doesn't stop much of it.

"Delilah Ruth King."

She says it slow, every syllable on purpose, like she was trained to say it that way.

Then she says a name I've never heard in my life. "Sandy."

I don't know who Sandy is. But Delilah's holding on to her the same way she's holding on to her own name, and that makes Sandy my business now.

3

DELILAH

Knox has been sitting outside this door since deep in the night. I haven't heard him move in hours, and the food he left on the step has to be stone cold by now. I've been on the floor with my back against the door since I checked the drive through the curtain. Royce's knife is across my knees, and my stomach won't stop growling.

Knox walked the porch from one end to the other for half the night. His boots were heavy enough that I could count his steps. He must have done it on purpose so I'd always know where he was. Dutch made noise on purpose too. He came down the cellar stairs one slow step at a time so I'd have to lie there and listen to him coming.

When Knox's boots went quiet, I heard the boards creak as he sat down against the wall right beside the door. Around sunup he talked low on his phone, too low for me to make out.

A little while ago I whispered my real name the way Sandy made us do every night, and then I whispered hers. Knox was sitting close enough to hear both names. If he heard them, I've given Sandy's name to a man who was never in the Thornton barn, and it wasn't mine to give.

I'm hungry enough to eat cold cornbread off the step, and I need to know if I can look Knox in the face without feeling like I owe him for every hour he's sat out there.

I get up slowly with Royce's knife in my hand, unlock the door, and open it.

Knox is sitting on the boards with his back to the wall and one knee up, his rifle propped beside him. He's still wearing the black tactical vest from last night.

He looks up at me and doesn't stand. I'm grateful, because if he stood up, he'd tower over me.

I keep the knife down along my leg. Knox looks at it once and then back at my face.

"Morning," he says.

The stew in the bowl on the step has formed a skin. The ice has melted through its bag and soaked the boards. The cornbread sits on a paper towel, dry at the edges. Beside it are a bottle of water and the first-aid kit, with a roll of vet wrap on top.

I bend down slowly because of my ribs, pick up the cornbread, and eat standing in the doorway.

It's cold and crumbly, and it sticks in my throat. It's the best thing I've eaten in a year. I finish every bite before I say a word, and he lets me.