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I get us out onto the county road with the heat on high and my hands at ten and two like a driving test, and it takes me two miles to notice.

I'm not shaking.

Three days ago I could barely hold a mug and now I just took four creepy things out of this world with my palm up and my hands are steady as a level.

That's the part I'm going to have to think about later for sure.

"Maren." Gage is gray. His head's back against the seat and his eyes are half shut and he's got his hand pressed flat over his shoulder like he's holding a door of his own.

"Don't talk."

"They didn't come for me."

"Gage."

"Four of them." He turns his head. It hurts him. "If they wanted me dead they'd have sent more."

In the mirror, back where the mansion's roofline is going into the trees, I can see the road behind us.

Three of them are standing in it.

Not running. Not following. Just standing in a loose line on the gravel at the mouth of the drive, exactly the way they stood on his lawn. Every one of them has turned to watch the truck go.

"They came to see what you'd do."

And then he stops talking. The only sound in the cab now is the heater and the wet catch in his breathing.

36

MAREN

STILL TWO DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

It takes four cups of salt water and both my thumbs to get the venom out of Gage's thigh, and this time he doesn't make a single sound.

That's the part that frightens me.

His shoulder is already closing. I watched it start in the truck, the edges creeping toward each other like something impatient. The leg won't. The blood keeps coming up too dark and smoking a little where it hits the towel, and every time I think I have it clean another black thread works its way to the surface.

"More salt."

"You've used the whole box."

"Get the other box."

There is no other box. I use the round blue canister from the pantry, the one with the girl in the raincoat on it, and stir it into hot water with a wooden spoon.

Two of his wolves carry him up the stairs. Neither of them look at me. One of them set him down on the bed like he was worried about denting the floor, then stood in the doorway until I said thank you.

Now there are six of them in the yard in the cold, and not one will come inside.

I pour salt water into an open wound for the ninth time.

He grips the mattress. The frame groans.

"You're allowed to yell."

"No."