Griffin kept watching his feet while he cupped one hand under his balls.

Ben said, “If he doesn’t open the door, we’re going to have to bust in.”

I saw Quinn’s canoe sitting on the side of the station beside a post office mailbox with its gut-door pried off. There was what looked like an arm bone inside. Nothing else.

“He’s got the place booby-trapped. It’s dangerous. We can figure something out.” I pounded my fist against the door. “Quinn! Cahill! It’s me, Jack!”

We waited.

It poured.

Ben kicked the door. It made a sound like explosions inside the cavernous firehouse. If Quinn was inside, he knew we were there.

Griffin pressed up against me when the first boom of thunder erupted over our heads. Here in Marbury, it came so loud, you could feel thunderclaps echoing in the center of your guts.

“We need to get out of the rain,” Griffin said.

The water inched its way toward us, higher up the slope of the hill. I could see the worms slithering at its edge, like they could smell us standing there. And for a moment, I couldn’t help but picture the image of all those millions of black worms sprouting like weeds through the skin of the anguished Hunters.

I pounded a second time. “Quinn Cahill! Please!”

Another explosion of thunder. I could feel both of them—Griffin and Ben—jump at the sound.

And then, from above: “Billy? Is that you?”

The three of us looked up at the same time to see a scrawny redhead kid smiling down at us from his rooftop deck.

Quinn Cahill.

“You been a bad friend, Billy. You took from me. That just ain’t right. You should have did what I told you.”

Why was it that I always found myself wanting to punch him? At least the adrenaline rush of Quinn Cahill’s constant pissing me off had a weird rejuvenating effect on my sorry state.

And Ben whispered, “‘Billy’? Who the fuck is Billy?”

“He just fucks with people,” I said. “Constantly. He’s a little fucking prick.”

Then I raised my voice so he would hear me. “I apologize for that, Quinn. I was afraid of the Rangers, so I ran. Please help us. We’re kind of in a jam.”

Quinn’s head disappeared and then popped back over the edge of the building. He swung his arms into sight and pointed the bright red speargun directly at us. “What do I want with some useless Odds, Billy? You can all get on back to wherever you came from. Well, them two can. I’ll allow you to stay, Billy. Just you. I like you, Billy. But them other two need to get.”

I looked down, whispered, “He’s fucking insane.”

Griffin pressed his body flat against the door. Quinn was just posturing. There was no way he could shoot one of us from where he stood. And I didn’t think he was honestly crazy enough to actually kill another kid—an Odd—anyway, but I wasn’t willing to test my theory about that either.

“I can’t leave them,” I said. “I’ve known them forever.”

“Okay. Well, good-bye then, Odd.”

And Quinn Cahill disappeared behind the wall of cinderblock above us.

I kicked the door. “Fucking sonofabitch.”

“Is he joking?” Ben seemed unable to grasp Quinn’s cut-and-dry outlook on things.

Griffin stomped his foot down. I looked. With the heel of his shoe, he’d cut one of the black worms in half. “We need to get out of here.”

I raised my hand to pound again, but I gave up. It was no use. To Quinn, everything was about winning, and knowing that should have made me wonder why he was always so eager and willing to keep me around. What was the gain?

“I fucking hate that guy.”

What could we do? The water was rising fast. We’d all be struggling against the worms in a minute. And that was a fight we’d end up losing. Our only chance was taking Quinn’s canoe—stealing from him again.

I sighed. “Fuck.” Then I bent over and began untying my bootlaces. Someone was going to have to wade out after the canoe, and I couldn’t expect Ben or Griffin to do it; not after all the shit I’d already put them through.

By the time I’d gotten my socks pulled off and managed to roll my pantlegs up over my calves, I already had one of those black things worming across the top of my foot, slithering up from between my toes. I pinched it, flicked it away, and daubed at the bead of watery blood left behind by its circular bite.

“Anyone else want to come with me?”

Ben and Griffin just stared at me like I was a lunatic. “This is going to be fucking fun.”

I took a deep breath, and was just about to step out into the water when the firehouse door opened and the redhead stuck his face out. And he was still pointing that speargun of his, directly at the center of my back.

“I’ll shoot anyone who touches my boat, Billy. That’s just how it’s going to be.”

I spun around, my hand clenched in a fist, ready to unload on him. “What the fuck do you want me to do, Quinn? You want to fucking stand there and watch while we get eaten alive?”

Griffin and Ben moved away from me, as near as they could get to the edge of the water. I couldn’t blame them for stepping back. It was a rock and a hard place, and I’d never expect them to take a shot that I deserved. After all, it was my idea to come to the fucker’s house in the first place.

Everything was my idea.

Quinn waited in the doorway and stared at me for a while. He had a hurt look on his face, like a kid who nobody wanted to play with; who got picked last for a team.

“Okay, Billy. No need using foul words. I was just seeing how you’d stand. Who you’d stick up for in the game. You know … yourself or your partners there. You are partners, right?”

I wanted to howl, to kick him in the teeth.

“Yes. We’re partners, Quinn. That’s how it is.”

Then Quinn pointed the spear tip down at my foot. “Uh. You want to watch that, Odd.”

Two more of the worms were on my right ankle, coming up. A third was already disappearing inside the left leg of my pants. I pulled it out through the hole in my knee, ripped it apart between my fingers. Then the other two. Both of my legs and hands were covered in blood.

I held my palms out, open to Quinn.

“What the fuck, Quinn? Come on.”

Quinn lowered the speargun and swung his door open. He stood back to let us inside. Even though he was giving in to me, Quinn Cahill made it clear that he was the winner.

“I was just measuring you up, Billy. You’re okay. You two partners got a good friend there. A real good friend!”

And Quinn patted Ben and Griffin warmly on their wet backs as they went through the door to his firehouse. I bent down and picked up my socks and boots.

Quinn said, “Now don’t be tracking in any of them suckers with you, Billy! Ha-ha-ha…”

But as I passed him in the doorway, he put his arm around my shoulders and whispered, “It would be better if it was just you and me, Odd. You’ll see. We don’t need them two, Billy. Okay?”

As he led me up the stairway to his living floor, Quinn kept squeezing me tight, like how you’d hold on to someone you’d been missing for years, patting me until I finally broke down and said what he wanted to hear.

“Thank you, Quinn. You’re a good friend.”

And I knew then that if I ever had to kill Quinn Cahill to protect the boys, or to make certain we’d be able to get home again, I’d give it about as much thought as plucking one of those fucking worms off my nuts.

Quinn slapped my shoulder.

“I told you we’d be friends, Billy. Told you.”

*   *   *

First he had to give my “partners” a grand tour of his palace.

Quinn pointed out the two beds, explained how the one with no sheets was “Billy’s,” and told Ben and Griffin his story about the ungrateful Odd who made a rope with sheets and ran away when Anamore Fent’s team came by, hunting for him.

“But you two Odds can sleep down on the floor. Don’t worry, I got plenty more bedding, which I intend is not going to be put to use for anything other than you two fellas sleeping on.”