Roof pauses, looks around, carefully places his hand over Roy Whittle’s right wrist. The boy feels about as weak as a fresh-drowned kitten.

Roof gives him a little squeeze.

“Figure with your esophagus all swole up you’d have a hard time screaming,” says Roof, keeping his voice friendly in tone and barely above a murmur. “Nothing wrong with your hearing though, is there? My concern ain’t you, because you I can have arrested anytime. My concern is that brother of yurn who likes to torture creatures. He run away practically soon’s he dropped you off. So my question is, where’d he go? Is he off huntin’ the one did this to you? Huh? And where’d that be, exactly? Best tell me, son. Best tell old Roof everything you know.”

Poor boy wants to scream but he can’t.

13. Say Your Prayers

Never before has Kelly Garner dreaded the sunrise. Not that she’s usually up that early but still, when it does happen her heart always stirs with warmth, even if her eyes are bleary from an all-nighter. Probably because it triggers memories of childhood confinements at various treatment centers. There were a few bad nights, nurses and doctors hovering, when the prospect of witnessing another dawn seemed unlikely. So she’s keenly aware, despite what her mom may think, that each new day is a precious gift.

Kelly knows the monster man is close. Hasn’t dared rise up for a look lately, but her sixteen-year-old ears register everything. The squish of a heavy foot coming up from the damp grass. The faintest clink of something metallic—a knife or gun?

He’s out there, waiting patiently. Waiting for her to make a mistake, give herself away. Waiting for the sun to rise, when it will be easier to find them.

Seth remains feverish, quaking uncontrollably, but he’s not yet delirious. He understands the consequences of making a sound, and has kept silent, communicating, as best he can, by touch. They cling together, not daring to so much as slap away a mosquito. Kelly wondering if it’s possible to be bitten to death, to actually be bled dry by mosquitoes. They’re both so swollen with bite marks that the bugs are having trouble finding fresh spots.

Kelly takes great care not to put any pressure on Seth’s swollen arm. There’s a limit to how much pain he can stand without crying out.

Best thing, she decides, go somewhere far away in her head. Somewhere that gives her hope, makes her feel strong. For Kelly that somewhere is in the left-hand seat of Seth’s brand-new Cessna Skylane. Seth in the co-pilot’s seat, letting her have the controls for the first time. He’s still a bit uneasy about taking on the responsibility of instructing a teenage girl, one who has been badgering him unmercifully by e-mail. He’s made it clear he’s not interested in some whimsical impulse to get a free ride in a small plane. She will have to prove herself, and quickly.

Seth Manning, for all his boyish good looks, is the most serious man she’s ever met. For him flying is a vocation, not a hobby or job. He’s been flying since he was fourteen—he soloed at fifteen, long before he could legally drive—so he knows that some teens are capable of serious commitment. She knows what he must be thinking: this skinny girl in the pilot seat has made all the right noises, but the fact is she’s never even been in a small aircraft, let alone taken the yoke.

For all he knows, she might be a puker. Lots of steady, serious people can’t fly because of motion sickness. Others can’t learn because they don’t listen.

Kelly doesn’t puke. She’s a sponge, soaking up instruction and repeating it back to him word for word, if necessary. Her attention is fully engaged, firmly concentrated, and when he tells her to place her feet on the rudder pedals, find the balance between them, she does so with the confidence of someone who trusts her own physical instincts. Then she has the yoke and she’s flying the aircraft, banking firmly to the right as she follows his instructions, gradually coming back to level, finding the horizon, checking the instruments.

Flying.

The moment is, for Kelly, transcendent. For the first time in her life she’s in control of her own destiny, flying free above the earth. Her heart tells her that so long as she can fly, she’ll live forever. She can see not just her own small life, but the shape of the world below. Joy comes off her like waves of heat, and Seth knows what she’s experiencing. She can feel him studying her, judging her ability, and when she risks a quick glance the first thing that registers is the kindness in his eyes. He wants her to succeed.

“You’re a natural pilot,” he tells her that day, as if slightly disappointed.

“That’s good, right?”

“It can be. But it means you have to be extra careful, especially during the first few hours of instruction, as you develop discipline. Naturals tend to fly by the seat of their pants because they have an instinctive understanding of how the aircraft moves through the air. They concentrate on the feeling part and tend to ignore the instruments. That’s what gets them into trouble. When a plane stalls into a tailspin, there’s no ‘feel’ about it. You have to trust your instruments and your instruction, not your instincts. Most of being a good pilot is in your head, not your hands.”

“But my hands are okay?”

“Your hands are fine. If it’s any consolation, I was a natural, too. But I forced myself to become a very boring, by-the-numbers pilot.”

“By-the-numbers isn’t boring,” Kelly tells him. “By-the-numbers means staying alive.”

It was exactly the right thing to say. Once they were back on the ground—no, he wouldn’t allow her to attempt a landing the very first day—he seemed as excited about her continuing instruction as she did. He bought her a coffee at the airport’s little café and they talked for hours. He told her how he became obsessed with the notion of flying shortly after his mom died, when the idea of lifting into the air seemed like a way to escape grief, and later became something altogether different, a place where he felt whole and in control and completely alive. His mom died of cancer, he told her, and for the first time in her life Kelly found herself willingly recounting what it had been like to be a child stricken with leukemia, facing the very real possibility of death at an age when most kids’ biggest fear was invisible monsters under the bed.

They bonded big time.

Seth was different. Not like a potential boyfriend or a teacher, more like the perfect older sibling—or that’s how she, an only child, imagines it might be to have an older brother.

She can’t, she won’t, let him die.

That’s why, when the first shotgun blast explodes through the mangroves, followed by the flat bang of the discharge, Kelly Garner covers Seth Manning’s body with her own.

“Come on out, little pig,” says the monster man.

So close he might as well be whispering in her ear.

“Ain’t got all day. Quit humping your fag boyfriend.”

Kelly stays where she is, not moving. The next shot blows apart a branch not an inch from her head, spitting shredded mangrove leaves into her tightly clenched eyes.

“Two ways we can do this,” says monster man. “Crawl out and beg, or be killed where you’re at. Thing is, I need fag boy alive, so I’ll have to wing you and let you bleed to death, then drag you off him.”

He kicks at the mangroves. Kelly decides she doesn’t want to die with her eyes closed. She opens her eyes, squints up through the tangle of mangrove branches.

Monster man is no more than ten yards away.

“Make up your mind,” he says. “I ain’t got all night.”

Beneath her Seth struggles. “Leave her alone,” he says, voice muffled. “I’m the one you want!”

Feverish and weak though he is, Kelly can’t stop him from crawling out from under. Clenching his teeth, groaning in agony as his swollen arm thrashes through the branches. Finally staggers to his feet, finds himself up to his knees in the dark water surrounding the stand of mangroves. A faint blush of first light just now showing along the horizon.