Tears started again. “I hit him,” he said. “I had to.”

“Good kid.” The cop’s voice turned flinty. Richard imagined words striking sparks when he talked. “What did you hit him with? That axe? The neighbor girl… ”

Morphine, or Darvon, or whatever it was furred the edges of Richard’s tunneling vision. Through this black fuzzy sleeve he watched the cop pull a notebook from his coat pocket.

“Vondra Werner,” the policeman verified. “Vondra Werner said you spent most of the night with her.”

At first Richard didn’t see the ghost of a grin behind the cop’s words. Then he did, and he knew the man thought he was a hero.

Not just a survivor, but a hero.

“That’s enough,” Nurse Sara said. “Look at him, poor, poor, beautiful boy… ” was the last thing Richard heard.

3

Nothing was ever going to be right again, Dylan thought.

Except Rich. Rich didn’t die. He almost died, but he didn’t.

The first time Dylan saw him again was at the trial. It wasn’t held in Rochester because everybody there hated Dylan too much for it to be fair. They were trying him in a little town called Hammond about three hours away. He had to get up at five every morning so they could drive him there in time. The courthouse was small and looked like it was supposed to, with benches and a fence between the audience and the lawyers. Every day it was packed, mostly with newspaper and TV people.