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of a car,” he said, as though it didn’t matter that she’d been chased down by a monster and barely escaped with her life. That was Derek, in a nutshell. Easily distracted by shiny objects.
    She was grateful for the change of subject, though, and gestured to the open driver’s side window. “Take a look. The guy was on his way to some party or something and got lost, I guess. I don’t know why he would have stopped at the service station, though. It doesn’t exactly look like it’s in business.”
    “I’m wondering how the hell he managed to stop at all.” Derek leaned in the window and gave a whistle of appreciation. “All-leather interior. This is a hell of a car, whatever it is.”
    “Well, it’s a good thing he did stop. Otherwise, I would have been It’s dinner.” She wondered if those terrifying words would come back to haunt her inthe night. And she tried not to dwell on the fact that she’d brought It up again. A hot flush flamed in her cheeks, embarrassment at herself for wanting him to acknowledge the danger she’d been in. She didn’t want to be scolded, but a sick, jealous part of her wanted him to care.
    “Hell of a car.” Derek looked around the yard, an increasingly agitated expression on his face. “So where’s this guy, now? You didn’t let him stay here?”
    “I did.” She drew herself up to her full height, which was pretty impressive for a woman, or so she’d been told. She was still shorter than Derek, but he would damn well listen to her. “I’m a grown woman. I can have anybody stay the night that I want to.”
    Derek gave her a sideways look that said, Over my dead body. “Nobody ever said you couldn’t, but how did you know this guy wasn’t dangerous or something? I mean, he could stop here…how do you know he wasn’t sent here?”
    “Sent?” She hadn’t thought of that. Maybe she should have. The creature had never sent anyone into their midst before, and it didn’t make a whole lot of sense that it would now. Such a complicated strategy for a basically ragtag monster, but then, It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, period. Nothing in Penance did anymore. “You think so?”
    “Could be. Don’t know until we talk to this guy.” Derek started for the house, and Jessa followed. “We can’t. Not now. He’s sleeping.”
    “Well, I guess we’re gonna just have to go and wake him up,” Derek said, his worn-out boots striking a determined rhythm on the porch.
    Jessa hesitated. It wasn’t that she wanted to protect the guy in the basement from Derek, but she didn’t want the two to meet, either. Something about the guy reminded her of the reality of her—and the whole town’s—situation. If she stood in the same room with the both of them, the safety and familiarity of another aspect of her pretend world would be fractured. If she kept losing pieces of her fantasy refuge, where would she go to escape the here and now?
    She didn’t have much of a choice. Derek was already headed toward the stairs to the upper level of the house.
    “Wait,” she called out to him, not sure if she meant to stop him entirely or just stop him from going up. “He’s in the basement.”
    “Why would you keep him in the basement?” Derek moved with equal determination toward the kitchen.
    First he didn’t want the guy in her house at all, then he wanted her to be putting him in plush accommodations? She rolled her eyes, glad Derek could see her. She didn’t have the energy for a fight about her “tone.” “It was the only place I felt safe keeping him.”
    “Don’t you worry about safe,” Derek reassuredher. “I’m about to make sure this creep doesn’t lay a finger on you.”
    Yeah, from one creep to another, she thought, but she still had to squash a spark of triumphant feminine pride as she followed him down the basement steps.

Four
    W aking to the disturbing sensation of not knowing where he was or why he was there, Graf sat up on the rickety cot. Someone