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knife down very close to her widely staring eye. “You should have stayed out of my room.”
    She struggled beneath his weight. “Toby, stop,” she gasped, trying to keep what little of her voice she could rasp out from rising an octave in panic.
    He glanced back at the little box, its spilled insides vomited all over the bedroom floor, and eased his grip on her throat, just a little. When he looked back at her, his face wore a strange expression of disappointment and excitement. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
    â€œToby, get off me.” She coughed. “Get off me, come on! Get off or Dad will—”
    Her head was rocked to the side by a blow that stung her cheek. He’d hit her. Holy fuck, he’d actually hit her. He’d taken his hand off her throat and slapped her hard in the face. She lay silent, too stunned to struggle or attempt to speak again. Her cheek throbbed, and hot tears blurred her vision.
    â€œYou know, I could do you right here. I’ve thought about it, you know. I could fuck you and stab you to pieces and drag whatever’s left of you out into the woods. I’d hide you better than the others. Dad would neeeever find you. No one would ever find you.“ His voice was soft, very soft, and kind of singsongy as he drew out the word “never.” He stroked the side of her breast through her bra with his free hand and grazed her bare stomach with the knife. “I could do that, Kat. I could make sure you keep quiet, so, so quiet, about the box and the finger bones and the Hand of the Black Stars—all of that. But you’re my sister. I don’t want to kill you—really, I don’t.”
    He leaned down until he was lying on top of her, his groin grinding painfully against her hips, his lips close to her ear. She felt the knife point digging into her cheek, and she winced, fresh tears streaming out of the corners of her eyes.
    â€œBut damn,” he said, his breathing getting heavier, “do I ever want to cut you.” His erection pressed painfully hard into her hip.
    â€œToby, please. Please get off of me.”
    He sat up again and raised the knife.
    â€œToby, don’t!”
    He pressed the blade into her skin just above her left eyebrow. She could feel the sting of it, a spark of horrific bright pain, and she screamed.
    He pulled the blade down, skipping over her eye and landing on her cheek just below the eye socket, a new sting that spread its venomous agony out across her face. She screamed again, all the panicked desperation inside her welling up in that one loud wail of terror and hurt.
    He dragged the blade down farther, all the way to her jawbone, and now she could feel the wet heat of her own blood dripping down into her ear, her eye, her hair. Her tongue darted against the inside of her cheek and she felt it give a little, the skin there so thin, so dangerously close to tearing straight through, and she screamed again.
    She barely heard the rapid footsteps on the stairs or her father and Officer Kempton shouting at Toby. She felt a weight being lifted off her and a coolness where it had been, and she began to tremble all over. She closed her eyes, bawling, and heard more shouting, but couldn’t make out the words. The pain throbbing across her face had a heartbeat of its own, and she had blood in her ear, and besides, her own sobs filled her from the inside out. So she cried on the floor, cried until she couldn’t hear the shouting or even her own sobs, just the furious pounding of her wound’s own heartbeat, until that, too, faded, and the darkness behind her eyelids spread to her whole body.
    * * *
    Kathy turned up Silver Street and followed it through acres of white flatland to the visitor parking lot just outside of Parker Hall. A red brick building with narrow, barred windows and a mansard roof, it had always struck Kathy as a stern, unwelcoming place, looming in the vertical and