When the door opened he yelled her name, like a lost lion cub calling to its mother, in the baron unforgiving wilderness that he called his home. Jess went to him and scooped him up into her arms. A moment later he could feel her salty tears dripping down her still puffy face. “Is he here?” Denny shook his head. “Why aren't you asleep?” “I was waiting for you”, Denny said and then buried himself even further into Jess's neck. “Sleep with me tonight”, Jess said. “What about him?” Denny said, a lilt of worry snapping his voice in two like a fallen twig under a size nine boot. “Shush”, Jess said and smoothed the back of his head. “You need to sleep. If he comes, I'll move you back into here.” Jess spent the whole night awake, her head thick with sleep but too scared to succumb to it. She lay rigid in the bed with Denny snoozing at her size, her jaw flashing bolts of pain all the way down her neck and into her spine, her heart quickening at every unusual sound that might indicate the return of the man she now considered to be the devil himself.
