“Yeah. It was scary, but I got away be
fore anything bad happened.”
His voice softened and dropped to a whisper against my ear. “I had to see for myself.”
I allowed myself a moment to relax into Ranger. He was warm and strong, and all the bad, frightening things in life went away when he held me like this.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I have the Subaru tagged.”
I could feel Ranger smile. He saw the humor in his obsession to keep me on his radar screen.
“Does Diesel know?”
“Hard to tell what Diesel knows.” Ranger pulled back a little and looked at me. “Diesel has superbad enemies, and the people he chases aren’t normal. You need to be careful if you partner with Diesel.”
“He popped into my apartment, and I can’t get rid of him.”
“You could move into Rangeman until he leaves.”
“That’s going from the frying pan into the fire.”
The smile was back. “In some ways.”
“Anyway, he feels like a brother.”
“I’m sure he would love that description,” Ranger said.
Grandma Mazur opened the front door and looked out. “Stephanie? Is that Ranger with you? Is that your truck?”
“I have to go,” Ranger said. “Try to stay out of trouble.” He kissed me on the forehead, jogged back to his car, and took off.
Grandma came to see what was going on with the truck. “Who’s this?” she said, looking inside at Elmer.
“This is Elmer,” I said. “He was nice enough to bring me home when I got stranded in the Barrens.”
“He’s a cutie,” Grandma said. “He don’t look too old, either.”
“I got most of my original teeth,” Elmer said.
“We got a lot of lasagna,” Grandma said to him. “We kept it warm for Stephanie. You’re welcome to come have some lasagna with us.”
“That would be real nice,” Elmer said. “I’m starving.”
I looked back at the house and saw Diesel standing in the doorway, waiting for me.
“I had to buy more Pepto-?Bismol,” he said when I reached him. “You’re giving me an ulcer.”
“I have a lot to tell you.”
“What’s with the sweatshirt? It looks like someone took a scissor to the bottom of it.”
“Munch was trying to get it off me, but it didn’t work out.”
Diesel grinned. “You kicked him in the nuts again, didn’t you?”
“It’s my signature move.”