Headlights appeared through the downpour — a black sedan, rounding the bend in the long driveway.

I did not think.

I stepped onto the wet asphalt directly into its path, and I threw both hands up over my head, and I braced for the choice the driver would have to make.

The car stopped inches from my knees, close enough that I felt the heat of the engine.

The rear door clicked open.

A man in a dark, well-cut coat looked out at me — at my bleeding, bare feet, at the mud, at the rain, and then, over my shoulder, at the figures now running toward us from the direction of Wendy’s estate.

He took all of it in, in about two seconds, and then he said one word.