“You’re going to stab me again, cut me again? What do you suppose that will get you?”
“He’s weaker than he was, then. We got six years, then. He’s weaker. We’ll get ten years. Twenty.” Billy was hopping from foot to foot. “Do it.”
Alan sliced and stabbed again, and the knife’s point caught Danny’s little bandy leg, like cutting through a loaf of stale bread, and Danny gasped and hopped back another step.
“He gave you the knife, didn’t he? He gave you the knife last time. Last time, he took me to the school yard and showed me you and your girlfriend. He explained all about girlfriends to me and about what it would mean once our secret was out. He taught me the words, taught me to say pervert. Remember, Billy? Remember how you taught me?”
Andrew hesitated.
“He taught me the ritual with your thumbtip, how to make the little you, and then he took it away from me for safekeeping. He kept it in one of his rabbit cages, around on the other side of the mountain. It’s not there now. Have you seen it? Does he still have it?
“He never liked having a little brother, not me or the others, but he liked having that little thing around to torture.”
Billy hissed. “She’ll be dead in minutes,” he said. “In seconds. Another one dead. His doing!
“Killed her, cut her up, buried her,” Benny chanted. “Sliced her open and cut her up,” he shrilled.
Alan let the knife fall from his hands. Benny leapt for Danny, hands outstretched. Danny braced for the impact, rolled with him, and came up on top of him, small hands in Benny’s eyes, grinding.