"Aaron Acheson," Wiley crooned. "Welcome to the party."
"Let the kids go, Wiley," Aaron growled, "and maybe I won't roast you into a pile of charred asshole."
Aaron stood tall on the top step. He filled in the doorway with his angry figure, alive with writhing bolts of energy. I didn't want to believe what I was seeing; the fear that it would turn out to be some demented trick or desperate hallucination nagged at the back of my brain. But I knew my uncle when I saw him, his rugged strength, his crass demeanor, the rasp of his voice as he gnawed on his words like a caged grizzly bear. I had no idea how he'd managed to find us after all these weeks, but this was him, Aaron Acheson, in the flesh.
Something stirred to life inside me at the sight of my uncle. Some hopeful part of me that had
