Kris hesitated.
Sher stepped beside Kris.
“I don’t want to be alone,” Tricia cried and grabbed Kris’s hand.
Sher stepped around Tricia, yanked on the doorknob, springing the door from the frame. Jackie slapped the door with her palm to force it shut, but the door didn’t budge in Sher’s hand.
Jackie’s eyes slid to Sher’s forearm. The girl was strong. She could take Jackie. Jackie stepped back, and the girls sprang into the hall with such force it was as if they’d been thrown out of the room.
They hurried onto the street, cut to the right, and ran into the alley.
The girls stopped to breathe.
“Feel that?” Sher asked.
Kris nodded, bent over, her hands on her knees.
“You know what Grandma would say.”
Kris nodded. “Yah. The spirit behind it.”
The girls jogged a few blocks south to a
