I didn't know if she was compelled, or just following my request.
"What do you need?" She stopped within an easy arm's reach.
I put my arm through the bars and held out my hand.
She looked at it a moment, but took it.
"Amber," I said solemnly, looking into her eyes.
"Chad will be safe.
I promise." She nodded earnestly.
"I'll take care of him." "No." I swallowed and then put authority in my voice.
"You're dead, Amber." Her expression didn't change.
I narrowed my eyes at her in my best Adam imitation.
"Believe me." First her face lit up with that horrible fake smile, and she started to say something.
She looked down at my hand, then over to Corban and Chad--who hadn't noticed her yet.
"You're dead," I told her, again.
She collapsed where she stood.
It wasn't graceful or gentle.
Her head bounced off the floor with a hollow sound.
"Can he take her again?" asked Corban urgently.
I knelt and closed her eyes.
"No," I told him with more conviction than I felt.
Who knew what Blackwood could do? But her husband needed to believe it was over for her.
At any rate, it wouldn't be Amber who walked around in her body.
Amber was gone.
"Thank you," he told me, with tears in his eyes.
He wiped his face and tapped Chad on the shoulder.
"Hey, kid," he said, and he stepped away so Chad could see Amber's body.
They talked for a long time then.
Corban played it tough and gave his son the gift of the belief in the superman qualities of fathers for at least one more day.
We slept, all of us, as far from Amber's body as we could get.
They pushed the bed up close to my cell and the two of them slept on that and I slept on the floor next to them.
Chad reached though the bars and kept a hand on my shoulder.