[There's nothing there, really. But Brett's voice comes back after a moment. His tone sounds a little detached, but he's talking quicker, fueled by a clear sense of anxiety.]

Peregrine didn't go to her senior prom. How could she? That was when I realized what was happening. It was a nightmarish slurry of all my own worries and fears - the things that had been keeping me awake during so many recent sleepless nights. A school dance, only a few hundred yards away from...a tree with a splintered trunk, and dark tire marks ground into the pavement. Beyond that, the woods.

And then there was Peregrine herself, seemingly so close and yet still out of reach.

'Cause what I still don't know is -