Dan takes the beating; it isn't the first time he's absorbed someone else's violence because he's giving, accommodating, willing to self-sacrifice if it means getting someone else to safety. He's bleeding from his nose and lip, and his ears are ringing from where Elle clocked him in the head.

But he isn't letting her go. The pain is something to ground him here, instead of in that death-soaked van that he spent his young adulthood in, instead of watching his little brothers and sisters writhe in bloody pain, instead of finding his mom pinned with her own bones to the wall, instead of watching his kid die. He's here. He has a bloody nose to prove it.

"Whoa, girl," he says to both Elle and to the horse, because he's savvy enough with horses to tell that Concrete Blonde is about to bolt. He starts to drag Elle in another direction, towards an upturned cart of pies so they can shelter from the nightrender, which is coming towards them again.

"Get down, get down," Dan says, trying to push Elle to the flimsy shelter so he can get his bow off his back and try and pin down the nightrender again. "You're okay. You're here."