He follows.

"Do you know what's going on?  With the box?"

"The police box?  Most of it, but it'll sound mad and there isn't time - get in my car - "

She beeps open the doors of her rental car and scrambles in.  Once Bryce is inside too she peels out and swerves around in a u-turn.

"What did the person chasing you look like?"

"Uh wrapped up in blankets with a welding mask helmet thing on, and heavy gloves."

"You couldn't see his skin?  - would that work?"  The second more to herself than to Bryce.

"Would what work what - no, he was all covered up."

She rounds the corner, and when there's no other cars coming makes a probably-illegal pass to park on the left side of the street.  "You mentioned a box.  Does he have it?"

"Yeah, in the abandoned auto shop - what's going on?"

"Listen to me."  She puts a hand on his shoulder.  "If I'm not back in five minutes, or if the man who was chasing you starts coming toward this car, or you see a statue of an angel, just drive away from here.  Lose anyone who's chasing you and park it by the hotel on Rouge Street and Park Avenue if you can.  Then just run.  You don't have to be a part of this."

"I - "

" - I need to know, what that box is.  It's - in my head, or something."

The stranger glances behind her, out the driver's side window, down the narrow road she parked beside.

"It's something that belongs to a friend of mine.  It was stolen from him.  I'm here to get it back."

"Is it - "

Might as well go all in, at this point, he thinks.

" - like a person?"

"You already are a part of this, aren't you."

He - smiles a bit, because that sounds like a yes, sort of.

"I think I might be."

"All right - new plan, wait at the hotel for me instead if you have to run away.  I'll get back there and explain everything as soon as I can."

He is so fucking scared -

 - and the box was scared too, if the box is really a person and he's not going crazy then it was terrified, blankets man was coming at it with a power drill -

 - his fists clench in his lap, all of a sudden he hates the man in the mask or the angel or whatever the hell it is -

 - and he doesn't like hating but sometimes it's easier than being afraid -

"No, I'm coming."

He can feel his lip quivering, his throat feels like there's something stuck in it, but he's not gonna let himself run away again.

"It's not safe, and I can't protect you."

"Then don't," he says, a little louder than he means to.

He can't meet her eyes.

"It's scared, right?  The box."

"I think, if you feel like you felt fear from the TARDIS, you were feeling something real.  I don't completely understand it.  I think... it's something that prefers to usually be more like an object than like a person, but it is like a person in some ways.  And it can feel things."

"I ran away and left it.  I wanna try to help it."

Besides, the worst that can happen is he dies, right?  He shouldn't be afraid of that any more.

She fishes something from her purse: a small, silvery key.  Hands it to him.

"This is a key to the TARDIS.  I'm going to distract the man with the drill; you try to get the TARDIS open.  There's someone inside who can help us fight an Angel, a robot dog called K9."

( - okay, sure.)  He takes the key.  "Got it."

She draws something else from her purse, that looks like a tube of lipstick.  "Ladies first, I think.  Stay behind me and wait until I have his attention."