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The demon turned around and touched Alan’s mouth Its hand came away stained

Demons want blood

Alan laughed and hugged it closer “Don’t worry,” he said “I’m okay It doesn’t hurt”

That was yesterday Today in the earlyI carried Alan downstairs, as if we had to ht, that I had everything taken care of, that I had Nick

I was driving as fast as I could I was almost out of tohen Alan woke up properly I saw hilasses Then his eyes traveled from my head to Olivia’s

“Where’s Nick?”

This ti fear on his face This ti athe coward’s way out I was running away Let the icians have it Let someone else deal with it

I met Alan’s eyes in the mirror head-on, so desperate that I was almost calm

Reflected in the glass, my son’s eyes narrowed

Then he threw hi car I stopped with a screech of brakes, far too late

Alan had already picked hi a speck in the distance My Alan, the athlete If I’d leaped froht him

“Poor thing,” Olivia remarked as we drove back “Alan,” she said after ahis name “He seems like a nice child”

I don’t knohat else I expected Alan doesn’t think of her as his mother It would break my heart if he did

She’s not fit to be anybody’s mother

It’s not her fault But the way she is now breaks my heart too

Alan was not back in the house as I had expected He was at the top of our road instead, he and the de down Alan’s face, risly mask for my child as he shook and held the demon in his arms It looked the same as it always does

Alan looked atto look for me,” he said, based on no evidence at all Then he returned to whispering comfort in the demon’s ear

“All right, Alan,” I said loudly, trying to drown out that soft sound “You win”

He looked atone-way conversation with the de was fine now, that it was safe, that above all else it was loved

I sat with the car door open, hearing the sht ahead The wind blew the long locks of Olivia’s hair across to the open door, obscuring my view like streamers of shadow, like the bars of a prison een me and the world

Perhaps Alan is not enchanted Perhaps he is si the most where there is no happiness and no hope of return to be found

Mae stopped reading

She had no idea what to say to Nick

He was just standing there, braced against thefraainst the horizon, like the edge of a knife s she’d read was screah her head, like a storm made out of words Demons want blood Deicians have it

“Alan, the athlete,” Nick ground out, which Mae had not been thinking at all

“Oh,” she said

“Do you kno it happened?” he asked

“No,” said Mae, her sto She’d never asked about Alan’s li ht,see to do, and after a while the politeness became real It wasn’t like she didn’t notice it, but she was used to it, the limp as much a part of Alan as his careful smiles

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know

“It was asp before he went on “I took off ave ht He lost his father and his leg and it was all because of me”

Mae bit her lip Alan, the athlete The football player, the kid his frantic father couldn’t catch She thought about Alan’s face when he asked Sin hoas supposed to run

“Couldn’t you …” she began, hesitating, thinking of Gerald saying that Nick couldn’t heal Merris “Are you able to fix his leg? Can you do that?”

He looked up, eyes slices of shadow in his cold face, and Mae felt a thrill of fear run down her spine as she realized that she’d said exactly the wrong thing

“Yes,” Nick said, his voice a whisper, chilling as the sounds that run through an ehtmares “That had occurred to me, actually But Alan won’t let me”

That last h It see as simple and childish as that

“How can he stop you?” she blurted

Mae saw his fingers clench hard on the sill, white and terribly strong

“You’re right,” he snarled “Nobody can stop , anytime, and not a soul in this world would be able to stop me”

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The demon turned around and touched Alan’s mouth Its hand came away stained

Demons want blood

Alan laughed and hugged it closer “Don’t worry,” he said “I’m okay It doesn’t hurt”

That was yesterday Today in the earlyI carried Alan downstairs, as if we had to ht, that I had everything taken care of, that I had Nick

I was driving as fast as I could I was almost out of tohen Alan woke up properly I saw hilasses Then his eyes traveled from my head to Olivia’s

“Where’s Nick?”

This ti fear on his face This ti athe coward’s way out I was running away Let the icians have it Let someone else deal with it

I met Alan’s eyes in the mirror head-on, so desperate that I was almost calm

Reflected in the glass, my son’s eyes narrowed

Then he threw hi car I stopped with a screech of brakes, far too late

Alan had already picked hi a speck in the distance My Alan, the athlete If I’d leaped froht him

“Poor thing,” Olivia remarked as we drove back “Alan,” she said after ahis name “He seems like a nice child”

I don’t knohat else I expected Alan doesn’t think of her as his mother It would break my heart if he did

She’s not fit to be anybody’s mother

It’s not her fault But the way she is now breaks my heart too

Alan was not back in the house as I had expected He was at the top of our road instead, he and the de down Alan’s face, risly mask for my child as he shook and held the demon in his arms It looked the same as it always does

Alan looked atto look for me,” he said, based on no evidence at all Then he returned to whispering comfort in the demon’s ear

“All right, Alan,” I said loudly, trying to drown out that soft sound “You win”

He looked atone-way conversation with the de was fine now, that it was safe, that above all else it was loved

I sat with the car door open, hearing the sht ahead The wind blew the long locks of Olivia’s hair across to the open door, obscuring my view like streamers of shadow, like the bars of a prison een me and the world