The Hearts We Sold(30)

She ate with the other kids in the living room, with some cartoon on that she didn’t recognize. The adults carried dishes into the kitchen, made towers of dirty plates and did some creative rearranging in the refrigerator, trying to fit all of the leftovers.

As they worked, some of the men went out into the backyard to smoke cigars and open a bottle of something stronger than beer. Dee watched as they poured small tumblers of the brown liquid. Dread curled her stomach into knots; she talked a little more quickly, as if trying to outpace her own fears.

It was a family gathering. She was safe here, among the others.

That night, as dusk began to creep over the horizon, Dee was on the back porch with three cousins and the Pomeranian. They were tossing the dog little scraps of turkey—and every so often, they would try to sneak a brussels sprout in there. To the kids’ delight, the dog would chew it a few times, then spit the vegetable onto the porch. It was clear proof that mammals were never meant to eat such things, one of the cousins declared, and this set off laughter.

A shout broke into their conversation.

Dee cringed; she shrunk in on herself before she was even truly aware of the noise’s source.

A fight had broken out. Half-smoked cigars littered the lawn, and two men were at each other’s collars.

Dee did not need to see her father’s face to know he was one of them. The familiar bellow turned her blood to ice.

She never learned what the argument was about—it could have been anything from an old family argument to politics to which football team should have won the Super Bowl in ’87. That didn’t matter—what did matter was the argument itself. It was like setting a match to tinder.

She watched her father slam her uncle into the fence, heard the crack of the wood breaking. A snarl of profanity, tangled up with her uncle’s name.

Two men managed to break up the fight, yanking the brothers apart and coming to stand between them. “Stop it, Mark,” said one of them. “Walk it off.”

“You fucking walk it off,” snarled Mr. Moreno. And threw another punch.

Dee never saw if it connected; she was already walking quietly inside, to pick up her things. “Come back when he’s sober,” said her uncle.

Within an hour, she was sitting in the backseat of their car. Her mother was in the driver’s seat, and her father the passenger’s. At some point, his anger had burned itself to ashes, leaving him apologetic and weeping, trying to pull each of his brothers into a hug, only to find himself shrugged off.

It was a thirteen-hour drive back home; thirteen hours that dragged by, punctuated by her father’s sobs and the sound of the car’s fuzzy radio.

Dee sat in the backseat, headphones clamped firmly over her ears and a magazine on her lap. She tried to lose herself in the glossy pages, reading about makeup and clothing she didn’t truly care about. It was a distraction, and that was all she wanted.

She turned a page and saw the next headline: INTERVIEW WITH A DEMON.

Her mouth twisted into a frown. People were still obsessed with these things masquerading as demons. It was stupid—it wasn’t as if—

But then her eyes fell upon the picture. A woman, smiling at the camera, her blond hair carefully arranged around her perfect face. But it wasn’t a woman.

Dee looked down at the photograph, startled by the certainty settling within her. Not human. She couldn’t figure out what had changed—but something had. She knew it wasn’t human; she could see it in the lines of the woman’s face, in the curl of her mouth, in the too-perfect brightness of her eyes.

After that Thanksgiving, Dee had no trouble recognizing the demons. She thought something about them must have changed. Perhaps the demons decided to unveil themselves to more people. It wasn’t until years later that she understood the demons themselves hadn’t changed.

She had.





SIXTEEN


S he got the call on the way back to Brannigan.

It was her home number and something inside Dee froze when the call came through. It couldn’t be her father; he would still be at work. Hesitantly, she answered. “Hello?”

Her mother’s voice. Ragged and worn, and just a little hopeful. “Dee?”

“Hi, Mom.” Dee angled the phone closer to her ear, trying to block out the sounds of traffic. “What is it?”

A pause.

Horrible pieces fell into place and she said, “Mom, what’s wrong?”

“I—I’m bleeding.” The admission came in a voice tentative, ashamed, and just a little self-deprecating. “There was a can and the lid—and, dear, do you remember where the bandages are?”

Dee gritted her teeth. The ache spread through her jaw, into her skull, settling in her temples. She closed her eyes for a moment, forced herself to answer. “They’re in the bathroom, under the sink.”

“Ah.” And then the phone clicked off.

Dee wondered if pain was written clearly cross her face, because James looked at her with something like concern. “You all right?”

She began to scratch at the back of her neck. “I—do you mind if we make a stop?”

She expected questions—and knowing him, they’d likely be impertinent ones. But he simply nodded. “Sure. Where do you need to go?”

The word tasted bitter in her mouth. “Home.”