He was weighing several conflicted thoughts about that when he saw movement across the street and realized, after a moment, that he was watching someone break into a house.
The crook, dressed in black, with one leg through an open window, paused and looked back to scan the street. He disappeared into the house a moment later, and Andrew didn’t think he’d been seen.
But he knew that face. It was the kid Miranda had been with.
Alex.
He stood frozen in indecision for a moment. Call the cops? Try to wake up the owners of the house, assuming they were even there?
He found himself jogging across the street to do the most unreasonable of the options that presented themselves: try to stop Alex himself.
The window sill was high enough that Andrew had to hoist himself up, but it wasn’t hard to do.
“Psst,” he stage-whispered. “Alex. Alex, where are you?”
His eyes worked hard to adjust to the gloom, and in a second or two he made out the teen’s thin shape standing across from the window. Totally still. Staring at him.
Andrew hoisted himself higher so his frame filled the window. “It’s Miranda’s dad,” he said, whispering even more loudly. “I saw you break in here. Listen, I won’t call the cops. Just get out of here now and everything will be fine.”
“Get out,” the boy whispered.
“I’m not leaving without you,” Andrew said. “You come, there won’t be any trouble. I just want to keep you out of jail this once.”
“Get out,” the boy whispered again. His voice was barely audible in the darkness.
Andrew wedged his shoulder against the window. His arms were getting tired. “Look, kid, this isn’t going to go well for you. Let’s just get out of here. I’ll buy you breakfast.”
“I’ve killed people,” the boy whispered.
The words took a moment to sink in. But Alex continued.
“I could just kill you. Get out.”
Andrew was amazed that his voice didn’t shake. “You’re not going to kill me. You don’t even want to. Breakfast. Come on.”
“They want to,” Alex said. His voice rose a little and cracked. “I can’t stop them.”
Andrew wanted to ask who “they” were.
But he knew he didn’t really want to know.
Chris and Reese had been clear about this boy. He’d been possessed once—involved with something big.
Demons.
Something Andrew had no idea how to fight, and no ability to do so even if he were smart enough to know how.
Something that, judging from Alex’s words, just might want that fight to happen.
But Alex himself was just standing there, a black-garbed statue, a teenage boy who looked like he was too scared—of his situation, of Andrew, of who knew what—to move.
And Andrew saw himself in the boy. A man frozen by things too big for him. Out of control, scared, and at the mercy of forces he could not see and had no idea how to handle.
He reached out. “Come on, Alex. Nobody’s going to die right now. We can just get out of here together and grab something to eat and talk. Okay?”
Alex kept staring, his eyes growing larger. Moonlight picked up his eyes so they stood out, aglow, the most vivid thing in the shadowed room.
Andrew cleared his throat. “Come on.”
A clock started to chime, and the sound broke whatever was holding Alex to the floor. He jumped like a scared rabbit and cursed too loudly.
A floor creaked overhead. Then footsteps, and a light came on. A man’s voice, gruff and meaning business, called down the stairs: “Who’s there?”
Andrew dropped to the ground, adrenaline surging, seconds before Alex all but threw himself out the window after him. Lights were coming on all over the house as the two bolted for the street. Andrew instinctively raced for the shadows of the house across the street.
But they’d left the window open. The owner would know what direction to look. They had to get out of sight.
Of course, chances were the guy would also wake the neighourhood.
He collared Alex in one swift move and hauled him to the left. They couldn’t just run; someone would see them. Every house on the block would wake up once the would-be victim sounded the alarm. They needed a destination where they could actually get out of sight.
“This way,” Andrew said through gritted teeth as he pulled Alex by the shirt collar after him. “My house.”
Inwardly, he cursed the boy for dressing like a classic thief. If it were just him, he could pretend he was just out jogging and had happened to come across this street as the break-in was in progress. He could even say he’d seen the thief, running in some other direction. But not with Alex looking like this. He had guilt woven into every stitch of his clothing.
He didn’t really know how fast they were going or how long it took them to round the corner, run up the next block, and reach the home stretch. Sirens sounded just as they reached his front door. Andrew threw the door open and tossed the kid inside, following him and locking up quick.
“Andrew, what—” Julie stopped midsentence when she recognized Alex. She looked at Andrew.
“I’ll explain later. We should hide him.” As an afterthought, he added, “He didn’t do anything. Exactly.”
Alex seemed too stunned, or too incapable, even to say anything. “In the garage,” Andrew heard himself saying. “He can hide in the truck. They won’t look—”
“Andrew,” Julie said. She laid a calming hand on his shoulder, and the effect was almost instant. He shut his mouth and let that touch fill him.
“Is anyone after you?” she asked.
He worked his mind back, trying to recall their frantic flight in greater detail. Had he heard pursuit? Shouts? Any sign that anyone had seen them?
No.
Against his expectations, he hadn’t heard the victim’s voice again—the neighourhood hadn’t come to life. There had been sirens, but they were already far away by the time those started to sound.
“No one’s after us,” he said. “But we might have been seen. It’s not too early for people to be up for work; somebody could have seen us running.”
“What happened?”
“Kid broke into a house. I saw him, recognized him, and tried to convince him to come with me.”
“For breakfast,” Alex put in.
They were the first two words he’d said, and they were so unexpected that Andrew had to grin. “Yeah, for breakfast. If you wanted it, you should have said yes sooner.”
The sirens were quiet; Julie cracked the front door open, but no sounds came in from outside. The suburban street seemed to be mostly still sleeping in the cold. She raised an eyebrow in Andrew’s direction.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Shut it. I don’t think hiding in the truck is going to be necessary.”
Alex’s eyes darted from Julie to Andrew and back again. He was doing that stare thing again, and this time it got Andrew’s back up. He didn’t like the way the boy was looking at his wife.
“Hey,” he said, giving Alex a smack to the back of the head. “Come upstairs, I’ll give you something else to wear in case the cops come calling.”
Alex got up out of the kitchen chair where he had collapsed after their run, body language grudging. He tore his eyes away from Julie. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Andrew said. “If you’re really grateful, you’ll thank me by staying out of trouble.” He motioned for Alex to precede him out of the kitchen and up the stairs, preferring to keep the boy in his sight. “What were you thinking, anyway?”
“I need money,” the kid mumbled.
“And you can’t get a job?”
“Never had one.”
“It’s easier than breaking into a house. Trust me.”
He didn’t want to admit it, but the boy’s words shook him a little. The kid was what, seventeen? Eighteen? And he thought it was a good idea to stage a break-in rather than apply at some hamburger joint?
Why?
Never mind all that demonic business. That was another side of the story altogether. It seemed to him that someone had failed this boy badly.
“It’s not that hard,” he continued as they trudged up the stairs. His legs were burning from the impromptu dash home. “You drop off a resume that says you’re in high school, show up for work on time, flip a few burgers, get paid.”
“I need more money than that.”
“Uh-huh,” Andrew said. “Like how much?”
“None of your business.”
“What do you need it for?” He halted outside of his bedroom and opened the door. “In. You can pick out what you want to wear. I’m twenty years older than you but at least my clothes aren’t all black.”
Alex nodded and started slowly piecing through Andrew’s closet, grabbing a pair of jeans and a button-up plaid shirt that was going to be way too big. Andrew’s brain was still working on the job thing.
“You are in high school, right? Isn’t that where you met Miranda?”
“I go sometimes,” Alex mumbled.
He didn’t sound happy about it. Andrew felt himself moving into lecture gear and wondered if he should hold back.
He decided not to.
“I don’t think I have to tell you you’re making bad choices. It doesn’t have to be like this. You can finish school, get a real job. Whatever trouble you’re in, you can get out. I’ll help . . .”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alex snapped. He held up the pile of clothes he’d picked. “Thanks for your help, but you don’t know my life or anything about it. Shut the door, would you? I want to get dressed.”
Andrew did, and waited impatiently in the hallway. He wanted to keep lecturing. Maybe it was all his concerns and fears for Miranda piling up in his mouth and spilling out at Alex. After all, the kid changing in his room was the friend his daughter had chosen. This punk who’d never had a job and only went to school “sometimes” and messed around with powers of darkness that were way bigger than any of them—that was the peer Miranda had decided to trust.
Great, Andrew thought. We may be in bigger trouble than I thought. Thank God April had managed to get through to Miranda to the extent that she did.
And yet, he wasn’t really mad at Alex. Concerned for him, yes. He felt downright fatherly, in fact. By the time the door opened and Alex stood there looking awkward in clothes that were too big but made him look like a new person nonetheless, Andrew had decided that whatever trouble this boy was in, he was going to help him out of it.
And then he was going to help Alex get his feet on a new path in life. A good path. And maybe they could help Miranda some more in the process.
“Alex?” Miranda’s voice drew both their attention. She was standing at the end of a hallway in a pink bathrobe, looking very surprised.
“Hey,” Alex said.
“What are you doing here?”
“Your dad’s helping me out,” Alex said.
Andrew was surprised, and pleased, at the admission. “That’s right,” he said, “I am. Why don’t you come downstairs and have breakfast?” he asked Alex. “Unless you still want to go out.”
“No, that’s okay. I can eat here.”
Andrew narrowed his eyes and tried to parse the silent interaction between his daughter and this kid; he didn’t think he saw interest on Alex’s end. And Miranda seemed more surprised and standoffish than anything else. This was just one more thing in a long line of things to process. She didn’t say anything more to either of them, but she fell in line behind them as Andrew led the way to the kitchen. Julie was already getting breakfast ready. She turned and smiled as they entered.
But then there was Alex’s reaction again—the same staring, the same stiffness. She turned away quickly, and Andrew frowned.
Alex wasn’t just reacting to Julie.
Something in him was reacting to something in her.
In all the panic and attempt to escape the police, he had almost forgotten the boy’s voice and threat in the house: “I could kill you.” He had almost forgotten that Alex wasn’t a little kid in trouble; he was actually dangerous.
He could see that now. But somehow it just made him even more determined to help. He stiffened his jaw and started coffee.
“Sit,” he ordered, jarring Alex out of his stare. The teen dropped into a chair at the table and waited uncomfortably for food.
Julie set a plate of eggs and toast in front of him. Andrew watched out of the corner of his eye. She seemed as ill at ease as Alex was, and after delivering the plate she backed away from the table almost immediately. A moment later she laid her hand on Andrew’s arm.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said, his eye still half on Alex—and Miranda, who had decided to sit across the table from him.
They slipped into the living room, Andrew making sure he was still in Alex’s eyesight.
“He’s a mess,” Julie said.
“You don’t have to tell me that. He needs a family.”
“Ye-es,” she said, watching the teens at the table. Then she started. “Not our family?”
Andrew folded his arms. “He needs someone. We’re as good as anyone.”
“Have you seen . . . well, the way he . . .”
“Reacts to you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a spirit thing.”
“Yes,” Julie said. “It is. Andrew, that kid is not any more alone than I am.”
“I kind of thought so.”
“We’re not going to be able to help him while that’s still the case.”
“What are you saying?”
“That’s a demon,” Julie said bluntly. “He’s possessed. You’re not going to be able to help him unless you can get him free of that thing.”
Andrew shook his head. “I thought Chris and Reese kicked something out of him when they found him at the corner store.”
“They did, but maybe they didn’t get everything. Or else the other one came back.”
“They can come back?”
“Yes,” Julie said. She looked troubled. “Demons don’t give up real estate once they’ve got it.”
“So what? Are you saying we can’t help him?”
“There’s one way,” Julie said.
Andrew sighed. “Tell me.”
“He has to become Oneness. If he does that, the Spirit will take possession of him, and the demons can’t come back. That’s the only way.”
“But we can’t make that happen.”
“No.”
“And I don’t even know if I want that to happen.”
“I know.” Her blue eyes regarded him without pleading or anger. “I understand, Andrew. But the Oneness is the greatest good. It’s not something to protect people from. Or to fight against.”
“Are you telling me I’m fighting it?”
She smiled at that. “You tell me.”
He didn’t answer, and she shook her head. “I’m just scared, Andrew. This is too much for you. If you try to help him some other way . . .”
“How about we cross bridges when we come to them? Can we do that?”
She nodded, but she didn’t look happy.
Chapter 14
“Shelley’s coming again,” Mary said in a worried tone of voice. “She wants to take Nick for a few days.”
“Again?” April asked, pausing as she drew a mug out of the cupboard.
“Again. Three days this time.”
“You don’t like that.”
“No,” Mary admitted, “I don’t. I know she’s his mother, and there’s nothing we can do about it—he’s only living here because she lets him.”
“Is his father around again?”
“Yes.”
April poured a cup of coffee and looked worriedly into it as she stirred in cream and too much sugar. “Did he tell you much about how the last few times went?”
“No. Which is partly why I don’t lik
e this.”
Since Shelley’s first day visit, she’d been back to take Nick twice—the second time for a week.
Nick’s picture of the fire in the living room, initialed and still awaiting a frame, still hung on the refrigerator. April smiled as she took it off. “I’ll get him a frame today—have it waiting for him when he gets home. He’ll like that.”
Mary regarded her curiously. “Are you still drawing flame pictures of your own?”
“Not so much. I think I need to find other ways to understand it.”
“And what ways are you trying?”
“Listening,” April said. “And . . . well, that’s about it, really. This fire is the Spirit, and the Spirit speaks. I’m trying to get better at listening for his voice.”
Mary reached out and took April’s hand, and they simply stood together for a few minutes, like mother and daughter—giving to each other, receiving from each other. When she let go and April’s hand dropped back to her side, each woman had been warmed and strengthened by the other.
“I can feel the difference in you,” Mary said. “It’s almost frightening—and yet not. Something about it feels familiar. Like a call I’ve always meant to answer and never quite have.”
“I don’t know why me,” April said.
“You’re a great saint . . .”
“But why? Why isn’t it you? Or Richard? You’ve both traveled this road so much longer than I have. And you can’t tell me I’m greater than you are. You are certainly more faithful.”
“I don’t know why the Spirit operates the way he does,” Mary said. “But I’m beginning to think we should ask more often, and maybe not stop asking until we get the answers.”
“Why do you say that?” April asked with a smile.
“You told me, the other night, that you were beginning to realize the Spirit was a person. Remember? And then there’s what Melissa said about love. Well, when I love someone, I want them to understand me. And if I’m hard to understand, I want them to try.”
“I think all the Oneness feel that way.” April paused. “Probably everyone does.”
“But we feel it more—the hunger to be united. To be known as deeply as we can be known. Yes. If we feel that way because of the Spirit in us, and if he is also a person, then how does he feel? Does he want us to know him as deeply as he can be known?”
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