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He didn’t mention that he’d seen stranger shit than eight-foot lizard men, most of it in the Carolinas. But the Saurians were supposedly extinct. The elves had wiped them out in the Christmas War of 1983.
Good to know
Guthrie was a good place to be from, but it wasn’t a great place to live, not when you were like Adam, in all the ways Adam was like Adam.
“You won’t,” Sue said, breaking into the stream of Adam’s thoughts. “What?” he asked as he came around the counter. “You won’t see him again.” Damn. Sue’s Sight was never wrong.
Imagine having that one aunt who is so insightful it hurts when she remarks on something so important to you that you know the moment she utter a word from her mouth that it’s over.
“So lock her up,” Adam said. “Isn’t that your go-to?” The memory of cinder block walls and screams through the night bubbled up. It coated the back of his throat in acid. Bobby let out a long sigh, the way he always did when Adam got under his skin.
Yeah Bobby deserved that
Magic worked in patterns. Tuning your Sight was about seeing and sensing the patterns, the flows, like wind currents building to a storm. Adam might believe in coincidences, but magic did not. He could feel something, a beginning, a change. It might be a storm on the horizon. It might blow right over him, but something was coming.
She understood him. She loved him, had taken him in when he had nowhere else to go. She’d never cared that he was gay, only that he had Sight, that he was like her in some ways, though his own magic was very different.
Warlock was an old word. Normal people cast it around without understanding the ancient slur, thinking it meant male witch, when it meant traitor. It was reserved for practitioners gone bad, those who betrayed magic’s first tenet: “do no harm.” And the warlock he was hunting had done plenty of harm. Every lead had led to a maimed magical creature, to bone bound in glass and bog iron. Most of the creatures still lived, hobbled, their agony constant. The warlock had done more than enough to earn the moniker.
Driving now, the memory of lying together, moving together, brought a fresh ache to Adam’s heart. There’d been a few guys since, but none he’d let get closer than kissing or a one-night stand. Once things went south of the border, Adam found a reason to not call them back. Kissing was great. Sex was nice, but he craved something else, something he didn’t have a name for.
Thinking of his mother just made him sad, like they should love each other but didn’t. Too much difference lay between them.
“She can’t hear us,” his mother said, gesturing toward the bed. “Robert has her too sedated.” “I know how that feels,” he said. They’d diagnosed him as psychotic and fed him enough drugs to keep him sick and slow. What he felt from Annie reminded him of those days.
Bobby had never gotten it through his head that wanting Adam to be normal wasn’t the same as wanting what was best for Adam.
But it was Bobby who’d held him during Dad’s rages, Bobby who’d sworn to keep Adam safe. Mom had just stood by during the beatings.
They have such complicated relationship my lord
That was it. Bobby didn’t respect any of this. He’d gone to the Other Side without finding any of it interesting or awe inspiring. He really was that small, that unconcerned with anything beyond the little kingdom he’d built.
“That’s poor, not white trash. Your mom worked hard. Your brother works hard. You’re only white trash if you’re lazy. And I know that’s not you.”
“Liking you is magic,” Vic said, smiling. “What’s more magical than a first kiss? Everything doesn’t have to hurt all the time, Adam. There is good. There are good guys. Like you.”
I swear Adam if you break Vic’s heart
Vic might as well have been as alien as an elf. He’d realized something about himself, thought about it, and accepted it without the self-torture or endless stress Adam would have gone through.
“Spider?” he asked. The black cat opened its green eyes and lifted its head. All the weariness rushed out of him. “Is Sue okay?” he asked. The cat meowed, long and sad, then vanished. Cold dread pulsed through Adam as he dialed the trailer. No answer. He started throwing his clothes into his backpack. If he drove straight through, he’d be there in twelve hours, ten if he drove like an elf. He’d call again and again until he heard her say she was all right. Adam knew she wasn’t.
Oh no :(
