I brought my smile back to Cletus and found him watching me with a peculiar look. My grin waned as we studied each other and I braced myself for whatever that peculiar look meant. Unable to withstand his inscrutable expression, I pressed, “What? What’s wrong?” “I'm not going to harm you,” he said matter-of-factly, as though harming me had been on the table, but now not harming me was something he'd just decided. I felt my eyebrows lift high on my forehead. “Oh?” I croaked, a shiver of fear racing down my spine. "Well, that's nice of you."
