Then he waited for her to get where she was going.

He waited.

And he waited.

But Allie’s eyes did not grow wide with cosmic wonder. The light of infinity did not shine on her face. She did not disappear in a rainbow twinkling of light. She stood there mesmerized—dazzled by his heartfelt confession, but she did not vanish. Then, she squeezed his hand firmly, but lovingly, and said:

“Mikey, we need to talk.”

He let go of her hand, not knowing what to do, because he had not seen anything beyond this moment. The way he imagined it, Allie would be gone, he would wallow forever in the misery of it, and that would be that. But instead, Allie gave the coin back to him. “It doesn’t work for skinjackers,” she said. “There’s a lot I have to tell you, but now’s not the time. You have to let me go now. I have to help Nick.”

Mikey turned his transformed hand back to the hand of a boy and gently took the coin. “It doesn’t work for me, either. So neither of us is ready.”

Allie looked at his humanized hand, surprised. “How did you do that?”

“I can do a lot of things,” Mikey said, and to prove it, he took on his normal boyish face once more, on the body of the monster. Allie was amazed.

“You can change at will?”

“You have a power,” said Mikey, “and so do I.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you hated the monster.”

“You were never the monster you pretend to be, Mikey. Not then, and not now.”

“I am if I want to be. I am whatever I want to be.”

Allie shook her head and smiled. “Then I love all the things you choose to be, because beneath it all, you’re still Mikey McGill.”

Mikey took a step back. Was she trying to trick him into freeing her? “But … but you love Milos… .”

Allie laughed. “Is that what you think? Is that why you left?”

“I saw you kiss him… .”

She gasped at the realization that he had seen the kiss. But then she said, “Mikey, you are such an idiot.” Then she looked him in the eye and said, “You’re the one I love.”

Mikey found his ears starting to grow larger all by themselves—as if by doubling his hearing it would help him to understand. “Prove it.”

“Okay, fine!” Allie said. “Give me your worst. The most horrible thing you can imagine—but do it quickly!”