“I’ll help you,” she told him. “You know that. But you also have to know this: I cannot forgive you. I swear I could kill you, Eric. You let that monster have my child — ”

There was probably more, but Eric didn’t need to hear it. He took her hand, sealing the agreement. “Deal.”

“What?”

Eric stood up straight. The room had finally stopped spinning. “You help me save the kid. And when this is over, you swear to kill me.”

He explained what he meant. It took a while, with many angry interruptions back and forth. She wanted to strangle him again when he was finished.

Instead, she only asked him a question.

“Do you know what you’re asking?”

“I do,” Eric said. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

Alana didn’t like being manipulated like that. But she nodded. She still remembered what it meant to do the harsh things when no one else could.

Together, they could do it. They could make sure that what had happened in Middleton for years — what had happened to them — would never fall on another kid again.

They could save the whole town.

They could change the future.

They had to play it very smart. They had to let Colchester think he was winning. They had to get close, and jump right into the jaws of the dragon.

And then they had to reach down and tear out its heart.

“We need to go sell this to Colchester. Follow my lead. He’ll buy it. He already thinks he’s won.”

Eric prepared to open a magic portal to the woods, where they would meet Colchester and Jeremy.

But he noticed Alana struggling to hold back a laugh.

“This is funny to you? I mean, I am going to die.”

She made a face, like she couldn’t believe it either. “So dumb,” she said. “I was just thinking, I can’t believe I let you feel me up after prom.”

“Yeah, well,” Eric says, “we all did stupid things in high school.”

He opened the door, and they held hands for a moment before they stepped through.

39

Unafraid at Sunset

Alana doesn’t feel so much as a twinge in her wrist as she murders her friend. Colchester is collateral damage; she keeps her deal with the old wizard intact.

The blade slices the dark worm of Colchester’s soul neatly. Colchester bellows in rage and pain. He attempts to flit out of Eric’s body, the same way he abandoned his own shell twenty years ago, to find a new host, so he can corrupt another and start again.

But Eric grabs onto him before he can escape. He looks down in his fist, and sees a curling, twisting, headless thing there: the tiny hookworm that is Charles Colchester; a parasite that’s lost its home. Colchester thrashes and bites. Eric’s hands are slick with his own blood, but he does not let go.