It takes everything to leave. Everything that is left in me that is human. I stand and I feel much taller than Ben, even though I’m not, and step back. Ben’s saying something, but my hearing is muffled. I can’t tell if this is a physical thing—that there’s too little blood in my system for me to keep being able to hear—or a psychological thing. Maybe the demon has blocked out all of Ben’s speech to make him seem less human. He just mumbles and grunts like an animal, with a confused expression on his face. At some point, he takes my hands and holds them up, his eyes wide, looking down at the little moon-shaped holes I’ve made in my palms with my nails, which are leaking white liquid. He looks alarmed and he’s trying to get to his phone, saying words I don’t understand and gesturing for me to do something, to go with him somewhere, perhaps. He’s putting on his shoes, struggling to do so without bending down to untie the laces.

I snatch my hands away, and he tries to take them back again, but then I do something I’ve never done before to anyone but myself, in my mirror at home as a teenager, playing out how I might respond to a bully at school. I open my mouth and curl back my lips and flash my teeth at Ben, and he staggers back like he’s been pushed; then I turn around and leave, stumbling on my way to the door, still weak despite feeling like I could run for miles and miles.