“No,” Cam said. “Thank you. Actually…” He reached inside his messenger bag and pulled out a foil-wrapped parcel. “You guys should have this.”
The man unwrapped it and found a giant deli sandwich. He blinked at Cam and took a huge bite, then divided the rest between his children. As they ate, he hugged Cam in gratitude.
When they’d finished eating, the oldest boy—he looked about Bruce’s age—held out a beat-up guitar. Cam tousled the boy’s hair, then took a seat among them. He tried tuning it, but Lilith could hear it was hopeless. Two of the strings were broken. Still, Cam didn’t give up, and soon the guitar sounded a little better than it had before.
“Any requests?” he said.
“A lullaby,” the youngest boy said with a yawn.
Cam thought a moment. “I learned this one from a talented musician,” he said, “named Lilith.”
When Cam broke into the first bars of “Exile,” Lilith sucked in her breath. Cam sang her song beautifully, slowly and with great emotion, bringing to it a depth she’d never imagined possible. He sang it twice. By the time he finished, the children in the group were nodding into sleep. Behind them, their father applauded Cam softly.
“Whoa,” Jean whispered.
“Yeah,” Lilith said. She was shaking, near tears, so moved that she could say no more.
“We should go,” Luis said.
Hours earlier, Lilith had been certain she’d written Cam off for the last time. Now she followed her friends to Jean’s car feeling dizzy, as if the world around her were shifting with each step.
The only thing she was sure of was how wrong she’d been about Cam.
Six Days
Cam woke in a green tent on Dobbs Street with a stiff back and a stray dog at his feet. He’d slept here a couple times since he arrived in Crossroads. It was less lonesome than the roof of the Trumbull gym.
He nudged the dog off and peeked outside at the pale pink sunrise. Mornings started early here. Everyone was hungry, bleary from a rough night. The soup kitchen opened at seven, and Cam had volunteered to work the breakfast shift before he went to school.
He meandered down the street, passing families getting ready for the day, unzipping their tents, stretching their limbs, rocking fussy babies. At the abandoned office building that had been repurposed as a soup kitchen, he pushed open the glass door.
“Morning.” A gaunt older man named Jax welcomed Cam inside. “You can start right there.” He nodded toward the dented steel counter where a giant box of Bisquick sat beside a mixing bowl.
Not a lot of small talk—which was fine by Cam. He added the milk and eggs and started mixing up the pancake batter, knowing that the Ballard boys, who loved his music, would be among the first in line. Half a hot dog and a few bites of sandwich was no kind of dinner for a growing kid. In a short time, Cam had come to care about the families that lived on Dobbs Street. He was addicted to mortal lives, and not just Lilith’s. Humans fascinated him. All those little flames, forever lighting and going out.
“You okay there, Cam?” Jax asked from the range, where he was grilling slices of Spam. “You don’t look so good.”
Cam put down the bowl of pancake batter and walked toward the tinted window to look at his reflection. His green eyes were recessed behind dark purple sockets. Since when did he have jowls? And now even his hands looked ancient, mottled and wrinkly.
“I’m okay,” he said, but his voice faltered. He looked—and felt—awful.
“Get yourself some breakfast before school,” Jax said kindly, patting Cam on the back, as if a plate of pancakes would make every problem the devil was serving him simply fade away.
“Cam—”
Lilith found him at his locker before homeroom. He’d flown from Dobbs Street to campus so he could squeeze in a shower before the locker room filled up with track-team kids. He had thought a shower would make him look a little bit better, but when he’d dressed for school, the mirror in the locker room had been just as unkind as the soup-kitchen window.
Even his feet were changing now, turning black and cloven, like the hooves of the damned. He could no longer fit into his own boots. He’d had to steal a pair from a motorcycle shop downtown.
“Hey.” Cam couldn’t help but stare at Lilith’s lovely face.
“How are you?” she asked softly.
“Been better.” It wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted to admit, but the truth slipped out before he could censor it.
Kids streamed past them through the hall. Everyone was talking about prom. Someone kicked a soccer ball at Cam’s head. He ducked just in time.
“Anything I can do to help?” Lilith said, leaning against his locker and offering him a slight smile. She was wearing a Four Horsemen T-shirt tied in a knot at her narrow waist. Her hair was still wet from her shower, and it smelled like freesias. He couldn’t help leaning in.
Remember me, he longed to say, because if she could remember Cam as he’d been when they first fell in love, she wouldn’t only see him as the withering shell he was today.