Because the helter-skelter drive through the cold night and Adam’s subconscious had brought them not to some disaster in Cabeswater, not to some schism in rocks along the ley line, not to whatever threat Adam had seen in the glaring headlights of his car. Instead, Adam – freed from reason and turned loose in his own mind, set upon the task of finding a demon – had directed them back to the trailer park where his parents still lived.
Neither of them spoke. The lights were on in the trailer, but there were no silhouettes in the windows. Ronan hadn’t shut off the headlights, so they shone directly on the front of the trailer.
“Why are we here?” he asked.
“Wrong devil,” Adam replied quietly.
It had not been that long since the court case against his father. He knew that Ronan remained righteously furious over the outcome: Robert Parrish, a first-time offender in the eyes of the court, had walked away with a fine and probation. What Ronan didn’t realize was that the victory hadn’t been in the punishment. Adam didn’t need his father to go to jail. He had merely needed someone outside the situation to look at it and confirm that yes, a crime had been committed. Adam had not invented it, spurred it, deserved it. It said so on the court paperwork. Robert Parrish, guilty. Adam Parrish, free.
Well, almost. He was still here looking at the trailer, his pulse thudding lowly in his stomach.
“Why,” Ronan repeated, “are we here?”
Adam shook his head, his eyes still on the trailer. Ronan had not turned off his headlights yet, and Adam knew that part of him was hoping for Robert Parrish to come to the door to see who it was. Part of Adam was, too, but in the shivery way of waiting for the dentist to just pull your tooth and get it over with.
He felt Ronan’s eyes on him.
“Why,” Ronan said a third time, “are we at this fucking place?”
But Adam didn’t answer because the door opened.
Robert Parrish stood on the steps, the finer details of his expression washed out by the headlights. Adam didn’t have to see his face, though, because so much of what his father felt was conveyed by his body. The thrust of his shoulders, the slant of his neck, the curvature of his arms into the dull traps of his hands. So Adam knew that his father recognized the car, and he knew precisely how he felt about that fact. Adam felt a curious thrill of fear, completely discrete from his conscious thoughts. His fingertips had gone numb with a jolt of sick adrenaline that his mind had never ordered his body to produce. Thorns studded his heart.
Adam’s father just stood there, looking. And they sat there, looking back. Ronan was coiled and simmering, one hand resting on his door.
“Don’t,” said Adam.
But Ronan merely hit the window button. The tinted glass hissed down. Ronan hooked his elbow on the edge of the door and continued gazing out the window. Adam knew that Ronan was fully aware of how malevolent he could appear, and he did not soften himself as he stared across the patchy dark grass at Robert Parrish. Ronan Lynch’s stare was a snake on the pavement where you wanted to walk. It was a match left on your pillow. It was pressing your lips together and tasting your own blood.
Adam looked at his father, too, but blankly. Adam was there, and he was in Cabeswater, and he was inside the trailer at the same time. He noted with remote curiosity that he was not processing correctly, but even as he marked it, he continued to exist in three split screens.
Robert Parrish didn’t move.
Ronan spat into the grass – an indolent, unthreatened gesture. Then he rolled his chin away, contempt spilling over and out of the car, and silently put the window back up.
The interior of the BMW was entirely silent. It was so quiet that when a breeze blew, the sound of dried leaves scuttling up against the tyres was audible.
Adam touched the place on his wrist where his watch normally sat.
He said, “I want to go get Orphan Girl.”
Ronan finally looked at him. Adam expected to see gasoline and gravel in his eyes, but he wore an expression Adam wasn’t sure he’d seen on his face before: something thoughtful and appraising, a more deliberate, sophisticated version of Ronan. Ronan, growing up. It made Adam feel … he didn’t know. He didn’t have enough information to know how he felt.
The BMW reversed with a show of dirt and menace. Ronan said, “OK.”
The toga party was not terrible at all.
It was, in fact, wonderful.