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Dave had definitely done more damage than he’d intended—she got halfway up twice and fell back onto her rear end both times.
    “I’m not going to hurt you,” Dave said to the boy, talking quickly, wanting to get the words out before the woman could stand, wanting him to understand. “I’m here to help you. I promise I’ll save you. I swear.”
    The look the boy gave him might easily have been confused for fear, but Dave recognized it for what it must really have been: awe.
    He led the kid into the kitchen, to the spot on the floor where his mother still lay squirming like a flipped turtle. “We’re all going to be all right now.”
    On the floor, the woman said something Dave couldn’t quite hear.
    “What’s that?”
    “My husband .” She spit the word at him. “Husband…in the other room. We’ve got a gun. He’ll—”
    Dave smiled and shook his head. “Oh, Mommy. We all three of us know that’s an outright lie.” He waggled his finger at her, still smiling. “If there was a husband,” he continued, “you wouldn’t need me here at all.”
    The woman stared at him blankly for several long seconds and then turned to her son and repeated, “Run,” this time with a little more conviction.
    Dave tightened his grip on the kid before he could think about obeying and frowned down at the woman. “I don’t think you understand what’s happening here,” he said.
    From the way she looked back up at him, Dave wondered if maybe she reallydidn’t.
    “It’s my birthday,” he said, shifting his gaze back and forth from mother to son, wanting to hug the both of them to his chest and weep into their hair. “Time to take my place. I’m going to make you whole.”
    The woman shook her head. The boy went suddenly slack, and Dave had to look to make sure he hadn’t fainted. Except for his single squeak, the boy hadn’t made a sound. He wasn’t a mute, Dave knew. He’d heard him mumbling to himself in the back yard many times, eavesdropped as he called in to an imaginary airfield from the corner of his tree house while he pretended to pilot his way to earth, listened to him back-talking invisible foes between jump kicks and punches. He looked away from the kid. He’d talk when he was ready.
    “I know you wish I could have got here sooner,” he said to the woman. “I’m sorry I couldn’t. I had things to do first. I needed to be ready.”
    He let go of the boy and reached down to take the woman’s trembling hand. The flesh around her eye had already darkened and puffed. She squinted at him.
    “It’s okay,” he said.
    “Who—” She coughed, shook her head a little, and tried again. “Who the hell are you?” His fingers brushed against her knuckles, and she pulled her hand away as quickly as if she’d stuck it into a blazing fire.
    Dave chuckled a little at this and leaned forward. He caught her fingers in his own and gave them a little squeeze. “You know who I am.”
    She stared and didn’t try to pull her hand away again.
    “I’m Daddy.”
    Something behind him moved.
    “Mom?” A soft voice, almost girly.
    Dave looked over his shoulder, saw the boy backing toward the cabinets, and started to say something to him, but a sudden, stinging pain on the left side of Dave’s face cut him off. His hand darted to his cheek and came away covered in shiny red blood. The woman’s hand streaked up for another blow, but Dave caught it deftly in midair despite blurry vision and pain so agonizing he wanted to scream. She’d scratched his eyeball, but she hadn’t blinded him. Not quite. Blood slid over his lips and onto his chin. It sprayed across her face when he said, “Why would you do that?”
    Her fingernails jutted from her hand like the talons of some wild animal, dripping his blood, the smallest of them broken off just above the cuticle but the rest still wickedly sharp and gleaming. He squeezed her wrist hard, heard breaking bones and squeezed even harder. The boy screamed now in a way