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great?”
    “Whatever. Are you going to Carl’s party or what? Last chance, baby!”
    “Uhm, I was, but now I don’t know.”
    “You will if you want him to ask you to Friday’s school dance,” Betty warned.
    Alix leaned against the cold wooden door, wishing the conversation could have been about Sam. But she did want to be popular. And, no matter how much Alix hated to admit it, Betty knew the inner workings of boys more than she did.
    “Can we go later?”
    “Duh! Of course we’ll go later. Meet me at my house and we’ll fix you up. Baby, Carl won’t be able to resist!” Betty burst into a loud fit of giggles.
    Even Alix giggled as she asked, “Do you really think he’ll ask me?”
    A loud knock returned Alix to the moment.
    “Betty, I’ll be there in half an hour!”
    Alix sprang from her place against the door, hanging up without waiting for a response. As the loud knock resounded again, Alix faced the entryway, frozen like a statue. She was relieved that, at long last, someone had come for the job. She knew that above anything else this would lift Sam’s spirits!
     
    Sam could not move. The knock on the door made him wonder if someone in the town still believed in him. He pressed the bottle’s mouth firmly against his lips. Breathing the heavy smell from the baiting liquid, he closed his eyes tight. Sam wondered if he still believed in himself.
    Some unseen demon had magically petrified his legs and bound his neck. A whisper, one that lived deep in the part of his soul that he had hoped to end, reminded him how much easier this interview would be if only he’d take one drink. Just one . . . The bottle was so close by, the liquid so easily accessible. A third and fourth hand closed around his own, and they forced him to grip the bottle tighter.
    “ This is no longer your choice ,” the demon told him. “ One won’t hurt. You will stop at one .”
    Suddenly, he heard the door to his den creak open and his daughter’s light footsteps enter the room. Red-faced he turned to her–noticing for the first time how much she resembled her mother, especially in her eyes. It was in that solemn gaze that he found his will to force the demon to lose his grip and vanquish.
    “ I’ll be back! ” the demon said as it left, and Sam knew it would make good on that promise.
    Sam rose from his leather recliner just as his daughter opened her mouth to voice her obvious hurt. He gently capped the bottle as if he were afraid it might shatter, and left it to rest on the recliner’s arm. Wrapping his arms around his chest, he slid his hands inside his jacket to hide the shaking that now besieged his entire body.
    “Should I get the door?” she asked, holding her tears back.
    “No.” Sam answered in a deep throaty whisper, unable to meet her gaze. “I’ll get the door. You dispose of this.” He indicated the bottle with a nudge of his head. “As well, clean out the cupboards–including the hidden compartment under the kitchen sink.”
    The knock again resounded from the front door, and they both knew they had to put this moment into the past. They followed one another from the den and parted, Alix toward the kitchen and Sam toward the front door. Alix paused to see who had come.
    It was that new kid, Rellik. Or, at least that’s who she thought it was. A shadow cast from the darkness outside made him appear more like an apparition than a person. He stood away from the doorway as if he didn’t want the light from the house to touch him. His eyes, narrowed against the light, glowed. Alix met them, but only for a moment. He slapped on a pair of dark sunglasses as if to hide what his soul might betray. In that moment fear held her fast, as though paralysis had overtaken her.
    She wanted to flee, but fright began taking shape in her mind. It became a series of images, ones taken from the story she’d written earlier that day on her blog. Alix thought to speak to him. But when she tried, her voice failed.
    Rellik