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out.
    “Here.” Jon opened the car door.
    “I don’t want to leave.” Ellis needed to keep vigil over what was left.
    “I know but it isn’t safe.” Jon slid behind the wheel and cranked up the car.
    “Why didn’t he just burn it down?” Even as he asked the question Ellis knew why. Burning it was too clean, whereas this raped him of everything he held dear.
    And Lenny had succeeded in doing just that. Ellis was raped, humiliated, and crushed to a pile of nothing. With his mind in a fog, he didn’t even realize Jon had driven into town until he parked.
    Ellis knew this place with its ice cream parlor pinched between tourist shops, and at the same time, it was foreign to him. “Why are we here?”
    “I need a phone to call George.”
    Jon thumbed a tear from his eye. “Can I trust you to stay here?”
    “Where am I going to go?” The reality of those words burned a hole through Ellis’s body. He no longer had anywhere to go. It was gone. All of it. Broken, battered, violated in the most obscene ways.
    Jon pressed his lips to Ellis’s forehead. “I’m so sorry.”
    “Why is this happening to me? Did I do something wrong? Am I being punished?”
    “No. This isn’t about anything you’ve done.”
    “But isn’t it? I was so tired of being trapped at home. I was so frustrated with having to take care of Rudy and never getting to do the things I dreamed of. I asked for this, didn’t I?”
    “No, you didn’t.” He put a hand on Ellis’s cheek. “I promise this isn’t about you.”
    “But it is. Lenny has made it about both of us. He’s turned this into some type of war and he’s winning.”
    Jon shushed him.
    “Silence isn’t going to fix this. Nothing can fix it.” Ellis coughed and it sent a burn through his damaged vocal cords.
    “I’ll get you something to drink.” Jon kissed him again. “Stay right here. I’ll be right back.” He went inside the drug store.
    Would he lose Jon too? He was all Ellis had left. The anchor keeping him grounded inside the insanity. Without him the tide of madness would sweep him away.
    If only he’d been strong enough to shoot Lenny the other night. If only Jon would hate him so he wouldn’t have to live through him being torn away.
    A few brave tourists clumped together in groups and hung close to the buildings as they walked the square. Ellis might have dismissed the boy standing on the corner except for the way he was dressed. Overalls. No shirt. No shoes.
    There was no denying the resemblance, from his tousled jet black hair, strong jaw and dark pools for eyes. He was the boy Jon had been.
    Danny’s powerful gaze pulled at Ellis with physical force. He got out of the car.
    The wind sank through his jacket and burned his cheeks. He crossed the road to the corner where Danny stood.
    Bits of hay clung to Danny’s hair and there was a smear of dirt on his cheek. He reached into the chest pocket of his overalls, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and held it out to Ellis.
    “What is it?” Ellis started to open it up, but Danny put a hand over his. His flesh was warm.
    “It can see you now.”
    Danny started to step back and Ellis grabbed his wrist. “What do you mean, it can see me?”
    “The light shines. And it’s afraid.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “You will.”
    “Ellis?”
    He turned.
    The solid flesh in his hand became air, but he still had the piece of paper.
    Jon jogged up. “I thought you were going to stay in the car.” Jon nodded at the piece of paper.
    “What’s that?”
     
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “Where did you get it?”
    Ellis hugged it to his chest. “Your brother gave it to me.”
    ********
    The occasional sip Ellis took from the can of soda kept the silence inside the car from stagnating.
    How long had it been? Ten minutes, twenty? Jon stared out the windshield while Ellis turned the folded piece of paper over in his hands.
    “Are you going to open it?”
    “He said something to me, but it didn’t make any