red under the cheap fluorescent light of our trailer. It

very dollar I had saved fo

ice full of a performer's pride, as if it were a grand

Gabby? It' s for

y glanced at it. She was more interested in the squalor of our lives. She ran

aint, Ethan

by the sink, my waitress uniform stil

hing. There was n

ose, the man bound to me by a blood pact from his strange Appalachian

he devil's blood," a folk tale for what they really

sign of "gratitude," he

ithful, the other would

sperate t

e and Caleb to hear from the next room. "Her and the kid

er from Caleb' s room

smile widened

I was supposed to take Caleb and disappear for a few ho

cked him in

he lock, then Caleb' s

door when I tried to get to my son. "Gabrielle

bedroom started soon a

s pressed against the wood, whispering to Cale

nt thing. He just stopped making nois

face pale and streaked with tears. Ethan didn't ev

for you?" he asked her,

eb, then at me. Her eye

d. "I have a

as a local legend, a sheer drop into black, bottomless

ed Caleb forward, his small sneakers skidding on the loos

d at me, his eyes wide with a terr

t, the man I once loved, the fath