Page 100 of The Corruption of Hollis Brown

Walt was quiet.

Hollis reached up and brushed his hand through their hair. He could feel the weight of Annie’s gaze, so he looked up at her.

“He’s sad. I . . . This helps.”

Annie reached over, and Walt froze.

“I’ll give him back if. If . . . ?” Annie let her fingertips graze Hollis’s forehead.

Nothing happened.

Walt relaxed, and Annie traveled the path Hollis took. Her fingers following the furrows and waves.

“I missed you, Annie,” Hollis confessed.

“I missed you too.”

Need

Do your friends know what you’re like?

What?

Do your friends know what you’re really like? With me? In the hollow, in the bath, in our bed.

Do they know what I’m—?

Have they seen your face, lit by moonlight, terrible and grinning? Seen you laugh to harmonize with screams? Felt what it is to be small and in your hands?

That’s not very romantic. You say that like I’m the one haunting you.

Walt projected the deepest frown he could manage, and Hollis grinned, under the soft weight of Annie’s fingers.

Annie is so kind.

Told you so.

Javelin

Yulia needed more time than Annie. She kicked him out again, and Hollis couldn’t hide how much that hurt him.

This time Annie left with him, even though she didn’t have to. Looked up at the two of them as they walked home together. Studied them, and they let her; it was the least they could do.

“When you guys eat, do you both taste the food?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you use each other to cheat on tests?”

“Not really, but we do have different subjects we’re better at.”

“Is one of you stronger than the other? I imagine the Jorge fight was you, Walt?”

“No, we’re the same. It’s not magic. Hollis’s body is Hollis’s body, I’m not doing anything to enhance it. But, yeah, I did fight Jorge.”

Annie rolled her eyes. “How can you say it’s not magic when it’s literally magic? Textbook supernatural. This is fantasy.”

“I like to think of it as science fiction,” Hollis interjected. “It doesn’t seem to be common, but there aren’t a lot of other fantasy creatures around or anything. We just don’t have a way to explain it yet.”