retreat as my inner Snow White stirred, alarmed by the presence of danger.
Forget that. “You want me to write you up?” I demanded.
She stopped walking. I didn’t.
“I could do that, you know,” I said, pulling up even with her. “All I have to do is send in one little report that says you’re not as redeemed as we all want to believe you are, and you’re going back to rehab for another six months. I don’t want to file that report. Do you want to make me?”
“I hate you,” she said, without turning to look at me.
“Sometimes I hate me too,” I said. “But I can’t care about that right now, and neither can you. I need to know what’s up with that girl. With—what did you say her name was?”
“Demi Santos,” said Sloane, voice dropping to a mumble. “She’s a music major. Theory and composition. There were pigeons lined up on the windowsill of the practice room. Mice and cats in the grass, all listening to her. She’s our girl, Henry. She’s been primed to go for years, but nothing’s ever managed to push her over the edge, because she has her music, and she has her family, and she’s never felt the need that makes a Piper. She’s never reached for the power.” She finally turned to look at me. Her mascara had run down her cheeks like liquid tar. I didn’t need to ask how long she’d been crying. “She never wanted to be a story, and we’re going to force her.”
“We have to. If we don’t—”
“There’s always another way.”
“What do you want us to do? Should we kill Alicia? Because that’s one way to end the story—assuming we could get close enough to pull it off, that is, which I seriously doubt. Should we find a Prince? Waking one of them would do just as much damage as waking our Piper. Maybe more—if we have a Prince and a Beauty both, the odds are damn good that we’re going to get an Evil Sorceress. You’re the closest candidate. Do you want to risk that?”
Sloane looked away. “No,” she mumbled.
“You think I want to do this to her? Sloane, you know me. You know better.” The idea of someone deciding that my story needed to be completed, that my fairy tale needed to be awakened . . . it was enough to turn my stomach. And yet I knew full well that if someone ever managed to get a Magic Mirror to work, I was likely to find someone from the head office standing on my doorstep with an apple and an apologetic expression.
“You sent me after her.”
“Yeah, because what I want doesn’t always mesh with what I need in order to do my job. But I promise you: we’re not going to hurt this girl for nothing. This thing . . . it has the potential to infect the whole city, maybe the whole state. We’re saving a lot of lives.”
Sloane was silent.
I sighed. “Do you need a little bit?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be back at the van. Come join us when you’re ready.” With that said, I turned and walked away from her, giving her the space that she needed to come to terms with what she’d just done. Giving Demi to us was tantamount to betraying her, in Sloane’s mind: she had just condemned the girl to life on the ATI spectrum.
Now we just had to make sure that it was worth it.
#
Andy was still trying to calm Demi down when I returned. She was holding an open can of Diet Pepsi, taking small sips and hiccupping occasionally as he reassured her over and over again that we weren’t going to let Sloane anywhere near her. I stayed well out of the way, waiting for her to stop crying and dry her tears. I am not one of nature’s more reassuring people, and even if this city contained another Pied Piper—which was statistically unlikely; the story is popular, but it’s not that popular, and there aren’t that many variations—we didn’t have time to send Sloane out to find them. The contagion was continuing to spread while we all stood around getting in touch with our feelings. If Demi wasn’t up for the job, the entire city was at risk of an extended, unplanned nap time.
Andy straightened, waving to me. “Henry, I think you can come over now,” he called, giving Demi an encouraging smile. “We’re mostly calmed down.”
“Thank you, Andy.” I walked over to them, offering Demi