Page 129 of Pick Me Up On Tuesdays

My stepfather.

The glowing-eyed demon that was supposed to be dead years ago.

And now, here he was. Gripping me like he never left.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. The weight of every bad memory collapsed in on me, wrapping around my lungs, squeezing—

Then boom.

A grunt. A crash. The hands on me vanished.

Light tore through the sack as it was ripped off, and I squinted into the sudden exposure, blinking hard—

And there was Ethan.

Ethan—tackling the demon like a linebacker on a mission, both of them crashing to the ground with enough force to shake my bones.

Rain began to fall—light at first, then relentless—as photographs slipped from my stepdad’s pockets. All of me. Sleeping. Laughing. Walking alone. Each one a stolen moment from the trip.

I stumbled back, half-dazed, my legs like jelly.

The scene before me was an absurd collage of reality and nightmare—Ethan, all muscle and instinct, fists swinging, eyes wild. My stepdad, snarling like an animal, inhuman strength pushing back.

“Clark, RUN!” Ethan shouted between gritted teeth, blood on his lip, fury in his voice.

But I didn’t run.

I couldn’t.

I stood there like a statue cracked down the middle, heart in freefall. As my clothes soaked in all the rain.

Ethan wrestled my stepdad to the ground, but the demon twisted beneath him, one clawed hand gripping Ethan’s shoulder and flipping him hard onto the pavement.

Ethan groaned, pinned.

My stepdad crouched above him, a shadow with teeth.

And then something changed.

Ethan’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment, as if he was calling to something beyond himself. Then—glow.

A soft, aquatic light pulsed from the center of his forehead, just above his brow. Like the sea had left a fingerprint there.

An ancient symbol. One I recognized. The Neravine’s blessing.

But it felt old. Sacred. And powerful.

My stepdad recoiled.

Ethan's eyes snapped open, brighter somehow, fiercer.

And with an unnatural grace, he twisted beneath the weight of the monster, his hands catching the creature’s arm, flippinghim like it was nothing. Ethan moved like the ocean—fluid, impossible to stop.

He pinned the demon down with a strength that wasn’t just muscle anymore. It was divine.

The symbol on his forehead flared, and my stepfather let out a cry that sounded part beast, part man—then collapsed.

Silent.

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