“Nobody is angry with you.”
The boy stared at him.
He looked at Duke’s beard, his tattoos, his big hands, his dark shirt, and the bike waiting by the curb.
Then he looked past Duke toward the rear car park behind the takeaway.
His lip trembled.
“She won’t wake up,” he whispered.
Then, as if those words were not enough, he added the only defense he seemed to know.
“And I was good.”
A cold, hard awareness moved through Duke’s chest.
He had heard frightened people speak that way before.
He had seen children carry fear in their faces as if it had been put there by adults and locked into place.
He looked at the boy’s cheek.
There was a faint red mark near his mouth, too clear to be from crying.