Bleeding Out (23 page)

“I am. You made sure of that.”

I hold her lightly. Then I let her go. She gets into the car. It’s so packed with things, she can barely fit, but she squeezes into the driver’s seat and starts the engine. She waves.

“I’ll text you at the first Shell station! I promise!”

Then she backs out carefully, turns, and drives away.

Oh, daughter, I can’t imagine you flying across the provinces like a meteor, kicking up dust, fearless. But I trust you to be who you are. I don’t know if you’ll keep taking your medicine. I don’t know who you’ll become in this new city. But I look forward to meeting you when you return. These locks will never change, even if we do.

Jes Battis is the author of five novels in the Occult Special Investigator series. He has also written or edited books on
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
,
Farscape
, young mutants, and grad students. He earned a PhD in English literature from Simon Fraser University in 2006 and currently teaches in the Department of English at the University of Regina.