Daddy's Caliban

armth of him made the little hairs on my arm tingle. "River's too much for you, got you scared."

"No." I pushed him away, hands to his chest. A spark popped between us, like winter static, a tiny glare of blue that surprised me though he didn't seem to notice. "I ain't scared. I'm sensible. Besides, we can't take a boat from the mills. We'd have to haul it two or three miles upstream to be sure of getting across before the current took us down to the mill dams and waterfalls."

Cameron's grin stretched so wide it threatened to split his face in two. "Bluff'll hide us from view, once we get away from the mills."

"We don't have the keys," I said. My ground was getting weaker, I knew. "Those fences are topped with razor wire."

"Your Daddy's got the keys to Caliban."

Our Daddy I thought. On days like this, Cameron was like me in a black mirror, every nasty thought I ever had seeming to fill his head.

"We'll be lucky if he kills us."

"Then we just won't get