Her arms are clasped tightly around him and his face is slowly morphing into an unrecognizable expression of pain and confusion. Panic strikes me so hard it is no longer a mere feeling but a tangible object that yanks at my throat making it hard for me to scream. You’re suffocating him I try to shout. My face feels like its peeling off layer by layer because I am doing whatever I can to expose those words. She pulls him tighter and her eyes grow stronger as her pupils soak in malevolence.

I try to step forward but the breath from her sneer, exposing her teeth, blow over me like a hurricane and I tumble down. Fingers clawed into the earth I push forward and find myself at her feet. This is the closest we’ve been and the evil oozing from her pores stings my skin.

For the first time, I see her up close. Her hair reminds me of the type of black that funeral clothes are made of and it meets her forehead at a jagged line, like knives. Her skin is unevenly distributed across her face; it bubbles and pools in the wrong places a disturbing color like the mixture of sand and tar. As if she were constantly under interrogation light for her various crimes, her eyes draw back and never completely open. They are stuck in a glare and will never be joyous. Nose flared like she has finally gone home to her origins of garbage and sewer.

Worst yet, she puts her lips to his tiny forehead and pretends to go in for a kiss. More like the kiss of death. Those lips mean to suck every happy memory from his two year life before he can learn to use his words. What I do next doesn’t even register it just happens.

I shatter a mirror at her feet. She is so consumed by her own broken image that she drops him. He falls towards the glass but his momentary freedom gives me the strength to lunge forward and secure him safely in my arms.