Salt invades my tongue as I swab tears out of my eyes. 'Cece, please can you sit down? I'll let you out in two minutes, I promise. I promise. We're almost home.'

Just as all my pleads before it, this one falls on deaf ears. Cece yanks at the handle of the passenger door. I had to turn on the child safety locks so he can't jump out of the car while it's moving, so I won't lose them into the night, but each time the door fails to open, their panic climbs another step.

'You're gonna lock me in.'

'I'm not.' I glance at them but all I see is hunched back and the soles of their Vans. 'Cece, you lived with me for nearly a year. If I wanted to lock you in, I would've done that then, wouldn't I?' 

Don't: Rationalise. Idiot.

'Maybe you just wanted to gain my trust.' Well, I can't deny that. 'You've been planning that the whole time, haven't you?'

'No–'

'I shouldn't've ever come here.' He yanks at the handle again.

When it don't open, they stumble over the centre console to try the back doors for the third time. My right foot trembles but I can't speed, not even a little. Panic is so tight around my chest, even my shallow breaths hurt. Tears bite at my eyes though I ferociously blink them back. I need to see. 

It's Friday night. The chance of police lurking in some dark ginnel as we enter Moss Side is higher than the absence.

Cece's not sitting down. Cece's not wearing a seatbelt. And I can't see. Can they arrest me for crying? People've been arrested for less. Cece don't know how to beg. Cece don't know how to play dead. Not when they're like this. Not ever but definitely not when they're like this.

They claw at the silicone that frames the window. Handprints stamped to the glass, calls for help. Please, please let nobody be watching.

I scrub my eyes dry again. I need three sets of eyes, one for the road, one for Cece, one for the police. A fourth set for crying. I need a set of eyes that never stop crying.

'Just a minute. We're almost home. I promise. Can you please sit down?'

Cece don't recognise the street as home. Not even when I park in my usual place on the curb. They're going to run the second the doors unlock.

Despite my promises, I leave the engine running and the child locks on. I'm not only bad at this but also a liar.

I ease my seatbelt open so it won't click and turn around. When they don't respond to their name, I reach out to nudge them only to yank my hand back. They snarl, the steel canines of their grillz long and sharp. His piercings gleam. Eyes glint in their black holes.

'Okay. I won't touch.' I raise my hands, keep them where Cece can see. 'We're home. You're alright. You're safe. Please don't run away, please. We're home.'

'Home?'

'Yeah. Home.'

How arrogant is it of me to assume they consider this home? They didn't even live here for a whole year. There's nowt that makes this any different from the thirty-two other places they've lived in. So correction: House.

But Cece's eyes trail along the red brick to their bedroom window and he echoes, 'Home.'

'Let's go inside, okay?' I unlock the doors and in the seconds I look away to twist out the key, everything changes. The dark swallows everything.

Cece has pulled out his lighter and though the cap is still on, the edict is scratched behind his eyes, the count to three. Command hallucination or compulsion, whichever it is, it's winning. Memories crawl out from my skin: blood and bone and scar tissue. A&E after A&E.

'Please don't. You don't have to do that. Don't listen to them.'

Esther barks inside the house. Can she sense it? She must.

Their piercings gleam in the dark, the one on his nose bridge an additional pair of beady eyes against black makeup. All of them are locked onto the lighter, onto the flame that will be so easy to command out of it.

I reach a hand out, keeping my movements sluggish so that when my fingers land on their knee, he don't break them. 'You're safe, Cece. I know you're so scared, I know that. But you're safe here.' I continue to caress their leg until their eyes venture to meet mine. 'Nowt's gonna hurt ya.'

Fear swarms in the black of his eyes. Paranoid what-ifs scuttle across his stare, each scenario gnawed apart by a worse one, ready to eat him alive. Some of them are about me; it's etched into the twist of his face, and just as I'm ready to be shoved away, he says instead, 'Can I sleep in your bed tonight?'

My heart cartwheels at the same time that it clenches. They haven't wanted to sleep next to me since we were kids, still sharing a bedroom in Mamá and Papá's house. The pinch of tears in my eyes is instant even if I can't tell whether it's from joy, because I know the amount of trust it takes, or from anguish, because I know how dark of a place they must be in to need it.

They've been here for thirty hours. How've I managed to cock it up so colossally already? I should've stayed with him tonight.

Somewhere in the same soil as my self-flagellation lives the knowledge that we'd be right in this same situation regardless of the path we took here. Trolley Problem: Oh no! A trolley is heading towards you. You can pull a lever and divert it to another track, also killing you. What do you do?

I smile. 'Of course, you can.'

Cece don't follow me out of the car. Esther bolts out the moment I open the door and only when she's barking and pirouetting in the street does Cece ooze from the backseat. They puddle on the tarmac and Esther circles around them before hugging him. Does she see what he sees? Or is she confirming to them that it's not real?

She guides them into the house and Cece collapses against me. We stumble up the stairs with Cece's back pressed to my chest so nowt can attack him from behind, Esther weaving a protective ring around us. We grab his pillow and blanket from his room. Cece asks me to keep watch while they change.

'D'ya wanna brush your teeth?'

He nods and I steer our direction to the toilet. A hint of tension leaves their shoulders when I flick the light on but they barely move past the threshold.

He anxiously cracks his knuckles. 'I don't want to look in the mirror.'

'Okay.' Shutting the door, I step from behind him to manoeuvre a towel in front of it.

While Cece brushes his teeth, I wipe the black makeup off his face, one eye at a time. He dares to rinse the vestiges off with water, though keeps his posture so upright that they spill plenty onto their grey tee. He brushes his grills too and leaves them to dry on a bit of toilet roll. I help them pinch the black lens out of their eye.

Though after hours in the baking sun followed by hours in the sweltering heat of a club, I'd love nowt more than a shower, I settle for washing my face and arms in the sink, trying to dislodge at least a few specks of glitter that'll be hitchhiking on my body for the next week. I massage moisturiser onto my cheeks, then on Cece's, and we waddle out of the toilet again.

I got my bed from a garage sale for so cheap I can only assume someone's nana died in it considering the frame is solid and intricately carved walnut. But it's also dead beautiful and massive so that Cece can lie right at the centre with Esther nuzzled into their side and still leave plenty of room for me.

I leave a gap under the roller blinds so the room don't get too dark, the indirect glow of the streetlamps diffusing into the small room.

The bed takes up most of the space, the rest populated by a total of thirty-three plants on various shelves and ceiling fixtures—forty-one if you count the ones propagating in old tahini and peanut butter jars in the bookcase.

With an arm around Esther, Cece pets her sleek fur though I reckon it comforts him more than it does her. She keeps her head on their chest, eyes adhered to the door as though keeping watch on his behalf. It seems to work because when I climb into the bed, settling beside him so that Cece is shielded by Esther and me on either side, he ventures to shut his eyes.

I caress his forehead, brushing back the wisps of hair that have escaped their braids. Just when I think they've treaded into sleep, Cece shoots upright and nails his eyes to my door. When they find it shut, they scour the rest of the room too, sorting through the shadows of my plants and the spaces between the ceramic pots.

I place a hand on their shoulder, guiding them to lie back down. 'You're alright, Cece. You're safe here, I promise. Me and Esther will keep watch. You can sleep.'

Notes

Ginnel: Slang for an alleyway or a narrow street.

A&E: Accident and emergency. Where you would go when you need urgent care in a hospital.