Ribbons by J R Evans

sat on the floor with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. He shook harder now. Matt remembered sitting like that when he’d been a boy, trying to cry as quietly as possible. He dropped his bag and went to sit next to Adam.
    “Quent’s gone. This place is done,” said the cop.
    “We’ll find a new place,” said Christy.
    When Matt was nervous, his knee-jerk reaction was to crack a joke or make a smart-ass comment. Things couldn’t be that bad if he could make somebody smile. Even if they were trying to hurt him. Where there was a smile, there could be hope. He didn’t even have to try anymore; the comments came out on their own.
    “Lying down on the job?” he asked Adam. He gave him a shoulder bump as he said it.
    Through the door, Matt could hear the cop getting louder again. “Well, you’re not leaving Vegas.”
    Christy matched his volume. “We’ll go wherever we need to!”
    “I can’t just pick up and leave!”
    “Nobody’s asking you to!”
    Adam didn’t react to the bump at first. Then he started to slowly slide away from Matt down the wall. As he did, his head turned, and Matt could see his eyes. They were squeezed shut but Adam wasn’t crying. Instead, his eyeballs visibly vibrated under his lids and his head nodded to some unheard rhythm. Blood started to trickle from one corner of his mouth as he opened it. There was a long draw of breath and then Adam started speaking? Ranting? Babbling? Whatever it was, it came out in a torrent, and it was in no language Matt had ever heard.
    Matt quickly reached for the boy. “Dude! Fuck!” The boy’s whole body was starting to shake now, and Matt had no idea what to do. “Adam!”
    Adam’s babbling stopped suddenly, and all at once he was speaking English. It was fast and jammed together, hard to follow, but it sounded like, “Do-not-think-that-I-have-come-to-bring-peace-on-Earth-I-have-not-come-to-bring-peace-but-a-sword.”
    Matt leaned down on Adam and tried to hold him still. He reached one hand back and banged on the door. “Hey! Something’s wrong! He’s bleeding!”
    “For-I-have-come-to-set-man-against-man.”
    Christy yanked the door open. The cop was standing behind her wide-eyed.
    “And-a-man’s-foes-will-be-those-of-his-own-household.”
    Christy shoved Matt aside and grabbed her son. She sat down and started cradling him in her lap. “His pills! The bathroom!”
    The cop ran down the hall and ducked into a room as Christy forced the flat of her hand into Adam’s mouth and rocked him back and forth. Adam’s jaw clamped down hard and his babbling was muffled. “It’ll be okay, baby,” she whispered. “Shh. Shh. Shh.”
    The cop hurried back toward them a moment later with a small plastic bottle in his hand. He knelt down beside them. Water sloshed onto the floor as he set down a chipped mug. He was shaking as he poured the pills into his palm. Some of them fell and clattered across the floor. He managed to hold on to a few. “Open his mouth!”
    Christy pulled her hand out of Adam’s mouth, and Matt saw a semicircle where teeth had broken skin. She didn’t seem to notice. The cop dropped the pills in Adam’s mouth and then forced it closed. The blood at the corner of the boy’s lips was bubbling as his throat struggled to make sounds. Christy grabbed the mug, and the cop took his hand away from Adam’s jaw. She held up Adam’s head and pressed the mug to his lips. His mouth filled with water, and he was forced to swallow.
    “What’s wrong?” Matt asked. “Should I call 9-1-1?”
    “He gets these seizures. They were getting better but . . .” Christy held Adam to her chest and started rocking him again.
    The cop yelled down the stairs. “Where the fuck is Dani?” Then he turned to Matt. “Go! Call!”
    Matt dug through his bag and pulled out his phone. He got to his feet and dialed.
     
    * * *
     
    It was past midnight by the time Matt sat down again. When he did, it was in Uncle Quent’s