It was then mat he realized: the lawyers, they lied again. She never lost her eye! She probably never even got hurt! It was a story they made up, the same as they made up the story that he was nutzoid. They made it all up so they could punish him and put him in the loony bin. He knew it! It was all one big lie!
And now it was too good to be true. Here he was and here she was. At the lying-liar lawyers!
Well, there was only one thing to do, wasn't there?
She'd tried to hurt him. She had hurt him.
So he had to hurt her right back.
Except he couldn't hurt her because now she was gone.
There was just the boy. The terrified, crying boy.
Maybe he should hug him, Reggie thought. Hug him and tell him he could stop crying because everything was going to be fine.
Unless, of course, he didn't stop crying. Then things wouldn't be so fine. Then he'd make him be quiet.
He'd have to, wouldn't he? What other choice did he have?
– "-"-"JACK WAS HORRIFIED to find himself crying. But he couldn't stop. His mother was gone and he hadn't helped her, and the man was reaching for him, was trying to pick him up, just like he'd picked up his mother, and Jack didn't want to cry, not now, but tears were all he was capable of.
He felt the man's fingers wrap around his wrist and then his shoulders. The touch of flesh against flesh repulsed him. The man's hands seared him like an iron pressed against his skin, and without even thinking about what he was doing, Jack flung himself at the man's leg, clutching it with all his might, not trying to knock him over this time, simply refusing to let go.