I found Agnes next to the dumpster behind my apartment building. She had a cigarette in her hand and was sitting on the ground, knees pulled towards her chest.
"You smoke?" I asked.
She looked at me. "Not for a while."
I sat on the ground next to her. "You know why the nun went to the department store?" She looked at me with crinkled eyebrows. "She had bad habits." A smile lit up her face.
"So," she said, "guess you're wondering why I'm out here."
"I know why. I checked the blog. 'Under the spreading chestnut tree' - 1984, right?"
"'I sold you, you sold me,'" she said, sucking in another lungful of smoke and then exhaling it.
"You haven't sold me yet. You said no to them."
"But they won't stop," she said. "And the Cold Boy won't stop. And the Slender Man. That's why there are runners. Because running is the only option sometimes."
"And sometimes it isn't." I stood up and looked at the night sky and the moon. "They want me to be bait, right?"
"Yeah."
I looked at her. "Then let's be bait."
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