"No. I shouldn't have." Alex says quickly and firmly. "Not until I had proof. Not until I talked to Charlie and Cheryl. Not until Charlie told me what she'd meant when she'd said that she didn't have a father anymore." Alex says the words quickly, enunciating them very purposefully as she meets his eyes as she has so many times before. Well, perhaps not quite as she had so many times before, because Alex hadn't looked at him with real fear before. She hadn't had that wide, startled doe look in them before.

But the fear doesn't last very long as she can feel him doing something to her mind.

Innocent. You know I'm innocent.

The thought slithers almost, and it's cold it winds itself over her break like the first stirrings of a nightmare. "No!" Alex cries out quickly, and she shakes her head, taking a step back and ripping her eyes away from his. "Don't try fuck with my head, Richard." Saying Richard was an instinct and a reflex that she really doesn't want to explain. "I know that you're a demon!" Saying it aloud hurts, but it also feels true, perhaps the most truth ever uttered in this kitchen.