Shade Me

by Jennifer Brown

  I swung the knife again, this time making contact, slicing deep through one of his palms. He roared—a bellow that cleared my head a bit—and I instantly heard the patter of blood hitting the tile floor. I swiped again, this time catching his other forearm. He stumbled away from me, staring at his palm in shock. Do what you know to do, Nikki, I thought. I threw a front kick, closing my eyes from the pain that wrenched up through my knee with the movement. I connected somewhere solid—his upper chest, maybe. He let out a strangled cry and then went down, his head hitting the marble counter on the way. He was out.

  I stood in the middle of the kitchen, panting shallowly, watching him, my hand still gripping the knife so tight it was cramping, my hair stuck to the side of my face with drying blood.

  I had to get out of here.

  I would have to go the long way around, unless I wanted to step over him, which I didn’t. I wasn’t sure if I’d have the strength to fend him off if he were to grab my leg a second time.

  But I had only taken two steps when I heard a scream to my side. I barely had time to react before Vanessa Hollis came barreling in from the living room, holding a brass statue in both hands. She said nothing intelligible—only that primal scream—as she came at me with it, swinging it down from over her head just as I had brought the paving stone down on the doorknob earlier.

  I lifted my arm to block the blow, the crash making my entire arm instantly numb, my entire field of vision flash green. My fingers let go of the knife. It clattered to the ground, skittering away to where I could no longer see it. I cried out in pain, holding my throbbing arm.

  Ignore the colors, Nikki. Put them out of your mind.

  I glanced up, and Vanessa was still coming at me with the statue. All I could think was cover your ribs, cover your ribs, cover your ribs. Holding one arm tight over my broken ribs, and the other up in defense mode, I bent my knees and waited for her, pulling up one knee at just the right moment to connect with her stomach.

  Vanessa Hollis flew back, landing on her butt, coughing and gagging from the wind being knocked out of her. Go, Nikki, my brain told me. Get out.

  But I had only turned halfway when Vanessa let out a yell. “You nosy bitch!” She threw the statue, and it hit me in the temple. I reeled, my vision going swimmy again, my head bursting with fireworks of pain. I felt warmth trickle down my ear, and when I touched where the statue had connected, my hand came away dark with blood.

  Unbelievably, Vanessa was pulling herself up and coming at me again. I only had just enough time to sink back into my fighting stance, letting my training take over. As soon as she was close enough, I shin-kicked her to the knee and then pulled my arm back to use a technique Gunner had only shown me once and I’d never had a chance to try in practice—an ear slap. I cupped my hand and let it fly, catching her squarely over her right ear.

  Her hand flew to her ear as she fell back nearly on top of Bill, who was just starting to rouse. I had no time. I had to get out.

  I zipped through the back door, feeling the dread of knowing that I was right back at square one. But now that I knew what was inside the house, I knew my chances of surviving outside were at least a little bit better.

  I slipped behind a bush next to the back door and looked for Luna or Dru. I could see neither, though I could still hear both. I dropped to a crouch and ran to the side of the pool house, pressing myself into the shadows. I ran the length of the pool house until I found a corner with a trash can parked in it, then climbed behind it. I was covered, hidden, huddled in the dark, pressing my palms into my eyes, hoping for the confusing hues to stop battering me, hoping my ears and my head would clear so I could listen for Luna.

  Every inch of my body screamed with pain. I was bleeding and broken, and every breath brought white lights to my eyes. I wondered if this was how Peyton felt the night of the attack. I wondered if she’d fought back as I had, if her colors had gone crazy like mine were doing, or if she’d just accepted her fate the way Mom had accepted hers. Or if she’d had a chance to even realize what was happening. If either of them had.

  Peyton had called me before her attack. Maybe she’d been begging for help.

  Maybe I needed to ask for help, too.

  I pulled out my phone. I’d never programmed Chris Martinez into it, but I’d looked at his business card so many times, I’d memorized the color pattern anyway. I hoped I was remembering it correctly through my injured haze.

  The phone rang for what seemed like forever.

  “It’s Nikki Kill,” I whispered, after he finally answered.

  “Nikki? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  “I need you,” I said. “Hollis house. Now.”

  “Get out of there. I’m nearb—”

  But suddenly I could hear Luna’s and Dru’s voices, so I ended the call and slid the phone back into my pocket. He would be too smart to call me back. He would know from the way I sounded that I was hiding.

  He was the one cop I could trust.

  Their words sounded like mumbles to me. I caught only partial sentences.

  “. . . told her everything . . .”

  “. . . don’t know what went down that night . . .”

  “Did you like jail? Because if you don’t . . .”

  “. . . has to be another . . .”

  “Shut up, do you want her to . . .”

  The voices went farther away, as if Dru and Luna had gone into the pool house, and I thought I could hear the sounds of things being moved inside. Maybe fighting, a crash here, a thud there. I straightened, shimmied toward a window, and peeked inside. Suddenly everything seemed too silent. I could hear everything and nothing. My ears were still betraying me. My cheek ached, and I could feel blood dripping from my chin. I couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t let myself see the color of that blood, that crimson, not even in my mind, or I would lose it. I needed to keep my calm. I needed to be aware of other things.

  I thought I heard shifting leaves behind me. I tensed, crouching into a ready stance, but the sound stopped, replaced by the beating of my heart.

  A few minutes passed. Just when I began to think maybe I should come out of hiding, I heard them again, whispering. Fighting about how best to find me.

  “I’m telling you, she’s over by the gazebo,” Dru said. “I saw her go.”

  “Bullshit,” Luna hissed. “She’s hiding out here somewhere. I can smell the smoke on her.”

  Shit. I’d never thought about that.

  “Let’s at least just look.” If I didn’t know better, I would think Dru was trying to lead Luna away from where I really was, so I could get away. But Dru was not the man I’d thought he was, so for all I knew he was trying to find me right along with her.

  “Chill. We will, but we’re going back here first.”

  “She might get away.”

  “I’m the one with the gun, so we do what I say.”

  “I’m going to look for her in there.”

  “Fine. Go. I don’t need you.”

  The voices were getting closer now, and then the footsteps softened, swooshed through grass. They were coming right for me. Again, I thought I heard a swishing noise behind me, and realized it must have been a trick of acoustics. Their footsteps ricocheting off their privacy fence.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Luna sang, and then giggled, sending chills rippling up and down my spine.

  I crouched deeper, pressed my elbows into my sides, and strained my eyes, trying to make out the shifting shadows in the yard. My cheek itched. The kaleidoscope had slowed down, honing itself into a few colors—black hate, orange danger, so much red—that I could mostly ignore.

  Just when I thought I heard a footstep behind me again, Luna’s face popped up over the trash can.

  “Boo!” she crowed, bringing the gun up to point over the trash can at me. “Found you!”

  30

  I DIDN’T THINK. There wasn’t time to think. Luna had already proven that she was willing to shoot, and be
hind the trash can I was a fish in a barrel.

  I took a breath, which hitched with my aching ribs. Springing up with a yell, I hammer-fisted Luna’s forearm, feeling a dull crack under her skin. She yelped as the gun flew through the air, bouncing in the grass. She sucked in air and grabbed for her arm, but I didn’t give her the chance. Anchoring my back against the wall, I front-kicked the trash can with everything I had, shoving it into Luna, who fell under the force. Empty beer and wine bottles rolled out on top of her.

  I sprang out of my corner, leaping over the trash can and landing in a fighting stance, turning left and right, watching for the others, hoping Chris Martinez was near enough to be arriving soon. Dru was still nowhere to be found. Every noise on the night air made me swing toward it, my breath ripping out of me so hard, spit collected on the front of my shirt.

  Luna was crying, babbling, rolling around under the spilled trash as she spat out threats. I didn’t have much time to get away, but I was afraid to move. There were so many places for Dru or Vanessa or even Bill to pop out at me. Catch me off guard. Finally, Luna untangled herself and got to her knees, holding her arm to her chest. She slipped, but then found her footing and lurched toward the gun.

  “You will regret that, you bitch!” she snarled.

  I reached the gun first, scooping it out of the grass and holding it in front of me, but my hands were shaking with so much adrenaline—gold bottle rockets, kapow, kapow, kapow—I couldn’t point it at her. I had been trained to use my body to fight. I had no idea what to do with a gun, other than keep it away from her.

  I started to back up toward the fence line. “You don’t want to do this, Luna,” I said. “You’re already hurt. Just let me go before this gets any worse.” The wind shifted and a pool raft rattled across the deck, causing me to flick my eyes worriedly that way. Where the hell was Chris Martinez?

  Luna laughed, looking completely unhinged with a twig hanging in her hair and sweeping like a pendulum across her forehead. “Bitch, you’re the one bleeding.”

  “Your arm is broken, Luna,” I called. I swallowed, tried to tighten my grip on the gun. “I felt it. Let me go so you can get it fixed. We can be done with this.”

  She continued walking toward me, completely unfazed by the gun in my hand. “Oh, we will never be done. Not until you’re permanently gone. Don’t you understand?”

  “Dru!” I shouted. I licked my lips, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off Luna. “You better come out or I’m going to have to shoot your sister!” One of the dogs I’d dodged earlier began to bark again, setting off a chain of barks throughout the neighborhood.

  “Yeah, Dru,” Luna said in that singsongy voice again. “You should come out so you can say your last good-byes to your sweet little Nikki.” She cupped one ear. “What? You don’t care what happens to her? Oh, yeah, that’s right, because you’re in it as deep as the rest of us!”

  “Come out, Dru!” I yelled.

  “Come out, Dru!” Luna mimicked right after me. She let her hurt arm drop to her side and rolled her eyes. “Okay, this shit’s just getting boring now.” She rushed at me.

  I stumbled backward two steps, trying to convince my fingers to pull the trigger. But the gun was so heavy and I was so filled with confused energy, I couldn’t relay the message from brain to hand. Bumpy black and gray swirled in my mind, silver, flashing oranges and yellows and ragemonster red, and mists of green. Fear, mistrust, danger, pain, fury—a palette of awful. I couldn’t concentrate. I’d never done this. I’d never thought I’d have to. And Luna was moving so fast.

  She was two steps away, and then one, and I still hadn’t done anything with the gun. I took another step back, my arm cocking backward to do what I did best. I hit Luna across the temple with the butt of the gun, but she was too close for the connection to do any real damage. She let out a squawk, dug her claws into the side of my neck with one hand, and grabbed at the gun with the other. She was moving with too much force, and I was off balance from not being ready. We both went down, Luna on top of me, the back of my hand smacking the ground and the gun flipping away about three feet. My ribs screamed, taking my breath away.

  I tried to sit up, to go after the gun before Luna could get it again, but she was tearing at my neck, my arm. She reared back and, with a yell, slammed her forehead into my right eyebrow. I saw a flash of light and felt the neon pain of a new wound opening. My eyes immediately flooded with tears, making it impossible to see. I covered my face with my free hand, but when I felt her rear back again, I grabbed a fistful of hair, just the way Stefan had grabbed mine that night in the hotel. With all my strength, I brought my elbow across her jaw. I heard her teeth click together, hard, and a grunt escaped her. I straightened my arm to roll her off me. Luna screamed and scrambled, flailing, both hands scratching at the hand I had buried in her hair.

  “Let me go, you bitch! I will kill you!”

  She peeled deep trails through the back of my hand that felt like fire. I had no choice but to let go, but to make up for it, I turned and axe-kicked her to the ribs, just as I had fantasized doing to her on the back of my car that day at school. She bent her legs to deflect most of the impact, though, and rolled away, reaching for the gun.

  “No!” I yelled, grunting, trying to get up, to figure out some miracle way of getting to the gun first. But I was too late. She was already there.

  I heard footsteps pound across the patio, around the pool, coming toward me. I still couldn’t see because of my watering eyes and the throbbing in my cheek and forehead, but I could make out what looked like Dru, coming toward us fast, his arms outstretched.

  This was it. I couldn’t fight them both off. I was too tired, too confused, in too much pain. Whether Peyton and I were real sisters, we were sisters in this. We were sisters in giving ourselves for the secrets and the truth. I supposed, blood or not, that was what made a connection matter, anyway.

  Luna staggered to her feet, panting, bleeding, her shirt ripped, her hair wild. She had the gun held in her good hand, low, pointing to the ground. She started to level it at me, still on the ground, too weak and disoriented to stand. I dragged myself on my elbows and feet, trying to get away. If I didn’t get up, I was going to die right here.

  “Luna!” Dru yelled, and the footsteps got closer. But instead of coming at me, he got between us and faced Luna, shielding me. I was almost numb with shock. “Run, Nikki! Get out of here!”

  I backed into a tree and somehow used it to pull myself to my feet.

  “Go, Nikki! Now!”

  Luna turned, brought the gun to shoulder level, and fired.

  I gasped as I saw Dru drop to the ground, instantly quiet.

  He’d been trying to stop her. He’d been trying to save me.

  It felt like Luna and I stared at Dru’s limp body for hours, but it was probably only the span of two heartbeats before I felt my feet propelling me forward, my body rigid with red rage. Fire engines. Cherries. Lava. Fast, faster, dead run. Luna only had time to turn her head before I reached her.

  You know what to do, Nikki. You’ve done this a million times before in the dojang. You’ve trained for this. Just do what you do.

  I stopped, put all my weight on my back foot, turned my whole body, and then brought my leg up, extending my foot. Roundhouse kick. The best I’d ever landed. My foot hit Luna’s head with a hollow thud, and she dropped like a sack of sand. All my colors blinked out at once.

  I took a few breaths and then grabbed the gun out of her hand. The barrel was hot. I turned and threw it with a grunt. It skidded across the patio, then plunked into the deep end of the pool and sank to the bottom.

  IT WAS ONLY then that I heard the sirens. The lights bounced around the backyard in fits and starts, and for a moment I was unsure if I was the only one seeing the colors. Police cars out front. I staggered in a circle so that I was facing the mansion.

  “Back here!” I yelled.

  In moments, three cops stormed the yard. I held my hands up in surrender,
but the fourth cop to come around to the backyard ran straight to me. It was Detective Chris Martinez.

  “You okay? You okay?” he asked, checking me over. “Jesus, you’re bleeding everywhere.”

  I nodded. “But Dru . . .”

  Martinez hurried over to Dru’s body and knelt beside him, tearing open his shirt and pressing both hands low on his chest. Another officer radioed in for an ambulance. It seemed impossible to me that he could still be alive. There was so much blood. And he was so still.

  My foot ached. Hitting the heavy bag was not the same as hitting the back of a human head. But I limped my way over to Dru as well and knelt beside him. He was in bad shape, but he was still conscious. He saw me and tried to sit up, but failed.

  “I tried to stop him, Nikki,” he said. “I tried to . . . save her . . . she . . . was right about . . . us. I changed my mind.” A tear slipped from the corner of one eye. His face was so pale it looked waxy. He swallowed, wincing. “I . . . moved her . . . I called the . . .”

  “Okay,” I said. I pushed his sweaty hair away from his forehead. The letters on his T-shirt slowly soaked through with red, but I was afraid to look closely enough to tell if it was the red of his blood, or the crimson I’d gotten to know so well. Luna had come to and was instantly making a hell of a fuss. “Help is coming. Just hang on.” He didn’t need to finish. I knew what he was going to say. He’d tried to save Peyton. He was just a little too late.

  “I’m so sorry, Nikki,” he said. I noticed blood begin to ring his bottom lip. I still couldn’t bring myself to look at the gunshot, to look at Chris Martinez’s hands as he pressed into the wound to stop the bleeding.

  “I knew it!” I heard Luna yell from where the officer had sat her up on the lawn. “I knew you betrayed us! Bastard!”

  “That’s enough,” I heard the officer say. I wanted to go over there and yank every hair out of Luna’s head, to tell her to shut the hell up, that this was no longer about them. I wanted to show her the crimson, all the crimson that had now shaded the pool water, unmistakably the synesthesia making its statement about Dru.