by Sarah Kuhn
“If that were the case, I can’t help but feel they would have mounted a more ambitious initiative than sending a single demon hand to strangle her,” Nate said. “And since you defeated Tommy and the hand, it’s unclear what these demons actually have in their arsenal right now.”
“The statue demons came back, though,” I said. I gnawed my lower lip. “I swear I destroyed them all, and then one of them just showed up at the benefit. Like it resurrected itself or something. What if Tommy and the hand can do that?”
Nate nodded, thinking. “Let’s see if we can make some of these connections more solid. I need to dissect the specimen from yesterday—the tip of the thumb.”
“And we should bring everyone up to speed.” I attempted to shove my burgeoning dread to the side. No sense in getting all freaked out until we knew more. I started to hoist myself off Nate. “Time to rally the troops. Or at least figure out if the rest of the troops are awake.”
“Wait.” His hands tightened around my hips. “Before you go rally, I . . .”
“What? You want your shirt back?”
“No.” He gave me a slight smile, then eased himself into a sitting position. We were face to face: me still straddling him, his hands moving to my lower back. He hesitated, something unsure flitting through his eyes.
“We should have sex again,” he said.
“Like . . . now?”
“No. I mean, I am not opposed to that and if you had woken me up for sex rather than demon theory discussion, I would have been very open to it, but that’s not what I . . .” He shook his head, frustrated. “I can never seem to say things right.”
I thought about his gentle words to me when I couldn’t stop crying the night before. His insistence that I was brave when I felt anything but. “You do okay sometimes.”
He took a deep breath and let his thoughts pour out in a rush. “I think we should have sex again sometime in the near future. Possibly several times in the near future. If you want.”
“Are you interested in testing my control further?” I teased. “See what does and does not provoke my flame-y reaction? Like a sexperiment?”
“No, that’s not it.” He didn’t laugh, just regarded me steadily, his serious expression contrasting in bizarre yet appealing fashion with his sleep-tousled hair. “I am not someone who has fun very often. But I had fun last night. And I’d like to have fun with you again.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I hadn’t had time to consider our sex status post-last night, but now that he mentioned it . . .
I’d also had fun. I totally wanted more multiple orgasms. And if our theory about this new breed of demons targeting Aveda was in any way correct, I was going to need major stress relief.
God, was I really trying to come up with a list of reasons to have incredibly hot sex? Which, by the way, hadn’t resulted in anyone being burned to death?
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
“Yes. But we need a couple of ground rules.”
“Such as?”
“It can’t mean anything beyond the sex. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth for that right now. Fun and orgasms: those are our only objectives. And no telling anyone. I’d rather not explain this, uh, arrangement to Aveda or Bea. Or even Lucy. Oh, and I still get to call it a ‘sexperiment.’”
He gave me a solemn nod. “I accept your terms.” He pulled me closer. “And as far as sexperimental aspects to explore . . .”
“I’m listening.”
He smiled. This whole tousled, naked, “I just woke up and successfully proposed a possibly disastrous sex plan to the girl in my lap” thing he had going on was really working for me. I suppressed the big, dopey grin that was threatening to spread over my face.
“We can try different locations. Perhaps places containing elements that counteract fire, just in case.”
“Like . . . what, a rainstorm?”
In one fluid motion, he slid off the bed and stood, taking me with him. “Like the shower.”
This time, I didn’t suppress my big, dopey grin. I didn’t even try.
After my sexperimental shower, I bolted downstairs, all ready to make with the troop rallying.
Instead I stumbled into an intervention.
Lucy and Bea were clustered around the kitchen table and Scott was standing off to the side, his usual easy posture disrupted by the steady drum of his fingertips against the kitchen countertop. They were all frowning at Aveda, who was sitting in a chair across from them. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her face was screwed into an “are you kidding me?” version of her usual imperious look. There was a single empty chair positioned next to her.
I didn’t have to ask who it was for.
I sat down and resisted the urge to fidget or play with my hair, which was matted against my head in an awkward half-wet, half-dry formation. Silence blanketed the air.
“Maybe you should go first, Bea,” Lucy said.
“Me?” Bea frowned, swirling Froot Loops around in an overflowing bowl of milk. I was firmly anti-milk, but Bea liked to drown her cereal in the stuff. Even as a toddler, she was obstinate about this, furiously banging her spoon against her high chair to demand more. “But you’re, like, the most senior person, Lucy. You should go first.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. Scott, you’ve been friends with both of them since junior high. Maybe you’d like to—”
“Technically, Bug’s known them the longest, though,” Scott protested, gesturing to Bea. “You know, since birth. And I heard about everything that happened yesterday secondhand—”
“Exactly,” said Bea. “So you’re the best person to speak to—”
“That doesn’t make any sense—”
“Actually, it kind of does if you really think about it,” Lucy said.
“Oh my God,” I blurted out. “You guys are the absolute worst at putting on an intervention.”
“Thank you,” Aveda muttered under her breath. We exchanged a surprised look of solidarity.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s just do this, shall we? I lost my temper yesterday, endangered people, and almost set Aveda on fire. It was a moment of extreme irrationality and it won’t happen again.” I turned to face Aveda. “I’m sorry. This whole being you deal is even crazier than I thought it would be. After suppressing all my emotions for so long, they’re heightened, magnified, and basically all over the place. I haven’t felt that much rage in forever and it just . . . came out. Right next to your head.”
Surprise crossed her face, and I saw a flicker of that piece of her that always took me back to kindergarten: that little girl barfing up thirty spam musubi while I rubbed her back. That soft underbelly that was capable of being hurt if she exposed it too much. I reached over and took her hand.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “You know I’ve always been scared of hurting someone with the fire. I’m horrified that I almost did. And I’m especially horrified that it was you.”
Aveda studied me for a long moment, her expression shifting between confusion and anger and vulnerability. “Thank you,” she finally said. She hesitated and it seemed like she might be about to let that vulnerability take over. Instead, her shields snapped up, her eyes becoming veiled and haughty again. “I’m glad you’re owning up to your mistakes, Evie,” she said, dropping my hand and drawing herself up tall in her chair.
I rolled my eyes and faced Lucy, Bea, and Scott again. “I am indeed,” I said. “But let’s not forget who the other half of this intervention is for: you.”
Aveda blinked at me. The haughtiness in her eyes was washed away by shock. Nate chose that moment to join us, his hair slick from our shower. My cheeks warmed. I’d suggested we enter the room at different times so as not to give away the fact that we’d just spent the night (and morning) together. Now it seemed like the most obvious move possible. Li
ke I should just add “Hey, everybody, we had sex” to my speechifying and get it over with.
“I’m taking responsibility for losing my temper,” I continued. “I am not taking responsibility for you acting like a crazy person, going on some weird shoplifting adventure . . .” I gave Bea a look. She trained her eyes on her Froot Loops. “ . . . and then causing a scene and putting people in danger because you couldn’t stand being out of the spotlight for even one second. I’m also not taking responsibility for you bullying me, bitching at me, and telling me to remember my place.”
Aveda opened her mouth to protest, but I held up a silencing hand and straightened my spine, trying to project Michelle Yeoh/Invisible Girl-esque strength.
“That’s shitty, Aveda,” I continued. “That’s a really fucking shitty thing to say to someone. And this someone . . .” I pointed to myself. “ . . . is sick of you saying shitty things to her in general. This someone is supposed to be your friend.”
Aveda’s mouth opened and closed, giving her the appearance of a confused fish.
I turned to everyone.
“Did I miss anything?” I asked.
“You pretty much covered it, darling,” Lucy said. “We wanted to speak to both of you about your erratic behavior yesterday and how—”
“How your personal conflicts are a hazard to the functionality of this entire operation,” Bea said, as if suddenly remembering the intervention statement she’d prepared.
We all looked at her.
“What? I googled some HR worksheets,” she said. “Someone has to keep things running semi-smoothly around here.”
“You’re right,” I said, meeting Bea’s gaze and mirroring her serious tone. “Our personal conflicts were a hazard. But I want to assure all of you that I’ve got things under control now. I’m learning how to have feelings in a far less . . . dangerous way. I regret what happened, but I’m ready to move on and I appreciate you guys supporting me in that.”
“Goodness,” Lucy said, grinning at me. “You really are quite talented at this intervention thing.”
I couldn’t help but grin back. “Thanks. It’s my first.”
I looked around the room, gauging everyone else’s expressions. Bea had stopped swirling her cereal around and looked like she was trying to remember more official-sounding HR speak. Scott was regarding me with respect. And Nate was unreadable.
“All right,” I said briskly. “Now that we’ve addressed the issue of my and Aveda’s mutual meltdown, there’s something important I need to discuss with all of you.”
I briefly explained what Nate and I had talked about: demons appearing as human-like things. Demons displaying higher than usual intelligence. Demons targeting Aveda.
“I know some of you think I’ve been imagining things these past few days,” I said, even though “some of you” basically meant “Aveda.” “Frankly, I thought I was imagining things, too. But given all that’s happened, I don’t think we can deny that something bizarre is going on and it’s best if we figure it out and nip it in the demon-y bud. Nate’s dissection of the specimen he collected yesterday will hopefully give us more information. And . . .” I took a deep breath, a vague idea of a plan taking shape in my head. “We have to draw out whatever this new force is.” I turned to Bea. “What’s a cool upcoming event?”
“Um, what?” Her head snapped up and she dropped her spoon in the bowl, sending milk sloshing onto the table.
“Something that everyone who’s anyone in San Francisco will turn up for? Something with, like . . .” I made air quotes with my fingers, feeling supremely dorky. “. . . a ‘cool factor’?”
She tapped her cereal spoon against her bowl, thinking it over. “There’s that karaoke competition? The one down at The Gutter? It’s gonna be the event of the month for the Bay Area’s hippest hipsters.”
“Okay.” I nodded at her, remembering the Best of The Gutter flyer Lucy had pointed out a couple nights ago. “Good.”
I turned to Lucy. “You’re the Gutter-slash-karaoke expert around here. Can we get Aveda entered into that, do you think?”
“Kevin is a snob when it comes to karaoke,” Lucy said, mulling it over. “And he’s a bit thrown off because Stu didn’t show up for work yesterday.”
“Oh, no,” I said, thinking of Stu’s advanced age. “Has anyone checked on him?”
“They’re trying,” Lucy said. “No word yet. But in any case, as one of Kevin’s best customers: yes, I think I can talk him into it. I’ll be sure to note that having someone as famous as Aveda in the competition will give it even more cachet than usual.”
“That’s exactly what I’m hoping.” I turned back to Bea. “Your prowess as Social Media Guru is going to be key over the next few days. We need to create buzz around this karaoke competition thing. Entice anyone and everyone—even the non-hipsters—to come out and cheer Aveda on. Like I said, we have to draw this new demon force out. Give it the biggest, most tempting Aveda-shaped target possible. And that target has to be me.”
“What?” Aveda squawked. Still in shock from me interventioning her ass, she’d been uncharacteristically silent as we pieced together a plan. “Why?”
I met her eyes without flinching. “Because I can nuke the shit out of it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nate smile. And then there was silence. No one could disagree with that.
Well, almost no one.
“You really think you should continue posing as me after yesterday’s outburst?” Aveda said. She looked around the room, challenging. “Does anyone think that?”
“It was a mutual outburst,” I reminded her. “We both fucked up. And like I said: I’m sorry, I’m processing, and I’m moving on.”
“We can’t put you out as bait for this possible new brand of demons while you’re still injured, Aveda,” Lucy said.
“And it does seem like we should take care of this new breed of demons as soon as possible,” Scott added, frowning at Aveda.
“Since when are you so keen to be part of the ‘we’ around here?” she snitted at him.
“Since I agreed to help Evie,” he shot back. “But really, this seems bigger than all of us.”
“It is,” I said, interrupting them before they could really get into it. “And honestly, all the power usage I’ve been doing over the past few days feels like it’s giving me control. Or at least something resembling control.” I briefly recapped what Nate and I had discussed the night before, detailing the few incidents that seemed to indicate my growing control. Naturally I edited out what we’d done afterward. “In short,” I concluded, “I can do this. And Scott’s right: I need to do this as soon as possible. If this new force sticks around and keeps targeting you, Aveda, how long until they actually succeed in taking you out? How long until San Francisco’s really and truly fucked?”
Aveda crossed her arms. I could tell she was furious, but suppressing it with all her might. “Fine,” she said. “It seems I’m outvoted.” She pushed herself out of her chair. “Why don’t you all wake me when you actually need me again.” She aimed her hand at her crutches, glaring at them, trying to use her weak telekinesis. They wouldn’t budge. She let out a strangled cry of frustration, then reached over and grabbed them and clomped out of the room with as much dignity as she could muster.
Nate turned to Bea, who was playing with remnants of her cereal. “Beatrice?” he said. “Would you like to help me dissect the thumb?”
“Holy frakballs! I mean . . . yes. I am more than happy to assist you.” Bea modulated her voice to professional tones.
Nate smiled at her. “Let’s go, then.”
“Do I get a lab coat?” Bea asked. “And can I personalize it? I mean, nothing too flashy, but I have some sequins left over from when I bedazzled my phone. Hey, maybe I could fix up your lab coat, too? You’d be surprised how much easier it is to be productive when you
look your best.” She followed him out of the kitchen, chattering all the way.
I let out a long breath, crossed the room, and sat down next to Lucy. I pulled Bea’s cereal bowl over and picked through the mushy milk, trying to find an intact Froot Loop. Now that I wasn’t interventioning, speechifying, or otherwise putting on a tough face, I felt like a balloon with a hole poked in it, all the bravado leaking out of me like helium.
“So that’s one big plan all settled,” I said. “And I am starving.”
Lucy chuckled. “I must say, I’m impressed.”
“Agreed,” said Scott, pulling a chair up to the table and plopping down in it. “The way you stood up to Aveda—finally—was . . .”
“Totally diva-ish?” I suggested.
“Smashing,” Lucy corrected, beaming at me. “Seriously overdue and a really marvelous sign of personal growth. If I hadn’t been so focused on our intervention, I would have applauded.”
I laughed. “Thank you. I think.”
Scott reached over and took my hand. “I wasn’t there yesterday. Like I said, I heard the whole story secondhand,” he said. “But I wanted to make sure: are you okay?”
I stared down at our intertwined fingers and was suddenly reminded of the day Jay Tran, my longstanding high school crush, had asked someone else to the prom after hinting for weeks he was going to ask me. That was way before I knew what real pain felt like, and I was convinced it was the worst thing that would ever happen to me. Aveda had stomped off to find Jay, declaring she was “going to give him a very large, very significant piece of my mind,” but Scott just sat with me at our usual lunch table, holding my hand. Staying well after lunch period was over, after everyone else had gone back to class, soothing me out of my dramatic teenage emotion spiral. And then he’d asked if I wanted to go with him.
The memory gave me a surge of warmth. But it was a friendly warmth. A sibling-like warmth. A warmth that contained no trace of sexual attraction. I didn’t have those kinds of feelings for him, I realized. I never would. And that was really, really okay. I squeezed his hand. “Yes,” I said. “I am. Thanks for asking. And thanks for always asking.”
