by Cole Gibsen
I was a child, braiding my mother’s hair as she stared at her reflection in a mirror.
I was a scared young girl with a torn robe and a knife, refusing to give my body away without a price.
Then I saw him. A braid of jet-black hair swung past his knees as he stepped forward and held out his hand.
I reached back only to find that he had vanished, leaving behind a crooked blood-stained dagger. Unable to stop myself, I picked up the dagger and, without hesitating, plunged the blade deep into my flesh.
Screaming, I opened my eyes and found myself back on the floor of my bedroom. I inhaled the thick smell of smoke, but a twisting pain in my stomach made me gasp. I sat up and hugged my sides, my fingers running across something warm and sticky that soaked into my tank top. I slowly lifted my shirt and found that the small birthmark to the right of my belly button had split open, spilling fresh blood down my waist.
“What did you do?” Whitley screamed. I looked up as he gripped my shoulders. His hair had fallen completely out of its ponytail and knotted into a halo around his face. He shook me hard enough that my head flopped against my shoulders like a rag doll. “My power is not back! How did you keep it from me?”
Smiling, I put my hand on top of his, and he stopped shaking me. His eyes filled with disbelief. Suddenly it was all so clear. I knew what had happened. I could feel it in my center and coursing through my blood.
“Your ceremony trapped energy into this room,” I whispered.
Uncertainty flashed in his eyes. “I trapped your energy so I could take it when you died.”
“You forget,” I hissed, “that I have the ability to manipulate ki. But the only problem when using life force energy is that it’s like a battery. The more you use, the weaker you become. And if you use all your ki before time and rest can restore it, you die.”
“So why aren’t you dead?”
“Because of you.” I smiled. “When you contained my ki to my bedroom, you made it a battery charger. You trapped the energy you tried to take and gave me an endless supply of power.”
Whitley paled as he stumbled back away from me. “No!”
I could feel the power flowing inside of me. Like a warm river, it mixed with the blood flowing through my veins, energizing me. As it worked through my body, I noticed a tingling sensation in my shoulder and stomach. Carefully, I pulled my torn and bloody tank top past my shoulder to find that my stab wound was no bigger than the size of a dime, and it appeared to be shrinking before my eyes. I lifted up the bottom hem of my shirt and wiped away the smeared blood with my hand, discovering nothing but smooth skin underneath.
I stood up.
Whitley scrambled backward, tripping over one of my shoes and falling onto his back. With a yelp, he crab-crawled in reverse until his back hit my door. With a shaking hand, he pulled three palm-sized metal squares from his back jeans pocket. The tips gleamed where they had been filed to a point. “Don’t take one step closer!” he screamed.
“You’re actually threatening me with shuriken?” I asked, remembering the weapons fleeing ninja used to discourage pursuers. “Really, Whitely, isn’t that a tad cliché?”
“Why change something that works?” He looked like he was about to say more, but snapped his mouth shut as his eyes wandered over my head. “Look!” He inclined his head to point behind me. “Fire!”
I rolled my eyes. “Please, how dumb do—” But my words trailed in the air as I spotted orange flames licking out from under my closet door. One of the candles must have fallen and rolled into my closet during the wind storm!
I froze. Michelle lay dying on my couch, my house was on fire, and I was alone in my room with a homicidal maniac. Which problem did I address first?
A scream from behind me forced my decision. I looked up seconds before three flying shuriken hit me.
Reflexively I lifted my arm to protect my face and felt a disturbance in the air made by my swinging arm. When I opened my eyes, Whitley’s right shoulder had been pierced through to the wall with one sharpened square, a second pinned his left forearm in place, and the third wedged firmly into the middle of his thigh. He howled as he pulled against the metal that gouged him. I watched, mesmerized, as the blood stain crawled down Whitley’s thigh until most of his left pant leg turned a brilliant red.
Unable to move his arms, he shifted his shoulders and looked up at me with desperate eyes. “The fire!”
I looked behind me to see that the flames had spread from the closet to the entire back wall. Thick black smoke collected on the ceiling and pressed down by the second.
I snatched my katana from the bed and paused briefly in front of Whitley. A thousand emotions passed through me in a second. He had tried to kill me and, rightly, deserved no mercy. But I wasn’t sure I had the strength to walk away and deal with the stain his blood would leave on my conscience.
Whitley quit struggling and fell limp against the wall. “You can’t leave me here,” he pleaded. “I’ll die.”
“You deserve to.” My voice sounded hoarse as I struggled to breathe through the thick air.
“But I’m the only one who can get us out of here.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You would say anything to save yourself.”
The smoke had now descended to waist-level and Whitley coughed several times before he was able to continue. “I’m telling the truth! Transcending should have drained you of your power, but I have contained it to this room. Once you break the barrier, you’ll lose all of your energy. But if you let me go, I give you my word that I will get you and Michelle out of the house safely.”
I took a moment to consider that. “So my choice is to let you go or lose all of my energy?”
Whitley nodded and smiled. The expression was identical to the smile worn by Zeami the night he killed Yoshido.
“You know what? I think I’ll take my chances with the fire.”
His face crumpled. “No! You can’t do this!”
I paused in the doorway and gave him one last look over my shoulder. “As much fun as it’s been, consider this our last date.”
I left the room without looking back.
41
Whitley had told the truth about one thing. The moment I stepped from my bedroom, my energy slipped away like sand through my fingertips. The smoke was already thick and rolling down the hallway when I stumbled to the floor.
I heard Whitley’s wordless screams, but after a loud crash followed by a slight tremor in the floor, he fell eerily silent.
I couldn’t help but taste the irony, cold and bitter on my tongue. I had survived an attempted sacrifice as well as my transcending, but now I was going to be burned alive in a house fire before I could pull my friend to safety. Just my luck.
I tightened my grip on the katana and shimmied forward down the hallway on my elbows. When I could no longer see out of my watery and burning eyes, I buried my head against my arm, coughing up the thick air that cut like razors down my throat. After rubbing the tears from my eyes with my shoulders, I lifted my head back up. The wave of heat that pressed against my face surprised me. The fire had beaten me down the hall and was making headway into the living room where Michelle lay helpless, and there was nothing I could do to save her.
I was too exhausted to be afraid. A violent series of coughs wracked my body, and when it was over, I collapsed my head onto the floor and stared at the shadows cast by the orange flames dancing against the wall. I couldn’t look away.
A loud crack sounded to my right, followed by something white-hot searing into the skin above my left elbow. I shuddered but was helpless to do more.
As the burning sensation spread, I tried to keep the panic threatening to overtake me at bay. Quentin had given me tips for dealing with anxiety once. He suggested that reciting the alphabet backwards would keep my mind too busy to succumb to an anxiety attack. It seemed silly, but I had to do something while I waited to die.
Z, Y, X, W, V …
A memory of my mother popped into my mind. I ha
d just turned thirteen and was sitting on the couch watching a movie when I heard soft sobbing coming from my mother’s room.
Startled, I turned the TV off, tiptoed down the hall, and eased her bedroom door open. “Mom?”
“Oh, Rileigh!” Debbie quickly wiped away her tears with the back of her hand before burying her face in her pillow. Her voice was muffled, but I could still understand her when she said, “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
I crept to the edge of the bed, careful to not step on the dozens of crumpled and ripped pictures of my mom from her modeling days that littered the floor.
I could remember the strangeness of cradling my mother in my arms. When her sobbing stopped and her heaving chest stilled, I got the nerve to ask the question I’d always wanted to ask. “Do you regret keeping me?”
She sucked in a breath and held it for the longest seconds of my life. Finally, she let it whoosh out before pulling herself up and locking her puffy red eyes onto my own. “Never. Not even for a second.”
I blinked back the tears clinging to my lashes, afraid that if I spoke my voice would betray the emotion flooding through me.
“You’re so strong.” She cupped my face with her hand. “I know I haven’t been the best mother.”
“Mom, you—”
“No.” She squished my cheeks with her fingers. “Let me finish. I’ve made mistakes, Rileigh. Stupid, immature mistakes that ruined my reputation and ended my career. But somehow, amidst all that, I managed to do one
thing right.”
“What?” I asked with my fish lips.
She shrugged and released her hold on my face. “I have no idea, because despite it all, here you are—the most amazing person I know.”
U, T, S, R, Q …
I remembered dancing with my best friend a month ago at my junior prom.
“Rileigh, will we always be friends?” Quentin asked.
I looked up from his shoulder. “Always.”
He smiled and spun me in a circle. “Even if I get into a car accident and my face looks like this?” He rolled his eyes into the back of his head and stuck out his tongue.
I smiled. “Without a doubt.”
He pulled me against him and lowered me into a dip. “Will you still be friends with me when I steal all the high-tipping salon clients?”
He pulled me up and I shrugged. “Sure. But keep in mind I’ll put Nair in your shampoo.”
“Understood.” He nodded. “Would you still be friends with me if I left you alone for a minute so I can ask Brad Stevens to dance?”
I laughed. “I knew there was a point to this.” I dropped my hand from his shoulder. “Go. Dance. Be merry.”
He gave me a quick kiss. “Love ya!” He turned to leave, but hesitated.
“What’s up, Q?”
He smiled and pulled me into a tight hug. “You know I do love you, right?”
“Of course.” I hugged him back.
“Like a sister,” he whispered in my ear.
“Like a sister,” I agreed.
P, O, N, M, uh, L …
I was having more difficulty concentrating on the letters as my mind wanted to bring into view the one person I couldn’t bear to think about.
K
Kim. The name raked like nails across my heart, filling me with more pain than the smoke burning through my lungs. What I thought was a spirit trying to take me over had really been the voice of my heart. And I’d refused to listen.
Now it was too late.
I sobbed with the knowledge that I would never see his almond eyes or smell the sandalwood that infused everything he touched. He had said he loved me, and in return, I had said nothing. Now I would die and he would never know that I remembered.
That I loved him still.
Yoshido, my soul mate, lost to me again. The tears running down my cheeks felt as hot as the flames drawing nearer.
I heard another crack above me and braced for the impact that would follow. Instead, my vision swam in black. I wondered if I had passed out, but I could feel strong hands sliding underneath me and picking me up. Was I dreaming? Surely if I was, I wouldn’t be able to feel the thick film of sweat that coated my skin and ran in streams down my neck.
My body jerked forward and something soft brushed past my face. A blanket? Seconds later, I shivered as the cool night air melted against the sweat on my skin. A golden hand pulled the heavy wool away from my face and the chocolate eyes that stared down projected a mixture of fury and terror.
I smiled up at him. Kim. My Kim.
He pulled me tighter against him. “Oh, thank God. Rileigh, I—”
But I could no longer hear him. Unconsciousness pulled at me, and I sank away. I had seen his face and been held in his arms. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
42
I wasn’t dead. The aches and pains of my body that seeped into my dreams assured me of that. Groaning, I tried to sit up, but two strong arms tightened their hold around my waist. I glanced down to find Kim’s face drawn into tight lines even as he slept. His upper body draped awkwardly over my lap while his lower half sat half-spilled in a chair pulled up to the side of my bed. Gradually, his face relaxed and his arms loosened their grip. I shifted my body and let my hands rest on his head, curled in his hair.
My first thought was that I was in a hospital, but glancing around, I decided this was like no hospital I’d ever been to before. It looked more like the medical ward on an episode of Star Trek. My room had no windows, yet was eye-flinchingly bright. It was almost impossible to tell where the white walls ended and the floor began. Several flat-screen monitors hanging on the far wall displayed a rainbow grid of lines and numbers. To the side of me, blinking instruments and tools unlike anything I’d ever seen sat on stainless steel shelves.
“Where am I?” I murmured.
“I wish I knew.”
Startled, I looked up and found Quentin staring at me from an additional chair tucked off to the side. I sucked in an excited breath and felt a great ease in the pressure that had built in my chest. Quentin was okay.
He leaned forward, and the blanket that had been pulled up to his chin fell against his waist. “I think we’re in a secret government infirmary or something. They took you and Michelle here after they pulled you from the fire. You looked so bad with the blood and … I, well, all of us were freaked,” Quentin whispered. “But he,” Q inclined his head toward Kim, “went absolutely crazy. He hasn’t let anyone within five feet of you.”
As if in response, Kim mumbled something incoherent and pulled me tighter.
“Michelle’s here too?” I asked. “Is she okay?”
“She’s going to be. Drew found her in the nick of time.” Quentin paused. “But what about you? Are you okay?”
I wasn’t sure. While he watched, I stretched and flexed various muscles, careful to make my movements as minimal as possible so as not to disturb the sleeping guy who held me. Aside from stiff joints, sore muscles, a burn on the back of my arm, and several swollen bruises, everything seemed to be in working order. “I’m okay,” I answered.
Quentin smiled and relaxed back against the chair.
“How is everyone else?” I tried to sit up, but quickly abandoned the idea when Kim’s arms tightened.
Quentin rolled his eyes and waved his hand. “You don’t need to be worrying about anything right now. Braden, Drew, me—we’re all fine. Everyone is fine … well, except that guy with the horn tattoos. Drew told me that Kim beat him within an inch of his life. That’s how they got him to spill where you were.”
I couldn’t say I felt too bad for him. “And my house?”
Quentin looked away.
“It’s gone, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Your mom knows. She’s a little hysterical, but that’s to be expected.”
“Where is she? Can I see her?”
Quentin chewed on his lip. “Um, she doesn’t know you’re here exactly. She thinks that while we were at my house your pl
ace had an electrical fire. She’s staying in a local hotel.”
That didn’t make sense. “I thought she was out
of town.”
“Yeah.” Quentin darted his eyes around the room like a bird preparing for flight. “They didn’t make it. There’s something you should know about your mom’s boyfriend … ”
My stomach clenched tightly. “I knew it! He’s bad news, isn’t he? What is he? Another Noppera-bō?”
“Um, not exactly.” Quentin looked like he was going to say something, but his eyes moved past me and he was suddenly standing. “I think I’ll get us some lunch.”
“Lunch?” I gripped the side of my bed ail. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on!”
“Gotta go! I’ll be back soon.” He tossed the blanket across the chair and practically ran out the door.
“Q!” I yelled after him. When I realized he wasn’t coming back, I settled against the bed with an angry growl and found myself staring down into Kim’s quiet eyes.
“Rileigh, I—” Kim swallowed hard. “How are you feeling?”
“So much better,” I whispered, smiling at the face I never thought I’d see again. It felt like a lifetime had passed since the last time we were in a hospital room together, and in a way, it had.
Kim gently pushed off of me and stood up. “Show me.”
I didn’t bother to hide the hurt in my eyes as I stared at him from the bed. “What?”
He motioned me up with his fingers. “Please show me that you are okay.”
I pushed the blanket off and dropped my bare feet onto the cold tile, trying to swallow the hot anger that tightened my throat. We had come so close to losing each other. I wanted nothing more than to cling to him, and he wanted me to touch my toes?
I moved slowly, trying to ignore my screaming muscles as I worked through the various stretches that Kim directed. When he gave me a final nod, I straightened my back and put my hands on my hips. “Satisfied?”
“Not entirely.” His jaw flexed and I watched a strange battle between anger and fear play through his eyes.
