Ann Aguirre: Mortal Danger

“I have no idea what that means.”

“It tells certain parties that you’re an asset, or part of the opposition.”

“So showing it could help or hurt me, depending on who sees it?” This crap was getting more complicated by the second.

“Yes.”

“Am I allowed to cover these up with armbands or bracelets?”

“Sure. You just can’t change them with normal ink or remove them via laser.”

“Can’t or aren’t allowed to?” There was a fairly substantial difference.

“It’s not physically possible with existing technology.”

“That’s the least of my worries anyway.” Sighing faintly, I braced and gave him my left arm, wishing I knew what that kanji meant.

This time, I was better prepared for the searing pain. The tears spilled and overflowed despite my best efforts, but I didn’t utter a sound while he marked me. At last the coin reverted to cool metal instead of molten lava and I nodded at Kian. He pulled the token away and dropped it into his pocket.

“We’re almost done. Can I see your cell phone?”

“Yeah.”

It was jammed in my right front pocket. My parents insisted I keep it with me, because we communicated mainly via text. I suspected they’d use my cell like a LoJack to track me if I went missing. You almost did. I imagined myself floating in the dark water like Ophelia, only I wouldn’t leave a pale and lovely corpse with flowers tangled in my hair.

“Sure.” I dug it out and passed it across the table. Upside down, I watched him enter his name and program his number.

“When you’re ready to request your first favor, call me.”

“Really?” My brows went up.

“You expected more flash?”

“Well, after the mountain trick…”

“I could pop in at random to ask, are you ready yet? but I thought you’d find that startling. And creepy.”

Caught off guard, I laughed quietly. “You have a point.”

“And you have a nice smile.”

I winced. “Don’t. You already got me to agree to the deal.”

“I won’t apologize,” Kian said, “but I’ll stop if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It just makes me think you’re full of shit.”

Taking my words as a sign to wrap things up, he waved at the waitress to get the check, and once he had it, dropped a few bills to cover it. “Let’s go then. I’ll see you home.”

I hurried toward the doors, hating that moment of vulnerability when the rest of the world could stare at me. By force of habit, my shoulders came forward and my head went down. Hair the color of field mice tumbled forward to hide my face. I felt better once I pushed out into the early morning light. Kian caught the door as it swung back, and then he was beside me, another flash of heat and color in a morning warming up in shades of salmon and vermillion, colors I never wore, but whose drama suited him.

“Are you gonna…” I trailed off and waggled my fingers.

He arched an amused brow. “I’m sorry, what?”

I tried snapping my fingers. “You know. Presto! We’re at my place.”

“Is that your first favor?” Kian tilted his head, and I noticed how tall he was—six feet plus, with a lean build. His muscles were clean and compact, something I rarely noticed about boys before. Admiring guys I’d never date felt too much like a beggar pressing his face against a bakery window in hopeless longing for the delicious things he’d never have. Kian was that kind of forbidden beauty, not for me. Never for me.

I covered that feeling as best I could. “No way. Are people seriously that dumb?”

“Not the ones I save,” he said softly.

It was stupid how good that made me feel. Warm. Being smart had never mattered like it should; it never made me happy. It only let me notice how I didn’t fit in. I could spend hours on equations, but I didn’t know what to say to people my own age. Not that the snobs at school had ever given me a chance. I shouldn’t care what any of them thought, but a dark, seething part of me craved payback. I imagined myself, cool and beautiful, sweeping through the halls while the guys who had called me names stared, knowing they’d never get me. Kian could make this happen.

I was startled to notice we’d reached North Station. “What if I’m ready now?”

“You know what you want?” Surprised tone. Kian led the way to the T. Evidently he planned to escort me to my door.

This has been an incredibly weird morning.

Some people might think this was a superficial request, but they wouldn’t understand why I wanted it. Not just so I’d know—for once—what it was like to be one of the beautiful people. No, once I got inside the golden circle, I’d dismantle it brick by brick. A sharp, angry smile cut free, and I didn’t care what Kian thought. From this point forward, I had a goal—and planning was my forte.

I nodded. “By the time we get to my place, I’ll have the verbiage ironed out.”

“Let me guess, you’re worried about the favor twisting back on you.” A faint sigh escaped him, rich with weary impatience.

“You get this a lot, I guess?”

“Often enough.”

It was a little odd to be ordinary . Predictable. At school, I was the weirdo. Nobody talked to me for fear of coming down with a case of social leprosy. For the last two years, I had been eating in the bathroom, which was disgusting and unsanitary, but it beat the cafeteria, surrounded by empty seats, while the buttholes from the lacrosse team threw pickles at the back of my head.

“I don’t need to worry about that?”

He shrugged. “You can. But I’ll point out that if I don’t make you happy, if I make your life worse, than you’ll end up on the bridge again, and we won’t get our favors repaid.”

That sounded logical, but nothing could’ve prepared me for how strange this day had been. “Isn’t there a codicil preventing a human from killing himself when he owes favors?”

“You still have free will,” Kian said. “Even under the company’s aegis.”

Which meant, presumably, it happened. My shoulders tightened with confusion and uncertainty. Too late for buyer’s remorse. While I wanted to believe that Kian knew what he was doing and he was being straight with me, I didn’t have a trusting nature, especially with the beautiful people. Still, I was alive so far, which was more than I’d expected from the day.

We boarded the train in silence, and for several stops, I constructed my request. Eventually as we approached Saint Mary’s Street, I decided simplicity would serve best. I took a deep breath and followed him off the train. The neighborhood wasn’t quiet, even at this hour. A few undergrads laughed as they stumbled home from a night of partying. I lived in the no-man’s-land just beyond the bounds of Fenway. If I squinted, I could glimpse how the other half lived, a block away in Brookline proper. This area was a weird mix of broke college students and rich medical professionals, but you could usually tell who lived in which buildings by how well they had been renovated. The brownstone where I lived wasn’t pristine, though residents tried to brighten things up by decorating their window boxes.

Belatedly I realized that Kian was waiting to hear my first request. “I want to be beautiful without losing any aptitude I have. No time limits, no melting face, no surprises.”

His teeth flashed white as he grinned. “That’s easy enough.”

“For you, maybe.” A thought struck me, and I stared up at him, wide-eyed. “Or did you wish for the same thing, however long ago?”

“Do you think I did?”

His features were strong but too symmetrical to come from natural design. Everything aligned just so, lending an exotic cast to his perfection. I hadn’t been able to put my finger on what bothered me about him until just now.