Ann Aguirre - Mortal Danger

“Wind chimes?”

“To keep the old ones out,” he reminded me impatiently.

“Why can you see them?” Nobody else could who wasn’t part of the game.

“Those who are close to death can see beyond the mortal caul.” That didn’t help a whole lot, and I guessed he read that in my expression. So he clarified, “Stage-four lung cancer. I don’t have long.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, as if that were the least of his problems. “I’ve got a mezuzah here. Don’t know if it’ll do the job. The rabbi at the synagogue might’ve been humoring me.”

“Thank you for trying to keep us safe.”

The old man smiled at me. “What else do I have to do?”

As I headed upstairs, he hung the scroll case, muttering about the need for precision. My mom was home since it was her turn to stand guard over me. I got in just before five, proving I could be trusted. She smiled at me, setting down her pencil. From what I could tell, she was truly trying to build a better relationship with me, and I loved her for the effort.

“How was school?”

If I don’t tell her, she’ll find out from Blackbriar. So I said, “Scary,” and then told her how an obsessed student assaulted another girl over a cute teacher. Her eyes widened and she pulled off her glasses, absently polishing them on her sweater as she listened. I concluded, “So that’s why there’s blood on my jacket. It’s not mine.”

“How horrible! This term has just been … tragic . What’s changed, I wonder?” From her expression, she was half a step from launching an experiment with control groups to determine why Blackbriar was no longer the safe haven she paid for.

“I wish I knew.” That wasn’t entirely a lie.

“Are you all right? Do you need to talk to someone?” How ironic she kept asking me that this year.

“I’m okay,” I said.

Then I fled to my room, supposedly to work on assignments. She must’ve filled my dad in because he was especially solicitous when I came out for dinner. They were both trying so hard to be more emotionally available; it didn’t come easy since their natural state was to be completely absorbed in whatever research had captured their attention, and I basked in the surety that they did love me, even if they sometimes sucked at showing it.

As soon as I thought that, my wrist blazed. So it’s better if I think my parents don’t care? Why that would influence my future, I had no idea. As always, I had on a hoodie in the house. Since my parents preferred to keep the heating bill low, they didn’t question it. Summer might offer problems in that regard.

Later, I didn’t feel like talking to Vi, so I e-mailed her instead of signing on for our usual chat. I went to bed early, disturbed by the heat in my right arm. The feeling was similar to when Davina and I went to New Hampshire. Eventually, I fell into a fitful sleep, plagued by nightmares of the thin man.

I woke with a start, but I wasn’t in my bed. Instead, I stood in the kitchen, a knife in my right hand. A thin trickle of blood spilled from my abdomen, a clean slice through my pajama top. With a stifled cry, I dropped the blade in the sink, ran water over it, and then bolted, aware I needed help, but there was no one to save me. If I called Kian, he’d try to bargain for my safety, and I couldn’t bear for him to sacrifice anything else for my sake.

I am alone.

In the bathroom, I raised my shirt to inspect the slice. Not deep. Shallow, like I’m a cutter. The implication scared me more than the actual wound. It’s a warning. They can get to you. It took all my composure to tend the wound and tape some gauze over it. Remembering the girl in the mirror, I didn’t linger there for fear of what I’d see. Retreating to my bedroom didn’t make me feel safer—only trapped, with nowhere to run.

Teeth chattering, I turned up the heat, which steamed up the room. Trickles of moisture ran down the foggy panes like tears, and then one by one, handprints appeared on my windows, like something lurked beyond my sight, waiting to get in. I imagined it watching me as I slept. A whimper escaped me as I crept closer, expecting to see the little girl-thing, but there was only mist. I touched the cool glass and discovered what I feared most to be true.

The palm prints were on the outside.

The next day, state employees descended on Blackbriar and interviewed a bunch of us, but in the end, they concluded Nicole was unstable, and it wasn’t the school’s fault. Allison wore a bandage for a few days, and only I knew that she didn’t need one. Three days after the incident, the headmaster announced that Mr. Love had resigned his position, though not due to wrongdoing. We were encouraged to send farewell cards, which would be forwarded to him.

A retired teacher took his place and she paid more attention to the ball of yarn in her tote bag than she did us. That was fine with me; I could use another free period. Administration promised there would be a permanent replacement when winter break ended. I hoped he or she was human; that seemed like a reasonable expectation in an educator.

By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I was ready for a four-day weekend. Kian picked me up; I waved at Davina as I got into the car. It occurred to me that I’d gotten my revenge—the Teflon crew was wrecked. As it turned out, Allison literally wasn’t human, and the rest were dead or missing. The weight of it hit me all over again. Be careful what you wish for. It might come true. And I hated that I could forget my culpability, even for a moment.

“You look upset,” Kian said, starting the car. He listened to what I had to say, then he shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself. Nothing you did caused this.”

“Is that better? If I had died—”

“Don’t say that. Don’t you dare.”

“What?”

“Talk like you’re nothing. For me, the world would be unbearable without you.”

His certainty smoothed over the guilt like a balm.

“That’s how I feel about you,” I said softly.

And that made his secrets more painful, since he seemed so distant, committed to protecting me rather than being with me.

A smile curved his mouth that I’d best describe as blissful. “As long as you do, I can stand anything.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

He ignored that, weaving through traffic toward our neighborhood. Since he lived in the area, too, I felt less guilty about using him for transportation. I mean, it wasn’t like he had business near Blackbriar, but I enjoyed the way other girls looked when they saw him waiting. Sometimes I feared he was an illusion or a hallucination from which I must inevitably awake. Of course, that meant all of the horrible things, all the demons and monsters were bad dreams, too? Maybe I could live with losing Kian.

Maybe.

My heart hurt just thinking about it. As if he sensed it, he reached over and covered my hand with his. On impulse, I raised his palm and kissed it. His fingers closed convulsively, and he cut me a sharp look.

“While I’m driving? Really?” God, that look curled my toes.

“Sorry. I’ll be good.” I cast around for a topic that wouldn’t distract him. “What’s your favorite color?”

“That was random. Why do you want to know?”

“Just tell me.”

“Blue.”

That answer made me smile. “Mine too.”

When he parked outside our brownstone, he leaned over for a kiss that broke all records for hotness and threatened to set my uniform on fire. Maybe he’s part djinn, I thought dizzily, as he tunneled his hands into my hair. He tasted sweet and fresh, everything I wanted wrapped up in one person, and I could’ve crawled on top of him then and there. Bad hormones, bad . Intellectually I understood that our pheromones were shaking hands and that our chemical compositions must be compatible—and that was all. On a pure girl level, I just wanted him. So I told my brain to shut up and we kissed for ten minutes, until he was breathing hard, and I was trembling.