Kendare Blake - Anna Dressed in Blood

“Are you always this way with your ghosts?” he asks.

I stare at the locker behind him. “What are you talking about?”

Those knowing eyes of his are seeking out my secrets.

“I don’t know,” he says after a second. “Are you always this … protective?”

Finally I look him in the eye. There’s a confession in my throat even in the midst of dozens of students crushing the hallways on their way to third period. I can hear bits and pieces of their conversations as they go by. They sound so normal, and it occurs to me that I’ve never had one of those conversations. Complaining about teachers and wondering about what to do on Friday night. Who’s got the time? I’d like to be talking to Thomas and Carmel about that. I’d like to be planning a party, or deciding which DVD to rent and whose house to watch it at.

“Maybe you can tell us all this later,” Thomas says, and it’s there in his voice. He knows. I’m glad.

“We should just focus on getting your athame back,” he suggests. I nod weakly. What is it my dad used to say? Out of the frying pan and into the fire. He used to chuckle about living a life full of booby traps.

“Has anyone seen Will?” I ask.

“I’ve tried to call him a few times, but he ignores it,” says Carmel.

“I’m going to have to get in his face,” I say regretfully. “I like Will, and I know how pissed off he must be. But he can’t keep my dad’s knife. There’s no way.”

The bell rings for the start of third period. The halls have emptied without us noticing and all of a sudden our voices are loud. We can’t just stand here in a cluster; sooner or later some overzealous hall monitor will chase us down. But all Thomas and I have is study hall, and I don’t feel like going.

“Wanna ditch out?” he asks, reading my mind — or maybe just being an average teenager with good ideas.

“Definitely. What about you, Carmel?”

She shrugs and tugs her cream-colored cardigan tighter around her shoulders. “I’ve got algebra, but who needs that anyway? Besides, I haven’t missed a single class yet.”

“Cool. Let’s go grab something to eat.”

“Sushi Bowl?” Thomas suggests.

“Pizza,” Carmel and I say together, and he grins. As we walk down the hall, I feel relieved. In less than a minute, we’ll be out of this school and into the chilly November air, and anyone who tries to stop us is getting flown the bird.

And then someone taps my shoulder.

“Hey.”

When I turn all I see is a fist in my face — that is, until I feel the multicolored dull sting you get when someone hits you square in the nose. I double over and shut my eyes. There’s warm, sticky wetness on my lips. My nose is bleeding.

“Will, what are you doing?” I hear Carmel shout, and then Thomas joins in and Chase starts grunting. There are sounds of a scuffle.

“Don’t defend him,” Will says. “Didn’t you watch the news? He got someone killed.”

I open my eyes. Will is glaring at me over Thomas’s shoulder. Chase is ready to jump at me, all blond spiky hair and muscle t-shirt, just aching to give Thomas a shove as soon as his designated leader gives him the go-ahead.

“It wasn’t her.” I sniff blood down the back of my throat. It’s salty and tastes like old pennies. Wiping at my nose with the back of my hand leaves a bright red swatch.

“It wasn’t her,” he scoffs. “Didn’t you listen to the witnesses? They said they heard wailing, and growling, but from a human throat. They said they heard a voice speaking that didn’t sound human at all. They said the body was in six pieces. Sound like anyone you know?”

“Sounds like lots of someones,” I snarl. “Sounds like any dime-store psycho.” Except that it doesn’t. And the voice speaking without sounding human makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“You’re so blind,” he says. “This is your fault. Ever since you came here. Mike, and now this poor schlub in the park.” He stops, reaches into his jacket, and pulls out my knife. He points it at me, an accusation. “Do your job!”

Is he an idiot? He must be unhinged, pulling it out in the middle of school. It’s going to get confiscated and he’s going to get signed up for weekly counselor visits or expelled, and then I’m going to have to break into god knows where to get it back.

“Give it to me,” I say. I sound strange; my nose has stopped bleeding but I can feel the clot in there. If I breathe through it to talk normally, I’ll swallow it down and the whole thing will start over.

“Why?” Will asks. “You don’t use it. So maybe I’ll use it.” He holds the knife out at Thomas. “What do you think happens if I cut someone alive? Does it send them to the same place it sends the dead ones?”

“You get away from him,” Carmel hisses. She slides herself between Thomas and the knife.

“Carmel!” Thomas pulls her back a step.

“Loyal to him now, huh?” Will asks, and curls his lip like he’s never seen anything more disgusting. “When you were never loyal to Mike.”

I don’t like where this is going. The truth is, I don’t know what would happen if the athame was used on a living person. To my knowledge, it never has been. I don’t want to think of the wound it might cause, that it might stretch Thomas’s skin up over his face and leave a black hole in its wake. I have to do something, and sometimes that means being an asshole.

“Mike was a dick,” I say loudly. It shocks Will into stillness, which is what I intended. “He didn’t deserve loyalty. Not Carmel’s, and not yours.”

All his attention is on me now. The blade shines brightly under the school’s fluorescent lights. I don’t want my skin to stretch up over my face either, but I’m curious. I wonder if my link to the knife, my blood right to wield it, would protect me somehow. The probabilities weigh out in my head. Should I rush him? Should I wrestle it away?

But instead of looking pissed, Will grins.

“I’m going to kill her, you know,” he says. “Your sweet little Anna.”

My sweet little Anna. Am I that transparent? Was it obvious, the whole time, to everyone but me?

“She’s not weak anymore, you idiot,” I spit. “You won’t get within six feet of her, magical knife or no magical knife.”

“We’ll see,” he replies, and my heart sinks as I watch my athame, my father’s athame, disappear back inside the dark of his jacket. More than anything, I want to rush him, but I can’t risk someone getting hurt. To emphasize the point, Thomas and Carmel come and stand by my shoulders, ready to hold me back.

“Not here,” Thomas says. “We’ll get it back, don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.”

“We’d better do it fast,” I say, because I don’t know whether I was telling the truth just now. Anna’s got it in her head that she’s supposed to die. She might just let Will in her front door to spare me the pain of doing it myself.

We decide to scrap the pizza. In fact, we decide to scrap the rest of the school day, and head instead for my place. I’ve turned Thomas and Carmel into a right fine pair of delinquents. On the way over, I ride with Thomas in his Tempo while Carmel follows behind.

“So,” he says, then stops and chews his lip. I wait for the rest, but he starts to fidget with the sleeves of his gray hoodie, which are a little too long and are starting to fray at the edges.

“You know about Anna,” I say to make it easy on him. “You know how I feel about her.”

Thomas nods.

I run my fingers through my hair but it falls right back into my eyes. “Is it because I can’t stop thinking about her?” I ask. “Or can you really hear what’s going on in my head?”