“Was this your first kiss?” she teases when we both come up for air.
That is such a typical Kendele question. And it’s typical Kendele challenge, which I can’t resist. I shut her up by kissing her again, quick and hard, relying on instinct. She’s breathing hard when we end it, her thin veneer of coyness giving way.
“The answer is yes.” My voice is a rough parody of how I usually sound, and I nearly lose my ability to speak completely at her next suggestion.
“Would you like this to be the first of many things we can do tonight?”
“You slumming in Chinatown now, Kendele?” someone catcalls from across the room.
“I’m Japanese,” I mumble.
“Shut up,” Kendele says, for both me and the heckler’s benefit, and kisses me again.
Then the lights go out.
I sit up, dislodging Kendele in my surprise. Yelps and startled laughter drift across the room, along with a few curses as people stumble in the dark. I look out the nearest window. From the streetlights and the glow from the other residences, McNeil’s seems to be the only house affected.
“Fuse must have blown,” McNeil’s voice growls from somewhere. “Damn contractors.”
“What’s happening?” Kendele asks. I start to shake my head before remembering she can’t see me. I hunt through my pockets, fishing out a penlight I always keep with me in case of emergency.
“I don’t know.” I flip on the light. Someone has found a couple more flashlights, and several people are using their cell phones for light, splaying the beams across the room. “Looks like it—”
A heavy thump sounds from upstairs, and a few people cry out. Nervous chuckling resumes but is silenced when the screams start up again, this time in fear.
Flashlights are trained on the staircase, when two people in states of undress come running down. Fletch Graham and someone I assume is his girlfriend clutch blankets and, in Graham’s case, a strategically placed pillow. The girl is still screeching her lungs out.
“There’s somebody upstairs!” she wails.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Saunders snaps.
Graham’s face is pale in the beams of the flashlights. “There was something in the room, man. The lights went out, then there was someone crawling and groaning on the ceiling. Scared the shit out of me…!”
I don’t need to wait for the rest of their explanations. I pull gently away from Kendele. “Wait here,” I tell her and then brush past the shivering couple to run upstairs.
It’s easy enough to track which room the couple bolted out of. Graham’s pants trailing into the hallway where he dropped them are practically an arrow.
“Okiku,” I hiss as I step in. “I know you can hear me. What was that about?”
She doesn’t respond. My impatience mounts, but I can do very little about it because McNeil and some of the other guys appear behind me, scanning the room for signs of an intruder. I step to one side and let them search, knowing they’ll find nothing.
“Doesn’t look like there’s anyone here,” McNeil finally says in disgust. “What a wuss.”
The tension in the air disappears. The other boys depart, laughing with each other, eager to roast their teammate for his cowardice.
“He better pay for my sheets too,” McNeil mutters, still irritated, scooping up the offending covers and dumping them back onto the bed.
As he does, I see Okiku, standing stock-still on the ceiling, staring at McNeil with that look. I can feel her tense, can feel the darkness spiraling out of her, and the hunger
hungry want kill
kill him pleasures kill
take him sweet blood is sweet hunger kill kill KILL
KILL KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL
closing in around us, around the jock.
She gurgles.
“No!” I jump between her and the boy before Okiku can spring, and by the time McNeil turns back to me, she’s gone.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I grab the first thing I can reach—an antique picture frame from a dresser. “You nearly knocked it over,” I tell him. He’s nowhere near the frame, but in the dark, it would be hard for him to tell for sure. “Don’t want to scare everyone downstairs.”
The boy laughs. “Yeah, good point. You’re all right, Halloway.” He claps me on the back and grins.”
He hurt them.
“What?”
Okiku’s standing beside me before McNeil can take another step out of the room, and her face is terrifying to behold.
He hurt them.
“You say something, Halloway?” The jock turns around just as Okiku steps back into me.
It’s true: Okiku can access every thought in my head. But she respects my privacy enough not to. The same holds true for me and her thoughts, but I avoid them. Her memories might drive me permanently insane.
Okiku’s also strong enough to discern the thoughts of most ordinary people, to draw out their memories with just one glance. It’s how she knows things.
There are many good reasons why she doesn’t share them with me.
This is one of those rare times where she removes that filter between us—