Mortal Danger

Don’t you have enough to worry about already?

The apartment was quiet now. Apparently staying calm and toughing it out had been the right choice. In junior high, I used to play a lot of video games and sometimes there were puzzles, where one wrong step meant insta-death. That was how I felt right then. It took all my concentration to work through my assignments, solve equations, and answer questions, when school seemed like the least of my worries.

It was almost nine by the time I finished, and as I was about to close my laptop, I was surprised to get an IM from Ryu. A quick what-time-is-it-in-Japan search told me he was probably in school, maybe messing around during I.T. It was hard to send Skype messages in other classes since teachers usually made students shut off their phones. I answered right away, as we hadn’t talked live since I got back, and his e-mails were sporadic.

Me: hey, what’s up?

Ryu: nothing, just have a free period and I’m in the computer lab

Me: cool, how are you?

Ryu: not bad, school is tough this year

My fingertips hovered over the keyboard. So many things I could say, but eventually, I replied with, on my end too and not just academics. A girl from school died yesterday. I was visiting her at the hospital when it happened.

Ryu: damn. Are you okay?

Me: it was pretty rough, but I’m hanging in

I could tell from the pause that he didn’t know what to say. We weren’t as close as Vi and I had become over five weeks of rooming together. So I changed the subject.

Me: was wondering if you could help me out

Ryu: not sure what I can do from here, but absolutely

Me: I have a friend with a tattoo and she won’t tell me what it means. It looks kinda like a Japanese kanji, though

Ryu: send pic if you have one

I took a snap of my wrist with my phone, then e-mailed it to him.

Ryu: that’s weird

Me: what is?

Ryu: it looks like a kanji but it isn’t. I’ve never seen this symbol before

Me: huh. Well, thanks anyway

Ryu: if you want, I can do some checking, see if anyone has seen that

Me: it’s not that big a deal

I regretted that impulse; this might be dangerous. Given how Wedderburn was threatening Vi, I should’ve known better. I cursed silently and blamed the scary version of me in the mirror. The fight-or-flight hormones numbed my brain, I guess. To cover my worry, I asked Ryu if there were any likely girls this year, and that kept him pinging me for a good ten minutes; as it happened, the answer was yes. I hoped he hooked up with someone cool. I was glad we’d shifted smoothly from summer fling to Internet bros. We chatted a bit more before his free period ended, and I got ready for bed.

My parents came home an hour later; I heard them unlock the door, along with the low murmur of their voices as they tried not to wake me. The normalcy of it all seemed suddenly precious, compared to the rest of my life. They had no idea there were monsters in mirrors or thin men who smelled like death. More to the point, they had no clue I might be responsible for a girl’s death. Tears burned like acid in my throat.

My folks believed in cause and effect, rational science, and they would be horrified if they discovered how chaotic creation was and how much damage mankind had done. Then again, my mother was a cynic, so maybe she wouldn’t be surprised. For a few seconds, I stared at the ceiling, wishing I could tell them, show the marks, and share the whole story. But the line had been drawn between them and me; I could never again stand beside the blissfully ignorant. My eyes were open, and I couldn’t unsee the shadows on the wall.

In the morning, I skipped my run, remembering the hobnail boots. I’ll go after school. At Blackbriar, more people had on the mourning armbands and someone had posted pictures of Brittany all over her locker, sort of like a shrine. Cameron wasn’t around; neither was Allison, but Jen and Davina both waved at me. As I got my books, the headmaster made an announcement about the funeral, including time and place for services, and then he segued into the usual crap about fund-raisers and respect for school policy, which seemed irreverent. Yeah, yeah, dead girl, but what about the chocolate sale?

“Have you seen Russ?” Davina fell into step with me on my way to class.

“Not for a while.”

“People are pretty upset,” Jen said.

I nodded, trying to figure out why these two were hanging around with me. Granted, Allison and Brittany hadn’t offered many spots in the Teflon crew to the competition, so the guys outnumbered the girls. So maybe it was that they didn’t have anyone else?

“I still am,” Davina whispered. “God, it was just so…”

Awkwardly I patted her on the arm. In another minute, I’d be saying “there, there” and offering her a hot beverage. God, I sucked at social interaction with everyone but Kian. Sometimes it felt like he and I were two of the same species, stranded among aliens.

Jen said, “I’m glad she wasn’t alone, though. I think … it was kind of nice, wasn’t it? Right up until the end.”

“Would it be weird if we hung out?” Davina asked. “The three of us. I don’t want that to be the last thing we do together. That probably sounds strange and superstitious.”

Jen looked as if she was relieved Davina had suggested it. “If you want, you guys can come over on Friday.”

Is she seriously inviting me to a sleepover? Brittany dies, and … But honestly, I had no idea how to parse this, no frame of reference for how freaked I should be. Greg the Grief Counselor said I shouldn’t be ashamed of my feelings, whatever they were. Mostly, I was sad and confused, interspersed with fear and guilt. It had to be a coincidence, bad luck, karma.

“I don’t have any plans,” I said aloud.

“Tell me what kind of movies you like to watch and I’ll take a look on Netflix.” Jen seemed a little more cheerful, smiling at Davina and me.

“Romantic comedies,” she said, just as I answered, “Science fiction, any kind.”

“Even bad ones, like Sharknado?”

I grinned. “I’d watch it again.”

“Then I’ll find a good rom-com and a bad sci-fi. Sound fun? We can drink to Brit and talk about stuff.”

“Awesome,” Davina said. “Kind of like a wake.”

Jen nodded. “I guess.”

“I don’t know how many stories I can contribute,” I warned them.

Most of my experiences with her weren’t positive. I wasn’t happy something so horrible had happened to her, just the opposite, but I had no funny, adorable anecdotes waiting in the hopper, either.