They’d been fifteen minutes late for first period, somehow she’d flown under the radar and hadn’t been called out for it. Kara slammed her palm against her jammed locker and it swung open. Picking through trash and a pile of textbooks she barely used, she dropped the homework for the last class she was holding. Ten pages on the joys of cell biology scattered across the mottled beige linoleum as far as they could fly.
Her hands had started to shake halfway through Mr. D’s lecture on metabolic processes. She’d done her best to ignore the tremors but it was well past her morning pill popping session and she was relieved to finally be
at her locker. The out-of-control shaking had become too much. She woke up each day saying she’d be strong enough, that she’d quit. But each day she’d fail by the time she walked into school.
But not today. Today she’d somehow lasted until the end of the first period as shitty as it felt… She glanced at the bag in her locker and swallowed, imagining the pill going down with sweet reprieve. As a distraction she dug around, looking for her cell phone she hadn’t seen since before the weekend but it wasn’t there like she’d hoped.
“Kara!”
Jessica’s abrupt appearance startled her and Kara closed her locker, still netting zero pills for the day and no found cell phone either. “Hey.”
“How was Biology?”
Kara stared at her friend a moment before realizing the question was serious. “Not great, I haven’t been there in a week so I have no idea what they were talking about.” She buzzed for the pills the farther they walked away from her locker. “You’re so dramatic,” Jessica teased. Kara sighed. “That’s definitely what I am.” “The gang is going to The Waker tonight. Derrick is going.” Jessica winked. “I already talked to him in first period.” The way her friend’s voice danced at the promise of boys only enhanced her need for a fix.
“Jess, I don’t know if I’m really into him. I mean for one, he’s sort of weirdly obsessed with video games and I’m obsessed with…” She couldn’t think of anything worth her time to obsess over, other than her pesky instinctual obsession with anything that went bump in the night.
“You don’t have to be into him, you just need to get some! You’re eighteen.”
She shook Kara’s shoulder, oddly throwing her off balance. Her left hand splayed out on the nearest wall to save her from falling. That’s when the vibrating of her fingertips and their chipped red polish hit her, cementing the severity of the withdrawal. “I think I’m good. Don’t really care all that much if I stay a virgin until I
die.”
“You did say you’d go out with him.”
Kara wanted the warning bell to ring so the conversation would dissolve and they could stop this slow and painful tredge through fresh memories.
“Ugh, I didn’t. I hung out with him once a couple weeks ago. After just getting rid of Tom, I really don’t need another weirdo in my life.”
“Tom was a weirdo, a hot weirdo but a weirdo. I told you that. It’s time for you to move on.”
Kara groaned. “I really don’t… want a boyfriend, Jess.” She tried to rub a sharp throbbing pain away from the left side of her eye.
“You okay?” Jessica gave her an odd glance and Kara dropped her hand to hide her discomfort.
“I’m… fine.”
The bell for class rang and Jessica stopped walking-they had arrived just outside the classroom door her friend needed. “Think about Derrick. I know he’s not all tall and broody like Dray but he’s sorta cute, right?” Kara stared at her, trying her best not to lose focus of Jessica’s face as the walls spun around her. “Sure.” Jessica waved her off and once Kara heard the blonde’s familiar steps stop somewhere inside the classroom, her
shoulders slumped and she crashed herself into the nearest locker door. She had to get herself to gym class. One way or another she would, even if she felt like crawling there. She started to stagger forward, using the bumpy vents on the lockers for much needed grip to pull herself along. Her shoulder bounced off the sheet metal , causing clanks from the combination locks on the doors every now and then, but she managed to make her way to the changing room door and through it. It hadn’t been far. The girls in her class had already changed and their sneakers were squeaking across the newly waxed floors to make their way to the gym.
“I thought she got kicked out,” one girl whispered to another.
Kara’s sharp hearing accentuated their soft voices. “Only for a week,”she muttered loud enough for them to hear and took a place against the farthest wall to quickly change; excluded from her peers like she carried some kind of black plague.
“Why even come back?” Another girl, Cindy laughed at her. “Your kind doesn’t need an education.”
Kara’s cheeks grew hot beyond their natural flush. She tried to reel in her anger, it had been what got her suspended in the first place. She didn’t need to get kicked out of school, it was the one thing she’d managed to hold onto for so long. Her throat tightened up - an education had been the one thing her father had told her mattered the mos t.No matter how much she struggled for it and through it, she had to have one. The first day of preschool was still burned in her memory. A paisley dress and a last kiss on the cheek from her Dad. His words clung to her like barnacles on a storm ridden ship; If you go to school you can be anything that you want to be, not just what They tell you to be. Who she wanted to be wasn’t who she was now. A shrill whistle echoed against the walls of the gymnasium as Mrs. Celest, the physical education teacher powered over. Her body was solid and her attitude was more than a little intimidating. She’d spent most of her youth participating in the local bodybuilding circuit. Her students were all too familiar with the personal anecdotes and accompanying high resolution performance photos she used to try to motivate them.
“Everyone have a good weekend?”
The girls all sat to the floor with a murmur of yes and Kara sank with them, landing not so softly on her butt.
The teacher ’s eyes landed on her even as Kara actively avoided eye contact. “Welcome back, Miss Heart.”
Kara winced. “Hi…”
The girls snickered at her again, though she’d gotten used to being theoutcast, it still stung every time. There was no one less popular than her. Noone weirder or less human, no others were Hunters. This was her town,
her territory and she’d either die in it or die trying to get out of it.
“This week I have some self-defence planned for you all.” The teacher paced the group. “Physical moves to help keep you safe when you might not be in the safest situations.” Again the teacher looked to Kara. “You’re a good fighter, Kara, come up here and show them how it’s done.” If she could have run away and not gotten expelled, she would have. Her heart palpitated harder the more she thought about standing ahead of the class, the center of attention. She swallowed the lump in her throat and whispered a prayer that her legs would work.
“I’m not feeling that great t-today,” Kara tried to cover up her shaking fingers.
“Can’t you override that?” The teacher taunted her with a laugh.
“Not quite. I really don’t feel up to this.” She tried to lower her voice so only Mrs. Celest could hear her pleas. Kara’s heart began to beat fast, making her pause and look out to her classmates. Her vision narrowed to a thin tunnel. Girls that had told her more than enough times she was nothing but a Hunter were there staring up at her. “Now, I’ll try to take you down and you stop me, by doing a simple block, like this.” The teacher showed her in the air and Kara sighed, familiar with the movement and resigned to try her best to not look like a failure in front of the class. Her feet spread apart as she prepared for the impact. A move her mother had made her practice over and over as child. A simple but life saving strategy to buy herself another beat of her heart. The teacher came toward her, arm raised above her head with a clenched fist like she may pound into her. Kara let the arm come down across her shoulder, where it grazed the fabric of her shirt but not before Kara’s arm also raised and shoved the woman in a one hundred and eighty degree spin to the ground. The girls gasped as Kara looked down at her.
“Sorry!” She went to help the teacher up but the woman shook her off, red from embarrassment.
“Go sit back down,” she snapped at Kara.
Just what she needed, another strike against her. She walked back to the wall to sit, noticing that the shaking in her limbs had stopped, but her stomach now felt like it may empty.
“I need to use the washroom,” she put a hand over her mouth like she may puke. The teacher shooed her away with only a flick of her hand and Kara left the gym. Relief washed over her as the double doors to the gym opened to the hall, the bile settled in her stomach as they closed behind her.
In the washroom, she washed her mouth out with the metallic tasting water from the sink and tied her hair up in a loose bun trying to psych herself up enough to return to class. She made her way down the hallway back to the gym, head much clearer. When she was about to round the corner, a sharp pain shot through her, freezing her with her left Nike hanging about the ground in mid-step. The feeling made her skin feel like it quivered around her. She narrowed her gaze down the hallway and found the culprit - the target.
They were terrible at blending in. She could have pinpointed them as Demon even beyond the ripping sensation in her Hunter-bred body. Angular face, yellow eyes which bore into her, the smell of fear; they were anything but a typical teenager skipping out of class.
The real question was - what was this poorly disguised Demon doing in her school on a Monday morning? He glanced around before deciding to make a run for it.
“Hey!” She called, running after him like a moth to a flame. Her heart pounded against her rib cage, it was stupid to follow this being in her weakened state.
The thought that she should stop and turn around and let them flee dissipated as quickly as the fog around her senses Her heart hammered, her brain throbbed, her withdrawal ridden state was overcome by the instinct to hunt. It narrowed in, focusing solely on the limbs that carried the Demon away from her.
The Demon rushed toward the basement entrance. Kara’s need to catch it pushed her faster. Grasping the frame and pivoting her hips, she slid past the metal door just before it met the frame. The bottom floor of the school. No better place to kill a Demon than out of the human eye. With the stairs in front of her it caused her pursuit to slow, her mind to shift.
She had to defend the students inside even if they didn’t appreciate her. Even if they didn’t like her. Didn’t respect her. It wasn’t her need to kill. It was her need to protect.
Her tennis shoes thundered with each fall onto galvanized metal steps. Only the softness of stained cement flooring could mask her movements and so she quickened her descent into the shadowy quiet. The few boilers strained to fight back the brisk fall from entering the school’s walls. Decades old and whining, they camouflaged Kara’s search through the darkness that the basement held onto with its storm windows. Although convenient that the basement was out of the way, it would be very hard to dispose of a Demon body. Carrying it up the stairs and through the sun-filled and quiet school hallways was a feat in stealth she didn’t think she had. She tried to think of an alternative that didn’t involve making the
Demon smaller to fit it through the extra small ventilation windows she suspected lurked behind the shutters.
It was hard to think past the clarity of Demon scent, it stole her mind away and threw her into the darkest shadows of the north corner of the room, where she found the Demon huddled inside a broom closet with no door. In only a moment of awkwardness she pushed her hand through the forest of cleaning mops and grabbed the Demon by the collar of its human attire. She shoved it against the inside wall before it had a chance to fight back. Its flesh molded partially around a rake handle which was caught in the pathway between it and the plaster.
“What are you doing here?”
“They-they…” It thrashed, trying to pull itself backwards and deeper into the closet. “Don’t kill me !”
She wrenched it out of the closet instead and threw herself onto the Demon, forcing it to eat concrete. It was at least a foot taller than her but she managed to pin it down with one knee on its neck as it hissed and cried and struggled in terror.
“Please!” It begged. “No, Hunter.”
Kara sucked in a sharp breath in preparation for her final blow. But she just stared it down as it scratched, its fingers bloody, and sniveled beneath her. She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. She’d gotten so worked up from gym class that the Hunter instincts had blindsided her and taken over. She thought about her brother, about his kindness about his annoying antics, his love of soccer to help her release the hold the Hunter blood had on her. Her human mind needed to think. It was hard to see it as just a Demon to be killed when it wore human skin and spoke human words and begged for its life. No matter how inhumanthat life was.
Kara sucked in a sharp breath, staring down at the being in the shadowsand gulping as it begged for its life. She’d gotten so worked up from gym class, the hunting instincts had blindsided her, something she hated about her blood. She grabbed a nearby pipe and staggered to her feet—forfeiting her grip on the Demon. “Go. Get out of here before I change my mind.” It scrambled on all fours for the first few feet before it launched itself onto two legs and was gone. Kara shut her eyes to fight off the burning feeling spreading throughout her arms and legs. It was too messy to kill a Demon down there, especially of that caliber. It hadn’t even fought back. The blood on her hands would have just morphed into pills later that night.
“Who’s down here!” The shouting of Mr. Polanski’s voice made Kara’s heart sank into the puddle she had just walked into. She tried to scope a place to hide, but apart from the utility closet she had just come from, the barren area offered only a few feet hi gh boxes which would provide no shelter.
His heeled Italian shoes clicked their way down the stairs unafraid. Kara froze, unsure of what to do.
“I should have know n this was a Hunter disturbance. You’ve put a lot of students in danger.”
“Hi, yeah.” Kara knew the situation would unfold unfavourably for her.
“That was actually the opposite of what was going on”
“My office, right now.” And as he turned away, someone turned off the light switch of her Hunter high and all the nausea, pain and heaviness from the morning smacked right into her bones ten-fold. It would be a long walk to his office and that wasn’t even half the climb Kara knew she faced.
The walls of lockers sagged as she shuffled behind Mr. Polanski, falling ever so slowly behind with each step. Her returning migraine threatened to throw her into the deep end of withdrawal before she had a chance to explain her case. She palmed at her forehead with a prayer it would fade in time.
The principal disappeared behind the main office door and she followed, ignoring the bustle of the receptionists and chaos of office stacks of paper. She bee-lined it straight to the door with the brass label ‘Mr.Polanski.’ He was waiting, tapping the toe of his pointed shoe against the solid oak chair he was expecting her to sit in.
“Take a seat. I’ll be back.” With that he swept past her.
She trudged into his private office, and plopped into the chair. Sitting brought a moment of salvation from the ache she was trying her best to defer but it was short-lived as her heart beat faster, her paranoia joined it and stockpiled. She watched the seconds count down on a round plastic school-sanctioned clock hanging dead center above Mr. Polanski’s arch-support clad office chair.
She felt the air displaced around her as he walked around the desk. Kara never even heard him come in. There was a large cardboard file box held close to his body. He dropped it with a thud onto the desk and brushed his hands together before smoothing his pale yellow tie to his shirt and sitting down. The glint of a gold necklace he wore under his collared shirt caught her attention, she’d never noticed him wearing jewelry before and it was sad she could attest to that fact. It disappeared beneath his outfit as he settled into the chair.
He leaned back into the arch-support, embodying more composure than she ever thought he had possessed and stared straight at her. Kara shifted in the chair and darted her gaze around him to avoid the intensity.
He reached in and pulled out folder after folder before finally settling on one with papers bursting out the sides. Her entire history -the good,the bad, mostly bad.
He dropped it to the desk and flipped it open. Taking precious moments to scatter out a dozen or so papers from the teetering pile.
“You’ve been late every day since the first day of school. It’s October first, Miss Heart. That’s an entire month. In addition, there are seven missed classes, four missed detentions and you are failing three out of four classes
already.”
Kara’s heart banged in her chest. He was right. There was no arguing the facts. Her voice came out tight. “I know.”
“This is on top of your dismissal last week.” His moustache twitched in agitation. “You seem to love to be anywhere but in school. Isn’t that right?”
“This morning wasn’t my fault and I wasn’t skipping either, I was trying to get here on ti me but”
He cut her off. “I’m sure you have another great explanation, but I don’t want to hear any of it.”
“Mr. Polanski.” The light bounced off his bald head and she found herself staring at it. The room started to spin. “Please, don’t kick me out.” He scratched at his cheek. “I’ve given you a lot of chances. Not just this year but also last year.”
“I know, but—”
“We have been very lenient of it because of your absentee mother and special circumstance. However, I see no effort on your part.” She went to speak again but he smacked his hand to the table, cutting her short. “Not to mention the immediate danger you put the entire school in by bringing your personal disturbances onto the premises and the record of problems you bestow upon the staff. Last week you punched a peer, this morning you flipped the PE teacher on her backside, then I find you down in the basement… Skipping class—again. Enough is enough. I took this school understanding it came with some unique challenges but you are beyond my ability to help. I have set up councilor appointments, which you never show up to; I’ve spoken to your grandparents, they don’t seem to have your respect and I’ve given you numerous chances to take alternate programs for afterschool credits. Kara—what more could I possibly do for you? It’s been… years of this. I doubt holding you back another year will really do you much good, it clearly didn’t in grade nine.” His voice had risen louder and louder, his face redder and redder with each syllable.
Kara could only look at him with heavy and saddened eyes. She felt her world narrow, her body start to numb. “I don’t know.” This had been her last chance to graduate, being a year older than her classmates had never been fun but she’d scathed by with them. This had been it, her last real chance and she’d failed.
“And neither do I.” His voice was quieter now. Despondent. “You are expelled from Grade Twelve. If you have any disputes you may contact the School Board and request a transfer to a different high school. That said, I believe a homeschool option may be a better fit for you.” He swiveled his chair, interested no longer in Kara but at some random point on the bookcase in the corner of the room. “Please collect your things and leave the premises.” His last sentence hissed across the room and hit her, sending her stomach into a freefall.
Kara stood on shaky legs, gripping at the chair like a toddler learning to walk. “I understand.” Mr. Polanski said nothing and Kara didn’t wait for any last words She limped towards the open door, shoving her body away from the office by use of the door frame. The exit seemed too far away with her new limp and she struggled to stay on her feet halfway across the room.
One of the receptionists Kara had never seen before locked in on her from behind a giant computer screen.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah, I…” Kara struggled to find the words. “Fell. Yesterday.”
The receptionist stood to walk towards her. Kara panicked. She just needed to leave. “I’m okay really!”
The receptionist paused her momentum. Kara dragged her shoe across the carpet in an attempt to stay upright.
Her hip throbbed with each shift of her body weight. “Thanks though.” She could feel the receptionist’s eyes as she fumbled with opening the door into the hallway. “Push.” Their voice filtered into Kara’s brain registering the thought into a small moment of clarity.
“Oh thanks.”
And with that she was free of the walls around her and chained by the duty inside her.
She floated to her locker in a haze to pull out what few things were worthy of saving from the trash can. There wasn’t much. A pair of yoga pants in surprisingly good condition and a tattered tank top she sometimes used for gym. She pulled them out and with them, tumbled out a plastic sandwich bag, crumpled and shiny with one small lump tucked into its corner. It fell right into her hand. The universe was working its magic against her.
She knew that if she took that pill it would be almost instantaneous.
The deep ache in her bones and the way her stomach threatened to twist it’s way to the outside world, it would dissipate like tendrils of a dream upon waking until it turned to blankness.
A sweet void.
The motion was easy, like a hot knife through butter. She swallowed it dry. Her willpower had made it farther than it had in months—but not far enough. The prescription-less Oxycontin took minutes to leak into her system. With each step, the halls got longer and narrower. She tripped foot over foot until she was left shuffling like a zombie to the parking lot. Kara’s shoulder met the side of her rusty truck first—she heard it jitter around her skull more than feel it. Her shaking hand grappled the door handle in front of her and then it was somehow open. She clambered in the front seat and leaned back, ready to sleep out the most intense waves of the Oxy.
In four to six hours, school would be nearing its end. Usually the bliss was quick and her mind would quiet and the world would slip away, but this time it was loud and messy.
She gripped the sides of her head, tugging strands of her long hair. Slipping down the seat along her back, she stared at the tattered roof coverings of the old cab. A dangling piece of thread loomed above and no matter how hard she wanted to reach out and rip it off, she couldn’t will her hand to do it.
It had only been one pill.
It wasn’t like she was using the speed Tom had been dealing when she was still with him. There was no racing mind, sweaty palms or palpitating heartbeat. She preferred it that way, the placid ease of a benzo made her feel calm and scattered her internal guilt to the winds. It was comforting, the absolute consistency of the high her one and only dealer, a Demon by the name of Kyle, never let her down. No secret uppers or downers or special ingredients.
Relying on him went against everything she was born to do: seek and destroy Demons, eliminate the threat of their existence. But in the last year she’d slipped from her superhero ledge and her willpower had tumbled into the thick of it and never returned. He’d slowly risen from her badly paid informant to her better paid drug dealer.
The tingle echoing under her skin increased volume to a dull roar. She closed her eyes against its distraction and basked in it. The heavy sedation was worth the negative effects. Her world was quiet. A loud smack busted through the fog and she sat up so fast the edges of her vision went white.
She blinked rapidly in the direction of a second smack and focused in on Josh hammering on the glass. Bug-eyed and panicked, he was yelling something. She stared at his moving mouth for a few seconds before she heard it fuzz together and slowly pulled the pin on the door, unlocking it.
“Kara!”
He whipped the door open from under her hand and glared at her. “I thought you were dead!” His voice broke on the last syllable. Kara looked past him to the empty parking lot. She knew she’d been asleep for a good while from the colors in the sky and the movement of shadows from the cars onto the pavement. It had felt like only minutes had passed. “What ti me is it?” “Three. I was going to walk home but then saw your truck here.” He shifted his bag from off his back and stared hard at her. “What’s wrong, are you okay?”
Kara ignored him and instead tried to stretch her legs out. She barely felt them. “I’m so stiff.”
His brow furrowed. “Why were you sleeping in the truck?” “I had last block free.” Her gut panged with the lie. “And I was tired.”
“Okay…”
Kara could hear it in his voice, the little lilt in the way he said the ‘O’ that told her that her baby brother didn’t believe a word she said. He got inside the truck though while Kara fumbled to find what pocket she’d put her keys in.
Trick question. They were on the floor. Kara put the key in the ignition and the truck sputtered to life.
“I have soccer practice soon.”
“Shit!” Reality came rushing back and her eyes widened. James.
“What?”
“Close your door!” She demanded and her little brother pulled it shut with a loud creak of protest from the hinges.
“What’s up with you?”
“Nothing.” Kara shoved the shifter into drive. “But I got a bone to pick with you, did you take my cell phone?”
Josh sighed, unzipping a pocket on his bag and pulling it out. “I’ve been looking for it for days, Josh!” She snatched it from him and flipped the cracked screen up. There were an array of missed calls and texts, mostly from James but accompanied by a few from Jessica earlier on asking why she wasn’t in History.
“Kara, the road!” Josh grabbed the dashboard as she swerved to miss a parked car.
She threw the cell to the bench and gave up looking through it.
“James told me you called him.” Her little brother sucked in a breath.
“He did?”
“What were you thinking?” Kara got ahead of herself. “I mean really. You steal my phone and then you go and call James and don’t even tell me” Josh interrupted her. “You were gone. I don’t know. I saw your phone in your room and thought it was a good idea… I was all alone…” His voice shrunk into nothingness.
Kara stomped on the breaks at a four way intersection and they both braced against the hard stop. “It was the weekend. I was just out. Do you know how far away he lives? Do you know how much it probably cost him to just come here? Like just a one way ticket is more than we eat in food for a whole year!”
“Why do you care anyway?”
“I care because it’s my sanity,” she said, turning the truck onto their road. As the vehicle rounded the corner where their little falling apart home resided, she saw the slick black sedan in the driveway.
“Pretty sure that’s already gone,”
She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “What did you just say?”
Josh bounced forward on the old seat springs. They creaked and squeaked in protest. “Isn’t that James’ car?”
“Duh.” She peeled the truck to a stop in the driveway. “Don’t be weird.”
“Me?” Josh scoffed, grabbing his backpack from the floor and the door handle at the same time. “I should say the same to you.” He took off for the front door before she could reply. She snatched her phone off the seat and tripped her way out of the truck. Her sneakers crunched the dried, dead lawn beneath their separating soles. Her legs got heavier the closer she got to the open front door. Steps away the heaviness gave way to sinking—she may as well have been trudging through deep sand. It might have been the Oxycontin terrorizing her system as it left but she suspected it was the deep seated nervousness over seeing James again.
She could hear pieces of the cement stairs shift as they unseated themselves and wondered if her brother could hear similar things occur around him. The sounds scratched the inside of her ears. She hated hearing her small world breaking, even just a little bit.
A dull cramp in her side joined the cacophony of sound and she froze mid-movement before checking behind her. Usually the feeling meant a Demon was nearby. She saw nothing, just rows of frail houses with barren gardens. Only two of the houses had cars in the driveway. Maybe this one ti me she was looking too hard into the faint cramp. She had been sleeping like the dead in her truck only twenty minutes before. Kara stepped inside, butterflies all inside her. She looked back once more before closing the door the best she could. Giving it a pathetic shove with her shoulder, she turned away from the pitiful half-hung door. She surveyed the foyer seeing if anything had changed inside but the only change was James’ neatly placed stark white sneakers resting on the gross beige carpet and his deep voice wafting in from the kitchen. It took her a mo me nt to recover from the avidity that he was actually still there.
The narrow hall lead her toward the back of the house, where she glanced at the crooked photographs clinging to cracked drywall. In all the pictures she was anywhere between barely born and thirteen. She’d stare at those dated mo me nts every week, trying to remind herself of the details of those smiles in her childhood. Her fourteenth birthday though was too striking and it blurred away all the happy ti mes she so desperately wanted to remember. Her blood had come and forced her from a child into an adult life. Her mother had called it a rite of passage, the change, but that gave her ascension into her Hunter blood too much credit. She thought of it now as more of a duty-bound curse, one she could never remove. It had been fun at first; the extra endurance, strength, smell, hearing. Plus her body had shifted quickly and her new womanly form grabbed more attention than she knew what to do with. She couldn’t help feeling like a superhero the first time she nicked off a Demon with only her mother ’s pocket knife.
All that glory had since faded.
Kara shook her head to clear her thoughts and followed her brother ’s laughter into the present. She came to a stop when her feet hit the cool, uneven tiles of the kitchen. James looked up to her from where he was leaning against the counter; greeting her with a soft smile. It all came rushing back to her as if she was
seeing him for the first time.
She’d chased a Demon into the airport. All the flights were grounded awaiting the touch down of a category three hurricane that the meteorologists thought may reach the mainland. This included the flight which would have taken James to a prestigious soccer camp. But instead he was there, lean and tall with his same dark hair he’d always had, he’d needed only those few years since they’d met to fill out his stature and get even taller. The most handsome boy she’d ever met, without doubt. She hated that the memory was so familiar. The day they’d met repeated itself in her mind over and over again, tormenting her for the last three hundred and thirty three days and there was no escaping it this ti me either.
“Kara, you gotta have some of this!” A box of sugary cereal with a werewolf holding a spoon while howling at the moon was shoved in her face.
She swatted away the box as it invaded her vision. “Where did you get that?”
“James bought it.” Josh added more to an already half-empty bowl as he sat at their forty year old kitchen table. It wobbled violently as he landed and milk poured out the sides of the bowl.
“Josh…” Kara sighed, not being able to stand looking at milk droplets scattered across the table.
“There’s more than just cereal,” James opened the fridge door to reveal its new content. Kara gravitated towards the lettuce and watermelon and all sorts of other fruits and vegetables adorning its typically empty depths. It was a whole other world compared to that morning. There was nothing satisfying about living on half-burnt toast for a week and she salivated at the thought of eating anything else but survival.
She whipped around and faced James. “You didn’t have to do this.” “I wanted to.” He grabbed a green apple from the top shelf of the fridge, eyes held tightly to hers, and offered it to her. Kara swallowed the lump in her throat. She wanted to tell him this crossed a line and maybe it did but maybe it was just her pride. Her stomach twisted and she was pretty sure it was more hunger than unease so she took it from him and turned away to bite into its cold crispskin. Her eyes shut as soon as the taste of bittersweet burst across her tongue.
“Josh told me he has practice at six thirty.”
It was a Monday afternoon. That night was her pick-up from her dealer and it was also the night her brother had soccer practice. The two should have never met. She took another bite of the apple, trying to think of a way to split her priorities. “Yeah, he does.”
“What’s for dinner?” Josh walked over and dumped his empty bowl in the sink.
“You just had cereal,” Kara pointed out and Josh gave her his best pout.
“I’m a ravenous growing teenager.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re only twelve years old but okay… I’ll make something.”
Josh’s surprise wasn’t as comical as he tried to ma ke it. “You can’t cook.”
“I can too.” She mouthed for him to shut up out of view of James, who had now closed the fridge and was holding an apple himself.
“I’m sure between the two of us, we can come up with something edible.” He pitched the apple towards the ceiling and caught it. “But if you let Kara near a stove… it’ll be burnt.” Josh ducked out of Kara’s reach know i ng full well her intention to jab him with her elbow.
“It won’t be burnt.” Kara eyed her little brother. He sure lived up to being a pain-in-the-ass sibling. “Go find all your gear. I saw one of the shinpads in the hallway but I have no idea where the other one is.” Josh sucked up a panicked breath and took off out of the kitchen, which made James chuckle. Kara’s eyes moved to his and they locked gazes. His laugh tapered and the silence stretched for miles. It killed her. “So…” She moved wide around him to the sink and chucked her apple core in the overflowing trash which laid under it. “You can cook?” He followed her. “I was thinking my role would be more of a supervisor.”
“Nah.” Kara shook her head. “You’ve been roped in now, Jim.”
“Right.” His expression held amus ement at the ni ckname she knew he hated. She gave him a playful push and the touch electrified her senses. Her eyes met his as her fingertips fell from his chest. His smile faded.
Whatever was happening to her penetrated her deep in her core it was all just like before, like it had always been ever since their shoulders had brushed at the airport when she ran over the security turnstiles.
It all seemed like dusty history now, weathered from time and trial and sacrifice as she stood in front of him. He leaned back on the counter as if to move further from her. “It’s your dinner, just tell me what to do.”
“Uh…” She needed the distraction and grasped it tightly, swinging herself over to the fridge to determine what she could do with the new contents inside.
While Josh had a point that she wasn’t the best cook, she wasn’t entirely incompetent. She’d spent many afternoons with their Grandmother throwing together simple macaroni and cheese casserole or her favourite, noodle soup from scratch. She slowly started to grab things from the fridge. Without pulling her head out from its bountiful cavern she called to James, “come here.” And passed him potatoes and carrots and onions while she searched for where James had stuck the eggs, if he’d bought any.
“Can you handle potatoes? Peeling, cutting and not burning yourself on boiling water?”
“It’s not a football but I’ll manage.”
Kara smiled at the joke. His entire life had been soccer since she’d known him and it seemed that still hadn’t changed.
“How much do you play?” She asked, putting down an egg into a small bronze bowl her mother had brought home once.
“Five practices a week and usually one game on the weekends but I hope that will be changing soon. Where are the pots?” More had changed than she thought. Pulling a large pot from its precarious perch above the stove, Kara passed it off to James before turning to find a vegetable peeler in their junk drawer she wasn’t’ sure still existed.
“You don’t want to play that much anymore?” She found the peeler and held it above her momentarily like a trophy while turning back to James. Their eyes met and he said, “I want to go pro.”
She dropped the peeler. “What does that mean?” Rang in time with the clink of the utensil hitting the floor.
“I’m waiting on an offer.”
She stared at him just blinking every few seconds, waiting for some kind of explanation.
“If I get a contract everything will change.”
She swallowed, nodding like an idiot. Of course he was within reach of a professional career, he had a family who could support that kind of expensive endeavour. How would she possibly fit into a lifestyle like that? Except he hadn’t asked her to so it didn’t make any sense that her throat was dry, that her heart sank, that she needed to grip the counter so she wouldn’t hit herself across the forehead for even thinking she could be.
“However, it hasn’t happened… yet.” James flipped on the tap to fill the pot and she moved out of the way to attempt a graceful grab at the peeler on the ground. She washed the blades free of the disgusting floor and gave James the peeler before turning away to cut up some carrots.
The methodical moti on of the knife chopping let her mi nd wander. Each tap on the cutting board from the blade finishing its journey seemed further and further away. Her mind was used to wandering, but no longer used to James occupying space inside of it. It was a dangerous fantasy and part of her knew better. He wasn’t thinking the same thoughts. He wasn’t here to rekindle anything. He was there to make up for wordlessly disappearing from a twelve year old’s life by honouring Josh’s request to check on his sister. He wasn’t really there for her at all.
She couldn’t help the words that left her lips as her mood tunneled deeper down, “When do you go home?”
He was done the potatoes. The pot was on the stove already boiling. He looked up from his cell phone at her, an almost empty apple core leaving his mouth with one unbitten bite left.
“I haven’t booked a flight.”
Kara was confused, his reply was unlike him at all. His life was always rigorously organized, right down to a planned outfit for each and every morning. “Why?” The light emanating his phone’s screen and onto his grinning face shut off with a click and the sleek device got pocketed. “Do you want to get rid of me?”
“You can’t answer a question with another question.” She pulled her gaze away from the corners of his smile trying to drag her deeper into his eyes and instead stared unlovingly at the carrots. They were all uneven, the cuts were all diagonal. As a Hunter she should have been better with a knife. “ Mm.” Kara watched him lean into the counter from the corner of her eye. He looked so relaxed. “I think I’ll stay a bit longer.” Why would he possibly stay in her hellish town when he could be home reveling in a life full of potential and expensive taste. She didn’t know how to respond to him and it took her more than a few heartbeats to fill the silence.
“Does your family know you’re here?”
“No,” He let out a small laugh that signaled to Kara he certainly wasn’t
lying. “They don’t even know I left the country.”
“You didn’t tell anyone?”
“I told my Nan and I texted Carter before I was on the plane.”
Kara wracked her brain trying to remember who James was talking
about before succumbi ng to asking, “Carter?”
“My shit flatmate.”
“You moved away from home?”
He shrugged. “There wasn’t much point being so far north. I have football in London, it would take me all day in traffic just to get to practice.” “Oh, yeah.” His life blindsided her. She had a small town infested with Demons and he had a real life, a normal life.
“Something wrong?”
Yes was what she wanted to say but all that came out was, “nothing.” Her cell phone buzzed, pulling her attention away from digging deeper into a conversation which would collapse on her at any moment. “I was just surprised.”
She could feel him watching her when she turned back to the sad carrot pile on the cracked bamboo cutting board. The cupboard opened with the familiar squeak where the mismatched mugs were all stuffed together and she breathed out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She pulled her phone from her pocket and the screen lit up at her touch’s command.
“Are you sure nothing is wrong?” His voice was right behind her and she stuffed the phone back into her pocket.
She wanted to say yes but could only manage a nod. Tears started to build as she thought about how much she wanted him to stay, how much she wanted him to go, how muc h she wanted to run away with him from all her responsibilities at home . Then she thought of her brother Josh, who she could never abandon like that. "I’ll be right back,” she managed, and glided past him not taking the chance of the slightest contact and closed herself into the bathroom down the hall.
Back against the door, she stared up at the coverless light in the bathroom until all she saw was white. Hand to her mouth she slid down the door to stifle the sobs bubbling up inside her and sat there trying to collect some semblance of functioning. Kara wasn’t sure how long she was there but she knew how long the pull of her phone felt.
Salvation could come so easy, it stared at her on the screen. I’m stocked. Call me.
But that sweet calm came at a price. A monetary price. And a piece of her heart she couldn’t even own. It charged her blood, which betrayed her and took away all her control. The crushing pain of hunter blood in her body whenever a Demon was near, hunter love due to her mother ’s abandonment and a hunter life; which had her one cog in a killing machine up all night ensuring that the Demons in that town never took over.
If not for that duty, the one which tore anchors in her limbs and threw a blanket of guilt onto her brain… she would have begged James to help her. Begged him to take her away so she could live in ambiguity and have some kind of life.
Punching a button on the cell phone seemed like an easier and more immediate solution.
“Hello.”
“My favourite Hunter.” A slithering voice worked its way to her.
Echoes and light shouting filled the void after.
“Your only Hunter.”
“Oxy, we good?”
“See you at nine.” Kara hung up before she needed to think about it anymore and clutched the phone in her hand. She had to remember to not squeeze too hard, if it broke she wasn’t sure how she could get a new one. Kara swallowed the thought into her pocket and sat at the door trying to remember to breathe for a while.