Death and the Girl Next Door

“I feel sixteen.” Jared stepped out of the bathroom in the red T-shirt and black sweats I’d found for him.

“You look sixteen.” A muscular, godlike sixteen, but sixteen nonetheless.

He regarded his clothes with a forlorn expression.

“Here, you’re still wet.” I stepped forward to pull down the dampened shirt, but lifted it farther instead. His side had a huge red gash in it. I raised the shirt more to inspect it. “This looks really bad.”

“Yes. I can’t remember if that was the crowbar or baseball bat.”

“Oh, goodness,” I said, holding up a hand, “you should probably keep stuff like that to yourself.”

“Sorry. Cameron is rather creative that way. I’ve never felt pain on this plane, though I have on others. I forgot how much it hurts.”

I searched his dark fringed eyes. Did he mean the plane I saw in my vision? Could that place have been real?

“I’m amazed at how much I need oxygen,” he said. Testing his lungs, he took a deep breath, then clutched his ribs in agony.

I grabbed his arm like that would help. “Are you okay?”

“I believe so.”

“I think your ribs are cracked.” I inspected them gently with my fingertips. He hissed in a sharp breath and winced. “Yep.”

“I’m okay. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“You need something on that wound.” Lowering his shirt, I straightened. He absolutely towered over me, his dark eyes warm and interested. “How tall are you anyway?”

“By your measurements and in this form, I am six-five.”

“Holy moly. That’s tall.”

He chuckled softly. “How tall are you?” he asked, his deep voice touching every part of me. The shadows that pooled in the contours of his muscles shifted every time he moved. It was mesmerizing.

“You have tattoos,” I said, changing the subject.

He nodded and pushed up his sleeves to give me a better look. “I was able to make them disappear before, but now they’re just … there. I should not let Alan Davis see them.”

“Alan Davis? You mean Principal Davis?” I asked, alarmed.

“Yes. You were right. He’d recognized me that morning, remembered me from when he was a boy, when I came to take his brother, Elliot Davis. Like many others, he saw me in the crowd as I waited, took note of my tattoos. He approached me, fascinated, and asked what they meant.”

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth, that they are a testament to the power that was bestowed upon me as well as my station, rank, and mission.”

“Oh.” I looked back in surprise at the bands just visible under the sleeve edges. They were beautiful, fluid. Crisp black curves sprang into sharp points that wrapped around his arms, forming symbol after symbol like a line of ancient text. “And you think Mr. Davis recognized them?”

“He caught a glimpse before I thought to conceal them. If he sought my image in that yearbook, I know he did.”

“Well, then, we’ll just have to keep them hidden in the future.”

I took the ointment Brooklyn had been using and began spreading it onto his side as he held up the shirt. The gash was horrible and grotesquely deep. And his back was covered in scrapes and bruises. I shook my head again in wonder. Boys.

“May I ask you something?”

“I welcome it.”

The way he talked sometimes threw me. Well, that and the fact that he welcomed my questions. No one alive welcomed my questions. I could be very obnoxious.

“You said that you’ve never felt pain on this plane. But you have on others?” I went further with the ointment, quickly covering the worst of the scratches while I had the chance, just to be on the safe side.

“I have.”

That realization made me cringe inside. The fact that he ever felt pain for any reason saddened me. “In my vision, you were fighting something. A huge dark monster.” I looked up at him to gauge his reaction. “Was that real? Did it really happen?”

He hesitated as though unsure if he should be honest. His mouth thinned and he answered. “It did happen, most likely. I’ve fought many.”

“But you don’t have scars on your chest. It had ripped through you like paper.”

He placed a hand above his heart in thought. “Ah, yes, what you saw happened. I was charged with bringing down a rebel demon who had escaped from Hell and made it into another dimension, but that was many centuries ago.”

Sputtering, I stepped back. “A demon? Like, a real one?”

His head tilted in curiosity. “I believe they are all real.”

I sank onto the edge of my bed and stared at the carpet a long time. “That was a demon. Are they all that … monstrous?”

The bed dipped as he sat beside me. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Wait, why don’t you have scars?” I glanced at his chest.

With a glint of understanding, he placed his hand under my chin and lifted my face to his, commanding my full attention. “Despite our appearance,” he said, his tone purposeful, “make no mistake, Lorelei McAlister, we are nowhere near human. Our origin and existence differ vastly from your own. We are powerful and dutiful and execute our orders without empathy or the slightest hint of remorse.”

His statement sounded more like a warning than a friendly tip. In spite of everything, the warning he was obviously offering for my benefit, my attention wandered. I noticed the fatigue that had fallen over him like a veil, his heavy lids, his body drained of energy.