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“Oh no, that wouldn’t be logical,” said Jared. “You always want an explanation for everything!”
“Yes,” Kami snapped. “I do. What’s wrong with that? And what’s wrong with wanting a little privacy? It is different now that I know you’re real. It is hard for me to deal with.”
“I’m sorry I’m so hard for you to deal with,” Jared snarled.
Kami took three steps down toward him and Jared backed off, reaching the ground floor. Kami stormed down the steps after him, raging enough to think things she would never have said: I’m sorry you’ve latched on to this without question because you’re messed up and desperate.
Jared turned and stalked down the hall, Kami in pursuit.
“Where are you going?” she asked. She ran to the main doors as Jared banged them open and barged through. She stood at the top of the steps as he got on his battered bike and screeched past. Kami yelled down, “Oh, be a delinquent and skip school, that’s very constructive!” She slammed the door shut behind her and glared around at the students standing wide-eyed around the hall.
“That’s right,” she said loudly. “Stay in school, all of you. Or I’ll get really riled.”
She returned to the headquarters, but there was no comfort to be found there now. She turned on the computer anyway, yelling at Jared in her head.
“Uh,” said Ash from the door, “are you—all right?”
“Fine!” Kami said. She typed out: “With the advent of sperm banks, women realized the sheer uselessness of men, and by the year 2100 they were largely extinct” with extreme force. “Absolutely fine, never better! Why do you ask?”
“Er, because I heard you and Jared had a screaming fight. Also, you are typing like a maddened weasel taped to a keyboard.”
Kami stopped typing. “You may have a point.”
“I just wanted to check and see if you were okay,” said Ash. “I thought you might need cheering up.”
Kami relaxed back in her chair. Ash was standing in the doorway, not leaning against it listening to invisible voices. Just standing, blue eyes concerned and voice gentle. “How were you planning to cheer me up?”
“Oh, well,” said Ash, and smiled his charming smile. “How about catching a movie tonight?”
He was so nice, Kami couldn’t help but think. She wasn’t dating anyone else. She wasn’t betraying anyone. Kami bit her lip, then smiled back, feeling the edges of her mouth strain to form the shape. “I’d love to.”
Down in the dark waters, there was gold gleaming. There was no air and the water was cold as death, dragging him down like chains. There was nothing here but darkness and the unreachable gleam of gold lost down so deep. If he did not get to the surface, he would die, and yet he knew with a chill, sure knowledge that if he did not reach that golden gleam, he would die anyway. Then he saw something else, lit by the underwater shine on the metal: a woman’s face at the bottom of the pool.
Jared broke the surface of the dream and woke gasping. He rolled onto his stomach and winced: he had been driving around for eight solid hours, and taken a few tumbles. He’d only eased up because he knew if he did actually crash, Kami would come for him.
So he hadn’t driven his bike into a tree, and instead Kami’d gone out on a date with Ash. That was much better. And instead of crashing his bike, Jared had stormed in here at evening time, crashed out, and dreamed about a dead woman.
Jared realized that his jacket smelled like he’d been on a bike for eight hours in it. He threw it off and headed for the shower. His bathroom at Aurimere was ridiculous and strange, each claw on his claw-foot tub clutching a tiny crystal, the showerhead a brass fist. At least the faucets worked, which was more than he was used to. It was better than he’d had in plenty of the apartments with his parents in San Francisco, and sure as hell better than the taps at fast-food places that he’d used to try to keep clean last summer.
The hot water stung on his new scrapes and bruises, sluicing between his shoulder blades. Jared cracked his neck, got out of the shower, and went to find a clean T-shirt and jeans. He left the room raking his hair back from his face, went up the steps past the tapestries, through the drawing rooms and down the long hall, calling for Uncle Rob. Uncle Rob was always kind to him, clapping him on the shoulder and calling him “son.” Jared wasn’t sure why he liked it or why he wanted to see Uncle Rob now, but h
e did.
Jared stalked into the parlor. There were no lights on, but a fire was burning, casting orange and black streaks on the windows as if the curtains were tiger hide. From the shadows, a voice said: “Can I help you?”
Jared said, “Aunt Lillian?” and turned on the light.
His aunt sat in a yellow armchair with a high back. Her hair was neatly parted, held back by a black band, which made her look like an older, evil Alice in Wonderland.
“Did you want a book?” Aunt Lillian asked. “I could not help but notice half the library has moved to your room.”
Jared felt vaguely unsettled that she’d noticed. He wasn’t used to adults scrutinizing his behavior. He hadn’t meant to take so many books, but they were all the kind he liked, about made-up olden days when the world made sense, about death and love and honor.
“I was looking for Uncle Rob,” he said, backing up. “Is he in the garden?”
“Don’t go outside, Jared; your hair is wet,” Aunt Lillian told him. She said it coolly, but it caught Jared off guard. It was such a mom thing to say, and something his mom would never have said. He hesitated on the threshold, and while he did, Aunt Lillian’s darkened and shaped eyebrows came together in a slight frown. She repeated, “Can I help you?”
Jared came to a decision. “Yeah. Yeah, you can.”
