Hunted Dreams (15 page)

“I know,” he said. “But I don’t know for sure about the Leeches. It seems right, and I feel . . .” He stopped. “I don’t know for sure, Katana.”

She stared at him for a moment longer. Finally, with a sigh, she leaned her head against the glass. The moment stretched like bubble gum, sticky and cloying. Catching her breath, feeling her heartbeat slowing, Katana finally asked with a flatness she’d never used with this man, her hero, “Who are you, Reed?”

“I’m a Leech, too, Katana.”

She lifted her forehead from the glass. Above her, or maybe her reflection, something dark fluttered and lurched. Katana lowered her gaze and stared into some Reed’s eyes. “Are you eating me, too?” she asked. The words could have been funny, even giggle-worthy, but neither of them smiled.

Slowly, he nodded. “I think I am,” he admitted through gritted teeth. His head kept nodding, and his jaw clenched even tighter.

“Sun and stars,” she said again and rubbed her eyes.

Moments stretched and flowed between them.

Neither superheroes nor my friends
, he’d said.

“Not on purpose, though?” she asked with mirror-smooth quietness.

“No,” he said with some heat. “I’m just learning what it means to be . . . this. If I could turn it off . . .” He shook his head, teeth bared in self-disgust.

“Am I going to die?” she whispered.

“No!” he snapped. After a long moment, he sighed. “I don’t know.”

Taking a deep breath, she nodded at him. “Okay,” she said. “If I’m keeping you hearty and hale, you kind of owe me, right? So get me out of here.”

Reed stared over her right shoulder at some Katana she couldn’t see. “I do owe you,” he agreed. “But that’s not why I started searching for you.”

It seemed like a prelude to a perfectly romantic TV moment. Katana stayed silent.

A slight crackling noise preceded a mass of dark filaments flitting and snapping from reflection to reflection. Reed’s eyes lifted as well.

The end drew near.

“You promised me a story,” she reminded him. “Next time I see you, I get to hear the tale of Reed, starting from birth till the moment you stand in front of me.”

“You want me to come back?” he asked her, face blank.

“Who else do I have?”

The Reed she’d decided to claim as hers swiveled his head very slightly to the left. Whether by accident or not, he looked right at her, face not empty as much as closed off.

“Besides,” she added slowly, carefully, “I’d miss you if you didn’t.”

The ball of string, wire, or whatever it was swooped over Reed’s head. He started and ducked. Several narrow, whiplike tendrils lashed out. Reed’s white T-shirt parted in strips. Dark red blood flowed.

Katana screamed at It, raised her arms to stop It, to smash through the glass and save Reed, to stab the moving black knot and hack It to pieces with her sword. The mirrors around her shattered, raining jagged chunks all around her. She raised her arms to her head, still crying out, and felt tiny, cold stings as shards of glass prickled the flesh on her arms.

“Fuck, fuck.”

Reed awakened, swung his feet to the floor, and sat up. After a moment, he put his head in his hands. It took a long time for his breath to slow.

“If you put just half that fury into kicking Hunter asses, they’ll soon fear and tremble at the mention of your name,” Cor joked.

Reed looked up from the weeds he held crumpled in his fist. He threw down the trowel and weeds, rolled his shoulders, and rose slowly to his feet.

“Cor,” he said, nodding. He stripped the gloves off his hands and tossed them to the ground.

“Ah, how I enjoy our chats,” she said. She’d fashioned her hair into some kind of fake Mohawk. The hair sculpture bobbed when she jerked her head toward the house. “Your family head and mine have decreed, yea verily, Reed and Cor shall slave over some stupid fundraising event. Shall we?”

Reed strode toward a cutesy patio set positioned just outside the house’s sliding glass door.

“Mind if we pop back inside?” Cor asked. “I know it’s so un-Broschi of me, but I get cold pretty easily.”

They sat in the living room inside, Cor occupying her favorite chair, Reed perched on the suede couch. Garbed in an oversized, too-long sweater, Cor tucked her stringy legs underneath her and stared at Reed with a sardonic expression. Reed finally asked, “Is being warm a Broschi trait?”

Cor shrugged. “So people say. I don’t know. I feel pretty chilly in the winter. Maybe it’s our metabolism. I know we have to eat a hell of a lot more than humans, especially when we need to heal.” Apparently remembering her prop, she drew a huge banana from a battered, dark orange backpack.

As he watched her, Cor pushed her sleeves back to her elbows and began peeling the fruit. “I brought the ‘nana to eat suggestively in front of Mari, but she disappointed me by not being here.”

“Are you warmer here than at your place?” he asked.

Cor nodded. “Quina’s been keeping it nice and toasty lately. I wish Al would follow her example, but he probably thinks being colder makes us better warriors or something.” She rolled her eyes and bit enthusiastically into her fruit.

“And are you hungry right now?”

“Better than usual, but a girl can’t let such a nummy thing”—she waved the banana in his direction— “go to waste. Look at you, being all hosty and asking about my comfort. Some might think you’re actually learning a thing or two about politeness. Of course, I know better.” She grinned and wriggled her eyebrows.

Reed brushed a clod of dirt from his jeans and watched it disintegrate as it struck the glossy hardwood floor. “I used to eat enough food for three people, or so they told me in the army. But here, at this place, I don’t seem to be as hungry.”

Cor shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Probably has something to do with being around other Broschi. You know, in comparison or something.”

Reed compressed his lips against any words that might threaten to tumble out.

Two hours later, his aching brain crammed with words like “invitations” and “canapés,” Reed eagerly walked Cor to her car before reporting in for his training with Paul.

“Quina says you’re doing really well learning the fighting,” Paul said cheerfully, his round cheeks bouncing atop his smile. He wore knee-length blue shorts and a brown polo shirt. Reed, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and basketball shorts, couldn’t stop staring at the other shirt’s pointy, white collar.

“I trained in the service,” he told Paul, although he was certain these people knew everything on his modified public record.

Paul beamed at him and rubbed his hands together. “I thought we could learn some falling techniques. Berto told me you broke a bone the other day when falling. Understandable, sure, but thankfully it’s preventable in the future.”

Reed had learned how to fall when training in Kenpo, an American amalgamation of various Chinese martial arts, but his training had taken human strength and weaknesses into account. Paul taught him how to minimize the damage from a long fall that would kill a human, how to curve his body to absorb as much impact as possible, whether from vertical drops or superhuman shoves.

“I would never think to criticize Quina,” Paul offered after a while as Reed limped back to him. He grinned like a naughty child and slightly ducked his head. “However, were I your trainer, I would have started with falls. It’s the most basic move for a Broschi, since we do a lot of falling and jumping.” He gestured toward the walls.

“Speaking of which,” Reed muttered through lips swollen after a nasty face plant. “When am I going to learn to master that handy Spiderman move?”

“You mean she hasn— Ah, well. I have a light caseload right now. I can work some lessons in every morning. Just don’t necessarily go blabbing it to Quina, lest she think we’re questioning her training regimen.” Paul’s teeth and bright blue eyes sparkled under the fluorescent lighting as he conspiratorially clapped Reed’s bicep. 

Reed wondered if Paul was his father.

Katana’s breath hissed as she inhaled, and her feet ached with coldness. The cheap linoleum pressed coldly against her cheek.

She lay beneath something giant and looming, probably a bed. Her face, resting on cracked and dusty floor space, pointed away from the wall. Before her yawned a narrow expanse of the dim room beyond. On the floor, several feet beyond the stretch of the bed, sat overturned shoes, their laces stretching toward her. Various dollar store toys spilled over the room like cheap plastic confetti.

Katana didn’t often find herself prone. She felt especially vulnerable. Her right hand clutched her sword, but that arm lay closest to the wall. Dust greased her cheek as she moved her head. She took a deep breath, which did nothing to calm the thumping in her chest. Her stomach felt cold and empty.

Across the messy room stood a completely darkened doorway. As she watched it from her position under the bed, a pair of man’s shoes emerged. They pointed right at her.

Katana’s heart throbbed in her chest and neck as one of the blue and white tennis shoes took a step in her direction. After a second or two, the other foot stepped toward her.

Calm down. It’s probably Reed
, she told herself, but she didn’t call out to him. Her pulse continued to pound through her torso, and she breathed shallowly through her mouth.

“Kitty cat?” (
Kitty Kat?)
a soft male voice asked.

Not Reed.

The shoes ground dust and grit as they walked with painful slowness to the bed. “I wonder where a little kitty cat could hide,” the man teased.

He reached the bed. This close, Katana could see the scuffmarks on the fake leather, the grungy grayness of the laces. Faded blue jeans topped his shoes.

Slowly, as quietly as possible, Katana transferred her sword over her back from her right to her left hand. She didn’t have room for wild moves, but she could make slashing motions when his face or arms came into view.

“Fee fi fo fat. I hear the sounds of a kitty cat.” The man laughed quietly. Above her, the bed squealed as he placed something, perhaps a hand, on its surface.

Katana gripped her sword.

“Ken?” a woman’s voice asked. Katana saw a pair of bare, calloused white feet emerge from the doorway. Silvery-blue polish flaked from her toenails. “What are you doing?”

The weight lifted from the bed.

Is someone else here to help?
Katana thought in amazement. First the sword, then Reed, and now possibly this ally?

Don’t be stupid
.

Ken’s voice hissed with amusement. “I’m wondering where our pussy cat could have gone.”

The woman snorted with rough laughter. Katana closed her eyes briefly. “Here, kitty, kitty,” she called. Her feet walked toward the bed, more quickly than Ken’s. Light blue pajama bottoms, their once-fuzzy fleece now balled and threadbare, ended a few inches above her ankles.

“I wonder where she could be,” the man drawled with exaggerated puzzlement. She could hear the grin in his voice.

“Come out, kitty, kitty,” the woman called softly. “We promise no one will hurt you.”

Katana breathed in, out. Dust tickled her nose. Her jaw trembled as if she were freezing, but the sword in her hand remained steady.

“What kind of monster would hurt a little pussy cat?” the man teased.

“Our little stray kitty,” the woman murmured. Her soft voice sounded blurred somehow, perhaps with drink or tiredness. “Pretty kitty.”

Katana recoiled with horror, scooting even further from the edge of the bed. Her sword clattered briefly, dully against the linoleum.

The man laughed. “Come on out, sweetie,” he said, and made kissing sounds. Katana’s breath snagged in her throat before she realized he was calling her as if she were a dog.

“Don’t make us come get you again, little cat,” the woman said, her amused voice smeared with annoyance.

“Remember what we said last time we had to drag you out, kitty?” the man asked lightly. “Do you really want that?”

My god, my god
.

With a quick motion, she swiped the sword toward them, intentionally missing their feet by a few inches. “Leave me alone!” She meant to shout the words, but the dust in her throat made her cough them out.

Ken laughed in delight. “Our kitty has claws, Tansy!”

“Little ingrate,” Tansy, apparently unwilling to continue the feline metaphor, murmured.

I’m strong
, Katana reminded herself.
At least as strong as these people
. Nonetheless, she shuddered and shoved herself backward.

“Come out, Kat.” Ken’s voice remained light, but she could tell he’d switched to her proper name.

“Leave me alone,” she repeated. “I have a sword.”

Tansy and Ken laughed. “You wouldn’t hurt me, would you, sweetie? We’re best friends,” Ken said.

“Go get her, Ken,” Tansy said, pointing with her toe under the bed. “We warned her.”

“Please, Mrs. Kibbe,” Katana said, and started. Her lip curled at the pleading tone she hadn’t known she would use. She poked her sword forward, narrowly missing the bare feet.
Screw ‘please
.’

“Stop it!” Tansy snapped.

“We won’t hurt you if you come out right now, kitty cat,” Ken said lightly. Tansy snorted one more time.

Katana opened her mouth to say something about not making the same promise to them, but she heard her voice warble, “Leave me alone!”

Ken dropped to one knee. Teeth bared, Katana slashed with her sword. The sharp edge connected with his thigh . . . and stopped without penetrating his flesh.

“Come out and play, kitty, kitty,” Ken sang, and she saw both hands land on the dirty floor.

Katana scrambled backward toward the wall. He was just a man, just a thirty-something white guy with an annoying penchant for abusing a metaphor. Nothing like some of the monsters she’d faced down.

Ken terrified her.

Her breath scraping through her mouth and throat, Katana shoved herself backward, ever backward. Her arms ached, her back hurt, and her hair drew tracks in the thick dust. Slowly, the edge of the bed receded to an impossible distance. The pairs of feet dwindled to dots as she scooted back, farther and farther.