Soul(s) (23 page)

30: KEEGAN

I woke up warm—not hot, just right. I looked
down and saw Sariah curled up on me, and the covers cloaked on top
of us. I pushed a stray curl behind her ear as she slept and
thought about last night.

First of all, that was a completely
different side I saw of her in the movie theatre. She was
completely uninhibited with me until she came and then the walls
shut right back up. I’d been so afraid that I’d done something
wrong, but I realized as we walked that it wasn’t really about me.
Not really. It was about us, but it was always about who ever she'd
been before. I’d always thought she wasn’t that imprinted. That
First-Plane was just a place she knew she’d come from, but I was
beginning to understand her better. She didn’t remember
First-Plane, but she felt it. She remembered what it was like to
love and loss, to hope and then be squashed by the realization that
hope isn’t always enough. She was scared of having and losing.

I thought about her and how I felt about all
the way home. I gave her as much space as I could, but I couldn’t
let her shut me out. She wasn’t alone and I could feel she wanted
to be brave, to trust in what we felt for each other. So I’d taken
a chance and went to her and she met me halfway.

For so long I had been
focused on making sure I didn’t scare her off, in making sure that
she choose me over Keegan but last night I realized
choosing
me hadn’t been
the issues it was her fear of
losing
me. But we were Venku, and
that transcended everything.

After, last night, I felt things were
different. We just had to keep moving forward.

The sharp rapt of a fist on the door—jarred
us both.

“
It’s Luke—your shifts
start in ten. Meet us in the lobby downstairs.”

“
What was that?” Sariah
said groggily burring her face into my shoulder.

“
Our wake-up call,” I told
her.

“
Fuck waking up,” she
whined.

“
Spoken like a true
First-Planer. Should we play ‘hookie’?”

“
What’s
‘hookie’?”

I slid my hand down her back and gripped her
ass possessively.

“
I’m pretty sure that’s
not what it means,” Sariah said laughing.

“
How would you know?” I
said as I rolled her onto her side and pulled her leg up on my
hip.

“
Abstinence makes the
heart fonder,” she said sweetly deliberate dodging my
kisses.

“
I’m already fonder,” I
sighed as I let her slip out of my grasp and off the
bed.

As we came out of the stairwell I caught a
disgusted look from Eliza as she leaned against the wall. Ajani was
standing beside her looking neutral but well rested. He must of
gotten clothes last night too because he was dressed in simple
jeans and a slightly fitted t-shirt.

“
You’re late,” Eliza
snapped.

“
This is
technically
volunteer
work,” Ajani reminded her, but Eliza chose to ignore
him.

She glared at me waiting for some type of
explanation. This was going to get old real quick. We’d have to
have a talk eventually—perhaps an apology from me—because I wasn’t
going to deal with this for the next seven days.

“
Too much popcorn made us
sleep in late.”

“
Who had popcorn?” Luke
asked strolling down from the opposite end of the room.

“
Us,” Sariah responded.
“Keegan and I went to a movie yesterday afternoon.”

“
You went to the theatre
down the street that I told you about?” Eliza questioned, her eyes
narrowing at me.

“
Popcorn, really
First-Plane food in general isn’t too good for us. Certain foods
kind of like how alcohol affected us when we were born in
First-Plane. It lowers your inhibitions and makes you horny as
hell!” Luke explained.

Eliza crimsoned but and quickly changed the
subject.

“
Keegan you’re with me
today. Ajani and Sariah go with Luke.”

“
Eliza—,” I started but
she interrupted me.

“
You managed to be apart
from her for weeks and you did just fine. You’re the ring leader of
this little group and you need to see how my people live and why we
moved here in the first place. But I don’t want to draw too much
attention so I’m going to show you all one at a time. Can you at
least not act like being alone with me is a horrendous
punishment?”

It’s fine.
Sariah thought to me.
Go
with her.

I threw my hands up conceding and followed
Eliza silently.

"We have to talk," I said
to her as soon as we were out of earshot of the others.

"What about?" Eliza asked
sweeping a cautious glance over her shoulder at me.

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?"

"You know I am," I
insisted. "But things wouldn't have gotten this far if you had been
honest with me from the beginning."

"I already explained why I
wasn't."

"You knew I wasn't a
Banguri right?"

"Yes," she said turning to
me.

"But we were attracted to
each other. We had real feelings, you can't deny that."

"I've never denied it, but
I didn't have my memory and you didn't want me to
remember."

I'm just supposed to
pretend what happened between us wasn't real?” She
insisted.

"You have to let it go.
From the beginning I told you I’d only be your friend, remember?" I
told her.

"I wish things were
different," she whispered. I could tell she was hurting; I'd have
to be an idiot not to know. I reached out for her arm but before I
could show her any type of affection or compassion she picked up
her pace and barreled on down the sidewalk.

“
Let's just start fresh,"
Eliza said as she whipped what I could only imagine was a tear. She
hadn't looked at me directly once during this whole
conversation.

"Friends?”

"Acquaintances," she
murmured under her breath.

Our first stop was to a neighboring
apartment complex a couple blocks down that was fun by a close
family friend. As we walked Eliza explained her family’s
involvement in the community.

“
My father is the leader
of our borough. If anyone has any problems they go to the supper of
their apartment complex and then they bring the issue to my father.
Things are much better now, for everyone.”

“
Except the dead newlies,”
I reminded her coldly.

“
There have been Banguri
lives taken too,” Eliza confessed looking over apologetically. “It
wasn’t supposed to be this way but someone has broken our
code.”

“
Code?”

“
On Second-Plane, Banguri
survive by eating the life-force of other living beings. The
High-Banguri have rules: we don’t want to take more than we give
back to our ecosystem, we don’t eat anything that has the same
intelligence level as us and we eat as little as possible.
Traditionally we hunt once a month. One good hunt can sustain us if
we have plenty of water.”

“
You suck the soul out of
living things?” I didn’t even try to keep the disgust out of my
tone.

“
It’s not so different
than you. The Auras devour sexual energy. Being with you sucked
the
life out of me
.”

“
Dramatic,” I spat at her
angrily, “you were just as willing as I was.”

“
But you gave me nothing
back in return,” Eliza insisted.

“
If you had told me what I
was then maybe things would have been different.”

“
It doesn’t matter. None
of it matters now.”

“
Dramatic,
” I grunted again under my
breath.

“
I thought you wanted to
be acquaintances?”

“
Clearly I was being
generous with friends,” I snipped back. She was irritating—so very
irritating. How had I
pursued
her. “We’re trying to save your race from being
extinct. Let’s focus on that.”

“
We’ll we’re almost there.
There’s a large park just up the need few blocks. It’s where a lot
of the portals are opened, but that’s just at night. Too risky
during the day. I want to show you something.”

We walked on in silence and then she spun on
me. Turning around with more honest emotion in her eyes than I’d
ever seen before.

“
I know I fucked up, I get
it. But I didn’t know what you’d be like and I didn’t know how I’d
feel when I was with you. You can’t hold that against me. Any my
people do really need your help. The Aura had us corned in this
small area and unlike you, we
populate.
The Higher-Banguri
stopped; the middle did as well, but the lower. The lower aren’t
smart enough to understand. They—They begun to eat each other and
then when there were just a few left they began to eat themselves.
Then suddenly we had hope. My mom and dad created a portal and
everything changed; we had a chance. That was why my mother started
attacking the newlies. It was a
distraction.
We needed a chance and
the Auras wouldn’t have let us come here. It wasn’t right but it
was our best chance and we took it!”

Eliza walked briskly the rest of the way to
the park and into the woods and I followed behind her. We came up
to a small stream and sat before it. I squatted a few feet off to
the side of her and watched. Eliza leaned forward and touched her
hand just barely on the water. It rippled and she snatched her hand
back. The water began to swirl and in the eye an image became
clear. It grew bigger until it was about the size of a small
mirror. I looked over at her. She was staring straight into it,
concentrating.

“
I can never hold them for
more than a few minutes. No one knows I can do this,” she
said.

I looked closely and realized what I was
seeing.

“
You can create your own
portals back to First-Plane?”

“
Yes, look!”

I turned my focus back to the water and was
startled by the gruesome image. Small rabbit sized Banguri were
gnawing on their own legs. Large bear sized Banguri were letting
their young rip the flesh of their bones for the chance that they
might survive. It was the most disturbing thing I’d ever seen. I
looked away.

“
Enough,” I said but Eliza
was hypnotized by the morbidness.

“
Eliza,
enough,”
I commanded
loudly.

She jumped at the sound of my voice and the
image collapsed on itself.

“
They never told us,” I
insisted.

“
That’s because they don’t
know. They locked us in our little box and as long as we didn’t try
to come out, we didn’t exist.”

“
Sariah and I will do
everything we can to help,” I promised.

Eliza laughed bitterly. “Sariah and you.
Sariah and you,” she chanted to herself.

I didn’t know what to say anymore and I was
aware that it was cruel to expect her to just snap out of it. It’s
not like she had a memory loss. I sighed and racked both my hands
into my hair. I didn’t know what to do anymore—

“
Get down!” Eliza
frantically whispered.

I reacted on impulse lowing myself to my
stomach.

What is it?
I thought to her out of habit.

“
What is it?” I asked
quietly.

“
I think I just saw a
portal open. They never open them in the day. Something must be
wrong.”

I couldn’t see anything they were too far
away. But we could hear them and we knew in moments they’d be
leaving coming through this way to leave the park. We weren’t far
from the entrance if we didn’t move they’d see us and from the
energy that was bubbling off of Eliza, I knew they would know
exactly what I was and wouldn’t want me here.

“
You lied about being able
to convince your father to let us leave, didn’t you?” I
hissed.

“
No, I said I would make
sure you were able to leave.”

“
With what? Your shitty
little bubble sized portal?” I was so frustrated with her, but I
had an idea of how to get at least me out of this mess. I began to
army crawl backwards. I felt my feet sink into the water, my knees,
thighs, and waist. I kept going, like a backwards moving crocodile
until just my head poked out above the water.

“
What are you doing?”
Eliza whispered-shrieked.

“
They won’t think it’s too
odd to see you. Go stall your father. I’m going to cross the water
and go out the other side. Thankfully this is a park and not a
forest. I can’t go right out the entrance but I’ll find a path. I
have to get back to the diner before you do.”

“
You’ll never make it,”
she said her eyes doubtful.

“
This is your fault.
You’re lying has made things so complicated. You want my help? Then
you’re going to own my trust by stalling your father.”

Without another protest, she sprung up and
sprinted off towards her father. I didn’t wait to see what happened
either. I had to get back to Sariah and Ajani. If the Banguri
wanted a fight, we’d sure as hell give them one.