Authors: Violet Walker
T
erry and I headed to my apartment first. It was closest. As we walked and debated the various styles and brands of charcoal, I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I glanced backwards and noticed three men following us.
“Yeah, I saw them too,” Terry said, noticing my sudden distress and pulling me closer. “They’ve been following us since the gallery. Get your phone out and dial 911. Don’t ring, just have it ready.”
I did as she said. Daiki had told me that this area was actually pretty safe by New York standards, but I seemed to attract the bad elements. With my phone gripped tightly in my hand, I tried to continue our conversation with the steady thump, thump of footsteps behind us.
“Skye!”
I jumped and spun around. Daiki was behind us, ducking out of an alley and stuffing a black wad of material into his pocket. His clothes were black too. I realized he must have been running around looking for muggers before he’d spotted us.
“Daiki,” I said, trying to sound pleasantly surprised and not so relieved that I could burst. I had a sudden urge to run my hand over his cheek and kiss him. I restrained myself. “What are you doing out so late?”
The men trailing behind us paused when they saw Daiki – who was tall, well-muscled, and moved with a kind of feline grace. I knew that, with his powers and strength, he could take them all easily. I just hoped that they wouldn’t try to test him.
“Oji-san forgot to turn the stove off at the restaurant,” he responded easily. “What about you?”
“Just coming back from a gallery opening. This is Terry,” I added, gesturing to the girl next to me, who was running her eyes over Daiki’s face like she was trying to decide whether to beat him to death with a shovel or not. “Terry, this is Daiki,”
They shook hands. “Nice to meet you,” Daiki said. He glanced over his shoulder at the three men who were still lingering behind us. “It’s getting cold out, why don’t I walk you ladies home?”
“That’d be great,” Terry said, relaxing beside me.
Daiki held out his elbow for me to take, like Terry had, and together the three of us walked down the street. I glanced back to see the men turning away with their shoulders hunched.
“They’re leaving,” I said quietly. Terry and Daiki both nodded. “Thanks for your help,” I added to Daiki.
He grinned at me. His dark, olive-shaped eyes turned up at the corners. “No problem,” he said. “I’m just glad I saw you,”
I knew what he meant. He tended to stick to the neighborhood around his grandfather’s restaurant, but he’d been known to travel further when there wasn’t anyone in trouble closer to home. I didn’t know whether it was destiny or just really good luck, but I was so glad that I’d chosen to live where Daiki liked to ‘work’.
We walked together in silence, moving at a pace just a touch faster than walking. Terry had a rather blasé look on her face, as if this sort of thing happened to her all the time, but she did keep a pretty tight grip on my hand in her elbow. When we arrived at my apartment building, I turned to Daiki.
“Thanks so much,” I said. I thought about giving him a hug, but then I was afraid that it would be awkward if he didn’t hug back – or went into the hug from the wrong direction. This was the first time we’d properly seen each other since the night we’d shared almost a week ago. Instead, I stepped forward and quickly pecked his cheek. I felt the now-familiar jolt of electricity when my lips touched his skin. When I pulled away, he looked surprised but pleased. “Would you mind walking Terry home, too?”
“Hey, it’s cool – I can –”
“It’s no trouble,” Daiki said quickly. “Really,”
Terry hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, thanks,” she said.
“I’ll see you at classes?” I asked.
Terry nodded. “I’ll see if I can get my hands on some of that blacklight paint. What colors do you want?”
I glanced at Daiki. “Red,” I said. “And yellow. Thank you.”
I watched Daiki and Terry leave the alley before closing the door against the brisk Manhattan evening. Once inside my apartment, I set my purse down on the kitchen table and poured myself a glass of water. Then I went into my bedroom and let my eyes linger on the half-finished portrait of Daiki. It showed his back and his outstretched wings, but most of it was still a charcoal sketch.
I walked through the bedroom and into the ensuite bathroom, staring critically at my reflection in the mirror over the sink. My freckled cheeks and pointed chin stood out first, and then my long, curly brown hair and wide forehead. I wondered what I would look like with a fringe. Or a pixie cut. I gathered my hair up into the nape of my neck and tried to imagine what it would look like if I cut it all off. Then I got my sketch pad and some charcoal.
I’d loved art since I was a little girl and my daddy bought me a set of watercolor pencils for my birthday. I don’t think my parents ever expected me to take it seriously – they certainly hadn’t imagined that I would travel all the way to New York to go to an art school when, by their reckoning, I should have stayed in Round Table and gotten a degree in teaching or nursing. That was what good country girls did. I’d managed to convince them to let me go to New York, but I knew that they were just waiting for something bad to happen so that they could drag me back to Texas. That was why I hadn’t told them about the muggings in my neighborhood, or the fact that I was maybe-sort-of-dating a mythical creature.
My parents were very conservative. Never mind that Daiki was a dragon – they’d throw a fit if they knew he was Japanese.
Staring into my reflection, I quickly sketched the basic outline of my face. When that was done, I began sketching out a pixie cut which was longer at the top and short in the back and sides. I worked at it until my hand started to cramp. When it was finished, I shook my hand out and held my sketchbook up to the light to examine it.
“Not bad,”
I yelped and nearly fell into the bathtub, but Daiki’s strong hands reached out and caught me. I felt the low thrum of electricity run through me at his touch. I always felt that when we touched. He’d called it an ‘empathetic link’, which some special humans had with shifters, but he’d refused to elaborate on what that was or why it only happened with him and not with his grandfather.
“You scared the bejeezus out of me!” I said.
“Sorry,” Daiki said. I could tell that he was fighting a smile. “I didn’t mean to offend your bejeezus,”
I swatted his arm and straightened up. “Doofus,” I said, but I couldn’t keep the fondness out of my voice.
Daiki reached over and adjusted the sketchbook in my hand so that he could see it. “What’s this?”
“I’m thinking about cutting my hair,” I said. “What do you think?”
He looked at it for a while. Then he looked at me. “I think you’d look pretty no matter what.”
I looked down at the tiled floor and smiled, “Well, aren’t you sweet?”
He was surprisingly sweet, I thought. He’d dated a girl in Chicago a couple of years before, but she’d betrayed his trust, plastered his secrets over the internet, and almost gotten him and his grandfather killed by hunters. He had every right to be jaded and cynical, but he wasn’t. When he fought muggers, he was all power, but when we were alone or when we were texting he could be nervous, excited, and even silly. I liked that about him.
“How long have you known Terry?” Daiki asked.
I shrugged. “About a week, why?”
“She said that if I hurt you, she’d beat me to death with a shovel,” he replied. He grinned at me. “I like her,”
I shook my head and made a mental note to give Terry a talking to the next time I saw her. It was all well and good to keep your friends safe, but not if it meant scaring off their maybe-sort-of-boyfriends.
“How did you get in here, by the way?” I asked.
“Oh, you left your window open.”
“Some would call that breaking and entering,”
“I’ll knock next time,”
I hummed in approval and leaned up to kiss him like I’d wanted to earlier. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me slowly. I felt the electricity purring between us. When our touches were quick, like when I’d kissed him on the cheek before, the electricity was almost harsh. But now, when we were kissing lazily, the electricity burned contently.
Daiki ran his hands up my back and brushed them through my hair, which still hung loose. I shivered. We held on tight to one another, pulling each other closer. Then Daiki pulled away.
“I like kissing you,” he said.
After the last time we’d kissed, I’d gotten the impression that he deliberately held himself away from people because he’d been hurt so badly. He’d given up a lot after that relationship: his home in Chicago, his half-finished degree in engineering, and his pet cat, who’d been left behind in the family’s haste to disappear. I was glad that he was allowing himself to trust me – at least a little bit.
“I like kissing you too,” I said.
“If we don’t stop now, I won’t be able to,” he said. I wondered why that could ever be a bad thing and he must have seen the confusion on my face because he went on: “I just – I really like you. I want to do this properly.”
“Do you think we went too fast?” I asked, feeling a weight falling into my stomach even as the words ‘I like you’ made me giddy.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t regret the other night,” he said. “I’d just like the chance to get to know you properly,”
I realized that he planned to date me – to court me, even – and I wanted to sing. But I didn’t. I’d been told my singing sounded an awful lot like cats having their tails pulled.
“I like you too,” I said. His smile could have lit up the whole room.
“I should go,” he said, and I realized that we’d been smiling at each other for several minutes.
“Have a good night,” I said.
He turned away from me, smiling, and crossed the room to my bedroom window. With a small wave, he launched himself out and flew off into the night.
I
woke up the next morning to the sound of someone pounding on my door. I checked my watch – it was 6:17. I rolled out of bed, wrapped a dressing gown around my shoulders, and slumped over to the front door.
“Who is it?” I called.
“NYPD,” a woman’s voice called back.
I blinked and opened the door. There were two people there. A black woman in a suit, her hair pulled tight into a practical bun at the base of her skull, and a Hispanic man with a shaved head. They both held police badges.
“Skye Cooper?”
“Yes?” I said hesitantly.
“My name is Detective Hart, this is Detective Medina. Can we come in?”
“I – sure,” I said, stepping aside and opening the door so that they could enter. I discretely ran my hand through my hair. “What can I do for you?”
The two detectives stepped into my tiny apartment and glanced around. I still hadn’t bought any furniture, but I’d at least managed to get the stains out of the carpets.
“We would like to ask you some questions about Theresa Malcolm,” Hart said.
“Who?”
Medina held out a picture. It was Terry – a selfie she’d posted as her Facebook profile picture a few days ago.
“Oh, Terry,” I said. “Is she in trouble?”
“She died last night,” Hart said.
All of the air left my lungs in a rush, as though I’d been punched in the heart. My knees felt watery and weak. I reached out blindly to rest my hand on the wall.
“What?” I said, because they had to be joking. Of course they were joking. Terry couldn’t be –
“I’m sorry,” Hart said. She seemed to mean it, too.
A ball of emotion welled up in my throat and I knew I was about to start crying. “What happened?” I asked.
Hart hesitated. “She was found in her apartment. Badly beaten.”
My lip trembled. I wanted to run and get my phone – to call Daiki, my mother, anyone – but the police had come here to ask me something and Mama had raised me with manners.
“I’m sorry – do you want some coffee?” I asked.
Hart hesitated again. “No, thank you,”
“You said you had some questions?”
“Only if you’re up for it.”
I nodded. I wanted Hart to ask her questions and leave quickly before I started bawling. Medina seemed to be hanging back, letting his partner do all the work while he gazed at me with a forlorn expression. I wondered if he’d ever lost anyone too.
“You were at a gallery opening with her last night, correct?” Hart asked. I nodded. “What time did you leave?”
“Around ten o’clock,” I said.
“Had you been drinking?”
“We had a glass of champagne each,”
Medina took out a notebook and started writing down everything I said.
“Did you notice anything strange on your way home?” Hart asked.
I nodded. “Three men started following us. I had my phone out to call 911, but then my – friend – Daiki started walking with us and the men left.”
“Daiki?” Hart asked, tilting her head slightly.
“Daiki Hamada,” I replied. “He lives nearby, he walked us home,”
“Both of you?” Hart asked.
I nodded again. “He and Terry walked me to my apartment, and then he walked Terry to hers. Then he came back here.”
Hart chewed her lip. “And what time did he arrive here?”
“Oh,” I wracked my brains, but I couldn’t remember exactly what time he’d gotten back. “I don’t know, about eleven?”
“And was he acting strangely at all? Was he wearing different clothes?”
“No –” I stopped suddenly. I’d heard these questions before on TV cop shows. “You don’t think Daiki could –”
“We’re just trying to get a clear picture of what happened last night, Miss Cooper,” she said.
My throat felt dry and I licked my lips. “Daiki was fine. He hadn’t changed his clothes. He wasn’t agitated or upset. We kissed. Then he left.”
“And what time was that?”
“About fifteen minutes after he arrived,” I said. “He just wanted to tell me that Terry had given him the shovel talk, and to confirm our lunch date for today.”
Hart didn’t blink when I mentioned the ‘shovel talk’, so she must have heard of the concept. She nodded thoughtfully and asked: “Had Terry mentioned anything unusual in her life? Was she seeing anyone?”
“Terry is – was – asexual. She didn’t date,” I replied. She’d explained the concept of asexuality to me when I’d asked for advice about Daiki. “She never mentioned anything unusual. She said she going to buy me some blacklight paint.”
For some reason, that thought made the tears come. I wiped frantically at my cheeks and ignored the sympathetic looks from the two detectives.
“We might need you to give a formal statement,” Hart said. “We’ll be in touch. If you think of anything else –” She held out a business card. “– please give me a call.”
I took the card and felt the weight of everything that had just happened come crashing down on my shoulders. Terry was dead. She was dead.
“We’re sorry for your loss,” Medina muttered. He had a low, deep voice and a strong American accent.
“Thank you,” I replied automatically.
I waited until the detectives had shown themselves out before running to my room, throwing myself onto the bed, and sobbing into my pillow.
Terry was dead. I couldn’t even think it. She was so young and vibrant. I felt the loss of her, the loss of the only friend I’d made since I came to New York, and I knew that it was despicable to make Terry’s death all about me, but I couldn’t process it any other way. I’d barely known Terry. All I knew was that she’d reached out to me when I’d been all alone in a scary new city. I wrapped my arms around myself as the pain in my chest became unbearable, and I sobbed until I could hardly breathe.
When I finally calmed down, I checked the time again. 8:40. I blew my nose and glanced at my phone. I had two missed calls from Daiki.
“Didn’t even hear it ring,” I muttered to myself.
I swiped through and played his first voice message, from 6:52: “Skye, it’s me. The police were just here – they said they talked to you – are you okay? Are you at home? Call me back when you get this.”
The second message was from 8:27: “Skye, it’s me. I’m at your apartment, but you’re not answering your door. Are you okay? Let me know if you’re okay, Skye. I just went to Terry’s place and… I need to talk to you. Call me when you can.”
As I was listening, the phone rang again. I answered: “Daiki?”
“Skye,” he replied. He sounded relieved. “I can’t fly up, it’s broad daylight. Can you let me in?”
I nodded, and then I realized he couldn’t see me. “Okay,” I said. I stepped out of my bedroom, feeling hollow from crying, and buzzed Daiki in. Then I waited with my door open as he came bounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He had his arms around me before I knew it. The weight and inhuman warmth of his chest hit me like a tidal wave. If I had any more tears to shed, I would have spilled them there.
“Skye,” he said, running his hands over my hair and holding me close. “I’m so sorry, Skye.”
“She’s dead, Daiki,”
“I know,” He rested his chin on my head and petted my hair slowly. I let out a long breath and felt myself melting into his embrace as he repeated over and over again: “I’m sorry,”
Finally, I pulled away. “The police spoke to you?” I asked.
He nodded grimly. “I don’t think that they think I had anything to do with it. I mean – you gave me an alibi,”
“Did I?”
He nodded, and then hesitated before asking: “How much did they tell you? About what happened?”
“Just that she was – oh, god – just that she was beaten,” I felt my lip tremble. “Who would do that? Who would hurt her?”
Daiki sighed. “Come on,” he said, pulling at my elbow. “Let’s sit down,”
He led me into my bedroom and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, pulling me with him. We sat for a moment, holding hands in silence, until he cleared his throat. “I’m going to tell you some things,” he said, speaking in a low, soothing voice that made me think of lullabies and warm blankets. “Stop me if it’s too much, okay?” I nodded and leaned down to rest my head against his shoulder. “Terry died from blunt force trauma to the head, but the police said some things that made me think that wasn’t the whole story. So I asked. They said that Terry was tortured before she died.” I squeezed my eyes shut at that, but I couldn’t block out his words. Poor Terry, I thought. “It would have taken a while, and that’s what ruled me out as a suspect – I went straight back to your place after I dropped her off. But that’s the worst part.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We shifters have heightened senses,” Daiki said. He kept his voice low and soft but I could hear a faint hint of worry in his tone now, as though he was dreading what he was about to say. “I went to her apartment and, well, sniffed around.”
“Did you find anything?”
He shifted and I felt his chin rest on the top of my head again, his arm wrapping around my waist. “I recognized a scent. From Chicago,”
“Not –” I choked on the word because I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t even want to think it. “Hunters?”
I felt him nod. “I think so,”
“But why would they want to hurt Terry? She’s human – isn’t she?”
He nodded again. “Definitely. I don’t think they planned to hurt her. I think they planned to hurt me.”
I pulled away to get a good look at him. His face shone with sorrow, regret, and guilt. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I think they tortured her because they thought she would lead them to me.” He tore his eyes away from me and stared down at his lap. “They must have seen me drop her off at her apartment and thought that we were friends. I’m so sorry, Skye,”
I stood up and started pacing, trying to work off the sudden flood of restless energy in my system. “But how did they even find you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean – unless you told someone –”
“The only person who knew we were seeing each other was Terry,” I snapped. “And I certainly didn’t tell her that you’re a mythical creature!”
He stood up and held up his hands, palms facing towards me, in a classic gesture of surrender. “I didn’t think you would tell anyone about me,” he said. “I just had to be sure.”
I allowed myself to calm down a little. I reminded myself that Daiki had no reason to trust me and that he’d been burned before by the women he trusted. I kept pacing and felt my heart constrict at the thought of how much Terry must have suffered before those hunters had finally killed her. If Daiki was right, and they’d tortured her for information, then the fact that it had taken so long meant that she had wanted to protect Daiki. I wanted to cry all over again.
But then another thought crossed my mind, which made me freeze. They’d killed her eventually – had she finally had enough and told them what they wanted to know? She hardly knew anything about Daiki. All she really knew was that he and I were seeing each other. The only real connection had to him was me.
“Get out,” I said, turning on Daiki.
He looked confused. “Skye, I’m sorry,” he said. “I really didn’t mean to accuse you –”
“Would you just go?” I said. I stepped away up until my back was pressed against the wall, putting as much distance between us as I could so I that wouldn’t be tempted to comfort him. “I just – I need time to think. About the part you played in Terry’s death.”
His shoulders slumped and he looked at the ground. He looked so hurt. It broke my heart to see him looking like that. “Okay,” he said. “If that’s what you want. I have to tell Oji-san. We might need to leave town in a hurry,”
“Whatever is best,” I said, ignoring the aching pain in my chest at the idea of him leaving town – leaving me. But if it was a choice between my pain and Daiki’s life, it was an easy choice.
Daiki looked sharply at me, wounded and disbelieving. “Right,” he said. “Goodbye then.”
He stepped past me and let himself out. I heard the front door click shut and slid down my bedroom wall, curling into a ball and sniffling. I wanted to cry, but no tears would come. I just stared at the half-finished portrait on the easel next to my bed and let the soft sounds of the city lull me into a trance.