Drew fell back and had to flatten his spine to the ground to avoid Kim’s foot from smashing into his face. After Kim landed, Drew pushed off the ground and landed on his feet in one fluid movement. He held his palms flat and across his body in a defensive stance and laughed. “Thought I had you that time.”
Kim grinned and moved his arms apart like he was pulling an arrow back on an invisible bow. “Not in your wildest dreams. How do you expect to sneak up on someone when you have the stealth of an ox?”
Braden stepped up next to Drew and opened his arms wide. “Don’t worry, Drew, I got your back.”
Kim laughed. “I think you were better off by yourself.”
Michelle jerked me back by the arm just as Braden leapt at Kim.
“What the—” I tried to flatten myself against the lockers in an effort not to be hit by flying limbs. “We need to get out of here!”
“Nah.” She tugged my shirt to get me to follow her. “They do this all the time. Drew and Braden have been trying to best Kim for … ” She smiled sadly. “As long as I can remember. Come on. Do you want something
to drink?”
I followed her to the small kitchenette, flinching every time a foot or a fist entered my personal space.
I watched as Kim caught Braden’s sidekick and used his foot to thrust him backward. Braden fell to the ground and tumbled backward into Michelle who stood at the sink filling two glasses with water.
She gasped and dropped the plastic cups into the sink. “Braden!” She spun around, pulled a sai from her waistband, and twirled it in her hand. “Unless you would like to meet the pointy side of my sai, I suggest you play somewhere else.”
Braden grinned and lifted his eyebrows. “I would love to get to know the pointy side of your sai.”
Michelle huffed and tucked her sai back into her pants. “You’re stupid. That doesn’t make sense.” But as Braden shrugged and jumped back into the fight, I watched Michelle’s eyes soften into … adoration? Or was it something more? Love? She turned to me and shook her head. “Stupid boys. Wanna try this again?”
While Michelle refilled the cups with water, I carefully maneuvered the card table around the fighting boys and set it up against the wall along with two folding chairs. Once I sat down, I watched a laughing Kim duck under Drew’s spinning kick.
Michelle set a cup in front of me and sat down.
“Why don’t they do this out in the dojo where there’s more room?” I asked.
She snorted. “Because that would make too much sense.”
Braden yelped as Kim twisted his arm behind his back.
Michelle took a drink. “At least it looks like they’re winding down.”
I nodded, even though, to me, they appeared to be fighting with just as much vigor as they started with.
“Did you have fun tonight?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I guess so.”
She sighed and ran her finger absently around the rim of her cup. “I know it sucks.”
I looked at her.
“I’m just saying that I know how you feel. Like at school, you hang out with the skaters. I never see you without that blond guy by your side. What’s his name?”
“Quentin.”
“That’s right.” She nodded. “Anyway, it’s not like that for me at school. I don’t really fit in and I was wondering if you might feel the same way. Sometimes—” Her voice trailed and her eyes lowered to the table.
“What?” I waved my hand in front on her face.
“Sorry.” She blushed and met my eyes. “I just thought it would be cool if we became friends.”
I blinked at her. Friends with motor-mouthed Michelle? I wondered if it would be easier to buy a talking parrot.
She looked away. “Never mind. It’s stupid, I know.”
A knot of guilt tightened inside my stomach. Way to be a jerkface, Rileigh. “No, Michelle,” I said, tapping her clasped hands with my fingers. “It’s not stupid. Of course I want to be friends.” And the weird thing was, I really did.
“Really?” She glanced at me, the corner of her lip curling into a half smile. “You mean it?”
I smiled back. “Totally.”
“Yay!” Michelle clapped her hands together. “I just know that we’ll be great friends! We’re going to have so much fun. We can have sleepovers and talk about boys! Oh!” Her face lit up. “Speaking about boys, you see Braden there?” I followed her gaze to the mop-haired boy that Kim held in a headlock. “We’re a couple.” She leaned her chin against her hand as a coy smile played on her lips. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“I went on my first date with Whitley Noble,” I said, shrugging. “But I think it’s too early to call us a couple.”
“Whitley?” She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. He asked me out a bunch of times last semester, but he’s not my type.”
I hoped my face didn’t show my shock. Whitley had asked out Michelle I-need-a-hot-oil-treatment Walters? Crazier yet, she turned him down? “You have something against tall and gorgeous?”
“Looks aren’t everything.” Her eyelids lowered dreamily and her chin sunk deeper into her hand as she continued to stare at Braden.
When she didn’t move for several seconds, I cleared my throat loudly.
“Huh?” Her eyes fluttered wide. “Oh, sorry.” She rubbed her hand along her burning cheek. “Have you ever been in love, Rileigh?”
I tried to respond, but the answer lay thick and sour on my tongue. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be in love, but I seemed unable to choose a guy who saw me for who I was. Maybe this time, with Whitley, it would be different.
She opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it. “Never mind. What were we talking about? Oh yeah—boys. By the way, I was a boy once.”
I choked on my water.
Ignoring me, Michelle continued. “In my other life, my name was Yorimichi. My twin brother Kiyomori and I were the youngest samurai in our army.”
My throat burned, but I managed to form words between gasps for air. “That can happen?”
“Yup,” Drew answered, pulling up a chair and flopping down next to us. “Some people believe in karma and its effect on who you will become in your next life. As far as I can tell there’s no pattern between who someone was in the past and who they are at present. Rebirthing is a mystery.”
I turned back to Michelle. “How do you do it? You were a boy, and now—isn’t it confusing?”
She smiled. “You know, it’s not as weird as you think. It really doesn’t matter who or what I was in the past.” When I made a face, she laughed. “Look, I remember who I was in the past, but that person’s dead. A shadow. By transcending, I’m able to remember the past, but that doesn’t bring it back. Who I am now is who I’m supposed to be for this life. Nothing can change that.”
Both Braden and Kim pulled up chairs next to the table. Braden collapsed into his, panting, but the only sign that Kim had been fighting was the sweat glistening on his skin.
“Nobody can be the same person they were,” Drew said. “Each new life brings new experiences, which, in turn, shape the person you were into someone who can deal with the current world. A person is like the earth itself, covered in different layers and always changing. At the core we’re the same molten fire rock that blazed
to life millions of years ago, but we transform through each phase.”
“Our souls make us who we are,” Kim added. He pressed a hand against his chest. “This is only a shell. Inside, our souls have no shape. No gender. The only thing we carry from life to life is our essence.” When I made no sign of understanding, he continued. “Think of it in terms of color. Our shells may change from life to life, but what’s inside stays the same. Our souls may fade or darken depending on our experiences, but the color, the essence, never changes.”
I frowned. “This sounds a little too new age for me.”
“There’s nothing
new
about this way of thinking,” Michelle said with a giggle. “But that’s beside the point. From the moment I saw you fight, I had no doubt in my mind that you were Senshi.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but she stopped me with a raised hand. Surprised, I leaned back in my chair.
“There’s also the way you act and the faces you make,” she said. “They’re the same. And the attitude—it’s been a lifetime, but Senshi’s attitude isn’t something easily forgotten.”
Braden snickered, but stopped after I shot him a dirty look.
Michelle continued. “There’s also your fighting style.” She tilted her head. “But there is a difference. I just can’t put my finger on it.” She squinted her eyes, and I had
the uncomfortable feeling that she was trying to see through me.
“It’s her eyes,” Drew spoke up. “They’re not haunted.”
“Haunted?” I repeated. This was getting weirder by the minute, and I couldn’t help but think how unfair it all was. It wasn’t even a week ago when I’d been perfectly happy living my nice, normal life—before everything fell apart. What I wouldn’t give for some glossy-toothed TV host to burst through the door and tell me I was on a hidden-camera show.
“Yes! That’s it!” Michelle said. She focused her attention on my eyes, which I disliked even more.
“She hasn’t killed in this life,” Kim said.
“Of course not.” I looked at him. “Look, I like to skate and I like to hang out with friends. A good time for me does
not
involve murder. That’s insane.”
Braden laughed. “Wanna guess what the number-one duty is under a samurai’s job description?”
I shrugged. “Do I really care?”
Kim ignored me. “Senshi was a gifted fighter. Even though she killed protecting her family and loved ones, I saw how haunted the stain of death left her.” He leaned back in his chair. “She didn’t have much of a childhood. When she was fifteen, her mother decided she was old enough to begin work as a prostitute. But that didn’t really work for her,” he said, chuckling, “because Senshi assaulted her first patron.”
My heart quivered under the pain of a memory that refused to surface. Surprised, I hugged myself, hoping that the others wouldn’t notice the slight tremors that shot through me. “Stop that,” I whispered.
Kim sat forward again. “These stories are hard to hear, I know. You need to know that when you transcend, you’ll relive them again. You’ve heard the expression ‘My life flashed before my eyes’?”
I nodded.
“That’s exactly what happens. At rapid speed, you will experience your past life firsthand. Your childhood, the killings, all your memories—both good and bad—will resurface together, all at once. It can be a bit … overwhelming.”
And he was just now telling me this? I felt my cheeks flush. “I can’t believe you didn’t bother to tell me any of this when you left the sword with me yesterday!”
Michelle gasped. “You gave her the katana?”
Kim casually shrugged his shoulders. “It belongs to her.”
“Yes, but—” Braden bit off the rest of the sentence after Kim sent him a warning glance.
“But you didn’t … I mean, obviously … you haven’t touched it yet, right?” Michelle asked.
I dropped my chin and rolled my eyes up at her.
“Right.” She paused. “Er, why not?”
I sighed. “I’m not convinced that transcending would be in my best interest.”
Her face scrunched in confusion.
“I get it,” Drew said. “You’re worried that you won’t be the same person after transcending that you are now.”
“But that doesn’t happen,” Michelle said. “The memories and abilities you gain through transcending are already in your head. They’ve already shaped who you are. Transcending just, like, unlocks the door that keeps them stored in your subconscious. That’s not to say it’s not hard and painful. But you don’t have to go through it alone. You have all of us to help you.”
I looked around the table at each of them. Their smiles were genuine. I wanted so badly to believe them. To accept their offered help and friendship. But I couldn’t let my guard down. My life was being threatened and I couldn’t afford to make myself vulnerable.
You can trust them.
I jerked upright. That was the other thing to take into consideration. I wasn’t about to trust anyone until I knew for sure I could trust myself.
Michelle frowned. “Is something wrong?”
I shook my head a little too quickly. “No—no. I’m fine.” I plastered a smile on my face and thought of a way to change the subject. “So, you were a twin, huh? That’s pretty cool. Do you know whatever happened to your brother?”
“Kiyomori?” Michelle smiled. She leaned over and gave Braden a nudge. “You’re looking at him.”
For the second time of the night, I almost choked, but managed to mask it as a cough. “You’re dating your brother?” I struggled to keep my voice neutral. This development was a bit much for me to process. Not to mention just plain gross.
Michelle bit her lip and dropped her eyes to the table. “It’s not what you think,” she said softly.
Ew. I knew if I lost one ounce of control I would shudder, and I could tell Michelle felt bad enough. I took a deep breath. And then another.
She twisted her hands together. “It’s true, Braden and I were brothers. We were so close—even had our own language.” She looked at Braden and their eyes locked. “From the moment we were born, we did everything together. We even died together.”