Kiss Me Deadly

by Trisha Telep

  I’d also taken twenty bucks from David’s wallet, to pay for my drinks, but suddenly it seemed like a good time to exercise my right to remain silent.

  “You should know that missing curfew here constitutes an escape from state custody and will result in an additional charge against you. And likely a bed at Ron Jackson.”

  “So I hear.” I dropped my leg and sat up, glancing around at the plaques on her walls. “Are we done?”

  “Your foster mother has already signed the necessary forms.” And she’d left before I even got there. Not a good sign. “Mr. Navarro and I have some additional paperwork to complete, but you’re welcome to look around while we do that. I’ll give you the official tour when we’re done.”

  I stood and was halfway to the door when Navarro called my name. “Sabine...” I turned, but what he wanted to say was clear in his expression. Don’t screw this up. This is your last chance.

  ***

  The living room—they probably called it the “common room”—was big and mercilessly bright. There were several stiff-looking couches and waiting room chairs, most facing an old-fashioned TV—the kind with a thick, curved screen—tuned to a Spanish-language soap opera.

  I stood in the doorway, watching. Trying to convince myself that this was home, at least for the next several months. Group meals, shared chores, full accountability. I can do this. Like there was any other choice.

  But on the bright side, with twenty beds, lights out would be a virtual buffet. So many nightmares to gorge on, and with this many people to share the burden of my appetite, they’d never connect the bad dreams with my arrival.

  At least not consciously.

  Maybe I should have violated probation sooner. I’d practically starved with only David and Jenny to feed from.

  “Marina, if you don’t turn off this Latina drama shit, I’m gonna throw that TV out the window, and you with it.” A tall, heavy girl about my age walked into view and dropped onto one of the couches on her knees, shoving her hands between the cushions. She had huge brown eyes, smooth dark skin, and deep hollows beneath sharp cheekbones. “Where’s the damn remote? I can’t take any more of this Speedy Gonzales babble...”

  “That’s Sharise’s drama,” a second girl insisted in a thick Latino accent, just outside my field of vision. “My show went off.”

  “Both of ya’ll shut up,” a third voice—obviously Sharise—snapped. “I’m tryin’ to learn Spanish.”

  “You’re not gonna learn to say nothin’ from this crap but ‘I’m pregnant’ and ‘I’m dyin.’” The first girl paused in her search and glanced over her shoulder at Sharise. “But you’re gonna need to know those anyway, right? That, and ‘I need another hit.’”

  “Whatever,” Sharise said, and couch springs squealed. “I’m done with that.”

  “Hey!” the first girl interrupted, and I looked up to find her staring at me, now holding the missing remote control. “You the new girl?”

  “Yeah.” I’d been caught; might as well own it.

  “Well, look at this. We got another white girl, even paler than BethAnne. Looks like crime finally found the suburbs.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut.

  More springs squealed on my right, and I turned to find two more girls watching me from the second couch. “Hey, I’m Sharise, and this is Marina.” The girl who stood and offered me her hand was older than me—maybe seventeen?—and looked exhausted. Used up, but not shut down. She was shorter, skinnier, and darker-skinned than the first girl. I braced myself for new fears as I took her hand.

  But all I got was a vague whisper of discomfort, like a chill up my spine.

  Sharise didn’t live in fear. She held her personal terrors close to her heart, buried too deep to be read with the first casual contact. I respected that, but not enough to give her a pass. Secret fears always made the heartiest meals.

  Sharise shook my hand, then glanced over my shoulder at the girl still holding the remote. “That’s Elesha. She’s mean, but she’s just coverin’ her own insecurity.”

  “Yeah, and Sharise thinks she’s gonna be a psychiatrist, if she hasn’t already fried her brain.”

  “See?” Sharise lifted her brows and shot a scowl over my shoulder. “Mean as a snake.”

  “I just say it like it is,” Elesha insisted, dropping the remote to the center cushion. “What’s your name?”

  “Sabine.”

  Elesha snorted. “You even got a white girl name,” she said, and I shrugged. “What’d you do?”

  I didn’t have to say, and Gomez wasn’t allowed to. But acting like I had a secret would only make people more determined to figure me out. “Missed curfew and found a bottle of Jack.”

  “That’s it?” Elesha looked skeptical.

  I shrugged and sat on the arm of the couch. “I was already on probation.”

  Before they could pry any deeper, I heard footsteps behind me and turned to find Gomez leading Navarro out of her office, one hand on his arm. He stopped in the hall. “Sabine?”

  “What?”

  “Wednesday at four.” Every week like clockwork, I met with my parole officer when most girls my age were watching television or not doing homework.

  I nodded. Then I grabbed my bags from Gomez’s office while she walked him to his car. When she returned, she gave me an assessing look, then nodded like she’d just made her mind up about something. “Okay, let’s get you settled in.”

  Gomez squeaked her way down the hall in rubber-soled shoes, and I followed with both bags. She showed me offices belonging to the assistant director and the events coordinator.

  Next came the meeting room, for all the rehab classes and group sessions. The sign hanging on the door read: substance abuse treatment and prevention education. I peeked through the window. Most of the girls looked bored.

  Past the common room was the cafeteria, which—Gomez explained—doubled as the classroom for the girls who lacked the privilege points to go to school. Her short, thick heels clacked as she marched into a kitchen and small serving area. “Our full-time cook has Tuesdays and Thursdays off, but you’ll meet her tomorrow. Penny is our relief cook.”

  Penny waved as she worked a commercial-size can opener around the edge of a huge can of tomato sauce.

  I nodded, then followed Gomez back through the kitchen and around the corner. “We have twenty beds for girls between the ages of thirteen to seventeen. The older girls are on this wing; the younger ones are down there.” She turned to point behind us, at an identical hall. “Each wing has a community bathroom. There’s no door, obviously, and they’re pretty closely monitored by the techs.”

  One of whom was visible through the bathroom doorway, wearing slacks, a blouse, and an ID tag hanging around her neck.

  “This is your room.” Gomez opened the last door on the left—notably missing a lock.

  The room was sparse. A bed, a dresser, a built-in desk, and a window. I set my suitcases down and headed straight for the window, hoping to find the grass that was missing from the front “yard.” There was a small, dry patch of green, sprinkled with concrete picnic tables, squeezed in next to a basketball court and an open recreation area. The whole thing was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence.

  Easily climbable. I made a mental note.

  “You can wear your own clothes, so long as you stick to the dress code. Jeans and plain T-shirts. Sweats are okay, when it gets cold. Athletic socks and shoes. If you lose privileges, you wear the issued tees and sweats.”

  “What about phone calls?” I leaned against the desk, trying not to be overwhelmed. It’s better than the detention center. And probably way better than Ron Jackson.

  “You can call the people on your approved list, unless you’ve lost privileges. You’ll need a calling card for long distance.”

  Shit. The approved list would include only David and Jenny, Navarro, and my court-appointed lawyer, who was about as useful as the gum on the bottom of my shoe. />
  The only person I actually wanted to talk to wouldn’t be on the list. Nash. I couldn’t handle six months with no contact. I’d lose my mind. Or my temper. Or both.

  “No matter what you hear, you’re currently our only violent offender,” Gomez said, recapturing my attention.

  I frowned up at her. “I’m not violent.”

  She raised one of those arched brows at me. “You gave a car a baseball bat – makeover.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t make Tucker over.” Which was what I would have done in his nightmare, if he’d been there, to mess with.

  “Your file says you broke a girl’s jaw with a lunch tray in the detention center.”

  I rolled my eyes. “She tripped me and called me a white trash whore. I came up swinging.”

  “You put her in the hospital.”

  “She put herself in the hospital. I was just defending myself.”

  Gomez narrowed her eyes at me. “Sabine, if you defend yourself so vehemently around here, I will let them lock you up. These girls aren’t dangerous. Most of them just took a wrong turn in life, and they’re getting themselves back on track. Holser is the best halfway house in the state, and I won’t let you ruin our record.”

  “I’m not looking for trouble.” I held her gaze, letting her see the truth in my eyes; there’d be plenty to hide from her soon enough.

  “Good,” she said, one hand on my doorknob. “Cristofer thinks you’re special. Worth the effort. I hope he’s right.”

  Me too.

  She pulled the door closed as she left the room, and I sank onto the bed. Welcome to Holser Hell.

  ***

  I lay on my bed in the dark, in a tee and baggy gray shorts. Staring at the ceiling. Missing Nash. It was hard not to think about him at night, when there was nothing to distract me from his absence. I could feel him squeezing my hand. His lips warm on mine. I could hear his voice in my head, warning me not to let myself get too hungry. Promising he’d be there when I got out. Telling me he loved me.

  No one else had ever said that to me. Ever.

  But those bits of him were figments. Memories at best. I’d lost him, at least for a while, and I couldn’t even see him in my sleep because I can’t dream. Maybe that’s normal for a mara, but I don’t know; I’ve never met another one.

  The closest I can come to dreaming is feeding from someone else’s nightmare. I need that, like I need food and water. Or maybe more like I need air.

  Hunger gnawed at me—a ravenous beast chewing me up from the inside. I hadn’t fed much in the detention center because so many of the kids there were drugged. Their sleep was unnatural, thus beyond my ability to manipulate, and if I couldn’t mold their dreams into nightmares, I couldn’t feed from them.

  The same could be true at Holser, but I hadn’t seen many meds handed out, so I clung to the hope of a nightly all-you-can-eat as the one bright spot in an otherwise gloomy sentence. Because Nash was right—I’d lose control if I got too hungry.

  Lights out for the last group of girls—those with the most privilege points—was at ten o’clock. My alarm clock, casting a weak crimson glow over the small room, read 12:13.

  I rolled over and stared at the wall, silently feeling out the rooms around mine. I can sense sleep like a rat smells cheese, even when he can’t see it. Most of the girls near me were out cold, and so far, their slumbers felt natural. Organic. Delicious.

  It was time.

  I closed my eyes, mentally drawing energy into the center of my body. It coiled there, pulsing slowly, cold and sluggish from hunger, but eager to be used. Then that energy gradually stretched into my limbs, mimicking my body structure. I stood and felt this energy-me separate from my physical form—the metaphysical equivalent of dislocating a joint, only it didn’t hurt. It felt satisfying, like stretching first thing in the morning.

  The energy-me crossed the room. My footsteps made no sound. My form had no substance. No one would see me, even standing right next to me. I turned to look at the bed, where the physical me still lay, eyes closed, one hand resting on my stomach, breathing steadily.

  Privately, I call this part Sleepwalking, because while part of me was up walking around, my physical form seemed to be sleeping. That’s exactly what anyone who saw me lying in bed would think. They’d notice how peaceful I looked, and how innocent.

  The irony of that thought gave me a small, secret smile.

  My Sleepwalking form enjoyed a freedom my physical body could never experience, but there were some weird limits, most of which I’d discovered through trial and error.

  Not like Nash. He was no more human than I was—but his mom and brother were around to teach him stuff and answer questions. I had only instinct, and ignorance on a cosmic scale. Kinda tragic, if you think about it.

  So I don’t think about it. I think about the stuff I do know.

  Like Sleepwalking physics, I thought, stepping into the dim hallway without opening my door. I could Sleepwalk through doors, climb through closed windows or boarded up holes in walls, and through anything else that might serve as an entrance or exit for my physical body. But I couldn’t fall through floors or walk through solid walls. My Sleepwalking-self slammed into them just like my physical form would have.

  It made no sense. But then, very little of my life did.

  The hallway was empty and quiet, but I could hear the nightshift tech watching TV in the common room. She would make rounds, checking all the beds and bathrooms, but with any luck, in a nonsecure facility, nights would be pretty low-key.

  The room next to mine belonged to a girl named BethAnne. During dinner, my fingers had brushed hers when we’d both reached for a saltshaker, and I’d slid into her fear as easily as sinking into a tub full of hot water.

  Sometimes fears exposed secrets, a glimpse of the memories they were based on. Other times, especially in little kids, they were a fleeting terror inspired by a scary movie or a dark closet. But BethAnne’s fear had the gritty feel of real pain—a satisfying meal, as opposed to a quick snack.

  I glanced down the empty hall again, then stepped through her door into a room just like mine. BethAnne slept on one side, her knees tucked up to her stomach. I knelt by her bed. Her face was inches from mine, and if I’d had a physical presence, her breath would have stirred my hair.

  I ran one finger over her cheek, and that I could feel—warm and soft and bumpy from a mild breakout. I could feel her in my bodiless Sleepwalking form because she was dreaming, and I was pretty sure she could feel me too, though how she’d interpret my touch in her sleep was anyone’s guess.

  But she wouldn’t wake up while I was touching her. No one ever had. I was part sedative, part leech, and all bad dream—literally. And I wouldn’t even have known that much, if not for Nash’s mother.

  You’re a mara, she’d explained the night he’d brought me to her in tears. One of several breeds of parasitic empath. My generation would call you a Nightmare. You can read people’s fears, and when they sleep, you guide their dreams to cultivate that fear. Then you feed from it.

  She was right, though I could never have explained it so well on my own. For years, I’d done what my body wanted—what it needed —with no understanding of what was actually happening. Of what I really was. I’d only known that when people touched me, they saw their worst fears reflected in my eyes, and it scared them. I scared them.