Chapter 8

Kiran

We drove around all night, not ever going too far out of the city. She had kept driving even after I'd fallen asleep. I woke up feeling a soreness in my side. I pulled myself up. My head had been resting on Audry’s shoulder, with my ribs pressed up against the center console, hence the soreness. I rubbed my neck to try and ease some of the pokey pain.

“Mm…” I was happy and emotionally comfy, even if I wasn’t physically the best. We were parked, and Audry was asleep in the driver's seat. Wait. “Audry?” My heart started beating. I didn’t want to wake up with another person in a coma.

“Audry!?” I shook her and when she didn’t immediately respond grabbed her hand and squeezed tight.

“Huh? Wha… I’m up.”

A sigh of relief.

“Sorry. I thought maybe I’d… sucked your soul out, or something.”

She smiled as she leaned over to me. “My soul appears to be in perfect working order,” she said before planting a kiss on my cheek.

“Good, because if something happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do.” Her head settled under my chin as her hands fell into my lap. “How are you feeling? Sleeping in a car is a new experience for me.”

“Me too. But I’d rather be here than back at the apartment if there really was a killer on the loose.”

“I’m just so glad you’re here with me. You make me feel… less crazy. Still crazy, but less crazy.”

“Aw… I’m glad I make you feel less crazy.” She pulled my hand into hers.

As horrible as our situation was, it was surreal that happening at the same time was such a dream come true. I mean, the girl of my dreams and best friend was finally interested in me… in love with me! And I, for the first time in my life, was feeling comfortable with who I was.

It wasn’t until I was so at ease with myself that I realized I hadn’t been before. Like a loose wire in my brain had been burning me and was finally reconnected. There wasn’t an undertone of everything being off-kilter.

I wiped my hand along the window that had fogged up. Sleeping in a car makes it way more humid than you’d think.

“Where are we?”

“Parking lot of Huffington Park.” Okay. So we were still in the city.

“Cool.”

“I’ve had an idea.”

“Okay?”

“If you’ve got horns that… appear. Then, maybe you’ve got other things you can do.”

Wow. I hadn’t thought of it like that.

“Like what?”

“I dunno.”

“Okay,” I giggled.

“We’re near the woods. Let’s find someplace nobody will see and mess around.”

“Mess around huh,” I raised an eyebrow. She softly punched me in the shoulder.

“Not like— Well…?”

“Well, what?”

“Your horns showed up when we kissed right? And the wings showed up after you and Meg…” Sad moment there. “Well, maybe that’s how your powers are activated.”

“By having sex?”

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe a little. There’s a big difference between a kiss and sex.”

I went silent. I didn’t like putting Audry at risk like this.

“I’m not sure. Most times I’ve kissed someone it’s like my inhibition goes away entirely. I’m not sure I could stop myself.”

“Okay, but aren’t I the only person you’ve kissed more than once now?”

“Yes.”

“We were able to stop last time. Come on. Let’s at least get out there and try.”

Audry hopped out of the driver's seat and walked around to open my door like a true lady. She held her hand out, but I stayed put. I was nervous about all this.

She rolled her eyes and grabbed my arm, pulling at me to get out.

I refused to agree until we set ground rules. “We go slow.”

“Always. Everything at your pace.”

Inhale. Exhale. I stood up. We walked for a little bit along existing trails. We still had cell service so we weren’t too worried when we took a dip off the trail and through some brush.

“Dang, really wish we’d stopped at a gas station. I’m getting a little hungry.”

“Oh?” Weird. I hadn’t eaten in like almost a day but I felt fine. “I feel full enough.”

“Maybe that’s one of your new demon powers?”

“Wait!?” I stopped. “You think I’m a demon?”

“Well.” She walked back towards me. “I mean horns and from what you said, black wings. What does that sound like to you?”

“I mean…” I guess it did sound kind of demon-like. “But don’t they like have those tail thingies? With the triangle at the end?”

“Oh.” I must’ve actually caught her off guard. “Yeah, you have a point.”

“See!” I said, booping her nose. “Not a demon.”

“We’ll see.”

“You can be my angel though.”

Audry laughed or more accurately cackled. “You might not be a demon, but there’s no way I’m an angel.”

She grabbed my hand and we continued walking until we got to a riverbank with a tree hanging over it and a ditch off to our right.

“Okay,” Audry said, rubbing and clapping her hands like she was a mountain climber putting on chalk. “Where should we start?”

“I dunno… this was your idea.”

“Okay then. Scientific method. First, we need a baseline control. What about that?” She pointed to a fallen over tree.

“What about it?”

“Lift it.”

“Are you kidding?” I snorted a little bit at the ridiculous notion I could lift a tree.

“No. Try it. Even if you can’t now, you might later.”

“I’m not Superman.”

“If you do it I’ll give you a kiss.”

“You were gonna give me a kiss anyway, that’s the whole point of this!” I said defeated as I walked over to the downed tree trunk. I took a second just figuring out how to approach it and get a grip on it. I bent down into a low squat, my hands grasping the rotting bark underneath, and pulled up with all my strength. To my surprise, it did move. Just a little bit. More of a roll than a move. I didn’t pick it up off the ground but my right hand pulled first and the tree rotated about a degree.

“See! I wonder if this is some left over power from the past few days?”

“Maybe…” I stepped away and tried to wipe some of the rotted tree gunk off my hands. “What’s next?”

“Uh, run from there to there. I’ll time you.”

“Ugh. You’ve got me running now?”

Audry pulled out her phone and looked at me until I got ready to sprint. “Go!” 

I sprinted. I wasn’t exceptionally fast and was out of breath by the time I finished.

“Okay, so no base speed difference. Think fast!”

I realized a little too late that she’d thrown a pine cone at my head. I had only enough time to turn so it hit the side of my head and not my face.

Crunch!

“Ow!”

“Oh! Shit!” She ran over to where I was holding a hand up to my head. “Sorry.”

“Audry, what the hell. You know I've had like three head wounds this week?” I looked at what she'd thrown. To her credit, a pinecone was a relatively gentle weapon.

I saw some of the light drain from her face. She was guilty and disappointed by the looks of it. She clearly had higher hopes for this than me.

“I’ll kiss it, make it better,” she said, giving my hand a peck where it was held above my head.

And the pain disappeared.

I pulled my hand away shocked. She recoiled, I think worried she’d made it worse.

“Woah! I think that actually worked.”

“Really?”

I rubbed my head where she’d hit it. It felt fine. Honestly, given the aforementioned head trauma I sustained, it should’ve been hurting for any number of reasons but it wasn’t. Maybe she had stumbled onto something.

“Cool…” So maybe Wolverine was a closer analogy.

“Okay, so we know your powers are attraction related I guess?”

“I guess so.”

“Okay, new idea. Try and seduce me.”

“What!? I’m not sure that’s a good idea.

“The more practice I have resisting the better. Then we can actually take it slow without worrying.”

“Mm…”

“Trust me. Uh, walk over there.” She pointed to a stump about 12 feet away. “Now I’ll stay put and we can see if you have any seduction powers on top of kiss powers.”

“Okay…?”

I looked at her while I tucked some hair behind my ear.

“You have to try harder than that.”

“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing! Every previous time it’s just happened that people just like... kiss me. I never tried to lead them on.”

“You told me ‘I love you’.”

“Sure but that was…” Was that different? I hadn’t meant to say it. I distinctly remember wishing I could but not being able to say it, and yet I’d said it anyway. I’d meant it for sure and felt it, but had never intended for it to come out.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

“Not really.”

“Okay if you weren’t worried about me going brain-dead would you want to kiss me.”

I couldn't hold her gaze, looking down for just a moment before I looked back up and replied, “Yes.”

“Then focus on that. What would it be like if you saw me at a bar downtown and you wanted to kiss me?”

“I've never been to the bars before.”

“Just, Kira you gotta work with me here.”

“I’m trying but I just don’t know how to—”

“Come onnn…” She said pleading and laughing a little out of what I figured was annoyance.

“What am I supposed to say? I—”

“Say what you feel! Damnit, Kira, this shouldn’t be that hard.”

“Well… you want hard? I want to push you up against that tree. I want to hold your hands still so that I can do whatever I fucking want. And then I want to hover just in front of you, out of reach until you can’t stand it anymore before I even think about kissing you!”

I blinked a couple of times confused by my tone and then confused by the scene in front of me. I had turned around and was facing the tree. Audry was in front of me, her wrists in my hands pinned up above her. Our faces were so close I had trouble focusing my eyes. I could feel her breath on my cheek. We both took heavy inhales and exhales as we got back our sense of selves.

I yanked my hands down, letting her go, shocked at what I’d done. I stumbled backward, afraid I’d give in and hurt her. But, oh, how I wanted to give in.

She grabbed the straps of my tank top and pulled me into her. The second I felt her fingers wrap around the fabric I grabbed her by the waist and matched her pull. I practically slammed her up against the rough bark, our lips meeting in a mash of heat and humidity amidst the chilly woods.

I wanted to tear into her and make her being mine.

And then I realized that was exactly why I had to stop.

I grabbed my arms, digging my suddenly sharp fingernails into my palm in order to clear my head enough to break away. I had to convince the rest of me that I needed to back off or risk losing the girl I cared about.

I pulled my face away and up to the sky. She misinterpreted, working herself down my newly vulnerable neck. She placed kiss on my windpipe and my knees buckled, not in a pleasurable way. I felt cold metal run over my throat, hearing the sound of the river running and confusing it for my own blood dripping.

I fell into a sort of child’s pose with my arms still wrapped close around my center. I could feel myself hyperventilating but felt powerless to stop it.

I couldn’t breathe and wanted to vomit.

Then I felt a hand on my back and my hair being gently pulled to one side.

“Hey, I gotcha. You’re not in danger. They’re not here.”

My breath wavered as it began to slow down and I looked up at Audry with tears in my eyes.

“Please don’t make me do that again.”

“I know. I won’t. I’m sorry.”

As I came down from my emotional spike, I could still feel something off. I finally relinquished the grip on my arms, seeing claw-like black nails. I opened and closed my hand a few times, touching my finger to thumb to feel the sharp talon on my skin.

“You look… Wow.”

Oh shit. I patted around my head, feeling bone-like horns. Then a breeze blew over my back. I turned extra slowly as I looked at the black wings that had sprouted from just under my shoulder blades. They weren’t big, barely as long as my arms. But they were indeed black and leathery. Although the leathery part was only on the side facing forward. There were polyp-like scales going along the back.

“I didn’t even realize… Your eyes, they’re red.”

Well, this was different.

“Here,” Audry said, helping me to my feet,” See if you can move the tree again.”

She guided me over and I gave her one final concerned look before assuming my squat. I pulled up on the tree.

To my complete surprise, I could lift it. It took effort like I’d seen some of the beefier guys do at the gym before, but I was able to pull the trunk off the ground and then hike it up, lifting it over my head.

I grunted as I pushed it up and to the side where it fell with a cracking boom as it splintered.

I turned and took off sprinting. It was fast enough that I saw tailwinds disturb the brush to my sides like a car had gone by.

I felt… powerful, like my senses had been dialed up a notch. I breathed in and could smell Audry’s presence behind me even when I wasn’t trying to. I took another deep breath and could swear there was another hiker and his dog about a half-mile away on the other side of the river.

Everything in my vision was sharper. How far did this go?

I looked up for a branch I thought might hold my weight. I crouched and exploded upwards. I felt my wings push against the air, providing me an extra push upward. I reached out a hand, pulling myself up with just the one arm.

I could sense so much. All of my sense were on overdrive. It was beautiful.

“...Kira?”

Oh, right.

I jumped down, my wings beating a bit at the end so that my landing was soft and surprisingly graceful.

“That was amazing,” I said surprised at how not out of breath I was.

“Just imagine what you could do after more than a quick makeout.”

Images of Audry in some sexually compromised positions drifted into my mind.

“Biting your lip huh? What are you thinking about?”

I shook myself out of the train of thought. “I hadn’t even realized I was biting my lip.”

“It’s okay,” she said, stepping forward and taking my hands in hers, “It was cute.” She started leaning forward and I pulled back. “It’s okay, hold still, breathe.”

I nodded as she deliberately moved at a snail's pace, planting a kiss on my cheek. I could feel myself wanting to move. But I was in control and exercised restraint.

“Now was that so bad?”

“No.”

“See, you should listen to me more often.”

I giggled. “Maybe.”

“Now let’s see what else you can do.”