Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (Wicked Lovely 5.50)

That was when I saw the knife.

He held it loosely in his left hand. I was fairly certain this was a recent development, on account of the fact that I wasn’t that oblivious, and the knife wasn’t exactly what you would call subtle—the blade was nearly as long as my forearm and slightly curved. Its edge gleamed in the fluorescent fast-food lighting.

The boy flexed his wrist.

“I have to hurt you,” he said.

I tried to take a step back, but couldn’t seem to get my legs to move. “I’d really rather you didn’t.”

“I have to hurt you,” he said again.

He stroked the thumb of his right hand over the blade in his left, allowing the metal to slice lightly into his flesh. As blood welled up on his skin, he tilted his head to the side and took a step straight toward me.

Not good. Not good. So not good.

A dam burst somewhere inside of me, and miracle of miracles, I was finally able to move. The first thing I did was start shrieking like a banshee in a yodeling contest. The second thing I did was toss the remainder of my McDonald’s orange juice right in his face.

The third thing I did was run.

“Jess!” I heard Kissy yell my name, and then there was a flash of gray and yellow and plastic-sunglasses red, and the next thing I knew, my sister tackled the guy with the knife. His baseball cap went flying, and for the first time, I saw his eyes, really saw them: black-blue and glowing, like lake water at midnight, like onyx.

Like Kissy’s unnaturally green eyes, only darker.

“I have to hurt you. I have to hurt you both.”

Now that I could see the boy’s eyes, his words took on new meaning, but he didn’t exactly sound torn up about whatever compulsions he was feeling. He sounded meditative. He sounded inhuman. He sounded hungry.

Kissy got him pinned down, her hands holding his to the ground, her knees digging into his thighs. Her hair fell into his face, and like a wild thing, she growled.

She was so small and he was so big that I didn’t know how she was holding him there. He fought her grip and angled the knife upward, closer and closer to her abdomen.

“I have to hurt you. I have to kill her. I have to stop this before it starts.”

With each word, the boy’s accent grew thicker, and the dark-light shining from his eyes spread outward from his irises until the whites of his eyes were pitch-black, reptilian and fathomless, like someone had drilled two holes straight through his head.

Kissy slammed the knife sideways, slashing her own hand in the process. Her sunglasses fell off her face, and the color in her eyes began to bleed outward the same way my assailant’s had, shining brighter and brighter until I had to look away.

“I can’t let you hurt her.” The voice didn’t sound like my sister. It didn’t sound like her at all. “I have to stop you.”

There was a flash of light and a sound like the snapping of twigs, the popping of knuckles. And then there was silence. I glanced at the boy behind the counter, who was now cowering against the far wall, and then turned slowly back toward my sister.

Toward the stranger who wanted me dead.

Kissy was standing. Below her, my attacker’s body lay still, his head twisted at an unnatural angle to his body.

She snapped his neck.

This just did not compute. Kissy couldn’t even swat flies. She couldn’t play chess, because knights looked like horses and she couldn’t bare the idea of sacrificing even a one.

She snapped his neck.

Her right hand was bleeding. Her hair was disheveled. She bent over, picked up her sunglasses, and put them back on. She brought her hand to her lips and licked the blood from the wound, then glanced at the boy behind the counter.

“Forget th

is ever happened,” she told him. “You hear?”

He nodded dumbly, and Kissy turned back to me. “C’mon,” she said, sounding just the way she always had, since we were little. “We have to go to San Antonio.”