Chapter 4

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Well. This was a left turn. Into Petco. Because, apparently, I need kitten food.

"I don't really want to do this, Zahr."

"Well, that's too dang bad." Zahra finishes painting a little bee on my cheek and plops a cheap set of antennae into my hair. I made my own costume—the little striped bee outfit complete with flouncy skirt and fuzzy long sleeves—but I did not get around to making the wings or antennae myself. Needless to say, Zahra got them last-minute off Amazon, and it shows.

Facing the full mirror wall in the room Zahra has dedicated to her costumes, I take myself in.

Everything in this room—from the mirror wall to the walk-in closets to the elaborate vanity table complete with roughly three thousand compartments—she installed herself shortly after she bought this ranch house. It's her costume room mostly used for LARPing, streaming, and the occasional cosplay convention—where she is inevitably bombarded by a hundred adoring fans.

Who knew that graphic design and streaming video games in full costume could supplement the pitiful salary of a teaching assistant to such a luxurious extent? I am in awe every time I walk past Zahra's three garages to enter her fully paid-off mansion.

She went from having nothing but an overnight bag and her motorcycle to having a house on ten acres of land. You know. So her LARP team of fellow YouTubers and nerds can meet and set up entire freaking medieval towns in the backyard.

"How many people are going to be at this party thing again?" I murmur. "I think I can only handle…downwards of three."

"There will be upwards of a hundred, but don't fret. People are great." Zahra sits on a daybed in the corner and pulls on a pair of leather boots, which match the rest of her painted-on jumpsuit putting her every ample curve on display. "They taste just like chicken."

I stare at her, uncertain what exactly she's supposed to be. A leather biker jacket is normal for her. Full spandex might be pushing it, but only the smallest bit. On the whole, what she's wearing is something she wouldn't mind coming to work in. So given that it's Halloween and we're going to a costume party…

Her round nose squashes as she zips a boot up to her knee, drops her foot, and looks at me. "Well, okay, technically, they taste like wild pork."

I blink. "What?"

"According to cannibals, humans taste more like the pork of wild boars. Not chicken." Her lips pinch. "Apparently, human meat looks like beef, but tastes kinda like oily, gamey pork." Her gaze lifts, hollow and chilling. "Our very flesh is a lie, Kass."

Crossing my arms, I let the comment about what humans literally taste like roll right off me in favor of saying, "You look like a dominatrix."

A wild smile crashes across her face. "Really? Excellent. I have whips. I can change up my costume last minute, no big de—"

"Zahr, why do you have whips?"

Standing, she plants her hands at her hips. "Do you even know how many anime characters are whip wielders?"

"No? How many?"

"Enough—" She clears her throat. "—for me to have maybe five to seventeen different kinds of whips."

"Five to seventeen?"

Plastering her hands together, she points her fingers at me. "You know how in books, the girls are all given a bow as a weapon?"

"Yes…"

"In anime, they get whips. Or giant hammers. No, I don't know why. Yes, I also have a couple giant hammers in my weapon's closet. I'd have more, but they are harder to store."

My mind drifts, and I picture a certain someone's father popping out of a Whac-A-Mole.

Zahra grabs a gold and black helmet with cat ears off the corner of her daybed. "Are we ready to go, or are you going to keep picturing death-bonking Meda's dad with one of my anime hammers?"

I straighten and fix my little bee-tennae. "Um. Excuse me. Get out of my head."

She snorts. "Nope. It's cozy in here. Lots of fifth-grade facts to soak in. Makes me feel smarter." Touching my shoulder, she smiles. "I promise I'd kill him myself if I didn't think he was taking care of Meda. You have to know that."

"I want to know that, Zahr. But…the world isn't magic. You weren't there when I went to see them. You didn't hear everyone confirm that he's got a lab in his basement. You didn't see how much alcohol he has stored in nearly every room."

"I also didn't hear the proof you recorded when you were talking to their butler." She pops her helmet on and flips the visor up so I can see her eyes. "Because faeries can't be caught on recording. And normal people in this town totally don't have butlers."

"Zahr. That had to have been a technical issue. The speaker wasn't facing him right…or something."

"Also, no normal seven-year-old is going to stick their hands in an oven, take an entire pie out, and place it on the counter without jerking away, screaming, and crying. Unless, of course, they heal up in two seconds and are used to the sensation of pain because they've played with it and their ability to heal before. You sat with her the rest of the night. Did you see an injury?"

I clench my fists at my sides. "Her father grabbed her and shook her in front of me."

"A perfectly normal thing for a father to…" Zahra blinks. "Wait, no. I sense I've made a mistake of some kind." She sighs. "Have you been around drug dealers before, Kass? The successful ones with nice houses and butlers don't just mention their basement lab in front of random visitors. They build entire fake businesses to front their rackets. And then addicted fathers send their little girls into said businesses with wads of cash…" Zahra's eyes darken, and she drops her visor. "Point is: they don't offer their little girls tastes of the very expensive drugs unless that's how they're keeping them addicted and under their thumb. Meda isn't on drugs. Come on. You need a night to chill."

Sighing, I oblige to follow her outside to my car, all the while thinking what I really need is a giant hammer…

?

If I'm being perfectly honest, I do not know how to party. Or chill. But especially I do not know how to chill at a party. The music is loud. The food is…kind of gross, honestly. Intentionally so, of course, but that doesn't stop the something in my brain that rejects the idea of eating a cupcake made to look like a brain.

Zahra's extrovert energy baffles me. We're barely two seconds beyond the threshold, and she's already chatting it up with strangers, asking how badly spiked the punch is, locating the house owner, and getting her own snacks from the pantry.

I'm bumbling near her, like a lost bee who forgot the steps to the dance. Because, as we all know, bees dance to communicate flower locations.

There's a twelve-foot skeleton on the front lawn. Not a flower in sight.

Zahra hands me a chip from the bag she plundered out of the pantry. "An offering, for the queen. Devoid of animal carcass, as her majesty prefers."

Taking it, I nibble the morsel, too exhausted to bother with my usual fake pleasantries until I remember that even if I'm not forcing smiles and elementary teacher glee for Zahra, she still deserves basic human decency."Thank you."

Zahra tsks. "Don't disappoint Meda. What if I'm fae? Teacher souls are the yummiest. I bet they do taste like chicken."

I pin my dear friend with a look that I hope conveys my utter exhaustion. "Please stop talking so much about how humans taste."

"I forgot. It's against your religion."

"Vegetarianism isn't a religion."

"You're right. You're right. It's the no-murder cult." She offers me another chip. "Sort of. Since there's still murder involved in—"

"Zahra."

Her lip juts.

I hold my hand out for a third chip, and she obliges, so I forgive her.

At least up until the moment she sees a shiny person she knows all the way on the other side of the crowded room and abandons me like she's not my emotional-support extrovert and the single lifeline I have in this mass of bubbling socialization. I'm left with half a chip ration in a large room full of people dressed like monsters all by myself.

I begin calculating my chances of survival when a guy wearing fake fangs approaches the wall I've backed up against in an effort at self-preservation. Logically, I assumed no one could approach me from behind if my back was to a wall. My logic did not factor in Dracula using said wall as a means to cage me.

"Hi," he says, or slurs, as he pins one palm against the cream paint beside my head. The rancid scent of his breath lets me know he's had enough spiked blood punch to drown a goat.

Despite my best efforts, my attempt at a smile turns out as more of a twisted grimace.

"People are dancing in the other room." His brows wiggle with all the suggestive power of an earthworm.

I refrain from asking if his entire outfit—the plastic fangs—cost as much as his dignity. "No, thank you."

He gets obnoxiously closer, and I choke slightly on the stench of his breath. "You sure, sweetie? I'm a great dancer."

"No means no."

His expression twists. "Don't tell me you're a feminist."

Oh, excellent. He's one of those men. "Well, I do have my own bank account…so…you may make your own conjectures."

He grabs my wrist.

I fight the immediate revolt in favor of straightening my spine. "Hey, friend. That's not appropriate behavior, okay?"

His dumb mouth opens, so I tap a finger to my lips. "Uh-uh. No, sir. I'm talking. We don't grab people, got it, got it? No. No, we do not. It's not nice to grab people. How would you feel if someone grabbed you?"

His grip tightens until it hurts. "What's with that tone? Are you making fun of me, you—" He swears.

It's usually my deescalation tone. I'm so tired I forgot it doesn't actually have the right effect on adults… Hence, I'm left staring blankly at Dracula and wondering if my next course of action—kneeing him in the groin—is a bit too dramatic a response as of yet.

I mean.

Do I wait until he bruises me…or…?

While I'm mentally thumbing through my handbook on social etiquette, a hand larger than his reaches from behind, closes over his wrist, and pries him off me. Dracula goes more pale than he'd be in a black-and-white movie as Pollux glares down at him—lethal.

Dark hair. Darker eyes.

Murder.

The sheer force of the murder in Pollux's eyes shouldn't send an odd tingle up my spine, but it seems to have done just that.

Wordlessly, Pollux puppeteers Dracula, putting his massive frame between us. Dracula curses, stumbling the moment Pollux lets him go. "Sorry, man. She didn't say she was taken. You—you should keep a better eye on your girl in a place like this."

Pollux's fingers stretch and close. "I know what she said."

Dracula exhales a nervous laugh. "Right? See, so I'm not at—"

"She said no. Get out of my sight before I string your entrails around the front lawn."

Dracula bolts while my heart does the tiniest, inexplicable leap, and I squint to make certain this person is Pollux. Sure, I've never seen someone quite his size before…but…

Yep. No.

It is him.

He's just wearing a large black coat this time.

I guess everyone needs at least one redeemable quality. It's what separates real monsters from the storybook villains. After all, real monsters are just twisted humans who still have something like a sliver of soul worth salvaging. It's what makes them so utterly terrifying…

Pollux releases a breath and turns to face me. His gaze lowers, scanning me from head to toe, stopping at my arm on his second perusal. "Are you well, Kassandra?" Gently, he lifts my hand, examines my wrist, then seems to remember himself.

He pulls away before I can register the warmth of his skin against mine. Before I can find words.

His jaw locks, and his gaze hits me with surprising force. "Can we talk? Somewhere less…loud?"

I don't know why I dumbly nod. I don't know why I follow him outside, into the quiet front yard guarded by that towering skeleton. It's the last day of October. There's the slightest nip in the air as autumn considers winter's approach. And all I'm wearing is a little bumblebee dress with long, thin sleeves, a pair of plastic wings, and a little painted bee on my cheek.

While a breeze skates across my back, Pollux glances warily up at the massive skeleton and grunts. "Interesting."

"What is?" I ask, attempting to find my cordial, pleasing tones. "Does it make you feel small?"

He exhales the touch of a laugh and…smiles at me. "When I'm around you? I constantly feel small."

I take a tiny step back.

Adjusting his stance, he faces me squarely. "Why don't you like me, Kassandra?"

My smile might turn blinding. "What do you mean? What gives you the idea I don't like you?"

"The droves of hatred that spill off you whenever we're in the same room, mostly."

I tilt my head. The curls falling out of my messy bun spill over my shoulder. I play puppy dumb. Blink obliviously.

What? Who? Me? Hate you? Insanity. I'm a bumblebee. I've never hated a single thing in my life. Hating means stinging, and stinging means dying, don't you know? Spite simply isn't worth the collateral damage. I still have school in the morning, you silly man. Some people aren't worth stinging.

Unless they are deadly allergic.

His chest provides the tiniest, feeblest meow. Which, to be certain, throws my innocent act off for a moment in favor of sincere confusion.

Clearing his throat, he readjusts his jacket, peeks inside, and murmurs a soft curse. "Kassandra, I'm not great with…subtext. I'm…less than eloquent most of the time. I've had very limited experiences with…this sort of thing. If I've done something to upset you, I apologize. I would, however, also like to be blunt with an understanding I am not trying to offend you."

I do not know what's going on.

Did he just…apologize to me?

Is he drunk? I saw all the alcohol in his house, and there is a disturbing amount here as well. Given the fact he's not even wearing a costume, he's probably just popping from party to party and drinking until someone kicks him out.

It wouldn't surprise me.

Not in the least.

What does manage to surprise me…is when he removes a tiny white kitten with a tiny brown spot in the center of its tiny face from his coat.

My mouth falls open.

The fuzzy little thing yawns, mews. Its little brown-tipped ears flick. It's brilliant blue eyes peek at me. Sleepy. And angelic.

It might just be the most beautiful kitten I have ever seen.

"I'd like you to have this," he says.

I close my mouth before I ask where he got it with a curse word tucked into the question. Wetting my lips, I compose myself well enough to come up with a graceful, "What?"

"I understand it's sudden." He clears his throat, rolls his shoulders back. "I just want to make my intentions clear. If you're unwilling to accept it right now, then I'll take care of i—"

"No, no." I reach for the itty bitty kitten—who I am already picturing jumping under a carrot guillotine if I let this man take care of it. It purrs the second it's in my hands, and I forget what I was saying. Surely not I don't want you to take care of anything else small and helpless, you rotten, horrible, no good, disaster of a man.

He stares at me.

I shove my droves of hatred deeper under the rug. "Where did you get him?"

He blinks off some of his surprise. "I…didn't. I found the litter, but a friend had to go to the breeder on my behalf. Even though I'm fine around animals, he's a better judge of character, and… I…I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding. You…"

It's like his brain is shutting down. Just, marvelously frying to bits. Right in front of me.

"You want him?" he asks.

"Yes. Absolutely."

Pollux's mouth opens and remains slack.

I take another tiny step back. "Are you all right?"

"I did not imagine things would go like this. I don't know what to say. The script I prepared is failing me. I don't even know how to segue into the most important parts. Maybe they're already obvious? That must be it. Meda didn't mention where she told you anything about this, but perhaps she only neglected to inform me. Please, give me a moment to…something."

"To…something?" Is he on drugs, too? Maybe he's hallucinating. Should I call the cops? Find Zahra and make sure she can see how ill-equipped this man is to raise my Meda?

Pollux's eyes close.

A breeze cuts right through my adorable clothes, and I shudder.

His eyes snap back open. "You're cold."

"Oh, uh, I don't know. I'm fine."

He swears again, and it's really apparent now why Andromeda used to. I don't know how many times I've heard him swear in the brief moments we've encountered one another. Shrugging out of his coat, he wraps the massive tent around my shoulders. "I'm sorry I dragged you out here. You look…" His voice trembles, if slightly. "Bees. You were wearing something else with bees when we met."

"I…was?"

"Yes."

"I…like bees."

"I don't know much about bees. I know more about moths. There's a hawk moth that looks like a bee. You'd probably like it." He swipes a hand over his mouth, and the shadows across his face seem to—for a moment—turn the whites of his eyes black. Closing his eyes once more, he swears again. "I'm sorry. I am experiencing unfamiliar emotions and do not know how to proceed correctly. It feels as though I may swallow my own tongue if I keep trying. Excuse me."

Turning on his heel, he walks right through a bush on his way off the lawn.

Standing in his coat, I stare as the large man plows across the street, narrowly misses being hit by a car that doesn't so much as honk, and disappears into the narrow space between two other houses.

In my hands, the tiny kitten cries pitifully while I attempt to sort through the events that just transpired. Drunk or high people handing out kittens is…new.

I have no idea what to do with a kitten.

I also have no idea what to do with the fact Pollux's clothes don't smell like liquor, but rather like coconut and chai.