I was really hoping to get a proper explanation of the whole 'yeah so ghosts are real and I can talk to them' bullshit, but Katherine was surprisingly blunt in brushing off any questions. She kept defaulting back to this super lame 'well I don't actually understand most of it yet' excuse. I almost admired the sheer stubbornness, despite how annoying it was. I'll just squeeze it out of you later, I decided.

  There really wasn't anything else to do at the Guardian College building, so we split up to go our separate ways. Well, sort of. I made sure to keep a leash attached to my personal Kitty Kat, and Kevin and Chloe left together. It turned out they were cousins, not siblings, but I still felt vindicated upon confirming they were closely related. Anyway, I decided to drag Katherine back to the penthouse with me, something that she did a really bad job at protesting. It was less like trying to heard cats and more like pulling at a sticky, limp piece of lettuce.

  We had to walk to get there. The university was already sort of downtown, so it really wasn't far. I still didn't have a replacement for the Corvette I released back into the wilderness of the Pacific Ocean, but I wouldn't have driven it to campus anyway. I always walked, because it didn't take much longer and it was good for thinking. It was like twenty minutes at most, and with the usual traffic, driving would only cut it down to ten or fifteen.

  Katherine didn't live quite so close, but she didn't have a car. She rode the bus to campus. That was fine, and sort of worked out in my favor. However, I was rather offended when she started figuring out the nearest stop to my building, as if she was going to use her pass thing to get a ride for both of us. "I will not suffer to see a princess ride a bus," I scolded her.

  For some reason, she got all flustered when I said that. I had no idea what was up with that. Did she think I was talking about her? I was talking about myself, of course. I didn't care if my lady attendant had to ride a bus. You're not the princess here, dear Katherine.

  Instead of going straight to the building, I made sure we stopped at a massively overpriced cafe along the way. It was well and truly fall now, so all the pumpkin spice and cinnamon shit was being advertised in full force. They were even starting to include some of the peppermint items—an indication of the tragic state of the front lines in the war between Christmas and Halloween. Naturally, I ordered a black tea.

  Teabag, hot water. Simple. You couldn't beat the perfection of a simple black tea.

  Katherine, of course, ordered like she was trying to get the most ridiculous and stereotypical, cold foam nut something caramel ginger hand picked coffee bean unicorn tear extract bullshit possible while still keeping it under six dollars. It didn't work, and I knew it wouldn't work, because this was the middle of downtown, and sure enough, the bill came out to be twelve-something. Admittedly, that also included the three-and-something price of my own drink.

  There was a moment of confusion where Katherine didn't seem to understand the concept of multiple people's drinks being one order, so I had to sort of drag her away from the register before she could embarrass herself too much. "Wait, you paid for both of us?"

  "Yep." I moved us over to the area that had all the sweetener packets and random other little shit. "It's no big deal. Besides, you have poor person vibes. Call it a form of equity. Minor wealth redistribution through mutual expenses."

  Katherine rolled her eyes. "What are you babbling about? I'm not poor."

  I stared at her. Is this bitch serious? I didn't mean it very seriously in the first place—if anything, she was probably part of the cosmopolitan middle class. If she was going to make a whole fuss about me buying her stupid white-girl drink, though, then it was on. "Not poor? You literally ride the bus."

  "So what?"

  "Girl. This is the United States of America." Seeing that one of our drinks was ready—mine, no doubt—I led her over to the barista counter area to collect it. "Nobody rides the bus who doesn't have to."

  I got a real scowl for that one, a fact that pleased me immensely. I made sure not to show it, though. Instead, I just quietly walked back to the customer drink modification area, or whatever you called it, to start adding sugar. This cafe was just slightly more expensive than the two others along the walk between David's penthouse and the university. Neither of those had a canister full of sugar next to the packets and plastic utensils, though. In my mind, thirty extra cents was worth the ease of pouring it straight into my tea, as opposed to laboriously tearing open a dozen stupid little packets.

  Katherine watched me pour in the sugar. When I finally set the canister back down, her eyes were wider than I'd ever seen them. Grabbing two of the little wooden stir sticks, I gave it a good mix, then tasted it. Hmm. Close, but not quite. Just a splash more. After grabbing the canister again, I realized her mouth had now dropped open. Oh come on. It's not that bad. A second stir and taste test confirmed that I now had the proper amount. Katherine was still staring at me in shock, though. I stared right back, then took another sip. "What?"

  "You..." trailing off, she pointed at the half-empty sugar canister. "That thing was full when you started!"

  Oh come on. It's half-empty because it's not very big. "So what? I like my tea sweet."

  "Sweet?" She looked borderline distressed, for some reason. "That's not sweet! That's—that's like the water we put in the hummingbird feeders!"

  She has bird feeders? Huh. Wonder where she actually lives. I knew what her address was—or rather, I had it in my phone. I didn't ever look it up on a street view or anything, though, so I had no idea what it was actually like. "Yeah, well, hummingbirds are small and cute. Like me." I batted my pretty little eyelashes at her. "Sweet drink for a sweet girl."

  She started to say something, but that's when the barista finally finished making her ridiculous order. I moved to go get it before she got a chance to react. Wow. This thing looks like ice cream. I couldn't even tell if there was any coffee in it. And she really threw a fuss about me putting some sugar in my tea? Returning to the other counter, I went to grab a plastic spoon. Katherine tried to take her drink, but I dodged her hand. "Nuh-uh."

  She kept trying to take it back from me, but she was nowhere near aggressive enough for it to be a real problem. Finally getting a spoon unwrapped, I dug a deep gouge through the mountain of foam and syrup drizzle on top. I made a real show of putting the spoon in my mouth, licking it slowly and savoring the sweet, creamy taste. "Wow," I said, now finally handing the drink over. If you can even call that nutrition disaster a drink. "You really do like sweet things too, don't you?"

  For some reason, that really made her blush. Snatching the drink, she looked away, head tipped down and seemingly unable to even face me. The fuck? What kind of reaction is that? I was just trying to retaliate for her making fun of how much sugar I put in the tea. Is she really that ashamed of eating something unhealthy? I hoped I hadn't accidentally walked straight into an eating disorder or something.

  She continued acting a bit weird even once we left the cafe, so I was a little bit worried I'd gone and screwed something up. I still didn't know what it was though, so I resorted to my trusty fallback strategy—do nothing and hope the problem somehow ends up fixing itself.

  Katherine seemed a bit surprised when we walked into the main lobby of the building. "This isn't an apartment complex, right? It looks like it has offices."

  That was mostly correct. The building was intended for companies to rent out big blocks of self-contained space, and it was designed accordingly. That being said, it was a decently big building, and there was a smattering of various other stuff. One of those was the penthouse that David bought—sort of. I still wasn't clear on what the ownership situation was there. Anyway, Katherine's confusion made sense. It did feel more like I was bringing her to meet with a consultant than taking her home with me.

  "Yeah, it's mostly corporate offices," I told her. "But there's some other stuff, too." We didn't have to wait long for an elevator, and then it was a few dozen floors that we had to ride up to the tip top. That didn't take long either, though, because our elevator didn't stop a single time along the way.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  I was vaguely aware of there being some sort of cultural trope of elevators that opened directly into a luxurious penthouse suite. That wasn't the case here, though, and the doors instead opened on a relatively plain, though well-kept, antechamber. On some illogical, vibe-based level, using the word 'antechamber' felt wrong to describe something in a modern high-rise like this. That was literally what it was called though—as in, that was how it was labeled on the more detailed floor plans.

  "There's only one real door," Katherine remarked.

  By 'real,' I assume you mean 'not obviously restricted for maintenance?' It didn't really matter what she meant, and I briefly tuned her out while I keyed us past the electronic lock. The other side wasn't exactly breathtaking—it was supposed to be nice, not some kind of overwhelming and sensuous luxury designed for sadistic billionaire one night stands. In many ways, the place was just a big hotel suite that was a bit more lived in.

  Still, I heard a small gasp from behind me. Looking back, I saw that Katherine was still frozen in the entryway. Rolling my eyes, I grabbed her limp fucking hand and damn-near forcibly dragged her inside. She kept acting like a statue though, and her mouth was still slightly open. God, no one's ever done this before. That was probably because anyone else I'd brought over was already well aware of my circumstances. Guess someone didn't do her homework.

  Which is fair. I certainly hadn't looked anything up about her.

  Unbidden, a fragment of a movie scene sprung up from the recesses of my memory. Classic movie, classic kid's movie, British people—ah, Mary Poppins! With a surge of cruel and gleeful, childish joy, I schooled my countenance into something stern. "Close your mouth," I snapped at her, "we are not codfish."

  Her lips snapped shut. Ha! That actually worked? I almost laughed. I can't believe that's the first thing she did. Shaking her head, she looked around again, then glared at me. "That wasn't funny."

  "No, it was pretty funny," I countered. "You should have seen the way you reacted! Did you get the reference? I guess it's kind of obscure, I mean I don't think the source is, but that specific line—"

  "It's Mary Poppins," she interjected. "But let's not get distracted. Why do you live on top of an office building?"

  I—wasn't sure how to answer that. Because that's where David lives? Also, the way she said it was weird. Does this girl remember a random line from Mary Poppins but not know about the concept of a penthouse? "I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to answer that," I mused, "so I guess the best I can say, is..." Wait for it—"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!"

  Silence greeted me. "Oh come on, you can't—hey!" She walked up to me and shoved me down onto the nearby couch. This bitch? She shoved me down on the couch!

  "God, I fucking hate you," she—chuckled? Aha, she doesn't mean it! I was glad that she wasn't angry with me, and also that I seemed to have successfully slotted us into the 'friends' category. I was worried I'd misunderstood something back at the cafe, but obviously she'd decided we were now girl friends. Like, besties. Gal pals. Not, like, girlfriends. That would be weird, and more importantly—I remembered that I was enraged, and now I had easy access to a lounge pillow.

  "So that's how it's gonna be, then?" With one hand gripping the pillow, I rolled off the couch and back to my feet. "I wonder if a ghost is gonna tell you to dodge."

  She was laughing, now—laughing at me!—but she composed herself to reply. "Wait, what are you talking about—ah!"

  I hurled the pillow with the entirety of my Anathema strength. I put even more force and full body motion into it than I had when I chucked my ruined phone out into the ocean. Briefly, I felt like I might have done something to my shoulder, what with the way my arm spun around in a full circle—but if there had been anything, it fixed itself almost instantly. As for the pillow, the 1 foot square of stuffed fabric hit hard enough to knock her over.

  Not just knock her over—the force of impact sent her flying back a good three feet. Holy cats.

  I had no idea a small throw pillow could have that kind of momentum. Oops. I hoped I hadn't hurt her. She's a Star Guardian, though, so it can't have been too bad. Even if she bruised something, she could just heal it off. Unfortunately, she just sat there, silent and motionless. Uh oh.

  But before I decided to rush over there and see if I'd somehow ended up knocking her unconscious, a suspicion began to bubble up inside of me. Hesitating, I flicked out the very tip of my tongue to taste the air. Aha! I knew it. This bitch was just pretending. She probably thought she could prank me for a laugh. Well, too bad. "Alright, stop it. I know you're completely fine. There's no need to keep pretending."

  She didn't move, though. I narrowed my eyes. "Fine. Be like that."

  I had full confidence in the feedback I got from my tongue. Also, it would be really embarrassing to do the whole 'I know you're faking it' shtick, only to still get pranked in the end. So, I decided to just leave her on the floor and go screw around on my new phone. God, I still need to finish setting up some of the cloud stuff, don't I?

  A few minutes later, I heard someone moving around back in the main area. It didn't sound like Katherine, though—which meant I really wanted to see what was about to happen. Slowly, carefully, I crept out of the dining area. All I could see was David's back as he crouched over Katherine. I almost snickered. I wonder what the hell he's thinking right now. Unfortunately, I realized I wasn't going to have any fun when he turned around and asked a question. "Why is your friend sprawled out on the floor?"

  Katherine must have said something, because he looked back down at her before facing me again. "Alex. Why did you bludgeon your friend with a couch pillow?"

  Katherine ended up spending the night. I think David was just happy that I had a friend again, and Katherine—well, I still wasn't entirely sure what her deal was. I thought I'd managed to speedrun the establishment of a close friendship, but then there were all these small moments throughout the afternoon and evening that I didn't understand. I felt like I might be missing something, and that feeling bothered me.

  Regardless, we ate a bunch of takeout—or rather, I did. Katherine only ate a little bit of it. Was I right about an eating disorder or something? Alternatively, it could just be that my Anathema hunger had already skewed my sense of what was a normal amount to eat. Or maybe she just doesn't like pizza.

  Regardless, she already had everything with her that she'd need to start real classes the next morning, so I gave her the guest bedroom. That was another one of the slightly-off moments where I felt like there was some undercurrent that I wasn't reading correctly. Regardless, it should have been a nice, restful night for both of us.

  It wasn't, though, because I couldn't sleep.

  Since 'hatching' as an Anathema, I'd still been able to sleep like a human. I didn't know if it was strictly necessary anymore, but there was nothing that prevented me from doing it. Tonight, however, my hunger refused to rest.

  Even after settling back down after Chloe's power demonstration, it gnawed at me. It had been growing steadily stronger and more insistent over the past week, but now, it felt like it was approaching a critical threshold. An hour after I turned off the lights, I found myself curled up on the floor, claws digging deep furrows into the carpet. My mouth and hands had shifted without my own intent, and no matter what I did, I couldn't get them to shift back.

  I was stuck as a monster.

  My metal jaw was clamped shut so tight that I almost felt like my bones were straining against each other. It was hard to hear properly, but I was pretty sure I was also panting. It felt like I was slipping over an edge—no, sinking. Sinking back into that warm, dark tar. It was something I hadn't felt so vividly since first regaining full consciousness after Katherine got her Star Core and I hatched. I can't last like this.

  One way or another, I would eat. I'd already worked through the entire backpack of bolts, and it had done little to curb the growing insanity. I think by the time dawn comes—I think I'll be as mindless as all the others. I couldn't let that happen.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Ugh. Fuck. I couldn't answer that. I couldn't let whoever it was see me—and even if I could have reversed the transformation, it wouldn't have been safe. I didn't think I could be so close to a human in this state without getting myself in a huge mess of future trouble.

  So, I did the only logical thing. Instead of answering the door, I sprang up, charged at the window, and broke straight through the reinforced, tempered glass.

  Shards rained down alongside me as I plummeted several hundred feet down to the street below. I knew what was coming—I still remembered what happened the first time I tried this—but I didn't really care. It was nothing compared to the Hunger.

  I also knew I couldn't just wander around and kill the first night shift worker or homeless person I saw. No, I had a different, less destructive, smarter plan. The parks around here have to have plenty of squirrels and raccoons and shit, right?

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