the game

Luke

Kelly is like a storm. She is powerful, unpredictable, and above all, dangerous. All of this, though, she keeps beneath the surface. My whole life I've known what she was more than capable of. I've known every dark crevice that she's run down with Ken and I. I've been there for every tear, every heartbreak, so why does she suddenly feel so foreign? It's like the sinews of her personality were shifting on some unseeable ground.

"Why don't you want to kill anymore?" I ask her, my body is twisted towards her.

"Didn't you say you don't want to kill either?" She counters, her hazel eyes glittering at me like fire among forest leaves.

"When I say I don't want to kill, I mean whether they regenerate or not, I don't want to cause anyone harm, be it my enemy or not. I am a healer, this is what I was made for," I can feel my veins shift across my knuckles as I clench my fists.

"How were you expecting to be a front runner with Ken?" She laughs good heartedly. There's this funny thing it does to my brain, paints flowers across my frontal lobe. Her rich laugh like Carmel.

"And how are you expecting to be a front runner for Kassie?" I smile back.

This sours her mood. She gulps. "I don't know what I'm going to do, she's my best friend. I mean, if someone attacked her I'd be obligated to protect her. I'm sure if they're trying to kill her I'll be able to do it," and for the first time in my life I'm watching compassion eat at her crude nature. Why is it gnawing at her bones now? When she's so close to the guard?

"Kally, can I ask you something?" The words tumble out of my mouth like water.

"Yeah," our bodies are inches apart. We are separated by the blanket scrunched around us. And the words of our fight last year dig into me. You're just a blank. How deep does her new found compassion go?

"What happened to change your mind?" I finally ask. Her eyes search mine, like she always does when she's thinking hard, her eyebrows scoot closer together, her eyelids half shut as if she were about to fall asleep. Her lips hide her teeth which are clenched, along with her mind that clambers around for the words to say. Sometimes I think of Kally like a jack in the box, everyone around her having to duck at her slightest whim.

She hesitates and then begins.

"No one can know what I'm about to tell you," her voice is somber.

"They used a power depleter to kill Rose Cummings, and I think Katie's next," when she says Katie she sounds sad, unlike she has in the past. It's almost as if she feels bad for her.

"I have the ability they need to make more power depleters, it's only a matter of time before I'm being used to murder Alasians," I admit. We both avoid looking each other in the eye.

Why does the future look so bleak from here?

But for some reason, even if it is bleak, it feels nice that Kally's warmth is next to me on the bed right now. That right now in this moment, we don't have to kill a single soul.