Two nights before our reservation, I have a man at my neck. He holds me like a branch, or a doll, or a glass of wine... "Off," I hiss, and his body unlocks from mine, his hands falling backwards. The dull haze in his dark eyes is swimming with all the things he will never know, and when I lift his head skywards he does not respond. I kiss him again and he pauses, brings his hands forwards slightly, but the movement is slurred, too,

as if he can't think of what to do next. My lips purse.

I run my hands over my heart.

There is nothing there.

---

"Are you sure that this is the place, Elle?" asks Red. He looks at the building for a long time, his brown hair curling around his cheeks as it is thrown about in the wind. He is a child.

I nod briefly, revealing a card.

It is easier than I had anticipated to sway them into giving us a room.

Humans have no defenses for the likes of us. I remind myself of that more and more often these days, now that I am doing things. I remember it when I am at their throats and chests and when they are on me, holding the intimate parts of my body and I am full of ice.

My eyes close, bitter with disappointment. The elevator dings open on our floor. It is not the first we have come to. The others, especially the others who had not wanted to get in the scary box, will now not leave the scary box. Mimsy stands in a corner, bristling. Mary has pressed all the buttons. She looks proud of herself. Mary always looks proud of herself. She has such an ugly smile.

"We are not waiting for you." I say. The door closes on Mary's hand with Mimsy and Angel still inside. Red looks at the elevator for a long time, caught between panic and something sadistic I didn't think he was capable of, and the elevator reopens, this time with a howling dark-haired child inside. Mary slams the elevator with her bare hand, which only serves to anger her further as she howls in pain, and Dylan drags her off as Angel finally disembarks, holding Mimsy on high like a pet cat.

"That is enough for you. Please don't kill the elevator, Mary. We're going to have to leave, and then you won't get to watch any television."

"Don't give a fuck about television. It's always on one channel--"

"No, no, this is our television. That means we can watch whatever we want, even those weird fake sparkly shows with the moving pictures that are kind of like people but not really--" Alex begins.

"Where's our room?" Mary asks, holding her arm. "I've revised my opinions. Let's go do this."
I lead the group down the hallway, Red as close as he can be without walking in front of me, and Dylan on his right, glaring at me. I pretend I am not looking at either of them, and when I open the door with the card, the group clusters around and stares at that too. I give them the key, mutter something akin to "Go wild," and go inside, lounging out on the bed. My legs swing back and forth as I watch the black screen and Mary swings onto the bed, kicking me off. I catch myself before hitting the floor, anger prickling and reclining in the shell of my body, and I take one long, deep breath to hold myself stable.

"This is it? Cool!" exclaims Mary. "How do I turn it on?"

Alex flicks on the television and the drone of noise is even more aggravating than I had expected. My nose twitches and the balcony, with its billowing curtains, calls out to me. I walk out to see Red and Dylan making out and shut the sliding door again. My whole body is surging with emotion now, just beneath the skin, as if there were something that could be touched. My head burns. The rest of the group settles into the two rooms, the middle children managing to take up an entire room before I personally pull Mimsy in cat form from a bed.

"You can't do that here. There are cameras everywhere." I explain.

"Camera?" asks Mimsy in a voice that is hardly human, her face still covered in repulsive, shrinking white fur as she shifts back... as far as Mimsy can ever go.

"Eyes. Metal eyes." I explain. "I can't charm metal eyes out of thinking they saw a cat turn into a girl."

Mimsy nods. No one comes to her defense. This is not surprising. No one cares about Mimsy. If she were to be thrown out the window, only Red and Gillian would go for her, because they care about group harmony. Otherwise? She is a burden that never should have made it out of whatever hell we crawled out of.

I am letting it overcome me again. I look to Adaline, who is situated and now has Angel tending to her again, over in the room not currently being assaulted by the television noises. That is over. I no longer have to deal with it, she will receive soup, and we will all get a night that isn't on the ground somewhere, potentially two assuming nothing goes astray. It will give me time to do what I need to do. I am very close to things here. I can hear the city in my veins.

Comforted, I still myself, turn, and there's Kali. The calm goes as quickly as it had come. "What."

"Would you like to go outside for a minute?" Kali says, holding up the key. "I think they can manage themselves just fine."

"I think you're being optimistic," I say, looking at the mess of us staining the carpets and beds, but Kali grips me with a hand as strong as charmspeak.

"You look stressed." Kali insists.

I roll my shoulders back. "Is that your problem?"

"It could be," she muses, already opening the door into the hallway. Silence and the cheap scent of air freshener wash over us both like a wave of relief. "If you'll let me help." I scoff, but I let her lead me down the hall anyways. The building is a confining set of halls, a labyrinth of narrow passages, and neither of us can read 'signs'. "This is so weird." Kali says, looking up at the ceilings, smiling all the while. "Whose bad idea was this?"

I let her lead me behind her. Thinking of the night's hunt. Thinking of leaving. Thinking of the noise the group makes when they are together, the wailing that sounds like a vast sickness. There is so much emotion in this body. It is like blood, pooling over. I am a hemorrhage.

Disgusting.

The elevator drops us to the floor of the building, and at the front Kali turns a corner with her glossy hair flying out behind her in a dark arc. I lean outside the convenience stand and watch as she pushes a few coins over the table and points to a pack of rolled papers in the back. I have seen humans suck these. It strikes me as something that is far below Kali. The mousy youth working there tentatively asks for something, extending her hand, and Kali raises an eyebrow. She looks back to me and I insist, "We'll make our transaction, now."

Dumbfounded, the woman pushes them over, and I push them to Kali. "Is this all you wanted from me?"

"I'm offended." she responds, leaning forwards to me as she opens the door. I stare blankly at her and she pulls herself back up. The whites of her teeth are framed by her lips, which are pulled taut into a long smile.

We emerge onto the streets. The city is black, stained by the dead yellows of the numerous lights. Kali lights a blue flame beneath her finger and breathes in smoke, exhaling it into the night air, and I watch the silver trail leave her.

"This was a mistake." I say to break our silence, running a finger over a finger and watching as a new layer of polish condenses. It is a pitiful alteration.

"Which part of it?" Kali asks.

"It was an appropriation of funds for a sentimentality I am not supposed to have." I say. Kali leads me down a street and we hold onto ourselves as the crowds hustle around us, the empty people's voices dull muttering against us. "And yet..."

"You cared enough to spend food money to get us here?" Kali asks. We pause on an empty corner, trees at our backs. There is a small fountain and a few cold metal benches behind us, and Kali situates herself there, sprawling out and exhaling smoke through her nose.

"Yes." I say. I look upwards at the stars. Only a few specks of wayward light are visible tonight. The crowds still pull at my body. I nudge my face to fix the sag of my face. "We don't get that hungry. I did not eat for weeks at one point. There were no negative physical effects besides increased poor temper."

Kali nods slowly, tapping out the paper.. The red rim of heat around the edge dulls to gray, and all of the fire is in her eyes. "Elle. That's the worst fucking thing I've ever heard in my life."

I purse my lips.

"You can't hurt yourself. Why would you--- why would you even want to? What's wrong with your life?" Kali sputters.

"I was curious."

Kali runs her fingers upwards through her hair.

I move my lips together, my lipstick chafing.

"Is there anything I could do to help?" she says. She lifts a rolled paper close to my face. It smells like smoke, but with something sicker beneath it.

I draw my face away from hers. "No." The stars are brilliant beams of white, filling my vision as thoroughly as any sunlight.

"What are you staring at?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Elle?"

"Kali."

"Whatever you need might already be in front of you."

A car passes by, its long, sad wail falling off as it passes into the mists in the distance. "I want to go back inside." I tell Kali. This is an unnecessary diversion. There were things to do tonight.

---

I go through men like a fire goes through paper--I am the red rim of heat at the end of the strange rolled papers. Being closer lets me take out two that night, when Kali has left me be, but I am playing a game I do not understand. The rules are foreign to me, as is the purpose, and any time they get too close I remove myself, through force or otherwise. Dylan and Kali's probing expressions are at the back of my mind, their hands at my neck.

What is it that I'm trying to feel? What is experience? I am feeling too much in the wrong direction. It is getting the better of me.

There is that word again-- love.

We don't understand what love is. We don't even understand ourselves.

I throw a knife against a tree in the park when I emerge from a closing restaurant long past the time where people still roam the streets. With a cry, I sink my knife into the tree again, the bark splintering away, and I chip into its core, my arms blistering. No. There is no pain--not enough pain--nothing to stop me. I drink emotion like wine.

My pale arms glisten in the light, untouched.

Long breath in. Long breath out.