***
“Are you trying to kill me?” Zane’s question was half rhetorical, half laughing. She always beat him at pool, but today she wasn’t even pretending to give him a chance.
The crack of balls hitting one another, the soft whoosh of their slides along the green felt, the thumps as they dropped in the pockets had been the only sounds in Zane’s office for at least twenty minutes. Akira’s focus was complete. She was pointing out her shots with the cue, not bothering to call them, as she cleared the table, racked the balls, and cleared the table again.
It was as if he wasn’t really there.
Or she wasn’t.
“Hmm?” she answered, leaning over the table, eying the distances between the cue ball and the ten and the side pocket. And then she made another perfect shot.
Zane stuck his cue back in the rack. He didn’t know what was going on in her head, but she wasn’t playing. The casual game he’d started to finish out their lunch hour had turned into something else for her.
He returned to his desk. He’d get back to work and let her do her thing and eventually she’d break free from whatever thought had caught her and tell him what was happening. He’d seen this before. That time it had been right before she decided to give up on sonoluminescence and start researching spirit energy. It had been a tough decision for her since, despite her interest in the subject, it was essentially the death knell of any academic future.
This time, he thought it probably had something to do with Dillon and his mom. Akira had gone quiet in the car, right after they’d been talking about his two family ghosts. Her silence wasn’t a surprise: they’d been avoiding talking about his mom for months now.
Accepting the existence of ghosts wasn’t a stretch for Zane. Until that terrible week when he’d abruptly come face to face with the ugly reality of death, he hadn’t put a lot of thought into what happened after, but his vague concepts of heaven or reincarnation or even an ending of everything were flexible enough to accommodate the idea of ghosts.
But his mom as a malevolent, murderous spirit? No way.
Just flat-out no.
It wasn’t possible.
He hadn’t wanted that difference of opinion to interfere with his interest in Akira, though. She fascinated him. He’d thought at first that it might be novelty. With her Japanese mother and Californian upbringing, she didn’t look like the girls he’d grown up with.
And then he thought it was the surprise of the unexpected: she didn’t act like the girls he’d grown up with either. When he was eighty years old, he’d still remember the pleasure found in friction turning kinetic energy into heat.
But it was more than either of those things now. She looked so fragile, but she’d stick her stubborn chin out and defend her point of view with vigor. She acted so serious and hard-working, but she was the best pool player he’d ever met, and he much preferred to have her on his team in Halo, rather than on the opposite side. And in bed . . .
Okay, he had to stop thinking about her while watching her play pool, or he’d never get any work done. But he was smiling as he checked his calendar. With any luck, he could clear out his email and they could cut out of here early. He could think of much better things to be doing with their time.
“All right,” she said abruptly, an hour later, straightening, and lightly tapping the butt of her pool cue against the ground. “I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” he asked, looking over from his computer.
“Visit your mom,” she responded, as if surprised by the question.
“Really?” Zane swiveled in his chair, turning to face her. “I thought you told Dillon no.”
“He can’t go see her on his own. It’s too dangerous.”
Zane leaned back. “Aneurysms? Murder by spirit energy? Remember that conversation?”
“Of course I do.” Akira shrugged and looked away from him, as if something had suddenly become terribly interesting on the other side of the office.
“You said it was dangerous for you before. What’s changed?” Zane asked. She’d refused to go near the house for months. Why now?
“That medium probably had a weak spot in an artery already. The energy raised her blood pressure enough that it burst, but it wouldn’t have killed her if the aneurysm wasn’t already there,” Akira answered.
Zane frowned. That didn’t feel like an answer to the question.
“What if Dillon’s right? What if she’s looking for him?” Akira said.
Zane paused. This was his mom that they were talking about. He didn’t like the idea that she was trapped in their house, unable to communicate with anyone, desperate and even violent. But he liked even less the idea of Akira risking her life.
“I’ll have to go in first,” Akira continued, looking thoughtful. “I’ll calm her down before Dillon comes in.”
“I’m not sure about this,” Zane said. “Maybe we should talk to Nat first. See what she has to say.”
“Dillon will have to wait in the car.” Akira was planning now, strategizing as if she hadn’t heard him.
“Yeah, I don’t think I care about Dillon,” Zane said.
“You should care,” Akira protested. “Dillon’s your nephew.”
“And you’re my lover,” Zane answered her, exasperation in his voice. He wasn’t going to let her distract him. “More dangerous doesn’t mean not dangerous. Is this risky for you?”
Akira blinked at him. Once. Twice. Then she turned and busied herself putting away her pool cue.
“Besides, Dillon’s dead already,” Zane added. As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to kick himself. It was true, of course, but it wasn’t what mattered. He’d been trying to work a conversation around to that “L” word—the one he’d never used with another woman—for weeks now and he’d never quite figured out how. He’d just had the perfect opportunity and he’d blown it.
“Which is why it’s more dangerous for him.” Akira turned back, her cheeks lightly pink, her eyes bright. “The energy would rip him apart.”
“Uh, isn’t an aneurysm kind of like a blood vessel being ripped apart?”
Akira wobbled her hand in an equivocal gesture. “We can talk about it in the car.”