My Soul to Keep

Chapter 1

When Leilani was six, she and Hex were playing a game of Tic Tac Toe in her room one day and her brother, Scott walked in, surprising her by saying “Who's that?” while looking curiously at Hexander. Hexander seemed unfazed, smiling lazily at Scott before looking back at the paper to decide his next move, leaving Leilani to try and decide what to do.

            “What are you talking about?” she asked him, pretending she didn't know.

            “Is that Hex?” Scott asked, pointing directly at Hexander. “Mommy said he wasn't real.”

            “Nope, I'm real,” Hex answered calmly, flipping the hair out of his eyes as he glanced over his shoulder at Scott. “I just don't like many people to see me.”

            “Why not?” Scott questioned.

            “I just don't,” Hex shrugged. “Leilani sees me because she's my best friend. You see me because I wasn't expecting anyone to come in, so I didn't hide myself.”

            “Why do you talk funny?”

            “Scott, that's not nice,” Leilani said quickly, making Hex look at her in amusement and chuckle.

            “Weren't you the same one who said my name was funny when we met?” he asked and she blushed, making him smirk. He looked at Scott again, still amused. “I'm from a place that's different from here. A lot of us sound like this.”

            Scott stared at Hex quietly for a moment and then shrugged, looking down at the paper between Hex and Leilani. “Can I play?”

            “Sure,” Hex replied, sliding over on the floor to make room for Scott to sit next to him. Without questioning anything more, he sat for hours with Leilani and Hexander, playing various games until it was time for them to eat. At dinner, Scott went on to their mother about how fun Hex was and how wrong she had been about him being fake. Their mother denied having said that, obviously to avoid making Leilani feel bad, and it bothered Hex to see her lie to Leilani's face. He knew it wasn't much different from what he was doing himself, but it seemed worse because it was her mother. It was the reason he hated humans so much; the ease with which they lied to each other over every little thing in their lives, never stopping to think about it. It made him dislike her more as he watched, leaning against the kitchen counter, and she tried to work around her son's insistence that she had said it.

            While he didn't have an issue before with Scott having walked into the room and seen him, his patience with the boy had begun to wear as he continued to tell their mother that he was standing in the room with them. He described his appearance, his clothes, everything, and wouldn't stop talking about him no matter how much he asked him to. By the dinner's end, he was tempted to harm the boy but instead calmly followed Leilani back to her room and asked that Scott leave them alone for the night. Scott agreed without argument, leaving the two alone to talk and play more games until Leilani fell asleep for the night. Once he was sure that she wouldn't wake up anytime soon, Hex left for Scott's room.

            Like Leilani, Scott was fast asleep, curled on his bed hugging a stuffed puppy to his chest. He looked as innocent as Leilani but unlike her, Hex felt that he was a liability. Scott talked too much about who Hex was, though he didn't exactly know the truth, and he wouldn't keep quiet no matter how much he was told to. No one else had seen Hex aside from Leilani, but he couldn't risk Scott saying too much to someone one day, whether it made Leilani feel less crazy that someone else could see him or not. So, to cover his own existence from anyone who might question it further or even mess with his plans for Leilani, there was something he needed to do and he needed to do it then.