Maxima!!

THE LAST TRACK

Chase stared at Kira.

Kira stared right back, with twenty times the intensity, and eyes darker than any shadow that filled the apartment.

Chase blinked first. "On a scale of one to ten, how grounded am I?"

Kira's glare grew exponentially darker.

"Eleven? Okay. That's fair."

"Are you hurt?"

Chase gave his bandages a look. "Not as much as before."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah."

Kira blinked slowly. When her eyes reopened, the light returned, while her posture relaxed. "You had me worried."

"I know." Chase broke eye contact. "Sorry."

No response.

"I really screwed things up. I'm sorry. And not just for what happened tonight. For everything. I'll try and do better, so --"

"Chase."

"Yeah?"

Kira sighed. "Right now, you don't have to say a thing. Get some rest, and we'll figure out what to do tomorrow." She glanced aside. "Together. As family."

Chase rubbed his neck.

She pointed to his door. "Go. Sleep."

"Okay."

"I love you, Chase."

The words bounced off Chase's back as he set a hand on his doorknob. "Yeah. Thanks." As soon as he shut his door, he threw himself onto his bed -- and his wounds' sting made him regret it instantly. But the pain dulled eventually. When it did, he spread out his limbs and stared blankly at the ceiling. It didn't last, of course. His dumpster of a brain wouldn't allow it. His eyes wandered aimlessly, to the clutter that he'd refused to clear out for days. To the plastic robots, perfectly posed for battle. To the homework on his desk he still hadn't finished. All familiar. All his. All part of home -- a place that felt emptier than ever.

Wounded or not, he had a feeling he wouldn't get in a wink. So, he tugged his phone out of his pocket and dragged his fingers across the screen to type.

"Summer Blossoms."

Within seconds, Chase had the music video loaded up. A grainy, discolored show began in front of him -- a static-filled relic pulled from miles below the earth. The band members all greeted him, even if the loudness of their aesthetic nearly booted him skyward. Big hair. Leather jackets and acid-washed jeans. Big hair. Studded belts and bracelets that tried, and failed, to pull the eyes away from the gaudiest bandannas and undershirts imaginable. And the hair.

If he could summon the will for it, Chase would have either laughed or groaned -- at least before he shut off the video and banished it from his mind. Yet he watched regardless. Even if the sight of the five-man band made him want to retch, their soothing acoustics helped him stay. For seconds at a time, it felt like he stood there on the sunset-drenched beach alongside them.

The feeling didn't last. Starla Michaels showed up onscreen. And all at once, Chase thought he'd been struck by lightning.

He almost mouthed out Kira's name, but froze midway. She looked like Kira. Almost exactly like Kira; at most, they only had a handful of millimeters and hues separating them. Yet that ancient version had an air, an aura about her. Skin left radiant from the sunset's kiss. Fluttering hair and green eyes that glistened in what remained of the light. The cheer and boundless energy that turned every motion of her sylphlike form into a dance. And dance she did, so confidently clad in that two-piece swimsuit -- the purest of whites, offset only by pink hibiscus prints. All of it, capped with an ivory flower in her hair.