nightfall || minsung

Chapter 9

"Sorry, my coat's all wet." Minho pawed at his face, eyes on the dashboard.

"Don't worry about it. Are you feeling okay?"

"I mean, not okay, really, but pretty okay."

Goosebumps rose from his wrists to his shoulders. Humans got those when they were cold. He was cold. Panic buzzed from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes.

I wrestled out of my coat, laid it over him, and punched the heat button till it was in the red.

"Thanks," he murmured.

"It's okay. What can I do?"

"Can you talk?"

My head ticked to the side. "What do you mean?"

"Your voice is relaxing. It makes me feel better when you talk."

"Oh." I pulled over to the side of the road. If he wanted me to talk, I wouldn't split my attention between that and driving. We weren't in Port Angeles anymore — the highway was dark and nearly deserted. "What should I talk about?"

"Well, why are you here?"

My freak brother is a clairvoyant and had a vision, and I saw it, too, because I'm also a freak.

"Umm."

"Like, why now?" he said. "When you didn't come back to school, I thought a bear had murdered you."

It sent a spark through my body to hear that he'd been thinking of me — if even just to consider my death.

"After Goat Rocks — which doesn't have as many bears as some think — my family and I went camping, since the weather has been so nice." That was the story we had established in Forks. I didn't want to lie to him, he deserved better, but he needed to believe it, too.

"Did you have fun?" he asked.

"Mmhmm. We fished a lot, hiked a lot. We saw an eagle. Some of the trees at the campsite were so tall I thought I couldn't see the top. My brother fell into a ditch and got a slug in his mouth."

He was peering at me, red-tinged eyes falling closed at times. His face was dry where his tears had been.

"Is this helping?" I asked.

"Yup." He let his head fall back against the seat. "Did you have s'mores?"

"Mmm, yes!" I had no idea what I was saying. It was how humans spoke about food, the enthusiasm, the reverence. I didn't understand it. "Our chocolate had caramel in the middle, so it was graham cracker, marshmallow, chocolate, caramel. My brothers and I were experimenting with cookie dough on top. It was delicious in theory."

"How was it in reality?"

"Gross. Overly sweet. Don't try it."

"I'll remember that." He looked sheepish now, more aware. "Um, I just kind of wanna say thanks. For being there before. You made it better."

He was all that mattered to me. To hear him say I helped, to know I made him feel better, made him feel anything at all... I started shaking. I felt crazy over how much I wanted to hug him again, to hold his hand, to somehow tell him how happy I was that he existed.

"You're welcome," I murmured. "I didn't know if I should've gone after those guys."

"You made the right choice, though I'm sure you could have destroyed them — since you're a superhero and all."

There were so many ways to destroy a human body — I was capable of all of them. Would I have broken each of their fingers one by one, ripped their limbs from their bodies? Forced their heads to the side until something snapped? Sliced open their stomachs, let their organs spill onto the pavement, left them for the rats?