Chapter 19

Naru had a private room in the hospital's Intensive Care Unit. This didn't surprise Mai one bit. What did surprise her was how easily she'd been granted access to it.

The whole trip to the hospital, Mai'd agonised over what she'd do if the hospital staff wanted proof of her relation to Naru. She didn't have ID. She didn't even have her rucksack—she'd dropped it some time after she'd run of out the SPR office. Probably in the middle of the street. She couldn't remember clearly.

To avoid the ID issue, Mai'd concluded that all she needed was confidence. If she walked through the hospital lobby with confidence, perhaps no one would notice that she wasn't supposed to be there.

Of course that plan failed epically. Upon entering the lobby, an eagle-eyed obaa-san beckoned her toward the reception desk and a severe-looking security guard scrutinised her from his station. With Mai's luck if she made a run for the ICU ward the guard would probably shoot her.

The elderly receptionist smiled from her seat behind the large counter. 'Tachibana-san will show you the way, Shibuya-san.'

Being called Shibuya-san was phenomenally weird. Mai forced a smile and bowed unsteadily to the receptionist then to the orderly, Tachibana-san, who had been charged with the duty of escorting Mai to Naru's room on the ICU ward. It was like they'd been expecting her.

Tachibana-san led Mai through a maze of corridors. The Matsuzaki name branded just about everything—every sign, cart, box, and lab coat. It seemed reasonable enough to expect Ayako to appear at any moment. One part of Mai craved the sight of the miko—her droll, flippant remarks and caring hands…. But the other part of Mai was gripped with fear at the mere prospect of encountering the woman—she must be so angry with Mai about everything. Naru, Gin Knockers, the flat…. It probably would be better if Mai could avoid seeing the miko.

Mai needed to make this fast. She needed to see Naru. Confirm that he was still…. Confirm that he was okay. And then Mai needed to get out of the hospital. She wasn't sure where she would go. Home, she supposed. Though without her keys from her rucksack, she'd have some trouble getting into her flat. And hadn't Aoi said Kiki was missing? Mai'd never actually met Kiki's brother before—she didn't even know how to contact him.

'Here we are,' Tachibana-san said, gesturing to a wall. It took Mai a couple of blinks to understand that she needed to look through the inset window.

Beyond the glass lay Naru. Unconscious. A myriad of carts and blinking machines clustered around him. An oxygen mask on his face. An IV in his arm.

Mai pressed her hand against her clenching heart. Her mom had looked much the same during her last few days on earth. The bed was the kind with wheels—the kind that could be rushed into surgery at any moment. A crash trolley waited in the corner.

'Do you want to go in?' Tachibana-san asked.

That was a really bad idea.

Mai nodded, and the orderly held the door open for her.

Tachibana-san drew the flimsy curtains across the window. 'If you need anything, just press that call button,' he directed before closing the door, trapping Mai in the room she knew better than to have entered.

Standing at the foot of Naru's bed, she didn't know what to do. Why had she come? She should have left after seeing him through the glass. He was alive. He was alive.

He was alone.

Where was Gene? Not that she wanted to see him—he was clearly furious with her, and she was already upset enough with herself. Was she bad because she didn't want to see her spirit guardian? Probably. But that didn't change the fact that his absence washed relief through her knotted muscles.

But where was Lin? She didn't really want to see him either, but still…. Mai glanced at the empty chair beside Naru's bed. Shouldn't Lin be there? But then again what could he do? What could anyone do?

Tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked up at the ceiling.

Lin's shikigami snaked around the overhead lights.

'I guess you aren't alone,' she whispered, looking back to the statue-like man and trying to imagine the oxygen mask off his face, his eyes open and angry. 'I bet you're pretty pissed off.'

Moving cautiously and giving the bed a wide berth, she came to sit in the chair beside him. 'You should be pissed off. Do you know what they're making you wear? A floral hospital gown and puky-green blankets and white sheets….' Her voice broke.

'I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't.' She drew her knees up and hugged them. 'I know. I know you want me to tell you what's going on. But I can't. I wish I could. I'm so scared. So scared. So….' She buried her head in her knees for a moment and tried to loosen the knot in her throat.

'You know—' Her voice cracked again, and she glared over her knees at the IV in his hand. 'It's your own fault that you're here. It is! Don't you raise your voice at me, Oliver. Don't you dare. You have no idea—'

Mai licked her lips and sucked in a juddering breath. 'You're a real idiot. A real prize idiot. Why would you use your PK like that? What are you always telling me? People who do things they know they should not are idiots. Stupid. You… you aren't supposed to be stupid like me. You're supposed to be the genius.'

Scrubbing at her runny nose, Mai could almost hear Naru's chilly response: I am the genius, you idiot.

'Clearly you are not. And I am not the idiot here because I am not the one strapped to a hospitable bed.'

You put me here.

Mai gnashed her teeth hard. 'Blame a million and one things on me, Naru—but not that.' She didn't think her heart could take it. 'Please.'

And what was I supposed to do, Mai? Let the taxi hit you? You ran into the street. You ran out of the office. You've withheld information.

'I withheld information?' Her whispered voice came out gritty and fractured. 'You and your damnable brother lied to me for a year! A year, Naru! You looked me in the eyes every single day and lied to me. And still… bloody hell… and still I put myself through torture for you. To keep you safe. And what do you go and do? You go all supernova and nearly kill yourself. What's the point? Why am I trying to save you if you're just going to throw everything away? Am I making any sense?'

Not particularly. I need facts, Mai.

'Well that's balls for you, isn't it? Because I'm not giving you anything.'

Mai let her feet fall to the floor and gripped the chair until her knuckles turned white. This was positively mental. Absolutely insane. She was having an argument with a comatose man.

A comatose man that she'd been missing like crazy for eight months. The man whose memory she regularly consulted to help her survive another day. The man she understood so well that her heart always knew what he would say. And every imagined word—although typically deeply annoying—lent Mai's life strength, hope, meaning. 'You want facts? How about this?' Mai took a deep breath and released it slowly. 'You are my best friend.'

She waited for him scoff.

When all she heard was the rhythmic beeping of hospital machinery, she continued: 'And I love you. And you were wrong about Gene. I didn't even know him back then. It was you. It is you. When we're in the same room, the loneliness goes away. Hell, even just thinking of you helps. And I couldn't survive if something happened to you—especially something I could prevent. Even though you are a cocky, cheeky prick. I must be an idiot, right, to fall in love with someone as narcissistic as you?'

Tears welled in her eyes. 'And that's why I'm not going to let you get involved. I'm going to keep you safe. No matter what.' Mai chuckled, bitter and dejected. 'I get that you don't love me. I mean, of course you don't. I'm… and you're….' She shrugged and smiled—a real smile, soft and sad and genuine. 'But, Naru, I need you to respect the fact that I do love you—and what I'm doing—what I'm keeping from you—I'm doing it because I love you. I'm doing it because….' Staring at Naru through a film of tears, his body seemed to be enveloped in an almost gelatinous aura thick with pulsing, dark splotches. 'Because after all the help you've given other people, you deserve kindness in return.'

Mai tremulously held out her hand. She let it hover over him, careful not to touch him. Sizzling and freezing lines of energy shot down her arms. Spreading her fingers, she sifted them through his aura, stirring up the translucent haze and breaking apart the dark splotches. They reminded her of blobs of nasty oil slicking an ill-brewed cup of tea.

'Ick,' she whispered. 'You've got some sort of greasy aura-gunk build up. It's like… it's like… gross. This is what you get when you squeeze supermarket teabags—and then leave the tea to cool and coagulate. Nasty.' Sighing, she stretched forward and began siphoning off the oily splotches with her other hand. It wasn't a pleasant job. Even as her palms warmed with effort, an icy chill sunk into her fingertips. 'I bet you haven't had a good cup of tea since you left. Not even one made by Lin.

'Yeah, I know it was Lin that made that cup of tea you gave me during the Urado case. After all, you are hopeless at brewing. Still, it was a nice gesture.' She pulled the chair a little closer to the bed. Something about the sifting and siphoning action felt peaceful—like the gentle motion of her hands could keep bad thoughts at bay but still allow the good ones to come through. She'd never experienced anything quite like it.

'You want to know a secret? It isn't something I'd tell anyone else.' She paused a moment to massage some heat back into her fingertips before continuing to soothe his aura. 'That Earl Grey tea that I always make for you—it's my special blend. Something my mom taught me. Instead of using Ceylon leaves as my base, I use Sencha tea. And in the spring, sometimes I even use Shincha. That's the youngest, freshest, sweetest, grassiest flavour you can imagine. And into that I add the bergamot oil and freshly zested lemon peel. And orange blossoms. I roast them myself.' She shivered. Cold wormed its way up her fingers and deep into her wrists. 'I make other teas too. If you weren't so stubborn about only drinking the Earl Grey, I'd have you try my other specialty. It has the same base leaves, but then I add vanilla and roasted cherries and sunflower petals and rosebuds—don't scowl. It isn't girly. And even if it is a little girly, aren't you man enough to try something new—?'

Mai gasped as an icy blade seemed to lance through her biceps. She hugged her arms to her chest and rocked, trying to ease the cramping, shooting pain. She could breathe through it. She could.

She reached out to continue sifting Naru's aura—

A shikigami lashed out, striking Mai's outstretched hand. She bit down a scream as a bolt of electricity exploded up her arm. The eel-like spirit prowled in a predatory figure eight above Naru's body.

'Ow. Did you really need to—' Mai gazed down at her tremulous hands. Thin and pale and potentially deadly… and mere centimetres from Naru's body. What on earth had she been thinking, getting so very close to him? What if she'd accidentally touched him? Tracing Kennel Boy felt as simple as a mere stroke of her fingers against Naru's bare skin. 'Thank you,' she whispered to the spirit, clutching her throbbing arm. Mai eased out of her chair and edged toward the door. The shikigami continued to prowl above his body.

She reached behind her to open the door, but the handle jerked out of her grasp. She sprang forward and pivoted around, fists clenched and primed to strike.

Lin stood in the doorway, waistcoat unbuttoned and tie unknotted. 'I'll ring you back, Madoka,' he said before removing his hands-free mobile earpiece.

Mai swallowed hard. She knew she'd probably run into Lin—why hadn't she planned out what she was going to say? Idiot.

'Hello, Taniyama-san.'

'Lin…' she whispered, '-san.'

'Care to offer an explanation?'

She needed to stay calm—to preserve that resilient peace that she'd found not moments ago. Loosening her fists, she shook her head. No, she did not care to offer an explanation.

Lin's eyes shifted to look over her shoulder at Naru. 'He almost died.'

Mai's heart sputtered, and she couldn't find the strength to do anything but breathe her reply. 'He shouldn't have interfered….'

'Naru would find that an unreasonable request.'

'All the same….' Mai glanced over her shoulder. The medical monitors continued to beep in the same steady rhythm. Squinting, the only change that she could perceive lay in his aura—which looked a little less like ink-blotched gelatine and a little more like milk tea. 'He's okay. For now.'

'For now?' Lin brought his narrowed gaze back to her face. 'If Naru is in some kind of danger—'

'Leave it alone, Lin.' Mai clasped her arms around herself in a poor attempt to clamp down a shiver. 'This isn't some SPR case.'

Lin continued to stare down at her. His expression wasn't unkind, and for some reason that made it hard for Mai to meet his eyes. 'Naru would disagree,' he said.

'Naru always disagrees.' She tried for a sardonic smirk, but the best she could muster was a twitchy cheek. 'All the same. If you want to do what's best for him, you'll leave it alone. You'll leave me alone. And you'll encourage Naru to do the same.'

'Does this have anything to do with Gene?' Lin asked. Mai's breath caught as he scrutinized her for a long moment, and only when his gaze returned to Naru did she loose a quiet sigh.

Lin took a partial step toward the hospital bed, and Mai scooted into the doorway. Without looking back, she said: 'This has nothing to do with Gene.'

On wobbling knees she tottered down the hallway, her own heartbeat thundering in her brain. Why had she come here? What had she accomplished? What was she going to do?

Shards of cold lanced up her biceps again, this time piercing deeper and darting down into her chest. Mai struggled for breath as the pain shot down her legs, smashing into her toes and reverberating back upward in a searing burst of heated energy. If the freezing sensation had gripped her muscles and robbed her of breath, this new sensation stole strength from her body as it smothered her with heaving gasps.

Somewhere in the distance a child laughed. It started out as a syrupy giggle but quickly deepened and took on a coarse tone.

Her vision flickered. Mai jerked, knocking into a gurney as she staggered forward. Nurses, doctors, gurneys, walls—everything smudged together, faded into white and then snapped into harsh focus. Stumbling, she reached for the wall to steady herself—and found her fingers clenching fabric.

'Sit down before you fall down.' Capable hands turned her, prodded her, practically carried her into an examination room and pressed her to sit on a bed. 'You're paler than death.'

Well-manicured hands captured Mai's face and forced it upward.

'Ayako.'

A torchlight blinded her, and Mai batted the miko away.

'Sit still or I'll make you,' Ayako gritted out, tucking the torchlight away and fitting her stethoscope into her ears.

Mai held still. If all Ayako wanted to do was listen to her hammering heartbeat, that was fine. She only needed to sit a moment more. To focus. Dizzy spells had become a way of life for Mai—she'd be fine. She was probably just hungry. Hungry and tired. Though sleep was definitely not an option. Not until she got her rucksack back, anyway. Maybe Ayako knew—

The miko tugged the back of Mai's shirt out from her trousers, and Mai wrenched herself off the bed. Backing up, she knocked over an IV drip stand.

'Sit still!' Ayako reached for Mai again, and Mai braced a chair between them. There was no way in hell that Mai was going to show Ayako her burned and mutilated back. That would just lead to questions.

'Don't touch me,' Mai warned, blinking furiously as her vision blurred again. Why was it so damned hot in this hospital? Or was it cold? Damn it. Mai held her juddering palm up to keep Ayako at bay. 'Just stay away.'

'You need to sit down, Mai. You are on the verge of collapse.'

Mai's knees practically dissolved in her legs. Man, did she hate hospitals—come in feeling okay and twenty-five minutes later you're sick as a dog. Ayako was right—if Mai didn't sit down, she'd collapse. 'Fine,' she croaked, unsteadily coming around to sit in the chair. 'I'll sit, but I don't want you poking at me.'

'I don't poke. I examine.' Ayako reached for her again.

'Don't!' Mai shouted, snatching up a paper cup and tossing it at the miko. It was a half-hearted, feeble throw—a demonstration of defiance rather than a violent action.

'Young lady, that is assault,' Ayako huffed, smacking the cup away with an open palm. She stepped forward again. Mai sent a pair of medial gloves flying as well, this time a little harder, one glove whacking Ayako in the face.

'Is there a problem here?' Father Endo entered the room, his eyes as strange and flat as the first time Mai'd seen them. 'Matsuzaki-sensei? Can I help?'

'Y-you,' Mai sputtered.

'If you wouldn't mind, Father, restraining her temporarily,' Ayako answered, stripping the offending glove out of her hair.

Father Endo smiled at Mai—if one could call the slow lifting of his fishy mouth a smile—and he darted forward. Being as large as he was, he shouldn't have been quite so speedy—or perhaps exhaustion had stalled Mai's reaction time. Even as she struggled to stand on limp legs, Father Endo gripped her shoulders and forced her back into the chair. No matter how she squirmed and strained, she couldn't escape from his grasp.

'What's he doing here?' Mai gritted out as she struggled.

'Can't a concerned citizen lend assistance when he witnesses an unusual accident involving a taxi and a runaway woman—especially when he knows the identity of said woman?' He breathed into Mai's ear. 'Mai.'

'Just hold her still for another moment,' Ayako said, coming forward with her stethoscope.

This was outrageous. They couldn't do this to her. Ayako had no right for force an examination on her! This was harassment! A violation of her human rights!

Mai gritted her teeth. She couldn't break away from Father Endo, but she could definitely rock back and forth rather forcefully. All she had to do was wait for Ayako to come too close, and then bam! she could head butt her. That damned priest would panic—

Head butt Ayako?

Tears spilled down Mai's cheeks as she shook her head manically. 'No, no, no, no, no!'

Surprised Ayako fell backward onto the ground, and Father Endo roughly adjusted his grip, forcing his arm hard against Mai's windpipe. 'She's obviously unstable. I've seen her lose control before. You should sedate her,' he grunted, as Mai scratched at his locked forearm.

Body bowing, feet scrambling uselessly, Mai fought hard even though her straining only increased the chokehold on her neck. They couldn't sedate her. Kennel Boy would win. She'd be dead. Naru would be dead. Mai strained forward.

And met the eyes of a blond teenage girl. The very same one that had pulled her into the kennel over a month ago. The ghost knelt before Mai, smirking and whispering, 'Repent. Repent. Repent.'

Mai couldn't get a breath to scream, yet still she struggled and thrashed. Her dreamscapes had never once crossed into reality in such a manner. She panicked harder and splotches of grey obstructed her vision.

'What the hell is going on here? Let her go!'

The pressure on her windpipe abruptly released. Coughing and gagging, Mai crumbled to the floor—her corporeal body breaking the blond girl's form into a frigid mist.

Mai felt as though she'd just been crammed into the bottom of a rubbish barrel. Shuddering on the floor, conversation echoed overhead—tinny and distant.

'Naru? You're awake!'

'Obviously. Care to explain, Matsuzaki-san?'

'Mai nearly collapsed—'

'Do Japanese medical professionals often administer strangulation in instances of near collapse?'

'She wouldn't consent to an exam—'

'After seeing your methods, I can't imagine why.'

Silence.

Curled over herself Mai pressed her forehead against the tiled floor and choked on silent sobs. Yokata. Ah Kami-sama. Yokata… he's awake. Naru's awake.

Raising her head slightly, she snuffled indelicately. Oh no, Naru's awake.

And the ghost? Mai's gaze skipped through the room. The ghost was gone. Perhaps she'd only been a hallucination—something Mai's oxygen-starved brain had conjured.

'Can you stand?' A large, pale hand crossed into Mai's vision.

Scuttling back, Mai knocked into the hospital bed.

Naru stood over her, frowning rather than scowling. He wore a white robe over his floral hospital gown. He hadn't bothered with slippers. 'This again?' he sighed. 'Fine. Stand up on your own.'

Easy enough for him to say. The best Mai could do was to sit up and lean back against the side of the bed. If she were honest with herself, she'd have to admit that her lack of energy had more to do with the events prior to the strangulation attempt.

But what had happened to Father Endo? Like the blond ghost, he too seemed to have mystically disappeared.

'Naru suggested the kind Father leave,' Ayako said, answering Mai's unspoken question.

'The question is, why was he here in the first place?' Naru bit out.

'He said he knew Mai, and he witnessed the accident,' Ayako whispered.

'Accident?' Naru mulled over the word. 'I suppose one could call it that. Stand up, Mai.'

'Could you give me a minute?' She tried for a flippant tone, but her words came out harsh and rough, and she flinched as they grated her bruising throat.

To Mai's relief, Ayako stepped forward to momentarily draw Naru's attention away. 'Look at me, Naru. How do you feel? Follow my torch with your eyes. This kind of recovery is… unprecedented. You were comatose not half an hour ago.'

'Apparently…' Naru sighed, acquiescing to Ayako's first exam but blocking her further attempts. 'Apparently someone has picked up some energy transference skills. She managed to neutralize the… ill effects of my PK. She performed a dialysis of sorts, and….' He spared Mai a perfunctory glance. 'To explain in terms that Mai will understand—'

'Hey!' Mai protested—grimacing as she swiped her hand against her dripping nose. Wasn't she classy? Ugg.

Naru continued to speak, unfazed. Mai even detected a tiny smirk on his handsome—albeit too pale—face. Jerk. 'Let's just say that she recharged my battery. I speculate that is what brought her close to collapse. Though it doesn't explain….' He reached toward Mai.

Cringing out of his reach, Mai off-balanced herself and toppled to one side. 'Don't touch me!'

'It doesn't explain her aversion to touch,' he said, turning to Ayako and speaking as though Mai were a dog or a lab rat.

'You can't treat me like this! I'm not some kind of animal.'

'I'll stop treating you like an animal when you stop rolling around on the floor like one.'

Swinging her arms backward and smacking them onto the bed, she tried her best to lever herself upward. Her elbows shuddered and collapsed, and her legs folded beneath her like bloated udon noodles.

Why was she so useless?

Sighing Naru reached out to lift her up.

'Stop! Don't touch me. Are you thick?' Mai's voice cracked, and she screamed with frustration. How the hell could she make herself any more clear? 'What have I been telling you? What? What? Do. Not. Touch me. Do not. You can't. Naru. You can't touch me!'

'That disagreeable priest touched you,' he reasoned.

'I did too,' Ayako interjected.

Mai fixed her eyes hard on Naru. This was a typical Naru tactic—get Mai riled and make her screw up, make her say what she wanted to keep secret. 'Just don't,' she warned, doing her best to mediate her breathing and think clearly.

Naru's gaze narrowed further. From his robe pocket he took out a pen and his little black book, which he open to a page marked with a yellow Post It note.

'Don't you dare,' Mai seethed through clenched teeth. 'Don't you dare, Oliver Davis. I am not just another one of your cases.'

'You aren't just anything, Mai.' He stared down at her with the most unusual expression: honest and yet exasperated. '—except perhaps just exceptionally aggravating.'

'Jerk!' What a jerk! How the hell did she love this utter and complete jerk?

'Some things never change.' He picked up the overturned chair and settled it directly in front of Mai. From the bed, he took a blanket. He cautiously lowered himself into the chair and placed the blanket over his legs. The movements were slow and measured—laborious and yet still steady. 'I am not going to touch you, but you need to answer some questions.' He leaned forward and smiled.

It was awful. A plastic smile. Flat-eyed. Tense in the mouth.

Mai shivered. Scary. 'Don't strain yourself,' she whispered, swallowing thickly. 'You should leave smiling to—' Gene.

That awful expression dropped away into his normal, overly keen glare. 'To?'

Mai's heartbeat rocked her body. 'Bou-san.'

Naru meticulously turned a page in his black book. 'It isn't unreasonable to deduce—considering your past record—that whatever is at the root of your… issue is probably psychic. I'd even go so far as to suspect this has something do with your dreams in which you commune with… a meddlesome spirit.' His lips thinned, and he gripped his pen hard. 'Therefore, as a client you are under contract to disclose all information to me.'

He thought this was about Gene. He did. She hadn't said anything about his brother, though. She hadn't hinted. Had she? What did she say to him while he was still in the coma? She couldn't remember—but she wouldn't have said anything about Gene. And anyway, he was in a coma. He couldn't have heard her. Could he? Had he?

Her stomach went into free-fall. 'I told you, I'm not one of your cases.'

'Tell me about the cards, Mai.'

She was going to puke. Seriously puke. Boak worked its way into the back of her throat—the bitter bile of her guilt and hunger—and she struggled to swallow it back down. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

From his robe pocket he extracted the bloodied pack of playing cards.

'The cards. My cards.'

Mai's jaw warbled. She clenched her teeth hard to still the telling movement, but it only brought tears to her eyes. The cards. She'd been crazy. So crazy to think that those cards would help her. That they would keep Kennel Boy at bay.

What if Kennel Boy had gotten them in that dream? What horrid plot could he have enacted? And he'd almost gotten them. He'd had the chance to take them—and he'd turned that chance down to take Mai's tooth.

Her tooth. What the hell was he going to do with her tooth? Was it just a trophy? No. No, it couldn't be something simple like that. Kennel Boy would never have traded the cards for a token trophy. It had to mean something. Something bad.

And he'd grabbed her. Kennel Boy'd been primed to transcend dimensions the moment Naru burst into the office. He knew Naru was there. He knew. Was it because of the tooth? Did he now have a direct link to reality through her? Did she even need to be asleep for him to pull his way through her? Could he possess her? He'd wanted that tooth for something, and that voice inside her heart just kept chanting: Don't let Naru touch you. Don't let him touch you. Don't. Don't. Don't.

'Why did you take my cards, Mai? No one touches my cards, not since—'

'Martin.' Squeezing her eyes shut, tears rolled down her cheeks. 'Not since Martin gave them to you.'

Naru didn't respond. Mai needed to shut up. She needed to get away.

Sniffling, she opened her eyes and focused on Naru's legs covered by the pilled, puky-green hospital blanket. It was the same colour blanket they'd drawn over her mother's face on the day she died. What was Mai doing there, sitting in the same room as Naru, putting him in danger? Someone should just pull a nasty green hospital blanket over her face. 'I shouldn't have come here.'

'Why did you?' His voice was so flat. Horribly flat.

'I had to know,' she whispered.

'Know what?'

'If I'd killed you.'

He set his book into his lap. 'A phone call could have ascertained that.'

Panic rose up in her chest, like a flock of frightened birds darting and swooping in the darkness. 'I had to see.'

He leaned further toward her with great effort. 'You really are an idiot if you think this is your fault.'

She closed her eyes hopelessly and the panic continued to consume her. 'It is.'

'Mai.'

Something touched her chin.

Mai flung herself to the side, smacking her head hard against the floor. Bursts of light danced across her vision as she blinked up at a shocked Naru.

He'd touched her.

He'd touched her with his pen. Just his pen.

'Shit!' she gasped. 'Shit, Naru. Don't! Just don't. Don't touch me. Why aren't you listening? Do you walk into a kennel if someone tells you that the dog inside is rabid? Do you? Do you? Do—' Mai gagged on her words, choking—rails of wet, rib-cracking coughs racked her body.

Ayako shouted her name, but she could barely see the woman through her tears. Something cold pressed beneath her shirt, and slender hands spread across Mai's back. 'What the—?' Ayako whispered, yanking the back of Mai's shirt upward. 'Sweet Kami-sama, sweetheart, what happened to you?'

Mai struggled to tug her shirt back down and hide her scars, but Ayako had better grip and more strength. Whimpering, she tried her best to at least sit up, but Ayako wouldn't even allow that.

'Are you seeing this, Naru?' Ayako breathed.

A blanket brushed against Mai's leg, and she jerked her knees up to her chest.

'Naru!' Lin's sharp voice came from the doorway.

'Not now,' Naru said, his own voice coming centimetres away from Mai's ear.

Cowering even lower, Mai blinked up at Lin's dark form. Shikigami circled above him. 'Don't touch her.'

Something small flickered behind Lin. The outline of a person. A child. A boy in a blue hoodie. In one hand he clenched a long necklace made of teeth. Cold, gritty laughter echoed from every corner of the room. 'Hello, Mai,' Kennel Boy cackled.

Mai shattered. She wasn't human anymore. She was just a frightened animal, tearing around. The world became a meaningless commotion of colour and noise. Her skin burned. The floor froze. The air ravaged her throat and her lungs. She clenched her eyes tightly, but even then she could see Kennel Boy as clear as day—his approaching footsteps measured and interminable. No, no, it was better with her eyes open. Better to see. Better to know.

Kennel Boy held a finger to his lips—gesturing for silence—as he crept around Lin's long legs.

Mai wrenched against restraining hands. Her wild eyes focused momentarily on her captor—Ayako—before floundering and straining backward until she'd wedged herself beneath the hospital bed. Like a feral cat.

Kennel Boy dropped to his knees and scurried forward.

Mai had no words to express her terror, only long and unbearable screams.

Kennel Boy lashed out with his tooth necklace, using it like a barbed whip. It stabbed deep into Mai's aura, shredding it. Agony swamped her, and her screams deepened, coming from her very soul.

Naru reached for her.

'Stop! Naru, stop!' Gasping for breath, Masako Hara flung herself forward—her corporeal form smashing through Kennel Boy—and she wrenched Naru backward. 'Your brother says that if you touch her you'll both die!'

Kennel Boy broke apart, dissolving into blue and red mist that snaked around her and absorbed into the deep psychic wounds. The word soon resonated through Mai's body and laughter burrowed into her mind.

Like dirty mop water poured from a bucket, Mai spilled outward on the floor. Her head, too heavy for her neck to support, rested against Ayako's leg. She couldn't catch a breath, couldn't make a sound.

Eyes dry and hollowed, she couldn't bring herself to look at anyone—even when the miko pulled her from beneath the bed and cradled her, rocked her back and forth, and whispered against Mai's hair, 'Everything is okay now. You're safe. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you—not ever again. You're safe now.'