Star Eater
Chapter Twenty-Three

Akuma disliked taking over by shutting Kai down and sending him into sleep. He hadn’t had to do that since Kai was a child, before Akuma had learned to keep his memories out of Kai’s fragile mind. But the situation was more desperate than Kai understood. Akuma blamed himself. Because he buffered Kai from the full effects of the star, Kai couldn’t feel it sputtering and fading. Not even the daemon threat was more important than keeping the star fed. Akuma realized he needed to take over immediately, or they were both going to die.

The demon jogged down the street. He had spent the last two nights checking south and east. Tonight, he would look north for a new source of fuel. He prayed that he found it. Akuma had limited his searches to only a few hours because every moment he was in control cost the star more energy. Now, he realized, that was a poor strategy. He would need to stay in control as long as it took. It meant risking everything—but inaction was the larger danger.

Kai’s search for chemicals was more exhaustive than Akuma’s, but he didn’t have the demon’s senses. As Kai’s body took in air, Akuma could sort through the layers. He could identify chemical signatures. He knew what he needed and he sensed the food was close. He jogged up Ventura Boulevard, searching, all the while wondering why.

Why did Kai get so tripped up on human rules? He just allowed himself to be trapped in this world. Akuma had to touch the star at all times to survive. But Kai did not have to stay with his father in that dreadful house. He didn’t have to go to a school that bored him, where the only positive aspect up until Link’s arrival had been two classes with Ava. And yet, Kai acted as if he needed to continue on this way. It baffled the demon.

Akuma paused in his run to inhale deeply. The Santa Ana winds blew from the northwest, and with them Akuma caught a whiff. At last, he thought. He glanced up. Not in eleven years had he had to strive and fight so hard for his survival. Not in eleven years had he strained to touch even the smallest amount of warmth or light. Up in the sky, every moment had been a painful struggle of grasping, fighting, biting, and hurting to reach out to the glowing gods that kept Akuma’s kind alive.

For the first time in eleven years, Akuma felt a surge of fear and excitement. Inside, the star sputtered painfully, held ever so gently by Akuma’s lower half. It was near to bursting. He would have to hurry. Akuma grinned and took off at a dead run.

The demon was grateful Kai was in such good physical shape. A second later, Akuma felt his boy sigh inside like a swaddled baby and sink deeper into slumber. Akuma padded him against the outside much like the star. Kai wouldn’t wake now even if he tried. Akuma needed to save them both. He would save them both.

The demon ran for twenty minutes, steadily north past the secret base, past the donut shop, into a sketchier part of town. The farther he ran, the more the buildings around him spread out and grew larger. The residential receded into the industrial.

Up ahead, Akuma spotted a fenced-off plot with a huge building comprised of a thousand pipes. It glowed like a dying star he’d once seen a thousand light years from here. The building was cast in amber light from flood lamps in every direction. In front of it was a collection of smaller, darker buildings not quite as well lit. Steam gushed lazily out a few smokestacks near the top of the complex.

Stopping in a shadowed spot, Akuma breathed in, giving Kai’s body a moment of rest while he sorted through the many layers of chemicals and soot until he located what he wanted. His sense pinged it like a bat using echolocation. There it was—his food source, just ahead in the main building. The wind blew another scent into his nose and Akuma hesitated, turning his head ever so slightly to the east. A familiar, warm scent. Link. Then Akuma shook it away. He didn’t have time to be distracted. He phased out and stepped through the gate.

By habit, Akuma usually kept out of the light, not because Kai wasn’t invisible. No, Akuma enjoyed blending in with the shadows. For Akuma, the shadows had substance, but not nearly the crush and weight of his kith and kin that made up the heavens above. At times, Akuma hugged the shadows, just missing the weight of his siblings’ bodies all around.

Now, he hurried forward in a straight line, regardless of the light and dark areas, phasing through walls quickly, his entire focus bent on finding the stockpile of hydrogen he sensed nearby. Then he walked through a wall and almost into a guard. The man jumped back, yelping at the sudden appearance of a fourteen-year-old boy in a hoodie that had sprung from the concrete behind him.

The guard pulled his gun, whipping it out and pointing it at Akuma as he yelled for him to get down in English and Spanish. The demon, though, had never phased back in. Calmly, he reached out, his hand passing through the gun, the shaking arm holding it, up and up until it was inside the guard’s chest. The guard’s eyes bulged as he stared down at the arm disappearing just below his rib cage. He scrambled back, trying to get away. Akuma followed relentlessly, his cold spreading out. The guard’s finger closed on the trigger but Akuma’s cold had jammed the internal mechanism.

The guard shouted at Akuma to get away. He dropped the gun and batted uselessly at the intangible arm inside of him, feeling its frozen fingers slowing his blood. He tried to escape the demon’s grasp, backing up until he hit a wall and could go no farther. His fear was so thick it clouded even the scent of hydrogen. Akuma didn’t respond, he wiggled his claws inside the chest cavity, disrupting the electrical signal the heart used to control its beating. The guard’s face turned gray. His breathing became labored. Futilely, he tried to clasp Akuma’s arm one more time and pull it away. He failed. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FɪndNøvel.ɴᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

As the body slid to the ground, Akuma phased him out and the guard sunk through the wall into a tunnel behind. The demon followed and watched for a few seconds as the body twitched, to make sure the guard didn’t get up again. He glanced around but the tunnel seemed unused. Good. He needed to feed the star, but he needed to protect Kai as well. No one could know Kai was here.

Akuma turned his attention back to the mission at hand. He walked forward. The star was compressing inside. Akuma went to go get his star food.

Link sat on his bed and stared at the email. The message was from an email address he didn't know, but it was definitely Jeff. He’d received the first message yesterday after the disastrous karate practice with Kai. Just a letter and a number: f3. It was arguably the worst opening move the white side could make in a chess game. Link knew because the nerds had gotten into a hot debate about it at the one and only meeting he and Jeff had attended. It was also the only thing either of them remembered from that meeting.

Seeing the message had been amazing, a triumph—proof that he could get around his dad. He’d sent Jeff his new cell number using his school email account as soon as Kai had texted it to him. Then he’d set up forwarding to an encrypted email account app on his phone. His dad may be monitoring his regular email and phone calls, but Link could play the game too.

The win had made Link giddy and confident, enough to sneak into his dad’s room and into the old man’s computer where he kept the password for his security system. Link hadn’t planned on using it, but just having it had given him a sense of power.

Then today, when he’d gotten off the bus to meet Kai, Link got another encrypted email. This one had a location in Van Nuys and a time to meet tonight at eleven. At first he was happy, excited, but as the meeting drew closer, Link became uneasy. Jeff, somehow, was in L.A. Link didn't know how or why. He wanted to see his friend, desperately, but instead of the rush he usually felt when they got into mayhem, Link felt worried.

Now, he stared at Google maps on his phone. It was in Van Nuys, north and west of his house. Link could get away. He had the code to the security system. He could shut it down and walk right out the door. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

“Link,” Mr. Palmer walked in. He knocked circumspectly, as if that meant something, but he didn't wait for permission. Then he glanced about as he came in as if expecting to find contraband lying right out in the open. Internally, Link bristled. “Lights out,” he said.

Link glanced at the clock. It was just after 9:00 p.m. on a Friday.

“Really?” Link said. “Mom let me stay up until eleven on the weekends.”

“I’m not your mother,” his dad said.

“Obviously,” Link snapped. “And I’m not a ten-year-old.”

“Don’t talk back to me. I’m not going to take your shit. Now go to bed, we’ll be up early tomorrow.”

“Why?” Link asked. “I thought I was grounded.”

“You are,” his dad said. “But I signed us up for Habitat for Humanity. It’ll look good on your college application and it’ll go towards your community service. Get used to it, kid. You’ll be building houses for the homeless for the next six months. I’m looking for a homeless shelter to send your ass to on Sundays. This is what they call ‘consequences.’”

Link set his jaw and clenched his fist. His dad stepped closer, eying the fist.

“Is this your moment, son?” he asked. “A week of martial arts and you think you can take me?”

The thought crossed his mind. Link imagined pounding his father’s face in and throwing him across the room. His dad rolled his shoulders and Link watched the muscles ripple. It wasn’t his moment, Link knew. He wanted it to be. He wanted it so desperately.

Link looked away. Mr. Palmer nodded.

“Smart choice,” he said. “Now go to bed.”

After Mr. Palmer left, Link stood in the center of his room, jaw tight, eyes closed, fists still clenched, waiting for his anger to recede. It didn’t. But when he felt like he wasn’t going to punch the wall, he opened his eyes, walked over and closed his bedroom door. Then Link shut off the lights, sat on the bed and waited.

This is the difference between you and me, Link thought towards his dad. You have to be a bully. I just have to be smarter than you.

Link didn't wait long. His father went to bed promptly at ten. The old man fell asleep quickly, Link knew, but slept lightly. In the meantime, Link turned on a fake GPS app that fed his dad misinformation. He typed in his bedroom location so the tracker would continue to transmit him at home.

At quarter after ten, Link slipped out of his room. On silent padded feet, he went down to the closet that held all his father’s security equipment. Other people had linen closets with towels and sheets. Mr. Palmer had shelves full of televisions and cameras.

Inside, Link typed in the password and stopped the recording on the perimeter cameras. Then he turned off the alarm. He left the house by way of the back door, making sure not to make any noise. It took two buses before he was dropped off in front of the Van Nuys airport. From there, he walked a few blocks to his final destination: a trampoline park in the warehouse district behind the airport.

The buildings around here were all huge monsters, some with broken windows and gaping holes, others so well lit they looked like mini orange cities against the night backdrop. Link was sweating and nervous when he approached the entrance. Then Jeff stepped out of the shadows.

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