I need air. I need to get out of this place. The walls seem to shift and move before me, like they’re closing in. I hurry down the hallway, Tina’s horrible face looming in my mind, the deep voice ringing in my ear. I think someone calls out my name from a distance, but I ignore them.

I’m almost at a run when I hit the door. It flies open, the impact reverberating through my wrists, and I hurry down the stairs. I stop on the bare patch of grass, realizing it’s the courtyard I usually avoid. The pomegranate spirit lies there on the ground. I quicken my pace to walk past him.

“Heh heh heh heh…” I hear him chuckle as I go by, like he’s speaking right into my ear. “Not long now…”

I don’t know where I’m going, only that I’m not able to stay here any longer. I place my hand on the latch for the gate, and someone puts their hand on my arm.

I do cry out then, high and thin pitched. It’s my sister and her friends, coming back to finish what they started. Hands fly to my shoulders, and a worried face comes into view. It’s Shen.

“Ruby!” His eyes are wide as he takes in my near-hysterical state. “I’ve been yelling at you to stop, but you didn’t hear me. What happened?”

The adrenaline that kept me going, sent me running, empties out of me in a rush. My knees buckle, and I half collapse against the fence, letting it catch my weight. I try to suck in air, but my breathing comes too fast and shallow. Stars dance in my eyes.

“Breathe…. Just breathe…. Follow me….” Shen is suddenly right next to me, holding me up, his hand finding mine. I listen to his instructions, feel his breath skimming my cheek, his gaze holding me steady. Keeping me tethered to the ground, even though the rest of me wants to float away. The tingling feeling slowly fades from my hands and feet, until bit by bit, I’m back.

He guides me through the gate and down the sidewalk. He doesn’t let me go, even as he finds a bench for us to sit on, and I settle myself on it.

“She…” I gulp, then try again. “She threatened me.” I tell him of the darkness that flooded Tina’s eyes. Of her threat to throw Denny off our house after luring him up there. I feel myself starting to shake again, my mind unable to control my body.

I don’t know if he saw the terror in my eyes or if he sensed that I needed it, but he pulls me close until my head is resting on his shoulder, my cheek pressed against his chest. He wraps his arms around me, strong and steady. I close my eyes and let myself sink in. Focus on the roughness of the fabric against my face. The smell of his jacket, something sharp and a little spicy. He’s…safe.

My peace is interrupted by a buzzing noise coming from his jacket, and he slowly pulls away.

“Sorry,” he murmurs against my hair as he reaches into his pocket, even though I’m the one who should be sorry, having what I think was a panic attack in front of him.

There’s a sudden chill in the air; the wind picks up, blowing my hair across my face. The clouds above us threaten snow. I sit up and try to breathe and settle my racing heart while he answers his phone.

“I’m with her,” he says. “Something’s happened.” He shifts beside me, arm brushing against my shoulder.

“Yeah, I’ll ask her.” Shen lifts his phone away from his face and looks at me. “Shu-Ling wants to invite you over to our place for dinner tonight. She has an idea and wants to hear what you think. Do you have time?”

I have volunteering tonight. But I think the aunties will understand if I take a break from playing classic songs for them for one night. I nod, and he turns back to the phone.

“She’ll be there,” he informs Shu-Ling. “Well, text me the list. We’ll pick it up on the way. Sure. See you later.” He puts the phone back in his pocket, and it’s just the two of us together again. Sitting on the bench. A lazy snowflake drifts down and lands on his hair, then another.

Snow in Vancouver usually doesn’t start until December. It’s early this year. I reach off and brush a snowflake off his hair, absentmindedly. It isn’t until I’ve done it that I realize maybe I shouldn’t have. My hand stops midair, and he traps me with his gaze. I should say something, but the silence between us stretches on. I envision myself leaning over, closing the distance between us. Touching my lips to his. My heart beats a little faster, but for a different reason entirely.

But his eyes narrow as he tugs my sleeve down, exposing my wrist. There’s redness there, the shadow of a bruise already forming on my skin. Yet another physical mark on me.

“Who did this?” he demands. “Was it her?” He looks upset, more shaken than I’ve ever seen him.

“It must have happened when she grabbed me,” I say, examining my wrist more closely.

“Dammit.” He shakes his head. “This shouldn’t have happened. We’ll tell Shu-Ling tonight, that we need a solution.” My heart skips again when he says we. I like the sound of it. Like we’re doing this together.

“Thank you,” I say softly. “I don’t know if I ever told you this before, but if I have, I’ll say it again. Thank you for helping me.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he says. “I haven’t done anything. The problem hasn’t been resolved.”

“It’s enough that you believe there’s a threat. That you’re taking me seriously,” I say, with as much earnestness as I can muster so he can understand how I feel.

“Of course I believe you!” he says, loud enough that a crow in the tree beside us squawks and flies away with a swift flutter of wings, making both of us jump and then laugh at ourselves. I like seeing that dimple in his cheek again. I like it when he doesn’t have to be so serious.

“I…I wish we could have met for different reasons,” I tell him.

“Ah, um…” He scratches his head. “I don’t know if our paths would have ever crossed. I don’t really meet anyone outside of the Loft or through the temple.”

“Right,” I sigh. “That makes sense.”

“Not that, uh, not that I didn’t want to meet you, or anything like that…” He stumbles over his words a little. At least he is honest. A part of me cringes, having imagined that he would have wanted to get to know me even if circumstances were different.

“I get it.” I hop off the bench, trying to brush away the disappointment. “Well, soon you won’t have to babysit me anymore.” I hope, anyway. As long as Tina doesn’t try to kill me again.

“Wait, Ruby!” He gets to his feet too and catches my arm. “I don’t mean it in that way. I mean, I’m not so good with people in general, but you’re different. I like spending time with you.”

He looks so earnest, I can’t help but tease him a little. “Well, that makes sense, considering you were raised in a cult.”

He grins. “Right, right…” And the tension in the air is gone, just like that. Carried away by the wind. We’re okay again.

I check my phone, and third period is already almost over. I should go back for the last period, but I really don’t want to.

“What time do we have to get to your place to meet Shu-Ling?” I ask.

“She’s already home. She wants us to pick up a few things in Chinatown on the way there, ingredients for dinner.”

“Do you want to go now?” I blurt out.

“Don’t you have class?” he asks, puzzled.

“My sister almost killed me,” I tell him. “Learning about ‘the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell’ is the last thing I want to focus on.” The bell rings in the distance. We’ll have ten minutes to grab our stuff and leave.

“Sure.” He nods. “Meet you back here in ten and we’ll go?”

Shen and I walk side by side as we make our way to Chinatown. A few people glance at our uniforms when they walk by, probably wondering why two high schoolers are strolling on the street in the middle of the school day.

There are a few times when I stop, hesitate when I think I’ve noticed something. An arm coming out of a grate set against the side of a building. A face peering at us from behind glass and then passing all the way through, a floating head leering at us as we hurry by. What Shu-Ling warned me about is frighteningly real. As each day passes, those spirits that linger in our realm are clearer. They seem to notice me too, because I can feel them watching me, even from a distance. That sensation prickling against my skin, a warning.

Shen must sense my discomfort, because he steps closer to me as we keep walking down the street. “You get used to them after a while,” he says, keeping his voice low. “They’ll try and talk to you, to get your attention, especially once they figure out you can hear them. The best thing to do is to learn to ignore them.”

“There…there are so many more of them than I expected,” I murmur, even though I’ve seen them before. It’s not quite like this.

“After the ritual Shu-Ling performed, you’re walking around with a ‘Look at Me!’ sign on your head, because you’re new,” he explains. “The ones that have been stuck here for a while…they recognize us.”

A bearded man dressed in a long, worn jacket and fingerless gloves staggers out from the alley, nearly knocking me over. Shen pulls me back as the man grumbles at me, swinging his arm in my direction. He shakes his fist at both of us when Shen blocks him from reaching me, then shuffles away to jaywalk across the street.

“Stay close,” Shen says softly. Another group passes us on the sidewalk, this time a cluster of women with iced drinks in hand, sunglasses perched on their heads. Tourists, I think, with the way they chatter excitedly about their evening plans, oblivious to the people around them. We’re forced to step into a small alcove to avoid being trampled. I’m tucked into his side, his arm around my shoulders. I should shrug his arm off, see it as a friendly gesture, but instead I stay here for a moment longer. I wish we could have met for a different reason. The thought from earlier resurfaces again, even stronger now. Would you see me differently then?

“Sometimes it helps me to be around people, the energy of the living and all,” he says in that steady, careful way. As if knowing that I am close to running away or leaning in. “This okay?” He gently squeezes my shoulder.

I nod and then, to hide my nervousness, joke: “Lucky me. Is this the special treatment you give all the girls?”

“Didn’t you see all these girls lining up on the street for me?” Shen chuckles, and we start walking again. It takes us a few steps to get our strides to match. “I should be advising you that for the next little bit, you shouldn’t be wandering about in too many places with yin energy.”

We’re back to the serious topic again, and yet with his arm around me, the warmth of his body next to mine…I feel calmer, a little less afraid.

“Where are places with yin energy?” I ask.

We turn the corner onto one of the main intersections of Chinatown. It’s busier here. A police car goes by, lights flashing. We pass one of the grocery shops, with some of their produce out on tables on the sidewalk, cardboard signs with the prices on them sticking out of each box. Shen looks down at me when we wait to cross the street, eyes still crinkling in the corner with amusement.

“Graveyards, hospitals, and the like.” He grins. “I’m guessing you won’t usually be wandering those places after dark.”

“Graveyard trespasser, that’s me.” I snort. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“若無行暗路, 袂去拄著鬼,” he tells me.

“What does that mean? My Taiwanese is really bad.”

“I thought you said you speak Taiwanese,” he teases, the dimple in his cheek peeking out again.

“How else could I have convinced you to listen?” I give him the voice that I usually reserve for scolding Denny, and his grin deepens.

“My mom used to tell me this all the time.” He repeats the phrase again, slower. “Directly translated it means ‘If you avoid walking down dark roads, then you won’t meet many ghosts.’”

I consider this, still a little confused at how to interpret it.

“It’s an old saying….” His brow furrows as he searches for the right words. “If you don’t do 虧心事, guilty things, then you’ll be free from the burden of your past coming back to bite you.”

He pulls me into another alcove, out of the way of all the people crowding the streets, looking to get home after work and school. It’s a side entrance to a bookstore, its windows all boarded up.

His expression is serious again. “I can understand why you want to protect your sister and your brother. I want to take care of my sister too, so she can keep us safe. Shu-Ling walks those dark roads on purpose so that the rest of us don’t have to.”

The noise of the people passing by, the traffic in the street…all of it fades away when his hand slides down my back, pulling me closer, until I’m standing in a circle of his arms. It’s not fair for a guy to have lashes so long, to have cheekbones so high, to have a smile that leaves me longing for all the things out of my reach.

“I meant what I said earlier,” he murmurs, long lashes skimming his cheeks. “It’s different with you….”

I’m about to ask him what he means by that, but he leans over and brushes his lips against mine before I can say another word.