"My sister died when she was twenty-three." Jeremiah said it apropos of nothing, as casually as if he were talking about what he wanted to order for dessert.

Kai took it in stride, helped herself to another calm bite of her meatless burger and waited for him to say more.

"It was leukemia. She'd had it since she was about ten. Practically broke my mom to find out she was sick, being only a few years after my dad had his accident." The man stared down at his half-eaten fried cod, smothered in tartar sauce, and felt suddenly ill. "I'm just telling you because you're about to meet her soon. My mom, that is, not my sister." He laughed awkwardly. "That'd be . . . that'd be weird. Not to mention impossible."

"Mmm hmm." Kai chewed delicately. She did everything delicately, perfectly, like some sort of nymph plucked out of a Greek myth. She sat across from Jeremiah, smooth brown arms extending from the sleeves of a thin T-shirt through which her braless nipples were defined. He knew what all of her looked like at that point, as free and comfortable as she was with her body. They'd put up in various motels along their road trip, and Kai felt no qualms whatsoever in stripping down for a shower right in front of him or in sleeping naked. Jeremiah knew he should've been salivating, that any normal man would've felt blessed to bear witness to that woman's lithe, nude form, but his relationship with bodies in general was far too complicated to allow himself any sort of sexual attraction to one so obviously close to perfection. A few times, he'd allowed his mind to stray, imagined Kai's form in strange positions, twisting and straining, and he'd been mortified when his anatomy had reacted, then. He'd had to get control of his thoughts or risk shaming himself, so he'd learned to find distraction when she was attending to herself in the buff. As of yet, the woman hadn't seemed to notice his discomfort with her self-display,

Jeremiah picked up a french fry and poked at the pile of ketchup on his plate. Why was this woman even with him? She'd told him things, about having nothing else to do, about feeling as if she were meant to help him, and though he'd stopped asking her, he still wondered. He certainly wouldn't have given up everything for a neurotic mess like himself. The cynic in him questioned whether her intentions had to do with money; he had, after all, pretty much emptied his bank account to return to Port Killdeer, and he was the one paying for the gas and the motels and the food. But the reality was that he didn't have much money at all--Kai knew that as well as he did--so she couldn't be hoping to get anything from him. And she couldn't be hoping for some sort of family money, either, because he'd been up front about the sort of place Port Killdeer was, the sort of town.

He hadn't been up front about the resort, though. He'd been keeping that to himself, fearful, perhaps, that she'd leave him if she knew. And as stubborn as he was in admitting it, Kai was the only thing keeping him together at that point.

"I haven't told you everything, yet, about why I'm going back."

"I know, love. When you're ready."

"But we'll be there in a couple of days. Don't you even care what you're getting into?" He rubbed at his eye, pulled an orange eyelash out of it. "I can't believe you're--"

"Wait!" Kai clutched at his hand as he made to flick the lash away. Closing her eyes for a moment, she reopened them and blew the hair off his finger, sending it to whatever afterlife airborne eyelashes ended up in.

Looking first at his half-eaten meal as if wondering whether the lash had gone there, Jeremiah then glanced back up into Kai's large brown eyes. She was smiling at him.

"What were you saying?"

"I--" But he was put off by the eyelash thing. He slumped back against the booth. "Listen, Kai, I don't think I've really come to terms yet with our situation. I've liked having you along--really--but I'm probably never going to leave Port Killdeer, once we get there. I just need you to know that. So if you want to go at any time, back to Chicago or somewhere else, I will understand completely, all right? I can get you a plane ticket, maybe go to the airport when we drive through Detroit. We can drop you there. Trust me--Port Killdeer . . . it's no place for you."

"Why is that?"

Jeremiah was caught off guard. Why was she pretending to be simple? Didn't she know? "I mean--you--it's a small town, Kai. Like . . . really small."

"All right. I'm from a small town outside of Johannesburg--"

"Yeah, but this is America small town--Michigan small town. The most diversity Port Killdeer locals see is when they watch National News, and even then, they don't believe half the people on there actually exist. You--you're--you're gorgeous, for one thing, and you're African, and you're . . . eclectic."

"Do I embarrass you?"

"No! No. It's just . . ." She was being so difficult. Why didn't she understand? Maybe he was going about things the wrong way. Maybe he should just be honest with her. Hadn't her kindness deserved as much? "I can't go back. I--I can't."

Kai bit her lower lip, scrutinized the man across from her. He marveled at the perfection of her slightly gapped teeth peeking through her mouth, the small mole near her right eye; he wondered what the depths of those dark irises saw in him, what value he held for her.

"That's why you're trying to get rid of me, isn't it?" she asked at last. "So you can run away? Or . . . to do what you said you would do, that night I found you?"

Jeremiah sighed deeply. He didn't want to lie to her. "You don't understand."

"Then tell me. Help me to understand."

He ran his fingers through his curls, moved nervously so that his long legs banged and shifted the table, rattled the glasses and plates. A deep breath or two, and he managed to string together some manner of explanation: "There's this . . . this place, there. In my hometown. It's not really part of the town; it's a resort--you know, members only sort of thing. And--well, anyway, I was working there one summer, and something happened--a lot of things, really--horrible things. I was just a kid. Me and my friends . . . we got mixed up in something we shouldn't have. I can't tell you all of it. I'm not supposed to talk about it, and I don't want to, anyway. But I've always known I'd have to go back, to face it again, all the stuff that happened. I don't want to, but I have to. I . . . I have to."

His voice had dropped so low that the silence that followed felt natural, blending with the murmuring, indecipherable voices of the others in the restaurant and the soft clinking of dishes and forks and spoons. Kai remained stoic, impossible to read, and Jeremiah fleetingly considered getting up and walking out right then and there. He'd finally tried to tell her about that summer, and she didn't seem to care, maybe didn't even believe him!

But then she rose, abruptly, and joined him on his side of the booth, sliding in next to him and turning her body sideways so she could look at him with the same familiarity she'd shown him from the beginning. "Is that all?"

Jeremiah attempted to drop his jaw in indignation, but Kai was too close to him, and in spite of the friendship they'd built, he was still dubious about their boundaries. "What do you mean, is that all? I tell you what happened to me, and--"

"No, darling. How long ago was it?"

"I was fifteen."

"Fifteen?" She lifted a hand up to his cheek, ran her slender fingers along his jaw. Jeremiah trembled in spite of himself. "What happens to us in adolescence," she soothed, "it leaves a mark. But it's fetishized, most of it. It felt meaningful, surely, but it can't have been as bad as you believe it was."

He wanted to tell her she was being condescending, patronizing, that the way she played with his hair made him feel like a child, but instead, he responded sullenly, "You don't know what it was like."

"And I don't need to, love. If it hurts you to recall, I don't need to know it. I only want what's best for you. If you want to run, let's run. I'll turn around with you now, and we can drive to the end of the earth. But I can tell this haunts you, and if you don't face it, it will always haunt you. Wherever you are, it will have a hold on you. Is that what you want?"

Her eyes, the look there--that was all he wanted. At least, it was all he wanted in that moment. Jeremiah wished desperately that he didn't have to return to Port Killdeer. He wished he could do what Kai offered, to run away with her. But he knew, too, that she was right. He'd never be left alone; what he'd touched, then, had shared itself with him, and he wouldn't be free of it, would instead be bound to it, unless he returned to it, confronted it.

If only confronting it didn't mean what he knew it meant.

Jeremiah gently took her wrist and pulled her hand from his cheek. Then he placed it on her lap and turned toward the table, resting his elbows on it, his forehead against his palms. "I'll go back, if you come with me. I don't want to go, otherwise."

"Of course I'll go with you. I'll be there the whole time, love. I promise."

A thin smile forced itself across his chin, but Jeremiah knew he was asking too much of her. Kai probably thought he had some bully he needed to go back and face, that he was picked on by some big guy and now needed to return and assert himself. Or maybe she thought he'd committed a crime, that he'd been coerced into doing something like stealing from the resort. Perhaps even that he'd been a bully--not that his skinny self could've ever beaten someone up but that maybe he'd blackmailed someone or done some stereotypical nerd thing like hack into someone's accounts or post revenge photos online or something. How could he know what she thought? Whatever it was, it couldn't possibly be the truth . . . the darkness, and the crimson light, the carnality and the blood, the manipulation and the scandal. . . and worse, below . . . down, down below . . .

Oh, she'd never come, not in a thousand lifetimes, if she knew!

He'd let her get him there, and then he'd have to do something to send her away. He wouldn't allow her to get hurt for his own selfishness. It was the least he could do, after everything she'd done for him, this actual goddess who'd come into his life, his savior. He'd never have found the courage to carry on, to push forward, to return, if she hadn't found him.

Forty-eight hours. Only forty-eight hours until he reached Port Killdeer.

Resting his gaze on the glistening mush of what had once been his meal, Jeremiah stifled the urge to vomit.