┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐
chapter three!
SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK
└─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘

( 117, pt. i )

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

KAI WONDERS WHEN the faces of the dead will stop haunting her.

Her eyelids are sticky when she wakes, reluctant to open, and she has to pry them apart to reveal the ceiling of her bedroom. Everything is blurry at first. Though she flickers her gaze from the window across from her bed to the closet at her right, her surroundings only appear as vague shapes with indistinct edges.

She huffs a sigh and waits. As she blinks the seconds away, her vision slowly returns to normal. The window has a clear ending and beginning instead of melting into the wall. She can see that the closet is cracked open. Dread consumes her the longer she looks around without noticing something amiss, causing her stomach to churn.

Kai sits up, pushing her covers down to her waist, and scrutinizes the bedroom. Her foster sister, Cam, must already be awake because her bed is neatly made and empty. The wooden floor is scratched from decades of use yet free of clutter. Only her phone and a pair of earbuds are on her nightstand. The overall serenity of the room makes her suspicious. Where is it?

The door opens a moment later. Cam walks into the room with her pajamas bundled up in one hand. She's dressed in one of her favorite pleated skirts — a ruby red one — and a black sweater vest over a white polo, a matching red headband adding a pop of color to her dark, shoulder-length hair. She gives Kai an impassive look before tossing her clothes into their hamper.

"Good. You're finally awake," she says. Without giving Kai a second glance, she continues her morning routine of clearing the room of any sign of clutter— not that there usually is anything. Kai doesn't have much to begin with, and Cam returns things to their proper place the moment she's done using them.

"What was it this time?" Kai asks, her voice still groggy with sleep.

Cam reaches under her bed and tosses something at Kai. She catches it and turns the object over in her hands. It's a Magic 8 Ball. Or, rather, it looks like one. When Kai turns the plastic over to where the predictions usually lie submerged in blue liquid, she only finds an eye rotating in the murk, blinking at her.

A shudder goes down her spine. "I don't even remember dreaming about this."

"Well, apparently you did, and I hate it," Cam says, matter-of-fact and blunt as always. "We should destroy it as soon as we get the chance. Get dressed."

Kai sighs, tossing her head up to look at the ceiling. It's as nondescript as any regular bedroom ceiling, but she's gotten intimately familiar with it in the past year, lying in bed for hours and counting each crack and imperfection until her eyes burned, sending hot tears streaking down the sides of her face. It's like the comforting face of a friend when she's reluctant to fall asleep. Now it doesn't offer any solace. It's just a ceiling, and she's stalling.

Twenty minutes later, Kai has gotten dressed, eaten a bowl of Cocoa Puffs, and given the dog, Blue, a thorough scratching. Her foster mother watches her knowingly throughout this process.

"You're gonna want something warmer than that if you're planning on going out," Reneé says.

Ever since Kai stepped inside the door of the Price household, her foster parents have surprised her. She wasn't new to the system when she got here last January. She's been shipped in and out of countless homes since birth, having been thrust into foster care as soon as she came screaming into this world because her parents were young and didn't want to raise a child. Usually, newborns are easily adopted. But Kai was different— she seemed to bring trouble with her no matter where she went, and it set people off.

But not the Prices. No, Reneé and Elijah have been determined to make her feel at home. They've wormed around her usual aloofness that kept her distanced from previous foster families. Reneé has a knack for discerning people's true thoughts and feelings— she can even read Cam's carefully masked expressions sometimes. And Elijah is so warm and outgoing that it's impossible not to smile around him.

Of course this one good thing has to come when she's almost out of the system.

Kai retreats to her room and throws a flannel jacket with sherpa lining over her gray hoodie. Just as she's about to head out the door, something is shoved onto her head, covering her eyes. She jumps and yanks the knit hat further up her forehead. Once she can see again, the smiling face of Sebastian Balotelli appears.

"Gonna be cold," he says, a slight Italian accent marking his words.

"So I've heard" Kai grumbles. When she notices the youngest member of their house, Levi Crooks, aimlessly kicking a rock around in the driveway, her frown deepens.

"What, did you think you were going out there yourself?" Sebastian asks. He's still grinning, which Kai has never been able to understand. It's like other people's sour moods slide right off him. "You going to skateboard all the way to the Preserve with that... googly-eyed thing tucked under your arm?"

He gestures to the cursed Magic 8 ball that she'd wrapped in an old towel and had, in fact, been planning on keeping tucked under her arm while she skateboarded to the Preserve. She huffs and looks away, ignoring how Sebastian's grin widens knowingly.

Why does he have to be so damn perceptive? None of her other foster families were like this. They let her come and go as she pleased as long as she was back before curfew, and her days were marked by solitude. It led to many long and lonely years, but it kept her safe. She was less likely to feel heartbreak once she inevitably moved again.

The creaky storm door slams shut. Cam sighs, "Let's get this over with."

Sebastian is the only one who can drive, so they have to pile into his car by default, though it's practically on the cusp of death and has been for the past twenty-odd years. Kai doesn't know what year it's from, but it's clearly a seventies model from how the inside appears. Sebastian had brought it back to life before his boss could send it to be scrapped. Now it's his prized possession even if it's all rusty and makes gasping sounds every time he starts the engine.

Kai and Levi sit in the back while Cam takes shotgun. When Sebastian turns his key in the ignition, the familiar sputtering noises greet their ears, and the car makes desperate chugachugaspatspat noises as it struggles to function.

"This thing is begging to die," Levi says.

"Hush," Sebastian replies. He tries the ignition again, and this time it works, though Kai can feel the car shaking as the ancient motor runs.

He locks and unlocks the doors precisely eight times. This used to baffle Kai when she first moved here, especially when he'd shaken his head afterward and done it again, the locks going click click click click click each time. Before they'd piled into the car, Cam had yanked her aside and hissed, "Sebastian is going to lock the doors eight times. Do not mention it." Kai wouldn't have commented on it anyway, but she'd been silently confused. Now it's a part of their routine that she hardly notices. Except when he restarts the process a third time and she worries that the engine is going to stall before they can start moving.

Luckily, he's satisfied with his first attempt, and they start on their way, the early morning fog creeping over the street before the car cuts through it, sending the clouds dispersing on either side. Sebastian fiddles with the radio. Classic rock crackles through the speakers; soon AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" is the soundtrack to the start of their journey. Kai can't help but find it fitting.

"Can I see it?" Levi asks.

It takes Kai a moment to realize he's talking to her. She unwraps the towel and shows him the Magic 8 ball tucked inside, its unblinking eye whizzing around.

Levi pulls a disgusted face when it appears to look at him. "Gross. I wish we could keep it."

"There are only so many of these we can keep, bud," Sebastian reminds him.

Levi sighs. "I know."

Some of Kai's dream objects are harmless— a notebook, a pair of shoes that are conveniently Levi's size, a lollipop with an obscure flavor. The most interesting of these was their dog. One morning, the girls had woken to an English Springer Spaniel standing in their room, watching them with unnatural blue eyes, and with only three legs. That one had been hard to explain to their foster parents. But ultimately, they had decided to keep her, and now Blue lives in the already cramped house with them.

But the ones they can't explain, or are too dangerous to keep around, they bring to the Preserve on the outskirts of town.

The dead leaves crunch under their feet as they walk. Gargantuan trees surround them, their trunks thick and old, covering the overcast sky. Kai is grateful for her hat and coat. It's colder than she expected. Her breath comes out in white clouds that float up into the evergreen treetops, the tip of her nose already turning numb.

She has no idea how far they have to walk. Sebastian likes to make this a learning exercise for Levi, so each time they visit, he parks somewhere random and makes him track their way back.

"Close your eyes," Sebastian tells him. "Focus on the scents."

"I'm cold," Levi complains.

"Then zip up your coat."

What an amusing sight they must be to any outsider — an amalgamation of people that don't belong together, a hodgepodge of pieces from different puzzles. There's Sebastian, who always appears put-together in an effortless sort of way, with his brown coat, jeans, and boots, gloves pulled over his hands. Practical as always. Then there's Cam in her polished, preppy attire, a scowl on her face. Kai looks like she'd just rolled out of bed due to her oversized clothing that swallows her frame. And Levi, as characteristic of a middle school boy, is wearing a highlighter-yellow puffer jacket that makes him visible for miles, a matching hat, and sweatpants. The bright colors juxtapose his dark skin.

"I don't have all day," Cam grumbles when Levi leads them the wrong way twice.

"You didn't have to come," Sebastian reminds her.

"I'm sorry!" Levi exclaims, his voice high with anxiety and hands balled into fists at his sides. "It smells mostly like dead stuff here. Like, dead leaves. Not dead people."

The towel jerks in Kai's arms. She looks down at it, noticing the spherical object inside beginning to move.

"Uh," she says, "it's twitching."

"Oh, hell no," Levi says. "If it starts growing legs and running away from us, it's so not cool anymore."

Sebastian releases a string of Italian curses. "Okay, I'm going to lead the way, but you have to keep focusing on your senses, okay? Just because I'm taking over doesn't mean you don't have to put in the work."

"Fine," Levi says. He continues sniffing the air as Sebastian guides them through the forest, past a trickling stream, and over a hill.

The dream object graveyard is a nondescript spot where they've been burying stuff for the past year. Luckily, hardly anyone goes in the woods after the recent uptick in murders in the town, and the only ones who do frequent this place are other members of the supernatural— or are supernatural adjacent like Cam, who doesn't have any powers of her own but has been roped into this life by having two werewolf foster brothers and one... whatever Kai is.

The fallen leaves and pine needles provide a cover for the countless holes they've dug. Any normal person walking through here wouldn't know that the ground has been tampered with.

Sebastian turns to Levi. "Start digging."

Levi groans. "Do I have to?"

"Well, did you bring a shovel?"

Levi mutters incoherent things under his breath before crouching down and brushing the dry foliage to the side. He sniffs again to see if he can detect any hints of recently overturned earth, then, when he deems the spot is empty, starts pawing at the dirt with superhuman speed. Within seconds, a decent-sized hole has appeared.

"Who wants to do the honors?" Sebastian asks.

"Me," Cam volunteers.

Kai unwraps the moving Magic 8 ball from the towel and passes it to Cam, who promptly hurls it at the ground. It spasms when it hits the dirt. Then Cam lifts her boot, her jaw set in determination, and stomps on the thing as hard as she can, plastic and tissue crunching underfoot. She smashes it over and over until she deems it acceptably destroyed. Satisfied when it's merely smithereens, she huffs and fixes her hair.

"Thank you, Cam," Sebastian says. He picks up the debris and tosses it into the small grave. "In you go."

Levi replaces the dirt on top of the hole, flattens it with his feet, and scatters the leaves so the area looks natural again. Then the group turns to set off in the direction they came.

Of course, Kai is grateful that these kids haven't shunned her for her unchecked abilities, but she can tell it adds strain to their already chaotic lives. Levi was turned into a werewolf a few years ago and still struggles. Sebastian juggles mentoring him and several school clubs, along with being captain of the school's soccer team. Cam appears one minor inconvenience away from setting the world on fire. So while they deal with her pulling weird things out of her sleep for now, how long will they keep doing so?

It must be only a matter of time before they leave her to fend for herself.

_______

a/n:

i am SO excited to explore more of kai's abilities in this book!! they're so cool <3

which foster sibling are you most interested in learning more about? it's going to be interesting when they get involved with dom, vera, and the rest of the gang because sebastian is a ball of sunshine and cam hates everyone. lmfao. you can also check out the pinterest board for this fic to get a better sense of their personal aesthetics!

also HOW does this book already have almost 2k reads lmao HUH???? wowza!!! i love u all so much holy moly <333

thank you for reading! i hope you enjoyed the chapter!

— kristyn

( word count: 2.4k )