My hair’s flying around my head in a cloud, getting in my eyes. I shove it back with both hands, wishing me and Dancer were eating jerky and hanging cool. “Yeah! Like, I might just have a life! Like I might just have plans for things that conflict with your stupid report-to-work-every-night-at-eight rule! Nobody else has to work every single night! Maybe I could get a couple of nights off to do something I want to do. Is that too fecking much to ask?”

“You have a date.”

Another nonquestion, but the word “date” in the same thought with Dancer makes me say, “Huh?”

Ryodan stands and dwarfs me. I live in a world of people who are taller than me, but Jo says she thinks I’m going to grow more. I measure myself a lot. I don’t want to be stuck at five foot two and three-quarters forever.

“You mentioned plans. You didn’t say what they were.”

“None of your fecking business.”

“Everything is my business.”

“Not my personal life. That’s why they call it personal.”

“This is about your little boyfriend.”

“Don’t talk about him. Don’t even think about him. And he’s not little. Stop calling him little. One day he’s going to be bigger than you. You just wait and see.”

“This isn’t the time to play house and get clumsy with a kid that doesn’t know what to do with his own dick.”

He just made me think about Dancer’s dick. The thought is so uncomfortable I start bouncing from foot to foot. “Who said anything about dicks? I just want to watch a movie tonight!”

“Which one.”

“How could that possibly matter?”

He gives me a look.

“Scream 4. Happy?”

“Wasn’t very good.”

“Dancer said it was,” I say crossly. Has everybody seen it but me?

“Shows what he knows.”

“You got a problem with Dancer?”

“Yes. He’s the reason you’re in a shit mood tonight and I have to put up with it. So fix the shit mood or I’ll fix Dancer.”

My hand goes to the hilt of my sword. “Don’t you even think about trying to take anything from me that’s mine.”

“Don’t make me.”

His fangs just slid out. I shake my head and whistle. “Dude, what are you?”

He looks at me long and hard and I see something in his eyes that I almost get but don’t. It’s a look that I feel like I should know but just can’t make sense of. There’s more of a breeze in the small, closed office than I usually manage to generate, and I realize he’s vibrating, too—and he makes wind, too. I’m beyond annoyed. Is there anything I can do that he can’t do? When I look down through the glass floor, Isee that everyone beneath us is moving slo-mo. We’re both freeze-framing. I didn’t realize I’d shifted all the way up.

He drops back into slo-mo first.

It takes me a sec longer to get ahold of my temper. When I manage to shift down, I flop into a chair and sling a leg over the side. I speak belligerence in every language known to man. Sign language is my native tongue.

Ryodan is like the ocean. He is what he is. And he’s not about to change. There’s no point in fighting the tide. It ebbs. It flows. You ride it. He’s got me by the short hairs and he’s not about to let go.

“So, what are we doing tonight? Boss.” I put all my aggravation into the last word.

There’s that look again. Mystery to me. Sometimes I can read him like a book, other times the only things I see on his face are two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

I roll my eyes. “What?”

“Something’s come up. I was going to tell you.” He goes back to his paperwork, dismissing me. “You can go.”

I sit up straight. “Really? You mean it?”

“Get out of my office, kid. Go watch your movie.”

I can’t get to the door fast enough. I yank it open.

“But watch out for icy spots. I hear they’re deadly.”

I pause on the threshold, getting mad all over again. I had a happy feeling for all of one stinking second before he went and squashed it. “You just had to say that. You can’t help yourself, can you? You think the only thing to do with a parade is rain on it. Some people know to enjoy the parade because, dude, the rain always comes back.”

“The wise man ensures his survival before enjoying it. The fool dies enjoying it.”

Skittles, jerky, and Dancer are calling my name. I rip open a candy bar, bouncing from foot to foot. “But what if the wise man never gets around to the enjoying part?” I got a lot of unlived experiences waiting for me. Sometimes I want to be just what I am. Fourteen and free.

“Perhaps the wise man knows being alive is the enjoying part.”

“Have more places gotten iced since last night?” I should have kept my mouth shut. I shouldn’t have asked. Responsibility adds weight and years to my shoulders when he nods.

He rubs salt in the wound. “But maybe you’ll get lucky, watching a movie with your little boyfriend, and nothing will happen. Bright side of it is, if something does, you’ll never know.”

’Cause I’d like, be dead instantly. Bright side, my ass. Ryodan knows just how to push my buttons.

I roll my eyes, close the door and sit back down. I’ll be fourteen later. Like probably next year. When I’m fifteen.

Without looking up, he says, “I said get out of here, kid.”