The Cipher

by Kathe Koja

Which it did, and the light too at once and my clumsiness betrayed me, Nakota in instant triumph seeing the whorl of blanket f or what it was and saying, “There he is,” and me raising my head, reluctant and half-blind, blinking at her groupies. Whom I saw at once were more trouble than I felt up to handling: six or seven of them, hunching shoulders, big jackets, hands impatient in pockets and eyes like tracer gazes going all around the room, all of them stupider, meaner, wilder, more prone to that special brand of idiocy which most often turns into wreckage, spillage; blood. They smelled blood, all right, or maybe worse that more esoteric fluid that dribbled from me now, in a brightly vindictive stream that soaked the pillowcase and turned the sheet to clotted silver, a party color is it, well let’s start the party now. When in doubt, attack, right? And I was nothing if not always in doubt. About something.