“But that’s a guy’s name.”
“Huntress?”
She nods, liking that better.
“What’s your name?”
“Langston,” I say my name out loud and shutter. My father calls me Langston. I only think of his beatings when I hear someone call me that name.
She notices; her eyes soft with sympathy as she looks at me more closely for the first time. She’s probably noticing my swollen eye and bruise, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Kill it before it gets away,” I say, pointing to the spider that is now starting to crawl along the wall.
“I can’t,” her voice is quiet.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“You have to kill it. I think it’s a black widow spider. It’s poisonous. It could kill you if you don’t kill it.”
She thinks about my words for a second and lifts her pink sparkly flip flop to kill it, but then her foot slams back to her side. She can’t kill the spider.
There is conflict in her hazel, gold speckled eyes. She needs the spider to be dead, but can’t kill it herself.
I lift my worn, off-brand tennis shoes and slam it over the spider, killing it.
“Killer,” she whispers.
“What?” I ask, terrified that she’s going to be mad at me. I can’t handle that. I really could use a friend.
“Your name. I’ll call you killer. You’ll call me huntress, and I’ll call you killer.”
I grin and nod, liking the nickname a lot better than her calling me Langston.
Just then, my stomach growls. I haven’t eaten anything all day.
Hers growls louder a second later, making us both laugh.
“You got any food?” I ask.
She hesitates and bites her lip before she answers. “No.”
She’s lying—her first lie. I can tell. But when I look her over, I realize she needs whatever food she has a lot more than I do.
“It’s okay. Enzo said he’d bike over later and bring me food.”
“Enzo?”
“He’s my friend.”
“Sure, he is.”
I laugh.
We both lay on the floor, leaning our heads against the foot of the couch.
Her smile drops as suddenly as it appeared. “How did you get that bruise on your eye?”