CW: death, blood, violence.

Nena came to consciousness little by little. She was ever present in the air of apartment 5K in the seventy-unit building in Brooklyn, like the wafting scent of sewer gas coming from old drain pipes: It’s easily ignored but still makes you a little sick.

Sofia, the old woman who lived in apartment 5K, believed in Nena. Sofia had felt the ghost’s presence since she was a girl. The woman had played with Nena, prayed to her, warded against her with candles lit on windowsills, found comfort in her when the woman realized none of her children could afford to take over, that she couldn’t keep up with the wear on the apartment. The woman raised her children here, and then her children’s children, the oldest of which slept in the only other bedroom. She was scared of what would happen to her family when these 850 square feet were wrenched from the body of their kinship like an organ from a corpse.

Now, the abuelita lay crumpled amid the wrinkled floral sheets, both spotted with age like rotting fruit. Maybe her proximity to death allowed her to better sense the sickly sweet tendrils of Nena swirling at her bed post. She finally saw the ghost, her oldest companion, and reached out her hand.

Nena! Mi nenita. Mi nena.

Nena snapped to full consciousness then, felt her attention bite on to the woman’s outstretched, bony fingers. Sofia’s aged face contorted in pain, desperate for any comfort as she left her life. Nena recoiled in disgust. She fled to the corner of the musty room. Nena’s first thought, like a baby’s fluid filled cry while still attached to its mother, was that death made you ugly.

• • • •

Nena floated, forgotten, for a time. At first, all she could do was watch as men in heavy boots entered the apartment and inspected it, running hands over the stained walls, knocking knuckles against the drywall in search of wood studs and pipes.

Since Abuela Sofia’s death, Nena was aware all the time, but no matter how hard she thought, she had no memories of a life before the old lady’s outstretched hand. Instead, she listened to the scritching and scratching of mice all night. More men came armed with buckets of paint. They shrugged as they got flecks of white paint on the parquet floors. They secured loose boards with errant nails gleaming with newness, which highlighted the shoddy repairs. They swiped gobs of mortar to replace broken pieces of tile in the bathroom. Nena hated these men and the way they replaced the smells of life with wafts of stale tobacco and that salty tangy scent of sweaty male.

One of them opened the fuse box and scowled at the old screw-in fuses. He dialed the new owner of the apartment, someone who didn’t even live in the city but owned a small percentage of it.

“You really should consider replacing these. People got all these appliances and this old box isn’t gonna hold up. They’ll be blowin’ out every couple weeks if they’re not careful.” He hemmed and hawed and his frown got deeper. “Well you better hope they like to air dry their hair . . . yeah . . . alright. Look, it’s just a recco . . . okay.”

He hung up with a sigh. Nena got so close to the man she could see the pores in his chin. She was incorporeal, but she tried to touch him, as a test, and he swatted at the spot, as if a bug had landed on his nape. The mist that was Nena curled around his neck, brushing along the back, and watched the man shiver.

She didn’t know what to name this feeling, this sudden excitement. The man unscrewed one of the plugs, which was black from overuse, and threw it in a plastic bag of trash. Then he unwrapped a fresh plug to screw in. Nena followed the movement, gliding along the man’s tan skin to his fingertips, and she surged into the socket and oh—

The surge of electricity coursed through them both, and in that moment Nena was fully alive again. She exploded with a gust like laughter and she expanded, she was in the walls, she was the walls and she was the man and she—

He fell backwards with a thud, and there was an overwhelming scent of burned flesh, a smell she suddenly recognized more than anything, and she was once again a collection of particles in the warm air of the apartment.

She hovered over the man, and saw that his fingertips were scorched black. She wanted to take form again as anything other than what she was. She had tasted life, and now she tasted death.

The man was taken away, eventually. A new one came to finish the repairs in the morning.

• • • •

Nena did not mind her purgatory, at first. She didn’t remember her life or death, and so she wasn’t frustrated by the fact that she was somehow neither dead or alive. But she couldn’t forget that connection she felt in the moments before a death, the moment when her presence was finally acknowledged by someone else. The abuela reaching out, calling for her, the repairman sizzling at her caress. The proof of her existence gave her the power to better affect her surroundings, and when she thrummed with energy she could make windows and doors rattle. When the brokers came with prospective tenants, Nena hovered excitedly in front of the door. She delighted in the goosebumps that emerged when she brushed against skin, the gasp when she flipped the water on or little shrieks when she jumped sparks through the electric sockets. A broker took a sip of water and in that moment, Nena poured herself over his nose and mouth and watched him choke.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” His client rushed forward, hands fluttering.

“Yeah,” he coughed. “Just went down my windpipe.”

That evening, when the broker showing the space all day locked up, Nena tried to follow, hovering around his head like an invisible cloud of smoke. The man looked pale, and Nena wondered if he could feel her like she could feel him, as a warm hazy presence. He loosened his collar and fanned his face. He got in a shiny black sedan double-parked behind the apartment building. He reversed and angled the vehicle to pull forward, and Nena felt the tug of the apartment pull her backwards as the car moved. Nena curled herself around the man’s face to hold on, covering his mouth and nose. As the man struggled for breath, she felt as electric as she had when she’d touched the shoddy old switchboard in the apartment. She found she relished the broker’s death throes as he drowned on her. She reformed in the corner she’d come to consciousness in, still incorporeal, but somehow denser. Nena stretched the atoms of her not-yet body to fill the wall.

• • • •

Nena had been patient these few weeks. She’d tried to slip through the cracks in the windows and doors, but she kept rematerializing in the same corner. Her spirit couldn’t leave the body of the apartment, but because she’d never known anything else, she couldn’t say she minded.

Apartment 5K was passed on by well-heeled couples, groups of girlfriends looking to live close to some of the area bars, young men with watches who tucked their polos in even in their off hours, and thin, mulleted undergrads. Vanessa, however, saw the potential of the old apartment, and wrote a check to the broker on the spot.

The ghost thought Vanessa seemed familiar, somehow. She had the same brown skin as the old abuela, curly dark hair and curves Nena somehow knew were like her own body’s had been, when she had one.

The movers placed boxes and furniture in the appropriate rooms. Large rugs in soft colors and subtle patterns were rolled out in each room. The couch, big and the color of cream, floated in the middle of the living room. Blue curtains covered the windows and matched the pale duvet on the queen bed in the center of the larger bedroom.

As the woman unpacked kitchen supplies, a soft knock came to the front door, and she sighed and opened it. Another young woman stood at the front door.

“Hi! Welcome to the building! I’m your next door neighbor, Janet.”

“Hi Janet, I’m Vanessa,” the new tenant said, and the two women shook hands.

“I’m so glad we finally got a new neighbor, it’s been so weird to have it empty,” Janet said.

“Most people would be happy for some quiet.” Vanessa laughed. “But come on in. I’ll grab my phone and we can exchange numbers.”

Janet entered, and Nena couldn’t help but brush against the woman’s pale skin. Janet shivered.

“You’ve made the space so cute already!” Janet said.

“Right? I couldn’t believe the price for a space this big,” Vanessa said. “And I love these old buildings, they have so much character.”

“That’s what I said!”

“Well, old buildings have their problems,” Vanessa continued. “But I still feel so lucky. Do you know what happened to the old tenants?”

“I don’t want to freak you out, but she died,” Janet said, her voice dropping to a low tone as if they would be overheard by old Sofia. Upon seeing the look on Vanessa’s face, she clarified: “Oh, she was old, very old. She and her family lived here for a long time.”

Then Janet leaned her shoulder on the wall and tapped her chin. “I guess a few weird things happened after that.”

“Of course, the broker didn’t say anything. But I have to know . . .” Vanessa said. She leaned toward Janet, conspiratorially. “What happened?”

“The super, Ben, got electrically shocked in a freak accident. Which is super sad, he was so nice.” Janet’s voice had lowered to a whisper.

Vanessa covered her mouth with her hand.

“He was born and raised in this neighborhood, and was a good friend of the family that lived here.” Janet said. “He has cute kids.”

“That’s so terrible.”

“Ok, and then right after, one of the brokers for the building crashed or something and died on impact. I didn’t know him though.”

Vanessa exhaled and leaned her head on the same wall they were propped against. “That’s so scary.”

“It’s definitely weird,” Janet said. After a thought, she put her hand on Vanessa’s upper arm, as if to comfort her. “I’ve lived here for three years and we’ve never had any trouble in this building, I promise.”

Nena curled in around Vanessa’s shoulders, hovering just over her exposed skin. Nena could feel the warm-blooded heat radiating from her soft body, and wanted to sink into the woman, but she would wait until they were alone, and the woman was settled in, and then Vanessa would be hers.

• • • •

Vanessa was very social. She’d leave for hours at a time, all hours of the day. Sometimes she left in the morning, face scrubbed clean and hair pulled back. Other times she’d leave at night, her cheeks reddened, color smudged around her eyes and lips stained berry, cherry or the sweetest pink. When Vanessa stood in front of the warped bathroom mirror, she couldn’t see Nena stretched over the surface, memorizing her features. She’d say her affirmations, whisper them as if embarrassed, as if someone could hear her and she wasn’t sure she could trust they wouldn’t laugh. “You are strong. You are powerful. You are loved.”

After Vanessa left, Nena would preen in front of the full length mirror, stretching the little atoms of her spirit into the shape of Vanessa, trying to hold a humanoid shape and failing.

Vanessa talked even when she was alone. She would sing to her plants and scold the kitchen appliances. “I know you can do better than that,” she’d say to the toaster when her bread popped out golden brown on one side but barely toasted on the other. When she sneezed, she said “salud” like it was someone else. When the doors, warped from fitting into un-square frames, would pop open, she’d chant “nice ghosts, nice ghosts, nice ghosts” and then laugh at her own folly.

Every night, Vanessa had the same routine. She’d tidy the living room, wipe the coffee table where she ate dinner every night, fold the blanket and make sure all the pillows were on the couch, and do a quick sweep of the kitchen for any stray dishes or food crumbs on the counter. Then, a rinse in the shower, then a full lather and moisture routine on her face. She liked to wear long soft t-shirts to bed, and always wore an eye mask because the lights outside stayed bright all night long. Once her breathing mellowed, Nena would come alive. She slithered between the sheets from the bottom of the bed, and let herself flow up the woman’s legs and over her core, which gave off so much sweet heat Nena suddenly remembered her sense of taste, remembered the sensation of having a mouth, that slippery muscle of a tongue. Nena thinned out further to cover Vanessa’s soft belly and round breasts. The woman sighed as Nena climbed up her collarbone and caressed her throat. Nena hovered lightly over Vanessa’s mouth, because she learned her lesson from the broker she’d smothered, and she took sips of Vanessa’s gentle breath and imagined rolling those gusts of carbon dioxide around her mouth like a taste of fine wine.

• • • •

“Okay, but this place is so freaking cute.”

Vanessa had a friend over for the first time. The dark-skinned woman brushed her hand over the original molding on the walls that gave the illusion of ornate frames. Nena followed the trail of her fingers, imagining she could do the same.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I feel strange here.” Vanessa poured wine into two glasses on the brass bar cart in the wall of the living room and carried it over to her friend.

“Well, you’ve only been here a month. It can take a while to settle into a place. It took me weeks to get a good night’s sleep in my place.”

“Ashley, you live under a train.” Vanessa laughed.

“You know what I mean.”

Vanessa leaned back on the sofa, let her head fall back. Nena hovered over her face and tried to form Vanessa’s expression. The woman closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

“Sometimes I feel like there’s something here with me.” Vanessa said.

“Like a ghost?”

Vanessa opened her eyes, and Nena thought she was looking straight at her, not through her as she usually did.

“Maybe,” she said. “It’s an old building.”

“I totally believe in ghosts, you know. These old buildings are probably full of them. I bet so many people died here in the 1900s.”

“I wonder how she died,” Vanessa said. She took another drink of her wine, and a drop stayed on her lips.

“She?”

“Yeah.”

Nena felt the misty particles that made up her presence vibrate, the way it had when she’d taken those men’s lives. With that electricity, she felt herself form. Though she knew she was invisible to others, she felt her mouth open to take a gasp. With a flick of her newly formed tongue, she lapped the drop of wine off Vanessa’s lip. The woman exhaled sharply and sat up, splashing wine on her shirt.

“Whoa! You okay, girl?” Ashley grabbed a paper towel from the nearby coffee table and held it out to Vanessa.

“Yeah, just . . . did you feel anything just now?” Vanessa’s eyes couldn’t focus, like she was trying to make out something just in front of her eyes. Nena wanted to scream, but knew she couldn’t form words.

Ashley chuckled nervously. “I’m bringing my palo santo next time. Definitely before your house warming party.”

“I’m not sure I should have one,” Vanessa said. She settled back on the couch, cross-legged, and watched the wine in her glass as if it would leap out on its own.

“Ugh, don’t do this to me.”

“If you want to have a party, just throw one at your place.”

“Mine’s too small! This place is so dope. And you can invite that hot neighbor.”

“I think she’s straight.”

“Please, no one’s straight.”

Nena wanted Ashley to leave. The ghost was vibrating out of control, and she surged across the living room to take her familiar safe place in the walls, riding the lines of power through the apartment. But she was stronger now, still high off that prickle of recognition from Vanessa, from the brush of her tongue on Vanessa’s lip.

The lights in the room flickered, and a bulb popped before the electricity cut off in the apartment. The women cried out, and Vanessa leapt out of her seat.

“That was so crazy,” Ashley said after a moment. “What just happened?”

Vanessa fumbled with her phone and turned on the flashlight. She sighed. “The electrical here is a mess. I have one of those ancient screw-in fuse things.”

“But what caused the surge?” Ashley turned her light on too, and she swept it across the room. Shattered pieces of the bulb lay on the rug.

The women looked at each other, and then Ashley cracked a smile.

“You’ve got a mean ghost,” she said.

• • • •

Nena couldn’t stay still. All day and night, she poured herself into the walls, riding the current of the old electric wiring and tunneling through the pipes. She banged as she went, not caring who heard her. She was mad with a restless energy. She could not escape the block and she was tired of being invisible. She wanted to touch, to feel, to taste, or be nothing. She didn’t want to wonder how she had died. She thought of the repairman twitching and steaming on the ground and the broker choking. Is that what happened to her? Was she sliced up, blood pouring out of her like a geyser? Did she die like Abuela? Old and alone and rotting in a sinking mattress? Was she as lonely when she was alive as she felt now, so isolated?

The squeal of the shower caught Nena’s attention, and she felt the water warm in the pipes. She slid with the water, and would’ve sighed if she could when she poured from the tiny holes of the shower head, puddling in the tub’s surface. Vanessa held her hand under the spray, and when the water was to her satisfaction, she stepped in the clawfoot tub. Her toes were painted pink. She had a tiny tattoo, just a plain x, on her ankle. Her hips flared wide, and Nena salivated over the dimples in the flesh. Vanessa gasped as Nena pulled the water with her around Vanessa’s ankles.

“You can show yourself,” Vanessa whispered. “It’s okay.” But Nena couldn’t respond. Vanessa laughed, and then shook her head. She wiped her face with her hands, and then shaking her head one more time, she dunked her whole body in the spray, allowing the water to run down her scalp and face and over her shoulders, back and chest. She just stood in the hot water, no soap, no washcloth. Meanwhile, Nena slid the water up Vanessa’s calves, then twirled around her thick thighs. Nena imagined spreading her mist around the woman’s whole body like a skin suit, and Vanessa started to shake as Nena greedily covered her pussy and stomach and slid over her breasts. Vanessa stepped back and braced herself against the wall so she wouldn’t fall, and the water followed unnaturally. Nena brushed against Vanessa’s lips, and the woman opened as if to take a drink of water, her pink tongue poking from between her lips. Nena poured in and heat, heat, heat.

Vanessa slid to the floor of the tub, clutching her breasts and then touching between her legs as she shook. Nena swiped over the woman once more and then receded before sliding up the tiled wall to join the water from the showerhead once more, a final once-over of Vanessa’s body.

Nena was so drunk on the heat, swollen so big and hot that she noticed she had formed into a fog filling the bathroom. She could fill the whole space. She could grow and grow and grow, she realized, but she wanted to have a form beyond these square walls. She hovered over Vanessa’s panting, parted lips once more. Could she drive inside without killing her? Could she possess Vanessa and the both of them live? Could they be free, together?

• • • •

“The bloodwork came back fine. I think it was just too steamy in the shower.” Vanessa heaved a sigh that was also a laugh. “Mom, you always think it’s a lack of iron.”

Vanessa had returned home. She kicked off her low heels on a growing pile of similarly discarded shoes, and as she bickered on the phone, she set about starting her evening. She put the phone on speaker and changed into a t-shirt and shorts, and then returned to the kitchen. Vanessa talked as she chopped vegetables.

Nena watched the woman from the sink, no longer a roiling mass of energy but a low flickering flame. She was overwhelmed by the desire to consume Vanessa. She’d thought the woman had possibly desired the same. She’d opened so sweetly that day, in the shower. Nena had felt the woman shudder, heard her cry out, and not in fear, no, those were tears of ecstasy, not fright, she just knew it, the way other suppressed memories of life came to her suddenly. Memories of a moving body, the strain of muscle, of laughter, of sweetness, of warmth.

But then Vanessa had awoken, and she’d set up a doctor’s appointment the next day. She seemed calm. Practical. And Nena felt diminished. Had Vanessa not felt her? Had she not acknowledged her? Vanessa had told Nena to show herself and now she was ignored, so weak she was small enough to fill the sink. She often curled up there and watched the object of her desire forlornly.

Vanessa swore.

“What?” Her mother asked.

“I cut myself.”

“Mija . . . ”

“Yeah, I know. I gotta learn how to do the curled finger thing. Look I’m gonna go, I’m obviously not great at multitasking.” They said their goodbyes, and Vanessa stuck her finger in her mouth but otherwise did nothing to care for the cut. The woman hissed in pain when vegetable juice and bits stung the cut. Nena flinched at the sound, and rattled the drying glasses in the sink. Vanessa paused, finger poised in the air as she prepared to suck the wound clean. Her eyes narrowed, and Nena grew still in the sink basin.

Vanessa had a strange but serious look on her face. She drew a breath and approached the sink. She put her cut finger in her mouth, but instead of sucking on it, she bit down. Nena couldn’t help it: She surged at the metal tang of blood that was present in the air. The glasses in the sink rattled again. Determined, Vanessa held her bleeding hand over the sink. The blood dripped, but it didn’t land on the stainless steel of the sink or on the now cracked glasses. These drops landed on Nena, and it felt like fire licking her skin. The warmth and power of it seared through the mist of Nena’s being and she swelled in size, erupting out of the sink, shards of glass flying in the air and sprinkling down on the yellowed kitchen tile.

Vanessa stumbled back and pressed herself against the wall. Her chest heaved, but she reached her palm out.

“Touch my hand,” she said, her voice choked. “So I know you’re real.”

Nena felt a crackling rush, like the sparks flying from the electrician’s fingertips. She was alive, she knew it, because Vanessa could feel her and wanted to feel her. Nena spread herself over the woman’s palm.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” Vanessa whispered, over and over, shuddering, until Nena spread herself over Vanessa’s body once more and touched her lips, sucked on the bottom one and then breathed in the gasp that elicited. Vanessa let out a shaky laugh.

“Am I crazy?” She asked. Nena tried to speak, but it still eluded her. She brushed herself around the woman’s neck in response.

“How can I see you?” Vanessa asked. She stood still for a long while, and tried to trace where she felt Nena’s presence. They both gasped as Vanessa’s fingers trailed through Nena’s essence. The feeling of swallowing and releasing those fingers, particles spreading and stitching back together, left them both panting.

“Follow me,” Vanessa said, and she abandoned her half-made dinner and strode to the little bathroom. She turned on the shower, hot enough that the steam curled out of the tub in only a minute. As the water heated, Nena watched Vanessa take down her ponytail and remove her jewelry and then her clothes. After checking the temperature, she stepped into the spray. After a moment, she called Nena.

“Step under the spray.” And Nena did. As she flowed into the stream, she stretched herself into the shape she’d practiced, taking on the form of a curvy woman, similar in size to Vanessa. She watched the water fall around the dimensions of her body with glee.

• • • •

Nena could feel hunger now. At least she recognized that what she was feeling was hunger, and it had been growing stronger since the day before, when Vanessa finally saw her.

In preparation for the housewarming party, Vanessa had taken care to clean the apartment, and then herself, and everything was shiny and lovely and smelled so good. The lights were dimmed and the candles looked so pretty flickering on the tables and on the windowsills. Vanessa made pitchers of premade cocktails and set out pretty glasses instead of plastic cups, a display of wealth that could only be made by one with a dishwasher. It all looked ready to be defiled.

The guests arrived in fits and starts and then all at once, bodies packing the apartment. Vanessa looked livelier than Nena had ever seen her, painted mouth set in a wide grin. When the neighbor, Janet, walked in, the smile grew ever wider.

“I brought flowers and wine,” Janet said in a way that implied that she was nervous about it.

“You’re so sweet,” Vanessa said.

“And I brought a little Casper repellant,” said a voice from behind Janet.

“Ashley!” Vanessa cried, and they embraced. “You look amazing,” Vanessa said, and Ashley gave a little flick of her braids over her shoulder and they laughed.

“Ashley, meet Janet,” Vanessa said, and the women hugged.

“So what’s that for?” Janet asked, gesturing at the bundle of sage in Ashley’s hand.

“Oh, has Vanessa not told you about her sexy ghost?”

“Sexy?” Janet raised an eyebrow.

“Stop,” Vanessa said, and they followed her into the kitchen where she filled the vase with water and placed it on the counter.

“You’ll feel it, like a little dance across your neck.” Ashley tickled her fingers across Vanessa’s neck, and Vanessa flicked her with water. And Nena felt a lick of something hot and mean at the familiarity.

“Show me,” Janet said in a low voice. And Vanessa, shyly, tickled the back of her neck.

“Like that,” Vanessa said.

The vase of flowers shattered.

“Light the sage,” Janet said, and Ashley lit it as Vanessa quickly swept the glass onto a dust pan, the flowers forgotten.

The bundle of herbs lit, and the women walked around the apartment, a tiny ceremonial march. Shortly after, the women were lost to the cresting wave of festivities as more wine was poured and the fragrant stench of marijuana mingled with the potent waft of sage.

Nena remembered the sound and smell and feeling of parties, but the real thing was better, maybe better because Nena was still incorporeal. She flitted around the apartment, now filled with delicious bodies. She tasted skin and felt it pebble. Every time a candle flame flickered or a glass broke and a person shrieked, Vanessa would look intently for Nena, and she loved the attention. She wanted more of it and felt envious with the ease of the party goers. They touched palms, their fingers laced, they petted the small of each other’s backs, stroked coils of hair, left wet kisses on each other’s necks and cheeks.

Nena watched as Janet drifted away from the throng, toward the back of the apartment. Vanessa followed, and so, she did as well.

“Hi,” Vanessa said.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be nosy.”

“No, no it’s okay, I love seeing other apartments in the building, it’s fun to compare.”

The women gave each other a look, a heated one that Nena wanted to be between, but it was like she wasn’t there.

“What’s your favorite part of the apartment?” Janet asked, and she bit back a smile.

“Want me to show you?” Vanessa said. Janet nodded, and Vanessa gently took her hand and guided her to the massive cedar closet tucked into the little square of a hallway. She pulled her neighbor in behind her and tugged on the light. It flickered, and was dim, but the closet comfortably fit the two women, about a dozen coats and jackets of varying lengths and thicknesses, and an old AC unit tucked into the corner.

“Wow, you could rent this out,” Janet said with a hushed laugh.

“Right? When are you looking to move in?” Vanessa said. She hadn’t let go of Janet’s hand.

Janet laughed again, and when Vanessa stepped in and caught that laugh in a kiss, Nena felt herself shrink, but this time she felt heavy and hard, a malignant tumor, dense with ill will. Janet pressed Vanessa back into the coats, her hands roaming everywhere, and Vanessa pulled some of the coats down without breaking the kiss, and they slid down to the floor onto the heap of wool and nylon.

Nena didn’t understand. Hadn’t she shown Vanessa pleasure? Wasn’t what they shared electric? How could Vanessa want more, need more, even as she withheld from Nena? Vanessa had helped her bloom into being, more so than that wisp of an Abuelita. Nena flooded herself under the door and heard it rattle, but instead of getting that searching glance from Vanessa all she heard was a laugh as Janet opened her shirt.

Heavy, mean, and all the more real for it, Nena seeped into the walls that she knew so well, into the cables and pipes, and she began to rattle. The music was loud, but the remaining ten or so guests standing in the kitchen and lounging on the couch heard her, and looked at each other with a laugh, a remark about old pipes, about old buildings, about rats and how long they’d plagued the city. Ashley relit the sage and the little crowd laughed as she made a show of twirling it around the living room and around the couch. Nena whispered a breath on it and it flamed high, but it only made the people laugh harder. They didn’t believe she was there, not really, even though Nena had shattered glass and spilled wine and stolen breath, they didn’t believe she was alive. They turned up the volume, and couldn’t hear Nena’s groans and protests, and they certainly couldn’t hear Vanessa’s little cries of joy, and how they did sound different from what she’d shared with Nena after all.

The bulbs blew out, one by one, and the guests screamed. Nena let her condensed malice expand again, and she slowly invaded the space. A man in the kitchen buckled as Nena flooded his mouth and he began to choke. The woman next to him screamed and dropped her glass. She kneeled on the shards, and the blood gave Nena an idea. She shattered all the glass. The cups in people’s hands, the candle holders, the mirrors, the windows, all these delicate objects exploded and sprayed across the exposed flesh of the guests. Nena watched, gleeful, as stupid Ashley pulled a shard of window out of her gut, blood burbling from the wound. The screaming started in earnest then, and the glass littered on the wood floor dug into socked or bare feet as people rushed to help each other or to flee, and Nena took every drop of blood and made it her own, let it permeate her, let it color her, and she took shape as she had in the shower, a specter of a woman, darkening with red and glass glitter.

The first person to notice her pointed and screamed, and it gave Nena strength. Every belief in her, every acknowledgment of her gave her more to live for, more to grab onto. She dashed toward that man and bit him, severing the finger. She sucked the blood from the tube of flesh and gristle and spit out the remains.

Janet was the first to leave the cedar closet, and she gasped and stepped back into Vanessa, who was still smiling as she pulled her shirt together. Vanessa clutched Janet as she saw the wreckage of the party. The two women, holding each other, wandered out from the hall into the now destroyed living room. The glass table and TV were shattered, and glass hovered in the air and over prone bodies on the stained hardwood. Human bodies were mostly blood after all, it flowed liberally from the cuts and wounds. The music was still playing, and it covered the groans and whispered sobs of those who hadn’t yet bled out.

“You,” Vanessa whispered. Her shirt gaped, the buttons forgotten.

Nena stood amidst the chaos, beautiful and lush. Her skin, blood red, sparkled, and she ran a hand over her hip and up her waist and then held it out toward the object of her desire, who she’d become real for. She grinned, light shining off glass teeth.