Killing November

by Adriana Mather

  I keep replaying my conversation with Ash about how Strategia don’t get to decide to be anything else. Part of me refuses to believe it, but I know that part of me is wrong. If I manage to avoid my own death until I get home to Dad, I’m still trapped. I could try my best to fly under the radar, be so unimportant that no one would be interested in what I do for the rest of my life. But if I stay in Pembrook, I’ll need to follow the rules or I’ll put myself and the people I care about at risk. And even if I spend my life following the rules, that doesn’t mean I’ll be out of danger.

  I have to believe that Dad had no choice but to send me here or I don’t think I can forgive him. He said I had to go to this school for my safety—now there’s a laugh. I no longer know what I can trust or which of the things he said were actually true. Although by the time I get through the intense study regimen Layla has me on, I’m sure that will change.

  I hold my hands out toward the campfire, warming them. The air is crisp with the scent of cold weather and leaves, even though they have only just started to change color.

  “Why haven’t I ever seen you dating anyone, Aunt Jo?” I ask, looking up at her. “You’re hilarious and tough and I can’t imagine that people don’t fall all over themselves to ask you out.”

  Aunt Jo sips her cider and rum, which I suspect is mostly rum, and leans back in her folding chair. “Not all fabulous people have long-term relationships, Nova. Some of us are just too bright to be tied down,” she says. “Besides, can you imagine me tolerating something like that for the rest of my life?” She nods her head in the direction of my dad’s tent, from which comes a loud snore. “I have half a mind to go throw a rock at him as it is.”

  I laugh. “But you always said that when you were a girl you thought you’d have five children.”

  “Ah, but then Matilde had you, and you were perfect with those pink cheeks and that laugh. That laugh…,” she says, and shakes her head. “It used to make me cry, you know. I see you looking at me like I’m a sentimental fool, which I very well might be, but it did. Your father would come into a room and find the three of us in hysterics. You laughing and us crying because we could not stand how adorable it all was. And since you were such a perfect baby, I figured that unless I had one exactly like you I would be forced to call it Secondo and dress it up in your old clothes.”

  “Stop, you would not,” I say, grinning.

  “You doubt this face?” she says, and wags her eyebrows at me.

  “Never,” I say, stirring my hot cider with a cinnamon stick.

  “Why the sudden interest in my love life, eh? Have you got some passionately romantic story to tell me?” she asks mischievously.

  “What? No. I wish. I just…You know my best friend, Emily? She has a huge family and they have these big festive holiday parties. Sometimes I get jealous. I kind of wish there were more of us, you know?”

  She snorts and takes a sip of her drink.

  “What, you don’t?” I say.

  “No,” she says, spilling more rum into her cup. “I have relatives in Italy I would rather forget. First there’s that self-serving father of mine, and then all the family members who won’t admit that he’s self-serving, which in my opinion makes them even worse.” She raises her cup. “To hell with the whole lot of them.”

  I want to tell her that I meant I wish we had more family members like us, but I know better than to do that while she’s ranting and damning people. She blames her dad for my mom’s death, even though everyone—and the autopsy report—said her death was an accident.

  “And don’t get me started on Christopher’s family,” she says, pointing again in the direction of the snoring. “Putting my family and his family in a room together for a holiday party sounds about as much fun as shoving a Christmas tree up my backside. It would be nothing but fighting.”

  “Did they ever get along? Or did your family always disapprove of Dad?”

  “From the moment your parents got together, it went downhill. Nonstop feuding before you were born.”

  “But not any more since Dad’s parents died, right?”

  “Good riddance.”

  I choke on my hot cider. Sometimes I wonder if there is any line Aunt Jo won’t cross. “What made you choose Providence, of all places, when you left Italy?”

  She smirks. “Please tell me you’re joking, Nova. How you break my heart. The statue of the Independent Man? The fact that Providence was founded by rebels and rabble-rousers? And, well, the Italian food is good.”

  I open my mouth in fake shock.

  “What? I said I didn’t like my family. But our food is perfection.”

  I push my pasta around on my plate. I wish I could ask Aunt Jo about what’s going on here and about my parents in general, such as why they chose to live in the middle of small-town nowhere. From everything Ash and Layla have told me, that couldn’t have been accidental. And it makes me wonder what they were trying to get away from—their deadly Families in general, or was it more specific than that? I used to think Aunt Jo’s hatred for her relatives was mostly theatrics, but considering what I’ve seen here so far, blaming them for Mom’s death doesn’t seem entirely off the wall anymore. A Strategia Family could definitely make a death look like an accident.

  Without meaning to, I look around for Matteo. If the Bears did have something to do with my mom’s death, if she broke some Strategia rule or something, it’s entirely possible that his relatives were involved in making that decision. Is that why he knew what my mom looked like? I drop my fork with a loud clang and Layla and Ash both look at me.

  Matteo meets my gaze, and something in me just snaps. The injustice of everything that’s happened since I arrived here, the overwhelming horror of what I’ve seen, and the constant uncertainty and fear have finally caught up with me. All I want to do is scream at the top of my lungs.

  I push back my chair, furious not only with Matteo but with the whole school. I bet my mom wanted out, too, wanted to get away from all of these Strategia and their deadly games. The question is whether or not they killed her for it.

  “November?” Layla says.

  “I just need some air,” I say, and walk away before either of them can ask me any questions. I’m sure Ash will figure out that I’ve remembered something, and the last thing I want to hear from him is a detailed analysis of my parents’ Families and my mother’s probable murder. No wonder Aunt Jo was always so angry when the topic of family came up.

  I head between the two long dining tables, my eyes trained on the door, anything to avoid looking at Matteo again or I’m positive I’m going to do something I regret.

  I’m almost to the door when Conner cuts me off. I didn’t even see him get up from the teachers’ table. “November, I need to speak with you,” he says, and touches his beard.

  “Right now?” I say, not even trying to hide the annoyance in my voice.

  “Yes, I have some…news,” he says, and I stop dead in my tracks.

  “What news?” I say quickly. I can’t help but wonder if he saw me looking upset and decided it was the right time to shit on me further.

  “If you’ll follow me to my—” he starts.

  “No, just tell me,” I say, already running through a list of terrible possibilities in my head and agitating myself even more.

  “I must insist that we at least step out of the dining hall.” He pushes through the door before I can reply. I follow, but he doesn’t stop until he’s halfway down the empty hallway. “Do not ask me questions about what I’m about to tell you, because I do not know the answers. It’s customary that this type of news is delivered by family members, but considering the recent circumstances, you are not permitted a visit.”

  My entire body tenses. I want to yell at him to just say it already.

  He evaluates the hallway to make sure it’s empty and levels his gaze at
me. “Jo is dead.”

  For a second, I’m completely still, trying to make sense of his words. Jo? My aunt Jo? “No,” I say, and shake my head. “No. That can’t be true.”

  “As I said, I cannot tell you any more. That is all I know. Jo is dead,” he repeats as though he can see that I’m resisting accepting it.

  Someone killed my aunt? My aunt is dead. She’s dead. The hallway spins. My chest feels like it’s constricting and soon there will be no air left. My vision blurs with tears, and with each excruciating heartbeat I back away from him. I see his lips moving, but I can’t hear a word he’s saying.

  If the Bears were responsible for my mom’s death, who’s to say they aren’t responsible for Aunt Jo’s? She wasn’t just living in America, she hated them all. Ash said it was forbidden to leave your Family. Was this what my dad was trying to stop when he shipped me off here? My fists clench, my grief mixing with my anger explosively.

  All of a sudden, I’m running, tears spilling down my cheeks. I slam through the door into the dining hall, and as if on cue, the whole room turns to look at me. But I’m not watching them; I’m looking straight at Matteo. I run full-speed toward him, jump onto a chair, and dive over the table. His eyes widen as I collide with him, slamming us both onto the floor. He grunts and tries to fling me off him, but I’m screaming and clinging to him for all I’m worth. For a brief moment, I see Conner towering above us. Then there is a sharp pain in my head and the world goes black.

  THE ROOM COMES into focus little by little, the flickering candle, the wooden canopy, a face. And I remember what happened.

  “November?” Layla says with concern in her voice.

  I turn away from her and shut my eyes. “Go away.”

  * * *

  Someone shakes me. “Get up,” a voice says.

  I open my swollen eyes. “Stop.”

  “I’ll stop when you get up,” Ash says.

  “I’m not getting up. Just leave me alone.” I put a pillow over my face, but he yanks it away from me.

  “It’s been a day. Everyone gets a day to feel sorry for themselves. But no one gets two. You need to get up and eat something and drink some water.”

  “Feel sorry for myself? Feel sorry for myself? Screw you, Ash,” I say, and my voice wavers. “I don’t care about this damn school or being a Strategia. I just don’t care.”

  He sighs. “Well, whether you care or not, your stunt in the dining hall yesterday made you even more of a target than before. So you don’t really have a choice.”

  All I want is for this heart-crushing feeling to stop, for my life to go back to the way it was before this school, when my aunt was alive and my dad and I had a quiet life in Pembrook. I put the blankets over my head. “People are already trying to kill me—how much worse can it get?”

  “They will succeed,” he says, and pulls the blankets off me. I swipe at him, but he catches my wrist. I try to pry his fingers loose but he grabs my other hand.

  “Let go of me, Ashai,” I say.

  “No. I will not let you do this to yourself.”

  “Well, you don’t get to make that choice.”

  His intensity increases. “And what choice are you making? To stay in bed until someone comes and slits your throat? Believe me, you’re not far off from that. Or maybe you want to stay here until Blackwood hauls you off to the dungeon, too?”

  I yank at my wrists, trying to pull them out of his grasp.

  His jaw is set. “You’re sad and angry and you can’t think past your emotions. But at some point those emotions will fade and you’ll realize you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life. Only by then it’ll be too late.”

  I’m getting so mad I want to scream or cry or both. “Why do you even care? It shouldn’t matter to you.”

  “It does matter.”

  I scoff and try to get my feet free from the blankets.

  But he doesn’t let go—in fact, he hoists me out of the bed. I kick at him, but he blocks and turns us around so that he’s standing between me and the bed. He lets go of my wrists.

  “Really? You’re going to prevent me from getting into my own bed?” I say, and I’m furious, all that anger I felt toward Matteo and this awful school rushing back.

  I try to step past him, but he steps with me. I push, but he pushes back. My heart is racing and I can feel tears returning to my eyes. I want to tear him apart, and this room, and this school.

  “You want to hit me, don’t you?” he says. “Go for it.”

  He pushes my shoulders.

  “Stop.”

  “Defend yourself,” he says, and pushes me again.

  “Knock it the hell off, Ash.”

  “If you’re not going to hit me, I’m going to hit you,” he says. “I suggest you block or do something other than stand there.”

  And before I can really think it through, I pull back my arm and punch him hard right in the jaw. And he doesn’t stop me.

  My hands fly to my mouth and I take a step backward. I shake out my hand, which now hurts like hell. I focus all my attention on it, trying to keep my lip from quivering. Punching Ash zapped my anger, and now that it’s gone, all that’s left is this bottomless sadness.

  Ash rubs his face. “Not bad. I think there’s a chance I’m actually going to have a bruise.”

  Tears roll down my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  He takes a step toward me and I start to cry harder, all my grief pouring out of me. His arms wrap around my body and he pulls me into a hug. I push back, but when he doesn’t let go, I bury my head in his shoulder. Feeling the warmth of his arms around me and his hand rubbing my back makes me realize how much my life here has lacked in basic human comfort. No one touches anyone in this school unless it’s to hurt them.

  “Actually, I’m not sorry. You deserved it,” I say.

  He laughs into my hair. And when his laugh stops, we’re both silent.

  “It was someone really close to you,” he says after a few seconds, but it’s not a question.

  I nod against his chest.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says, and squeezes me a little tighter.

  I take a deep breath. “So am I.”

  We’re like that for a long minute until my tears stop and my sniffles become less frequent. When he finally lets go, some of the edge is gone. The loss hasn’t diminished, but the pain and the helplessness feel lighter.

  I wipe my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Do you let everyone in this school who’s sad punch you?” I ask, because I’m not sure what else to say to him right now and verbally sparring with him feels more normal than talking about my emotions.

  He points to the wet spot on his shirt where my face was. “Only if they agree to snot on me afterward,” he says with a sly grin.

  “Are you making fun of me while I’m grieving? Do you have any shame at all?” I say, but there isn’t any frustration in my voice.

  “Shame is for other people,” he says. “You know, I’ve never seen anyone fling herself over a table in a crowded dining hall quite like that before. It was fairly epic. I think you startled the hell out of Matteo. You should have seen his face. Even after you were carried out, he couldn’t quite get over the whole thing. Wouldn’t talk to anyone.”

  “He’ll have his chance to get even, I’m sure.”

  Ash shakes his head. “He knocked you out cold. Blackwood called it even.”

  I touch the side of my head where I felt the sharp pain yesterday, and sure enough, there’s a bump. “Oh.”

  I sit down on my bed.

  “Don’t you dare think about lying back down,” he says.

  I take a swig of the water on my bedside table. “If I do, are you going to let me punch you again?”

  He sits next to me and smirks.

  I look at him s
quarely. “Why did you do it?”

  “Get you out of bed? Who would pine after me if you weren’t around? It would get depressing.”

  I shake my head. “Did I really make things worse for myself?”

  His smile fades. “Yes. With Blackwood and in general. Between Charles’s death and Nyx being in the dungeon, the school is turning on you.”

  “And again, why are you here, dragging me out of bed…caring about any of this? Is it just because I live with your sister? Are you trying to make sure this doesn’t spill onto her?”

  “Well, that’s certainly the reason I slept here last night,” he says.

  You slept here? is what I’m thinking, but what I say is: “So if I’m such a liability, why don’t you just get me assigned to a different room?” I instantly regret my words. I don’t want to leave Layla or stop spending time with Ash. But I also don’t want to live with the constant fear that they might walk away from me at my weakest moment. I’ve always been sure where I stood with people and who I could count on, but at this school I have no idea.

  “Why are you so impossible?” he says.

  “You should ask my best friend. She’ll give you a long list of reasons,” I say.

  He smiles, but there is sadness in his expression.

  “Look, I’m not saying I’m not grateful. I’m so grateful. You and Layla…well, I don’t know what I would do without you. And when you and I were caught after curfew together, it made sense that you guys stood by me. But at this point I don’t understand why you’re helping me, especially if the Lions are as powerful as you say they are.”

  “As I told you, Layla’s more moral than I consider healthy. She’s also unshakably curious. Once this situation became a puzzle, she was going to solve it whether you were here or not. And, well, she finds you infuriating, which, as you can tell”—he spreads his arms to indicate himself—“is a quality she greatly admires.” He laughs. “She’s come to think of you as a friend.”

  I sigh, and I can feel tears returning to my eyes. It seems like there has been nothing but hostility and death since I came here, so a few kind words go a long way. Not long ago my life was full of love and laughter. “And you?”