Hunting November

by Adriana Mather

  The man scoops up Ines’s hair and exits the cell. My stomach churns. Is this my fault? If I hadn’t smashed that vial, would Jag have done this?

  Jag paces in front of us, tapping his knife on his palm. “You see, November, I had intended on simply asking you a question. But after seeing how deeply you feel for your friends here, I’m thinking it makes good sense to give you some motivation to answer it.”

  Fear grips my chest, and my heart pounds. How could I have been so loose with my emotions? I should have remained silent. Guilt wraps around me like a noose.

  “The only choice we need to make now is which of your friends will provide the best motivation,” Jag says, stopping in front of Aarya. “The Jackal? The Fox?” He points his knife at them and pauses to read my reaction. “Or the Wolf?” The moment he points to Ash, Jag’s eyes brighten with recognition, and I curse myself—my emotions clearly showed on my face.

  “The Wolf it is,” Jag says happily, like he’s choosing a ripe melon at the supermarket.

  The same two guards who unlocked Ines’s shackles pull Ash from his. They stand him up, restraining his arms, while the tall bouncer cracks his knuckles and waits. Ash looks at me, as if to tell me it’s okay, but I don’t believe him; I’m in full-blown panic.

  “Let’s see here,” Jag says, assessing Ash.

  I brace myself, waiting for his question. But before Jag even asks one, he gestures toward Ash and the bouncer punches Ash in the face, splitting his lip open and sending a line of blood down his chin. I want to scream, but I know it will only make things worse.

  Jag clears his throat. “Now, I want you to think carefully about how you answer me, granddaughter, because a wrong answer will have unfavorable consequences.”

  I hate that he calls me granddaughter. And I’m certain that’s why he keeps doing it.

  Jag nods, seeing that I understand. “So…I know you killed the five guards on your way in, but what I don’t know is who killed the two in the main hall?”

  For a second I just stare at him in complete shock. “What are you talking about?”

  “Strike one,” Jag says, and smiles. “A terrible sport, baseball, but it’s an American expression I’ve always been fond of.” He gestures again and this time the bouncer knees Ash in the stomach. Ash grunts and sucks in air, wheezing.

  My mind whirls. We didn’t hurt those guards; we only knocked them unconscious. And then it dawns on me…Layla. Could it be Layla who killed the guards? I don’t pursue that line of thought, however, because right now my best chance is to appear confused and distraught, and that’s actually perfect, because I am. My emotions are finally a tool, not a hindrance.

  “Okay, okay, wait,” I say quickly, spreading my palms open as if to appear nonthreatening. “I’m just as confused as you are.”

  Jag lifts his eyebrow.

  “We put those guards to sleep using Angels’ Dream,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “And then we came directly down to the dungeon. We didn’t kill them.”

  Before I can continue, Jag looks at the bouncer and he punches Ash so hard in the face that Ash’s head flies back. My eyes well at the sight of Ash in pain.

  “Strike two,” Jag says. “I didn’t ask you if you killed the guards, I asked you who killed the guards in the main hall. Be careful, now. Three strikes and you’re out.”

  The bouncer pulls his knife from its sheath.

  My breath hitches in my throat. “It’s not that we didn’t try to get people to help us,” I say with emphasis, quickly crafting an answer that is not only believable but is also the truth. “But no one would. So if there is someone killing your guards, it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

  Jag stares at me, and I’m hyperaware that he’s reading my features, looking for a crack in my answer and an excuse to slit Ash’s throat. I don’t dare blink, afraid that any movement will turn out for the worst.

  Just then the metal door behind us whines on its hinges. I release my breath and Jag turns around. A middle-aged woman enters the cell. She’s dressed similarly to Jag, with strawberry-blond hair and the same blue eyes as Brendan. Rose.

  “We’ve had another”—Rose hesitates—“incident, this time in the gatehouse.”

  Jag listens, his face unreadable.

  “I think we should delay,” Rose continues.

  “We’re not delaying,” Jag states simply, showing no upset but also leaving no room for argument. “I told everyone to be here this morning and be here they will.”

  By “everyone,” I can only imagine he means his guests from the ball last night.

  Rose frowns. “With all these people arriving, our risk—”

  “I can’t imagine how repeating yourself will change my mind,” Jag says, shutting her down matter-of-factly, and her face takes on a neutral expression that reminds me of my dad’s in his cell last night.

  “Bring them upstairs in half an hour,” Jag says to the guards, and brushes his hands together as though we got him dirty, leaving the cell as confident as he entered it.

  I stare at Ash, who has a bloody lip, but he’s not looking at me, he’s looking at Rose. And he has the strangest expression on his face, like he’s asking her a silent question. The guards lock Ash back up in his restraints.

  Rose makes eye contact with me, and I freeze. Despite her dainty, elflike features, there is nothing soft about her. She follows her father out of the cell with the guards and the bouncer.

  We remain quiet until their footsteps fade and we’re certain we’re alone again. I look from a bleeding Ash to Ines, whose hair is raggedly shorn off but who holds her chin high and wears a proud expression.

  “I’m so incredibly s—” I start.

  “I’m not,” Ines says. “All I am is determined.”

  “But last night,” I start. “If I hadn’t smashed that vial—” I stop, the lump in my throat growing.

  Ines turns to me, her proud expression unchanging. “November, don’t you dare,” she says, and my eyes widen at her uncharacteristically forceful tone. “My hair is just hair. Ash’s lip will heal. Complicit Strategia are the backbone of Jag’s rule. Always be defiant. Always, always.”

  And her energy uplifts me. “Dance on his grave,” I say.

  “Dance on his grave,” Ash echoes, and we all fall into silence, Jag’s order to bring us upstairs looming over our heads.

  As the seconds tick by, bringing us closer to whatever Jag has in store for us, my dream comes flashing back to me—all my friends dead on the floor and me holding the poison that killed them. “I have to tell you guys something, something I probably should have mentioned before,” I say, and they turn to look at me. “Right before we left the Academy I had this dream, and I think it foretold our deaths—”

  “Lucky for you it was a dream and you’re not a goddamn fortune-teller,” Aarya replies.

  “It felt real, so real,” I say. “And that big room upstairs—”

  “Are we really spending our final moments analyzing your dream?” Aarya says with a bit of amazement. But after a second of thought, she shrugs. “I guess there are worse topics. Go ahead, Ember, dazzle us with your weird brain.”

  “I’m serious,” I say, not able to shake the feeling that I owe them so much more than an apology. “The big room upstairs was in my dream, and you were all lying on the ground choking on poison, poison I was holding in my hand. And…I know this is my fault. That you’ve all come here because of me and now Jag will kill you because of me.”

  Aarya cocks her head. “By ‘big room’ you mean the great hall? The one that looks remarkably like the dining hall at the Academy, which your subconscious could have plucked it from? And by ‘poison,’ do you mean something similar to what Dr. Conner used on Ash to traumatize you only days earlier?”

  “You didn’t make anyone come here—to the UK or to this est
ate,” Ash says, picking up where Aarya left off. “We all knew exactly what we were doing when we left the Academy. We wanted to be here. And if we all go out together fighting Jag, so be it. It’s no fault of yours and it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with some ominous dream.”

  Ash’s and Aarya’s words hit me hard. Even now, chained in a dungeon, they don’t blame me. They’re not the cuddly feel-good type of friends I was used to in Pembrook, but they are every bit as dependable and supportive.

  “Don’t spoil my fun,” Aarya says. “I’m enjoying watching her grovel because she’s had one very obvious vision that told her we would be in danger and now feels like she’s psychic.”

  Ines laughs and for a moment I just stare at her. But then Aarya laughs, too.

  “Continue, Ember. We all need a good chuckle before Jag cuts us up into little pieces or feeds us to his crocodiles,” Aarya says. “What other nonsense would you like to spew at us?”

  “I…” I look at each of them and find that despite this being the lowest point in my entire life, I, too, am smiling. “Thanks, Aarya. I actually really needed that. You’re a good friend.”

  Aarya brushes off my comment, but I can tell by her slightly startled expression that the acknowledgment means something to her.

  “She used to help me through my bad dreams when I first came to live with her,” Ines says, smiling at the memory. “No matter how bad they got, she always found a way to make me laugh.”

  Aarya looks increasingly flustered. “Ines, that’s private—”

  “Wow, Aarya, who knew you had such a big heart?” Ash says, now wearing a smile as well.

  Aarya’s mouth opens. “I have no such thing. Don’t you dare even suggest it.”

  “No sense in hiding it,” Ines says. “Might as well just come out and admit the truth.”

  Aarya’s face turns bright red. “I can’t wait until Jag kills us all. Then I won’t have to listen to this crap for a second longer.”

  Even though it’s a morbid joke, we all laugh at her absurdity. And for just the briefest of moments, we’re not four Strategia in a dungeon awaiting death, we’re four friends sharing our lives with one another. As I look at each one of them, I realize how much they gave up to be Strategia, how they probably never got the summer nights lying on a blanket under the stars telling jokes and eating junk food, never got told to keep it down while playing Truth or Dare at a sleepover, and never suffered the amazingly awkward moment of slow dancing at a school dance. They’re always focused, always strategizing, always guarded. I sigh, fervently clinging to the hope that I get more time with them.

  THE BOUNCER UNLOCKS the door of our cell, trailing eight guards behind him, and everything in me sinks. This can’t be happening now. I need more time. I need…Then it occurs to me: Layla’s not here. She didn’t break us out of the dungeon, she didn’t even give us a sign that she was going to try. I swallow, the blood draining from my cheeks. What if I was wrong about her being the one who killed those guards, or worse, what if she’s been captured, too?

  Two guards approach each of us, and as they lower my arms out of the shackles, I realize how sore I am from holding them above my head. All my struggling produced a couple of angry red welts on my wrists. But I don’t get time to inspect them because the guards yank my arms behind my back with force and tie my wrists with a knot of rope.

  They escort us out of the cell in a line with me at the very back, Ash at the front, and Ines and Aarya in between. A guard holds each of my arms with a steel grip that I’m certain is going to leave bruises.

  “I guess it takes eight Lion guards and one giant to handle four Academy kids,” Aarya says flippantly in front of me, and the guards next to her stiffen. “I’m also guessing you want to smash me into something right now?” she continues when they don’t respond. “Go ahead. I’ll wait.”

  I tense, waiting for them to throw her into the bars on the cells we’re passing. But the guards don’t respond.

  “Ahhh, I see,” Aarya continues. “Jag doesn’t let you think for yourselves. That’s probably a good thing, though. And that big one, geez,” she says loudly enough for the bouncer to hear her in the front of the procession. “Good thing brute strength is an asset.”

  In a way, I understand Aarya; she’s getting in her punches where she can, even if they’re verbal. The guards lead us out of the dungeon and up the flight of stairs we snuck down last night. The wide corridor with the looming portraits is now populated with Strategia, who stare at us uncomfortably. And it gives me hope to know that while Jag may be willing to torture Academy kids in his dungeon, other Strategia don’t find it as palatable.

  The guards lead us into the great hall. It’s a huge rectangular room with vaulted ceilings. At the far end there is an elevated platform, upon which Jag sits in a thronelike chair that’s trimmed in gold, with a red velvet seat. Rose stands next to him with a stony expression and next to her is Brendan, who doesn’t look victorious the way I thought he would, but ghostly pale and uncertain.

  A large crowd is gathered, speaking in hushed voices that hum with anticipation. Heavy wooden doors close behind us, and the crowd parts as the bouncer approaches, creating a pathway for us to be brought to Jag.

  And that’s when I see him. Dad. His hands and chest are bound with rope and he’s on his knees in front of Jag, surrounded by four guards. There is blood on his face and I see cuts on his arms. He makes eye contact with me, and despite his banged-up appearance, his eyes have the same steady look they always do. A sob rises in my throat.

  Jag leans back in his throne, exuding self-assurance as the guards line us up in a neat row. He’s the picture of poise, transformed from his unassuming private persona to his showy public one. I glance around the room, searching for some sign that Layla is safe, but find none. There are twelve guards standing with us, thirteen if you count the bouncer. Plus two with Jag and two more at the entrance we came through, which is the only way in or out of this room. There is no place to hide in here, nowhere Layla could be.

  Jag clears his throat and the room falls eerily silent. “Welcome, Family and friends,” he says, and his tone is easy and imbued with his usual charisma.

  I scan the crowd, wondering how many different Families are here, but it’s impossible to tell based on appearance alone.

  “Today we meet under unusual circumstances.” Jag takes his time getting up from his throne and moving between us and the crowd. “As I told you all last night, the Ferryman apprehended the man who not only killed our former Regent but made a mockery of our Family. A worthy capture, one that is a testament to our Family’s strength and dominance, and one that will be remembered for decades to come. This is the man who appears before you.” Jag gestures at my dad. “While I knew the criminal would be cunning, and I knew he would be resourceful, what I did not imagine, could not imagine, was that he would also be someone I once knew better than my own self. This man, who has committed unspeakable acts of betrayal, of cold-blooded cruelty, this man…is my son, Christopher.” Jag pauses, letting the information sink in.

  There are low murmurs from the crowd and people look at one another, unsure. I hear my dad’s name being whispered.

  “Like you, I was led to believe that Christopher was murdered as a young man,” Jag says. “Like you, I trusted my son, believed that he was unshakably loyal to this Family.”

  I look at my dad, but he just stares forward at the crowd, unflinching. And it becomes clear why Jag invited all these people—this public display is meant to show his Family and all of Strategia what happens if you challenge him. He’s spinning fear behind the façade of justice.

  “Under markedly different circumstances, this would be a happy occasion,” Jag continues, momentarily lowering his head as though the whole ordeal has taken a toll on him. “But unfortunately, that is not this day. Instead of the bright, capable boy who was meant to
lead this Family, the man who has returned to me is a traitor.” His expression is somber. “Not only was he captured after making an attempt on my life, but he passed his twisted ways on to his daughter, who admits without remorse to recruiting fellow Strategia to move against me. She killed our very own Harry.” There are uncomfortable whispers in the crowd and people lean over each other to get a look at me.

  “Unfortunately, there is no hope for my son and his daughter,” Jag says as though this is a difficult decision for him. “They have been thoroughly corrupted…”—he pauses, making sure he has everyone’s attention—“by the Bear Family.”

  My eyes widen, and I’m not the only one who’s shocked. The room hums with tension.

  Jag sweeps his eyes across the crowd. “Our sources show that these two have been working with the Bears for many years now in an attempt to destroy this Family. They have gone against everything we Strategia stand for, undermining our value system and threatening our way of life with their flippant disregard for our rules.”

  I glance nervously at the crowd. I remember Ash telling me that leaving Strategia was forbidden, that it was punishable by death. And from the nodding among the onlookers, it’s obvious they think we’re guilty of that and much, much more.

  Jag clasps his hands behind his back. “It’s a sad day when a father has to pass sentence on his own son and granddaughter. I can see that you agree I would be remiss not to. But the burden that is weighing heavily on me this day is not restricted to these treacherous Family members. It extends to the Bears who supported them—the head family that hides in London as we speak and the apothecary who provided these traitors with poison intended to kill me, to name just a few transgressions.” Jag’s knowing gaze falls on me for the briefest of seconds, a look of victory in his eyes; my stomach does a fast unnerving flip. “I fear the time has come for me to right this wrong. The Bears have been taking liberties for years now, and if the Council of Families won’t move to correct their offenses, it leaves me no choice but to take action myself.”