by eden Hudson
“I played sometimes!”
“Don’t be a baby. Kicker doesn’t count, no matter what Mom said. It wasn’t because you’re too small—”
“I’m not small!”
“—it’s because you can’t just do anything. You always have to think and feel and think about what you feel. You know what Ryder’s thinking about in the middle of a battle?”
My face was burning. I wanted to cry again, but I didn’t want to prove her right about being a baby.
“Staying alive,” she said. “Chopping, stabbing, shooting, not dying. You know what Colt’s thinking about?”
“Staying alive?” I sneered. “Chopping, stab—”
“Nothing. Colt doesn’t think. He just does. And it works because he paid attention when we were doing the drills. He worked at them until he got them right. Better than right—perfect. And you didn’t. You were off in your head thinking about your dumb songs or something, weren’t you?”
I glared down at the ground. A couple hot tears streaked down my face, but I didn’t wipe them off in case Ryder was looking this way.
“This isn’t peewee football, Tough. Greene’s not going to sit you on the bench. An NP’s going to take your head off, and there won’t be anything I can do about it. Colt can’t save you every time. Ryder and I can’t babysit you. You’re going to die if you can’t shut off your brain—and you’ll probably get one of us killed, too.”
Sissy had never yelled at me like that before. It was a weird feeling—like I didn’t have anybody on my side, like I never had. The rest of the night I avoided her.
But she’d been right. That was why I’d started crying. Because deep down, I knew that I’d fucked up and that everybody else knew it, too.
That was what Scout was doing. She was pissed and she was calling me on my bullshit because she knew she’d fucked up.
Scout wouldn’t look at me.
Stop pretending like you’re some badass general, I told her. You’re a high schooler and those are the kids you went to class with that you’re planning to send to their deaths. Get that through your head. Then maybe I’ll listen to your pregame speeches.
Clarion and Lonely had been watching our argument the whole time. When Scout didn’t yell at me immediately after I said that, the old coyote seemed to snap out of his daze.
“It’s a moot point anyway,” Clarion said. “The fallen angels have been fighting since time began. They’re war machines. Sending in a force to draw them out while someone else sneaks in the back is the oldest trick in the book. They’ll see it coming a mile away.”
“What do you suggest we do, then?” Scout snapped, putting one hand on her hip and cocking her body at him.
Doing that made her look so much like Harper that I felt sick. While all this talking and arguing and stupid fucking negotiating had been going on, I’d stopped thinking about everything with Harper. Her falling down on the porch next to me. Saying she hated me. Crying while she watched me smash Mom’s guitar.
“Give my messengers forty-eight hours,” Clarion said. “In the meantime, we study maps of the area around the Dark Mansion and come up with a better plan of attack. Two plans—one utilizing the potential reinforcements and a contingency in case we don’t get the backup I’m hoping for.”
Now that sounded like fun. Two more days stuck in the attic talking. I nodded and gave the coyote a double thumbs-up.
“How many chances do you think you’ll get at this, kid?” Clarion growled, getting up in my face. “You think you can just run in, grab the sword, and run out? What do you think’s going to happen if you run in there without a plan? You want me to tell you?”
No, I want you to question-talk at me some more.
Lonely snorted, but didn’t relay the message.
Clarion’s hands curled into fists at his side and he crowded me until his nose bumped against mine. “You’ll end up running around like a chicken with its head cut off and then every single person you drag into that fight with you will die.”
I held my ground. If he thought he could fuck with me by pulling that dominance shit, he was wrong. Ryder had tried it with me plenty of times. You can whoop somebody’s ass until they can’t stand up, you can scream at them until your lungs give out, but you can’t push around somebody who doesn’t give a fuck.
“I used to be just like you,” Clarion said. “Running into the thick of it, fighting without thinking. I was young and stupid and hurt and all I wanted was to fight until I’d paid Hell back for the pack it took away from me. You know what happened?”
You asked a shit-ton more rhetorical questions?
“This.” He flipped up his eye patch so I was staring into an empty socket. Except it looked like somebody had gone at it with an impact driver, then it’d healed up all wrong.
I spit in it.
Clarion barked. He jumped on me. I didn’t even see him change, but he was a full-on coyote when he hit me.
The katana I’d been messing with earlier was leaning up against the wall next to me. I grabbed it. Even with the vamp speed, I wasn’t fast enough. Clarion back off, dodged the blade, then sprang at me again. He hit me chest-high and slammed me to the floor. I swung the katana again. He dodged, then ripped into my sword-wrist.
In the background, I could hear Scout yelling something. Lonely was laughing.
Clarion snarled and whipped his head back and forth, shaking my sword arm. He must’ve cut through something important in my wrist because my fingers went numb. The katana dropped. I went for it with my slightly less mauled arm, but Clarion slammed both paws on my chest again and growled.
“Just stop, Tough!” Scout yelled. “Stop it!”
I did.
Clarion shifted back to human form and used the hem of his shirt to wipe the spit and vamp venom off his face. He hocked a couple times to get the taste out of his mouth. Twice in one day. That had to suck.
Scout knelt down next to me. She was looking at me like she couldn’t understand what had happened.
“Can’t you just stop for one second?” she asked, her voice low.
I snorted. That turned into a full-on laughing fit because the answer was no, I couldn’t stop. Not even if I wanted to.
Across the room, Clare spat again and took one more swipe at his face with his hand. It was a weirdly cat-like move for a coyote to make.
“It’s going to take at least a day, maybe two for my messengers to get back,” he said. “Give them forty-eight hours before you make any moves.”
“That’ll give us time to get my people familiar with their weapons,” Scout said.
“And to come up with a better plan of attack,” Lonely said.
From flat on the floor I snorted again, but this time I was able to keep the laughing under control. One big happy negotiations party. No one objected to waiting because apparently they had all the time in the world. No rush there.
I stared out the broken attic window while they all agreed with each other, and concentrated on keeping my yap—the one on my face that didn’t work anymore and the one in my head that everybody seemed to be able to hear—shut.
Outside, the sun was going down. Pretty soon this little jailbird was going to be free to go wherever he wanted.
Colt
My eyes opened. My heart was pounding in my chest. I didn’t recognize where I was. The cells on either side of me were empty. Maybe I’d kept moving while I was lost in my head that time. Or maybe I’d been so focused on the pain before the memory that I had stopped paying attention to my surroundings. I hoped to God I hadn’t passed Tiffani while I was out of it.
The Pit’s passage way stretched out in front of me, fathomless, infinite darkness. The screaming seemed to be coming from both directions—behind me and ahead. I listened for a few seconds, but didn’t hear Tiffani. I made myself start walking again, checking each cell for an occupant as I passed. I couldn’t afford to get lost in my head again. I had a plan. Stick to the fucking plan.
Empty cell
. Next. Empty. Next. Empty. Next. Empty.
A familiar laugh from over my shoulder sent ants running through my veins and electricity pop between my gritted teeth. I turned around.
Mikal lay on the floor of the cell, eyes open, her body writhing against the pain, and the wet stumps where her wings had been painting the floor in thick, bloody swipes. Her lips pulled back from her teeth in smile that was more than half snarl.
There was something sexual about the movements, the way she lifted her hips, bit her lip, arched her back. Shame flooded my brain, the feeling of having betrayed everyone I loved because I was weak, and I realized that I had never hated Mikal as much as I’d hated myself. She’d been the perfect scapegoat to pin all the anger and fear and blame on. Even worse, part of me had been so desperate for someone—anyone—to want me that I’d clung to the things she did and twisted them into an idea of love. All she had done was provide the lie. I had tricked myself into believing it.
“Here to gloat?” she asked.
On Earth, Mikal had been so beautiful. Even as much as I’d hated her, she’d been fascinating, like the shiny brass casing of a bullet just before you let the slide go and put the barrel in your mouth. But in the cell, she wasn’t fascinating or beautiful. She was pathetic. It hurt to look at her, remembering how powerful she’d been before.
Standing there, I had a moment of understanding—way back before this, before time, before the Fall, she’d been something else altogether, something so beautiful that it burned with holy fire. Now here she was, beaten and broken, lashing out at anything she could and cringing away from the pain.
“Or maybe it’s the good boy’s turn to dole out a little punishment.” She raised one eyebrow. “Is this what He gave you for your faithful service? Some pot shots at revenge?”
“Mikal.” My voice was ragged and hoarse from the effort it took to speak through the invisible razor blades. “Come with me. You don’t. Have. To stay.”
Time dragged out while she sneered up at me from the floor. I hadn’t realized it before, but even while I was holding still, I could feel my flesh burning and bubbling, cracking with the heat, then sloughing off and regrowing in itching prickles like bugs crawling along under the surface of my skin, but slow enough to drive you insane. Except you couldn’t go insane here—there wasn’t even that much escape from the torture.
When Mikal grinned, I knew exactly what she was going to say.
“Please, Mikal,” I croaked, trying to change her mind. “Come with me.”
“Fuck you, bitch,” she said.
Tough
I’d thought the hard part of sneaking off would be the getting outside without anybody realizing what I was up to, but that turned out to be pretty easy. Once Clarion decided he was sending messengers, we all kind of broke up and went downstairs. Clarion shifted into a coyote and went to bumping shoulders and making noise with his pack, probably laying out the plan. Lonely and Scout talked to that crow-girl Talitha and Lonely’s cousin Cash Pershing, figuring out the best way to issue weapons to the human troops and train without the fallen angels catching on. And the humans milled around Lonely and Scout’s little group, trying to overhear everything.
When the tattoo parlor door opened and Finn stuck his head in, only a couple people closest to the front noticed.
Finn looked around a second, then grinned at me. “Just the guy I wanted to see. Want to step outside and have a chat?”
Dodge and Willow were standing near the door, talking to just each other. I pointed from myself to Finn, then outside.
“Got you,” Dodge said. “Anybody needs you, we’ll holler.”
I nodded and slapped him on the shoulder on my way out to say thanks.
The front of Lonely’s shop faced east, and the sun had gone down far enough that we had plenty of long shadow stretching out to protect us vamps. Probably how Finn had gotten there in the first place.
I wanted to ask him what he was doing up so early. Most younger vamps slept a lot longer than the older ones—most of them who weren’t me, anyway. If you believed Mitzi, she was almost two hundred years old, and she still slept from just before dawn to nearly nine or ten every night. Finn had barely been undead since we graduated high school.
Since I couldn’t ask, though, I had to wait for him to start talking.
Finn didn’t act like he was in any hurry. He leaned up against the brick column next to Lonely’s big front window and puffed away at a cigarette. I leaned against the wood post holding up one corner of the awning.
“How’s the revolution going?”
I shrugged and a shiver rolled down my back. Finn was probably soaking up the heat from those bricks. I half wanted to go over there and cozy up next to him so I could get a little of that warmth, too, but I stayed put. If he’d been Jax, maybe I would’ve done it. It’s not gay if it’s your best friend. Even if you eventually end up murdering him.
I snorted. I was pretty sure Jax would’ve laughed at that, too, but maybe I was just kidding myself.
Finn was watching me out of the corner of his eye like he wasn’t quite sure whether he should be worried or not. I could’ve told him that people who weren’t my brother, best friend, or girlfriend weren’t in any danger from me, but that wasn’t quite true. I mean, there had been that groupie. I didn’t know if that one counted or not since Mitzi was the one who picked him up. Probably. A joint-murder is still a murder.
Shit, I was a laugh riot tonight.
Finn raised one of his plucked eyebrows at me.
I shook my head. Even if I could talk, he wouldn’t get it. It was one of those you-had-to-be-there things.
He shrugged, then dropped the butt of his finished cigarette onto the sidewalk and dragged his high-top across it before he dug out his pack. He lit up another one, then nodded at me. “Want to bum one?”
I nodded. I’d never smoked while I was alive. That shit reeked, plus it was as good as taking a blow torch to your vocal cords. But none of that mattered anymore, so why the hell not?
Finn stuck a second cigarette in his mouth and lit that one up. When it had a good cherry going, he handed it over.
I took a drag off it. Either I did it wrong or the smoke hit me wrong because I went from sucking in straight to coughing the smoke back out.
“You’re good at this,” Finn said.
I shot him the finger.
“Don’t just breathe it in,” he said. “Get a little air in your lungs, then do it. But don’t suck it all the way into your lungs or you’ll start coughing again. Hold it right here.” He pointed at where his throat met his chest.
I tried it again and managed not to cough my lungs up that time.
Finn leaned back against the wall and propped one foot up on the bricks.
“Saw your girlfriend yesterday,” he said.
I made the jack-off motion.
“Yeah, I was going to say I saw her taking off with Kathan and her sister and I figured she must’ve wised up.” He let out a long stream of smoke. “Fucking shame is what that is. If I ever get a girl with blood like that, I’ll chain her to my bed before I let her slip through my fingers.” He laughed. “Or treat her like a goddess or whatever the hell we’re supposed to do to show women we appreciate them. I forget.”
I snorted.
“Look, I’m going to ask you a question that’s going to piss you off and you’re going to try to do the macho bullshit thing…but trust me on this, Tough, I can beat you half to death while finishing this cigarette and I won’t even miss a puff. Remember all the times freshman year you got your ass kicked for your snotty attitude with the seniors? Well, being a vamp is the same way. I’ve got seniority. So don’t try to start anything. I’m not asking to be an asshole. I just want to know. Okay?”
I gave him a flat stare.
“Fine, do whatever you have to do, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He pitched his cigarette at the other butt on the ground, then crushed that one, too. “What was it like? After you got mad
e, when you fucked her, was it as hot as drinking off her or—”
Two of his front teeth snapped against my knuckles and his head bounced off the brick. Then my head bounced off of brick, too. My shirt ripped where Finn’s fists had ahold of it.
“That was a bridge, asshole,” Finn growled. At least, he tried to. It’s hard to sound intimidating when you’re lisping. “You have any idea how much dental work costs?”
I tried to kick him, but he slammed me against the wall again. I bit his forearm. It’d only been a couple days, but I’d already forgotten how shitty vamp venom tasted. Or maybe my brain blocked it out so I wasn’t gagging twenty-four/seven knowing that burning, rotting shit-stinking venom was flowing through my veins. Whichever one it was, when I tore into Finn, my stomach started heaving.
How the hell did I get this shit down the first time? I hocked up as much of it as I could and spat it at Finn.
“I was just asking! You think you’re cold now? Freeze your balls off for a few years and you’ll be looking for anything that’ll warm you up! I just wanted to know!”
Maybe it was him mentioning the bone-deep dead-cold that never went away, not even when you stood in the shower with the heat all the way up or laid in bed all day with your girlfriend crying on your face. I quit struggling.
“Just tell me what she is,” Finn said. “I’ll fuck off and find one of my own and let you go back to trying to steal her away from Kathan. I just want to know what she is that makes it like…like…”
Like hooking your heart up to jumper cables and revving the engine. Like replacing your blood with kerosene and setting yourself on fire. Like finding out you can kill dragons and defeat evil and live happily ever after.
Finn knew. He’d felt it, too. For a second, pissed-off flared up inside me remembering the snuff film that had been rolling through my brain when I was drinking off Desty. If Finn knew what it felt like, then that meant he’d drank off her. If he’d drank off her, then he’d at least thought about doing worse to her.
