Paper Tigers

by Meg Collett

  I flinched at the massacre’s mention. Hundreds of students and professors had lost their lives during the Halloween party at the bay nearly seventy years ago. Some said you could stand at the water’s edge and hear the students screaming and the whispering hint of tick tock.

  “You essentially created her. Where has she been all this time?” Hatter asked. He was the only one unfazed by Dean’s confession. He glanced up at me with his two-toned eyes.

  “She was, ah,”—Dean’s gaze flicked to Ollie—“a proof of concept, if you will. Once I deemed her functional, I was required to turn her over to the United States government.”

  “You bastard,” Ollie growled. She lurched forward, but Luke snared her around her waist before she could pummel Dean. “You’re sick,” she spat. Luke hauled her back to the end of the bed. She kicked the metal frame, jostling Dean, but he didn’t shrink away from her rage.

  “The committee that oversees our work here thought my fear switch project could apply to the military’s research and development. That was in the mid-nineties. I haven’t seen her since. I swear it.”

  “Well,” Hatter drawled, “it would seem she took it personally.”

  “No shit.” Ollie shook Luke off, though her hands still trembled. “I should have let her kill you. You deserve it. Who’s the Commander?”

  Dean shook his head. “That I don’t know. There wasn’t a ranking commander on the committee.”

  “Could he or she be someone who took pity on the girl and let her go?” Luke asked. He’d placed a precise few inches of space between him and Ollie.

  “Perhaps,” Dean said. “I can call my contact in Washington to get details on Zero’s escape and find out if someone with a commander’s rank could have assisted her.”

  “How does it work?”

  Dean’s eyes drew back to Ollie’s. “The fear switch?” he asked. Ollie arched a brow. “It’s complicated, and in Zero, it’s more complicated than it should have been. We only deemed her a success because I didn’t understand the project’s parameters at that time. But now …” His words trailed off as he shook his head. “I wouldn’t call her state successful at all.”

  “Explain.”

  “Her mind adapted after the procedures,” Dean said deliberately, choosing his words with care before he spoke. “The way it healed offset the benefits of a mental fear switch. While I could trigger the switch with a conditioned command at first, her mind created a loophole or a backdoor to the conditioning. She technically had a successful response to the surgeries, but she went to the government lab with a dysfunctional switch. Last I heard, they were working on her conditioning again because the scar tissue on her brain made further operations impossible.”

  No one spoke once he’d finished. There wasn’t anything to say.

  “You should know,” Dean said into the silence, “there was a reason we locked her up in a lab. With her abilities, she’s unlike anything else in the world.”

  “How many others?” Ollie asked quietly. Her tone drew my attention. She wasn’t looking at Dean. She wasn’t looking at anything. Her jaw clenched, causing the black scars along her neck and cheek to ripple.

  “Like Zero? None. I never found a way to circumnavigate the body’s natural response to the surgeries. Fearlessness goes against every human instinct ever evolved. It’s unnatural, and the body will do anything it must to hold on to fear.”

  My heart beat at the back of my throat, and I thought I might vomit. No one looked at me following Dean’s word, but I felt their attention.

  “Where would she go?” Luke’s words were steely and calm. I heard the scrap of his fingers as he tapped them against each other. Like Ollie, he was itching for action. “Is there a place she would feel safe?”

  “I have no clue where she would go. My guess is back to this Commander person, whoever they are.”

  Dean coughed again. This time, his body hitched in a way that worried me. I quickly checked his bandages and smoothed the tape over his IV. “You need to rest. Is that enough for today?” I asked Ollie.

  Ollie inclined her head. As she, Luke, and Hatter left the room, I drew up Dean’s blankets and lowered his bed. “Comfortable?” I asked him.

  “Sunny,” he whispered. “When you find Zero, you must kill her. Do you understand?” His hand found mine and gripped my fingers tight. “If she falls into the aswangs’ hands, they’ll destroy us. They can’t have the information her brain contains.”

  I pried my hand from his grip and fought back a shudder. I knew he was talking about the girl, about Zero, but in his words, I heard my name. The order to kill me. I was fearlessness after all. I was unnatural. Somehow, I’d evolved. But I shook my head and mentally told myself I was being dramatic. It was just a saliva reaction. I was fine.

  Even as I thought the words, the voice and the low lick of flame in my belly that craved the fearlessness of a ’swang bite came back.

  It wanted more.

  S E V E N

  Ollie

  Sunny came out of Dean’s room a moment later. In her wide brown eyes, I saw fear nestling and taking root. She was seeing herself in Zero, and it wasn’t good. I wanted to reassure her, but there wasn’t time.

  “We start searching,” Luke was saying as he unwrapped a caramel candy and popped it in his mouth. “Take the fight to her and this Commander before they have time to regroup and strike again.”

  “What makes you think they’ll come back?” Hatter shrugged. “For all they know, Dean kicked the bucket.”

  “We can’t risk the hunters by going after her,” I said. “As of now, we have no idea how to protect ourselves. I think we start with Dean’s records and see exactly what happened during those surgeries.”

  “He wasn’t telling us the complete truth.” Beneath the ward’s harsh fluorescent lights, Sunny looked wane and tiny. Ready to fall over. But her gaze on me was unflinching. “When he talked about her mind’s recovery, he was holding something back.”

  “I agree,” Luke said, holding up his hands. “We know Dean is hiding something, but there’s nothing we can do.”

  None of us had bothered lowering our voices, which showed how little we all thought of Dean. If he got in our way, I would press my hand against his throat and keep pressing until his delicate sutures popped one by one and he bled out beneath my touch.

  “We need to know where she’s staying. If we know that, we can start figuring out an attack plan,” Hatter said, directing his words to Luke. They’d been hunting partners for almost a decade, and I felt them icing me out as they turned to each other, ready to form a plan. The sting in my heart was distant; I’d always felt like an outsider. This was no different.

  But their words had sparked an idea. A horrible, awful idea.

  “Ollie?” Sunny asked quietly.

  I blinked at her. “What?”

  “Did you hear us?”

  “No, sorry. What were you saying?”

  Luke was watching me, seeing all too much. “Where did you go just then?” he asked. “What were you thinking about?”

  I considered hoarding away the secret until I could slip away and do the task myself. A few months ago, I would have, but things had changed. I wasn’t as invincible as I’d thought.

  “There’s someone who might know everything we need to fight her,” I said. I looked at each one of my friends.

  “No.” Luke crossed his arms over his chest. “Hell no.”

  “That’s a bad idea, Ollie,” Sunny said.

  “Who?” Hatter glanced between us, his eyes wide. “What’s going on?”

  “Hex,” I whispered.

  Hatter’s mouth popped open.

  I shrugged like my heart wasn’t beating out of my chest. I’d attempted to kill my father once before and failed horribly. I hadn’t been ready then, and a friend had died because of it. Tully. My heart ached. I still wasn’t ready, but it was time to fix that. “He knows everything that happens in Alaska. If she encountered any aswangs, he would kno
w. He might even know where to find her.”

  “We can’t risk it,” Luke said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “No,” I corrected, “she’s too dangerous. For that reason alone, Hex will know everything about her, and we can’t let her fall into the wrong hands.”

  “That’s what Dean said,” Sunny murmured. “Almost exactly.”

  I forced myself not to cringe. I hated agreeing with Dean on anything, but he was right: we needed to contain Zero. “We have to go to my father.”

  “And if he kills you on sight?” Luke snapped off. The tension rolled off him in waves and sparked between us.

  “He might,” I said, and Luke growled. He paced away from our little group and strode down the hall before pivoting and coming back. “Or he might not.”

  “Not good enough.” He paced back the other way.

  Footsteps slapped down the stone stairs into the ward. Someone was in a hurry. We all fell quiet, uncertain who the person was and if they’d overheard our conversation. A moment later, Eve rounded the last step and rushed into the hallway. She found me instantly. “We have a problem.”

  “What is it?” Luke, Hatter, Sunny, and I asked at the same time.

  She glanced at us, her cheeks red. “The last supply truck coming in from town just radioed in. They’re under attack.”

  My heart dropped. This was why I’d insisted the supply trucks stop coming in, but I’d been too late. “In daylight?”

  “The aswangs are getting bolder,” Eve said grimly.

  * * *

  I tugged at the hem of the balaclava covering my mouth and nose. Bitter cold air sliced through my jacket. The heavy-duty diesel truck hit a rut in the road and bounced. Those of us in the back clung to the sides of the truck, our fingers brittle in the cold. The truck splashed through a semi-frozen mix of mud and snow, sending a spray ten feet in the air around us.

  Luke smacked the cab of the truck and yelled at Hatter, his mask muffling the words, “Don’t kill us before we get there!”

  Crouched between us with impeccable balance, Eve checked the chamber of her double-barrel shotgun and cocked it.

  We’d brought ammo dipped in bane.

  We rocketed down the single-lane road leading away from the university, the sun catching on tiny prisms of ice. As the cottonwoods and heavy pines flashed by, I occasionally glimpsed the ocean. I lifted my nose and inhaled. The air was crisp and bright. From the cab of the truck, one of the hunters stuck his head out the passenger window and let out a long howl. In response, the others in the back with Luke, Eve, Haze, and me started drumming on the side of the truck, the metal bending beneath their fists.

  My smile stretched wide beneath the thick material of my balaclava.

  Across the back of the truck, Luke’s eyes were midnight green with disapproval. But the hunters needed this—a fight they could race into, knowing the odds and trusting their abilities—and when they returned to the university, their confidence would permeate the others. At least I hoped so.

  The truck bore down around a turn in the road and the back wheels skidded out. I ducked beneath an overhanging branch. From the cab, a hunter tapped the back glass. Instantly, Haze and Eve stood, leveling sniper rifles over the top of the truck, their faces pressed against the stocks, eyes trained down the sights.

  Holding tight, I leaned out of the truck to see. Up ahead, the supply convoy was stopped. The large carrier truck was parked sideways in the road, the driver’s door open. A headlight was busted, with glass scattered across the dirty snow. No one stirred.

  A hand closed around the front of my jacket and jerked me back. Luke glared down at me, his hand still holding me tight as if he thought I might fall out of the truck. I rolled my eyes at him and pushed him back as the truck slowed. Hatter stopped us forty feet down the road.

  The hunters spilled out, crouching low, guns up. I swung my legs over the side and dropped down next to Hatter. Luke landed behind me, casting a long shadow over me. I pulled the silver knuckles from my pocket and fitted them over my left hand. In my right, I held the end of my mother’s stingray whip, the leather cool and familiar against my palm.

  Haze stayed on a sniper rifle in the truck. Ahead of us, Eve took point. Over her shoulder, she held up two fingers and motioned forward. We moved.

  The crunch of our boots over the snow sounded ear-splitting. For a moment, I heard nothing but my breaths huffing against my mask and the displacement of loose snow. I uncovered my mouth, and cold air whooshed down my throat like a shot of stiff whiskey. I angled my head and searched the trees alongside the road. Every shadow and patch of darkness made me nervous. I thought I saw them shiver and shift, but my eyes were just playing tricks on me.

  It was too quiet. Too still.

  Halfway to the carrier, Eve stopped and glanced back. Her dark eyes passed the hunters between us and landed on mine in the back. I inclined my head, listening.

  Nothing.

  No breeze rustled through the treetops. No melting snow dripped onto the ground. No ice tumbled down the tree trunks. Even the sunlight held its breath.

  I motioned to the two hunters next to Hatter and circled my finger in the air. I moved up to Eve, Luke ever present at my back. Hatter took his left. Behind us, the other hunters spread out, guarding the truck and Haze. They would keep the path clear in case we needed to run for the truck. We advanced.

  I pressed a diamond on the silver knuckles. The hidden blade whisked out. Hatter rolled his neck. Behind me, Luke adjusted the press of his fully automatic rifle against his jacket, the material crinkling.

  The carrier was surely a trap, but we couldn’t leave it or the hunters. We had to check. We had to walk right into it.

  My boots crunched over the broken headlight glass. We split at the front of the truck. Hatter and Luke went left; Eve and I took the right. As we went, I checked the cab of the truck through the driver’s open door. The canvas seat was torn, and stuffing spilled out onto the floorboard. A gun sat across the passenger seat, the safety still on. Through the other window, Luke peered in, his eyes raking across the too-empty cab before finding mine. He looked away and moved on. I stayed behind Eve’s shoulder as we walked along the large back compartment.

  Two steps away from the back of the truck, I tapped Eve’s shoulder. She nodded without glancing back. She took one step. Stopped. Crouched low. And tucked her gun tighter against her shoulder. At the sharp jerk of her chin, I dropped the coil of my whip and swung wide around the truck’s corner, my boots quick over the snow. Eve followed at a tighter angle, bringing her gun around the corner in a blink.

  We saw it at the same time as Luke and Hatter.

  The hunter was suspended from his wrists, each tied from the opposite corner of the truck’s top. His legs were spread wide and bound at the bottom corners. His head slumped forward onto his chest. Dark locks of hair hung across the front of his face.

  Luke shifted to cover Hatter’s back as he approached the body and reached for the hunter’s neck to check for a pulse. He pushed the guy’s head back.

  “Fuck,” Hatter hissed, stumbling back.

  The hunter’s face was gone. The flesh had been peeled back, and blood-stained bone showed through. The blood had frozen in a congealed mess; he only had one eye left in its socket. The other was gone. His chin fell back against his chest, hair covering the gruesome sight once more. We all stared. Hot saliva pooled in my mouth, and next to me, Eve looked clammy. Hatter gagged.

  Luke stared up at the hunter’s suspended body. “We need to get him down—”

  A crack sounded through the air. Bits of bark exploded against the side of my face. I jerked around in time to see someone’s head recoil from the fifty-caliber bullet lodged in his left eye. Blood and gore splattered across my face. The person had snuck up from the woods; he’d been a foot away from me when Haze had fired from the truck.

  As the ’swang fell to his knees, I spotted another one behind him, springing on silent feet out from the trees, bloods
hot eyes focused on me. His chest was bare and blue in the cold. I got one slash of my whip in before he was too close.

  Shots fired behind me as I ducked out of the ’swang’s reach. I angled out from behind the truck again, closer to the woods, but the ’swang pivoted and followed. He was well fed and muscular, and large enough in his human form that I knew he would be monstrous at night. I swiped at him with my knife, which he easily avoided. He stepped toward me, eyes bright, mouth parted around his heavy breaths.

  Another crack fired. The ’swang’s head blew apart, and I turned away in time to avoid most of the blood splatter.

  Eve fired a round into the back of the carrier. Luke slung another aswang—a slender female—to the ground and fired a shot into her heart. Hatter dropped two more advancing from the woods on his side. I checked around me, my whip ready, my knife close to my side, but the fight died down as quickly as it had started.

  A hollow, ringing quiet fell around us again.

  I turned, my eyes wide and unblinking. In my chest, my heart pounded its furious fist against my sternum. I almost couldn’t breathe from it. Sounds from my left ear were muffled and almost completely lost.

  “Mommy?”

  As one, we all spun toward the small voice.

  A child stepped out from the tree line, his bare feet walking across the snow along the road. Dirty blond curls stuck to his forehead, framing wide, almost silver eyes. He couldn’t be more than five years old, and he was barely tall enough to reach my waist. He swiped a tiny hand under his running nose.

  “I’m hungry,” he said, his small voice bouncing between the trees.

  “Hey, kid,” Luke called. “Stop right there, okay?”

  The boy’s watery eyes landed on Luke. He sniffled, silver gaze falling to the woman at Luke’s feet. “Mommy?”