by Meg Collett
“You should ask your other girlfriend that question if you want a soft, fluffy answer.”
“She’s just a friend.”
“That category doesn’t apply to people you used to fuck.” I clomped across his room, my heavy steps making him cringe, and yanked open the top drawer of his dresser. I pulled out a water bottle and a pill bottle. I shook a few pills out and handed them to him along with the water. “Take this. You have a shift in three hours, and I’m not finding a replacement.”
He studied the pills in his hands. The water bottle crinkled as his grip tightened. “That little boy—”
“Luke, look at me.” I waited until he did. “You killed a kid today. A mom died. Maybe a dad. A lot of people are dead on both sides. In the afterlife or in the next life, we might pay for our sins.” I waved a hand at his obvious misery. “This is what we deserve now, in this life. I can’t tell you how to deal with it cause fuck if I know. But you have to, in some way, because we have a wall out there to protect and Zero to find and a war to stop. We can’t do any of that if we all drink Jack and cry on our ex’s shoulders. You’re going to lie down and get some sleep. You’re not going to dream about that boy. You’re going to sleep. I’m going to lock your door, and Eve’s not coming back in here—ever. At nightfall, your ass will be on the fence with me. I’ll bring you a sandwich.”
I flipped the lock on his door, and as I was about to leave, Luke spoke. “You said stop the war.”
I glanced back at him. “Yeah. So?”
“Not win it.”
I leaned my head against the door, resting if only for a second. “Did that feel like winning today?” Luke’s jaw clenched. “I’ll take that as a no. That’s been my point since I came back to the school. It’s the point Dean and people like him who’ve been on the ‘right’ side of the war for generations have never understood. There are no winners. Because on the other side of this war, on the ‘wrong’ side, a family died today. They were just trying to feed their kid. There’s no right or wrong side. No winner or loser. We can only stop it.”
“How will you stop it?”
“I’m going to kill everyone who keeps insisting on winning it.” I rapped my knuckles against the door as I closed it. “Keep the lights on while you sleep.”
N I N E
Sunny
“It’s not working!”
I threw the pipette across the table and ripped my goggles off my face. The microscope rattled as I shoved back from the lab table, the drops of antidote swilling uselessly in the petri dish of saliva-infected blood. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t right.
“Maybe if you throw something else at it …”
“We’re missing something,” I said, ignoring Nyny’s comment. I pulled the gloves off my hands, needing to breathe before I suffocated. The heavy plastic apron came off next.
“We’ll get it.” Nyny swiveled around on her stool to witness my temper tantrum. “It just takes time.”
“We don’t have time. He could have been bitten today.”
“Look. I get it.” She took the end of her braided lavender hair and twirled it around her fingers. “You have mushy, moist—”
“Please don’t say moist.”
“—feelings for Hatter, but we’ve been through every single solvent in the book that could dilute and distill the saliva’s properties. Science doesn’t work against a clock. We have to slow down and think about what we’ve missed.”
“You’re saying start from scratch.”
“I’m saying we jumped headfirst into the deep end when we should have been paddling our pasty asses around the kiddie pool with floaties. That’s what I’m saying.”
I swept my glasses off my face and rubbed my eyes. I didn’t need to check the clock to know it was late. We’d been at it since this afternoon without a break. Maybe Nyny was right; we’d skipped parts of the process that should have taken months to research and formulate. We should have had a solid hypothesis to test against and data to cross-check and double-blinds … The list went on and on. All the things we’d missed because there was no time. Even one bite could be the end for Hatter. Just one.
And he still went out there to hunt, thinking he was already doomed.
“In Anchorage—”
I groaned as Nyny started up again. “We’ve been through this a million times.”
She pursed her lips and crossed her legs, the toe of her bunny-shaped slipper bopping erratically. Nyny didn’t sleep—she ran on coffee and glitter.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “You were saying?”
“I was saying, in Anchorage, they were measuring out the bane and whatever solvent based on body weight.”
“But it wasn’t exact. They guessed mostly.”
“Meaning it wasn’t that sensitive, which rules out most of the medicines we’ve tried.”
I slouched onto a stool on the other side of the table from Nyny. “If they used medicine, it would have had to be easily accessible.”
“Hold that thought.” Nyny held up a finger. With her other hand, she rifled through her robe’s pocket and pulled out a notepad. She flipped it open to a scribbled-over page. “I asked around about the street prices of some scrips we’ve tried.”
My eyes widened. “You asked drug dealers what they sell their prescriptions for?”
“No, I asked my cousin.” I sighed with relief until Nyny added, “He just happens to be a drug dealer on the side.”
“Nyny!”
“What?” She waved off my indignation. “Anyway, everything we tried is too arcane. No one wants to peddle them because they’re not good for a high. There’s no way these kids had access to anything hard enough to handle the saliva properties.”
I propped my elbows on the table. “Where does that leave us?”
“I think we’re looking at it the wrong way. I don’t think they were putting medicine in the antidote. I think we got lucky with the hypertension drug, but we need something similar to its effect on blood circulation.”
“What else could it be?”
“That,” Nyny said, flipping the book closed, “is something my entrepreneurial cousin could not help me with, believe it or not.”
I dropped my head onto my arms. “Great. We’re getting advice from drug dealers now.”
“Maybe it’s time to break for the night.”
I banged my forehead on my arm to keep my eyes open. “We should keep going.”
“Sure. That’s what my cousin says about cocaine. But that’s not a good idea either, am I right?”
“Your cousin sounds delightful.”
“He’s always the favorite at family gatherings. Brings the ham.”
I glanced up at her, and for the life of me, I couldn’t hold back my grin. “The ham outweighs the drug dealing?”
“It’s really good ham.”
Hysteria tinged my laugh, but it was a laugh nonetheless. I straightened off the table. “Okay. Break for the night. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
“Fan-freaking-tastic.” Without another word, she rolled herself onto the table and pulled her robe’s hood over her eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest and settled in. I rolled my eyes at her.
At the bottom of the stairs, I thought about hitting the lights but decided it was best to leave them on. Couldn’t be too safe.
Before I headed up, Nyny softly called, “Get some sleep, Sunny.”
“Sure. Later, alligator.”
“Later.”
I kept my steps quiet on the stairs. Curving up the wall, the lights hummed their warm, familiar sound. My legs were numb with exhaustion, and my eyes burned, but my mind kept returning to Nyny’s thoughts on the medicine being too inaccessible.
Where had the halflings gotten it? If it wasn’t medicine, what were they using?
If Thad were around, I could ask him. Force him to give me answers. Or if A.J. and Squeak hadn’t been excluded from the antidote talk back in Anchorage, they could have helped me too.
At t
he ward’s level, I stepped off the stairwell and scared the night nurse half out of her mind. I checked on the patients we had. Dean was asleep, his room ablaze with extra lamps. A thick sleep mask covered his eyes. He snored peacefully, the bandages at his throat rising and falling with each even breath.
Before I had visions of stuffing his mask down his throat, I left the ward.
The university’s ground level was quiet. A guard at the entry nodded at me, his rifle angled across his chest. The dorms were locked up tight and reinforced with manual deadlocks. Next time, during an attack, a failed generator wouldn’t leave all the doors unlocked for any monster to amble through.
I waved at the guard and slipped down the hall. At the elevator bank, I hit the button for the third floor. The carriage rattled as it carried me up and almost rocked me to sleep. But I knew better. I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. Even if I tried, the nightmare would find me. The one where I stood in the hall and shot Lauren over and over, her blood inching toward the white soles of my shoes.
Or worse, the dreams of saliva. The fearlessness. I’d wake to my heart pumping with desire.
I couldn’t go down that road tonight. I’d go a few rounds in the fear sim to clear my head. Maybe it would exhaust me to the point where I’d just lie down in the room and sleep. Mr. Clint had found me in that position enough times that he didn’t bother saying anything about it anymore. He just woke me, sent me on my way, and started fighting his own demons.
On the third floor, the lights blazed just as brightly, but I was high up enough to see the night sky through the windows. The moon peeked above the shining spotlights methodically spaced along the fence. Fear University felt like an island of light and fear cast out in an ocean of darkness.
Dust motes danced through the fluorescents up on the third floor as I started down the hall, my sneakers squeaking with every step. The classroom doors were closed, the hall a dull echo of the heartbeat it had once had. The school smelled half dead and full of fear.
A few steps down the hall, I realized my footsteps weren’t the only sound up here. A muted thwacking grew louder the farther I walked. The wall of classrooms gave way to a wall of glass, and the gym opened up behind it. Inside, a pale form moved through the semi-darkness, the lights off and the moonlight streaming in.
I instantly recognized the red hair. The scars on his bare back. The tapered hips and sinewy muscles. Hatter was slender but made of solid steel. His lanky arms and legs whipped through the air as he attacked a punching bag. It rattled on its chain with every hollow slam of his fists. He struck with a left hook, feinted and spun, then twisted his body around to land a kick across the bag.
Whatever he fought, it was winning.
The sweat streaking down his back glistened in the shadows. A piece of hair was stuck to his forehead. The headphones stuck in his ears blared so loudly that I heard bits of music from the other side of the gym’s glass.
And he had the lights off.
“What an idiot. A complete, total idiot,” I muttered to myself. I swung the gym door open and stomped over to the side wall toward the bank of lights. All of them flipped off. What was he thinking? Would he roll out a red carpet for Zero too?
I flinched at the thought of her name but shoved it aside.
She was just another reason to spend more time tonight in the fear sim. I’d be prepared when she returned, in case Ollie needed me again, and this time, I wouldn’t screw it up and go rabid on her.
I hit the lights.
Hatter spun around, ripping his headphones from his ears with a growl, and found me across the room with my arms crossed and a proper scowl on my face. He froze, his mouth hanging open on whatever he’d been about to yell, his ear buds swinging from his hand.
His shoulders slumped. Busted.
“What the heck are you doing? Are you stupid?”
He ran a hand through his hair, but I was not looking at his stupid abs that gleamed with sweat or how his pants hung low on his hips or how he had that V-shaped muscle that looked like an arrow pointing down to Heaven or how his bicep flexed as he shook the sweat from his hair with his fingers or how—
He was distracting me on purpose.
The turd.
He smirked at me. “Do you need a towel to wipe that drool from your mouth?”
I closed my mouth and scowled harder, the effect lost when I had to push up my glasses. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re the one in here without the lights on,” I said, returning us to the important issue at hand.
He rolled his eyes. “As if a few lights will stop her.”
“Why don’t you go open the front gates too, then?”
“We shouldn’t be hiding in the light. If we can’t fight in the dark, then we’re screwed anyway.” He flung his hand toward the back wall of windows. “Having all these lights on all the time justifies our fear.”
“It keeps her out,” I snapped, “while we figure out how to fight her.”
“We should—”
“No, you shouldn’t. Because when she was here, she was in everyone’s head. Everyone’s. For all the hunters here and for all your training, none of you could help Ollie fight her, so don’t tell me what we should do, because you can’t.”
He blinked, and it took me a second to realize what I’d said. He clenched his jaw and turned away, stuffing his earbuds back into his ears. He landed a punch against the bag, working himself back into a rhythm and bouncing on the balls of his feet as he struck the bag again and again.
I pressed my fingers to my temples and massaged my aching head. When had I gotten so nasty? I didn’t even recognize myself when I spoke to Hatter anymore. If Gran knew, she’d wash my mouth out with soap after smacking a wooden spoon across my hands for good measure.
I was just so angry. Why did he have to keep fighting? Why couldn’t he wait until I was closer to finding an antidote? If he would listen … If he would do what I told him was best … I wouldn’t be so mad at him.
But maybe he felt the same way about me. He missed the old Sunny. The coward. The difference between him and me, though, was that I’d changed. He was just refusing to stop doing the same thing that would kill him. I was trying to save people.
There was a difference. There was.
I flipped the lights back off, flooding the room in the darkness he wanted so badly. His punches faltered, and he turned to me, his music blasting away in his ears and probably ruining his hearing. And his hands weren’t even wrapped, leaving his knuckles red and chapped from the bag. They’d start bleeding soon. Probably get infected. Get blood everywhere. Doubted he’d clean it up either. And then he’d walk around with bruised knuckles like some brawler and all the girls would swoon and I’d get peeved off all over again.
I hadn’t moved from the wall. My fisted hands were as useless as the thoughts spinning through my head.
I should move. I should leave. I told myself to go.
Hatter’s shoulders were tense and braced for a fight.
Suddenly, desperately, I craved the old days at Fear University when Hatter was just a fantasy in my mind and Ollie was new and we’d spend almost every moment together and the school didn’t smell of death and terror and I didn’t crave the worst thing for me and the only things to fear were the monsters.
I just wanted to be afraid of monsters again.
Was that too much to ask?
Tears pricked the back of my eyes. Before my vision blurred completely, I saw Hatter’s shoulders slump. He’d seen.
I jerked away from the light switches and stomped back along the glass wall toward the door. From his punching bag in the middle of the room, Hatter started forward too, matching my steps, his gaze locked on me.
I broke into a jog, and so did he.
I beelined for the door, tears streaming down my face. To block out his bare feet slapping against the mats as he bore down on me, I focused on the door and getting away.
I was close—two steps away—when my feet le
ft the ground.
Hatter caught me with his arm around my waist. He swung me up and away from the door. I brought my hand to his shoulder and clawed at his skin. He sat me down, keeping his body between me and the door.
I punched his stomach and hissed in pain. Shaking out my hand, I glared up at him, still crying.
“Now,” he huffed, “we’re going to talk—”
I launched myself at him.
I went full-on Xena Warrior Princess on his hot ass.
He caught me around my waist again with a choked-off gasp. Choked because I was kissing him. My legs hooked around his hips, and I hauled myself tight against his chest with my arms around his neck. For a brief second, his hands just held me, his body frozen, his scarred mouth unmoving against mine.
Then he hooked a hand beneath my thigh and shoved me farther up his body. His hand raked along my thigh and onto my butt, where he brought his other hand and squeezed.
Lights fired off against my closed eyelids. I groaned into his mouth. He grazed his teeth along my bottom lip. With our foreheads pressed together, I opened my eyes. He stared back at me, his lips parted as he panted, his chest heaving against mine.
“Sunshine,” he breathed, his two-toned eyes flashing.
Our mouths crashed back together, the scarred side of his mouth fitting like a perfect key against my lips. He lowered himself onto his knees and laid me out on the mats beneath him. My legs were still wrapped around him, his body leveraged against me. He braced himself on his elbow by my head, leaving his other hand free to pull up the hem of my shirt. His hard length pressed against me, and then he rolled his hips and I arched into him. He shoved my shirt up beneath my chin as he kissed me, his tongue against mine, his teeth on my lips. His hand cupped my breast. I gasped. I gripped his hair and the back of his neck until my back wasn’t even touching the mat and we were just consuming each other.
He pushed me back to the ground. His mouth found my jaw and moved down to my neck. When he dipped lower, tugging the edge of my bra out of his way, I moaned. His hand streaked lower along my belly and beneath my jeans, along me and in me.
