Paper Tigers

by Meg Collett

  I was going to be sick.

  I took the chance to let out a gust of air as everyone climbed out of the SUV. My hands were sweaty and shaking. My stomach burbled the coffee I’d been inhaling during the past twelve hours. Beneath my sudden fear, if I thought long enough on it, I could still feel the zing along my skin, leftover from Hatter’s touch.

  He held the back door for me, looking sympathetic as I took a moment longer than everyone else. He’d argued that I shouldn’t come—he’d said the antidote took priority—but I knew he didn’t mean it. He just wanted to spare me the sight of the dead family.

  But they needed me. The other doctors had bailed. I barely qualified as an RN with my training, but the others were on duty or sleeping. It had fallen to me.

  I would handle it. No matter what, I would handle it.

  We walked up the front stairs. Ollie followed the local hunter who’d answered the neighbor’s call. Luke and Hatter fanned out and kept glancing around and turning back. The sun was high, and the shadows slight. Zero wasn’t here. In my heart, I sensed she wouldn’t have waited around.

  At the front door, the local hunter paused. I couldn’t remember his name. His eyes were red and puffy from crying. We pretended not to notice for his sake. He looked at me and asked, “Ready?”

  No. “Yes. Lead the way.”

  He nodded. “The first is in the master bedroom.”

  “The first body?” Ollie asked.

  “The father,” the hunter mumbled.

  Inside the house, I caught the faint scent of waffles. They’d cooked this morning. A doll was tossed on the couch. A backpack sat beside the door. The carpet was worn but clean, the space lived in but tidy. They weren’t like other Originals, living in remote corners of the world with more money than should be legal.

  My eyes snagged on a picture hanging on the wall by the stairs, and my heart fell.

  They were Filipino, same as my mother’s family.

  The family portrait showed two parents and three kids, one young, likely not in school yet, another old enough to be in high school, and the third probably a year or two younger than me. The picture looked like it had been taken in their backyard during a bright summer day. Their smiles shone, and the youngest kid was pressing her hand to her mother’s cheek while laughing up at her in wonder.

  I peeled my eyes away. The others were waiting on me.

  We clumped up the stairs, and I had the inane urge to shush everyone, as if the family were only sleeping. I clenched my jaw. Get it together, Sunny. You don’t see Ollie falling apart.

  The master bedroom was the first room on the second floor. The door sat partially open. Before I could look away, I spotted a bare foot.

  “You good?” Ollie asked. Behind us, Hatter waited on the stairs, his eyes on the level below. Luke walked farther down the hall. Ollie and the local hunter waited at the bedroom door with me.

  “I’m okay.”

  Ollie squeezed my hand. A willing touch. I didn’t have a chance to celebrate the small victory before the local hunter led us into the room.

  I wasn’t prepared for all the blood. Arterial spray, my mind told me. The carotid, then. The blood was bright red and oxygen rich. It gleamed on the white walls and the white bedspread. The father’s body was sprawled in the middle of the room, his hand reaching for the door through which we’d come as if he were calling someone back.

  “Do you want me to turn him over?” the local hunter asked. He sounded like he didn’t want to.

  “Please.” I sounded exactly the way he had, unwilling, but duty drove us both farther into the room.

  Ollie stayed by the door.

  The hunter turned the father’s body over as delicately as he could, but the skin still made a sick slapping sound against the dark-stained wooden floors. I forced my legs to carry me closer. Crouched beside the body, I ran my eyes over his face and down.

  My brain cataloged what I saw. I kept the information there and didn’t let it flow to any other parts of my body, like my heart. I processed what I saw as if I were looking at a picture in a textbook. Just a picture, I told myself and picked up his hand.

  There were dark stains beneath his nails and his knuckles were torn. I turned his hand over. His palms were shredded with deep cuts, possibly from a knife. The other hand was the same. His pajama shirt—they’d still been in their pajamas, enjoying a late weekend breakfast, sleeping in … Stop it. Stop. The shirt was cut to ribbons, the skin beneath coated with dried blood. His lip was busted.

  I stood from the body. My eyes tracked the spray of blood. Most of it was on the bed, the window beside it, and the far wall away from the hall.

  I forced the picture of my father from my mind and said, “He tried to stop her.”

  “What?”

  I turned back to face Ollie. The local hunter had retreated into the hall, but Ollie had stayed with me. She was frowning at me.

  “The blood,” I said. My voice sounded foreign to my ears. I told myself I was reading from a textbook. “He was facing the far side of the room, away from the door. That’s where she cut his throat, but not before he fought her. He was keeping her busy.” My voice trembled. Ollie’s face shuttered as she stuffed the emotion away as easily as wiping a dry-erase board clean. “He kept her in here and fought her—alone.”

  “The other bodies,” Ollie said, “are in the guest room. There’s an escape hatch there.”

  I nodded. All the families, even mine, had escape hatches, secret doors, hidden subfloors. We all understood the possibility of an attack, but we were prepared for aswangs, not humans who shifted through shadows.

  “He fought her while he was in agonizing pain,” I whispered to Ollie. “If she had enough power to level all the rushing guards and hunters at the university, imagine all that power directed at one person. He should have been on his back, but he fought her.”

  Ollie jerked her face from mine. Her lips were pressed together. Too late, I realized she was probably thinking of her mother—Irena Volkova—and the night she’d left Ollie in a closet to fight Killian Aultstriver just feet away in their backyard. She’d died out there, protecting the secret of Ollie’s life.

  “Come on,” Ollie said gruffly. “Let’s go see the others and get out of here. This isn’t helping.”

  I followed her out. In the hallway, the others looked up at us, but no one spoke. The local hunter pointed to the last door along the hall. He didn’t follow as we walked by.

  At the room, Ollie pushed the door open. I went in first.

  Pictures in a textbook.

  My first thought: Zero was in a hurry.

  The father’s cuts as he fought had been carefully placed and equal in depth. A steady hand had delivered them. But this? This was sloppy. My brain supplied the other words: this was regret, guilt, horror, pain. Zero hadn’t wanted to be here.

  She’d needed to cut necks multiple times because she hadn’t gotten it right on the first try. The oldest son was closest to the door. Without looking, I saw the defensive wounds similar to his father’s. He’d fought too. In the back corner, the mother had opened the hatch. Her body was draped across the opening, her eyes staring down into the dark hole.

  I dodged most of the blood, but not all. My shoes would be stained. At the hatch, I saw a ladder leading down to the first floor and farther below to a partially dug out basement. From the light up here, I caught the outline of the children. I straightened away. Zero had followed them down. For all the feelings she’d experienced in this room, she’d still gone down that hatch and killed two more children.

  I turned to Ollie. Her arms were wrapped around her middle, and she was shaking. It took me a second to recover from the surprise of seeing her so … human. She met my eyes, hers swimming with tears. I blinked at her. “Do you think she’s accountable now?”

  Ollie’s jaw clenched. “Maybe,” she whispered. “But even if she wasn’t in control, how could anyone recover from this, knowing what they’d done?”


  The words were quietly spoken and intentionally so. She didn’t want Luke hearing her down the hall. He’d killed a kid too. Yes, the children were from different sides of the line dividing the heroes from the villains, but did that difference even matter?

  “You couldn’t recover. You don’t get to recover from killing kids,” I said with more bite than I’d expected from myself. I hoped my voice didn’t carry down to Luke. In the back of my mind, I wondered how many kids Hatter had killed.

  Ollie looked away. “Do you need to examine the bodies closer, or …”

  She wanted out of here. I turned back to the oldest son. He was pale beneath his brown skin. His dark hair was longer and thrown about his face. He sat slumped against the bed. A gun was on the floor, inches from his hand. I glanced back at the wall near Ollie. No bullet holes.

  He hadn’t had time to fire a shot.

  I picked up his hand. Like his father, he had cuts on his palm. Had he tried to stop Zero with his hands alone? Why the cuts and no bullet holes? Why take the time to reason with her and not shoot? Had he thought he could talk her out of it, even knowing she’d killed his father down the hall?

  What had he seen on her face that had made him hold up his hands instead of shoot her in the chest?

  Fingers squeezed around my hand and clutched tight.

  My eyes jerked to his. His eyes were open and staring at me.

  He let out a stuttering breath.

  I screamed.

  T W E L V E

  Zero

  “Whose blood is that?”

  Why had I come in here? Why, when my brain was panicked and pulling out of the shadows I’d so carefully curled around it, had it brought me to the shadows in this room? The Commander had turned off all but one small light by the freezer door as if he’d known I’d come.

  The blond man glared at me, his body slumped against the outer wall. His fists were clenched. Too weak to use them, but he was still fighting, even with all the blood frozen on the floor.

  “Tell me!” he shouted. “Who did you kill? Was it Ollie?” He choked on her name. “Or Sunny? Did you hurt Sunny?”

  The door’s metal handle stung my palm. My skin prickled in the cold. Or maybe it wasn’t the temperature. Maybe it was my memory emerging from the shadows and supplying me with the father’s face.

  Run! he’d screamed to his wife. Take the gun! They’d been in bed watching television, with sunlight streaming in through the windows.

  He was big. He’d cornered me in the room. I should have waited until nightfall, but if I’d waited, I wouldn’t have done it.

  From down the hall, his wife’s feet had pounded against the floor. A door had slammed open. Mommy?

  You’re not getting past me, he’d said as my eyes drew back to his. He’d raised his hands, weaponless, ready to fight.

  I think I might, I’d whispered back. My eyes had begged him for what my mouth couldn’t: Stop me. Please, please, stop me. Kill me. Stop me.

  You won’t get them. Kill me. That’s fine. But you’re not getting them.

  He’d tried to stop me. He’d fought hard and given his wife time to collect the children and open the hatch and send the two youngest ones down the stairs. She’d been yelling at the oldest to give her the gun. Help Perri protect Stella! Get out of here! I’m fine!

  I’m not leaving you, Mom!

  Please, just go, Sam!

  Then I’d entered the room, dripping in their father’s blood.

  He’d raised the gun at me, stepping over to block his mother.

  Do it. Shoot me. Do it.

  I think I’d been crying. For a second, I thought he’d do it, but he was too young. Too soft. He’d lowered the gun and raised his hand as if to calm me down. In that moment, he’d decided to think better of me than what I was. It had been his last decision.

  Pulling myself out of the memory before I could recall how it had felt to kill Sam, I found myself staring at the bloody floor. The man was still shouting at me. What was his name? Thad?

  Halfling, he’d called me.

  I lifted my face to him. My cheeks crackled with dry blood. “Their time will come,” I said.

  I closed the door behind me, but I still heard his guttural screams promising to kill me.

  I folded into the shadows and stayed there, in the darkness where I belonged.

  T H I R T E E N

  Ollie

  Sunny stood at the base of the ward’s stairs with a satellite phone pressed to her ear. We all tried not to listen, but her urgent words drifted down the hall.

  “Mom, it’s serious this time. No, I’m fine. You’re in danger. No. No. No. Listen. I don’t care what Gran dreamed, get to the school now. Put Dad on the phone.”

  The patient room door opened, and the nurse on shift came out. She looked beat, and blood dotted her scrubs.

  “How is he?” I asked.

  The nurse disposed of her gloves in the bio-waste bin next to the door. “He would be a lot better if he hadn’t lain on the floor for hours after Zero had slaughtered his family.”

  I smiled at her; I was exhausted too and in no mood to hand out free passes. “Then he shouldn’t have looked so dead.”

  A low sound of disgust rolled off the nurse’s tongue.

  Luke shot me a hard look. “I think what Ollie is trying to ask is, when will he be able to talk?”

  “Not that we’re being insensitive by asking or anything,” Hatter added. Behind him, Eve chuckled darkly. Haze’s fingers flashed beneath the bright fluorescent lights as he signed something to her. I scowled at them; I really needed to learn sign language. I always had the vague sense they were talking about me.

  “He’s critical,” the nurse snapped. “He’ll be lucky to wake up. You know what killed his family. Now do your jobs and kill it.”

  She shoved past us into the main ward room. Down the hall, Sunny hung up and walked toward us. She huddled deeper inside her coat as if she couldn’t get warm.

  “Are your parents coming?”

  She blinked dully at me. “I convinced my dad. They’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “Good.” I glanced back at Dean’s room. He’d been asleep when we rushed the son into the ward. His unconsciousness afforded us a unique opportunity I hadn’t considered until now.

  Luke registered the look on my face. “Do you need help? Or a lookout?”

  Sunny glanced between us. A second later, she sighed and shook her head at me. “I have to go back to the lab, but tell me what you find in Dean’s office.”

  “Did you really crack the antidote?” I asked.

  Sunny blushed again. Beside her, Hatter’s mouth twitched into a lopsided grin. I crossed my arms. “Or,” I said, drawing out the word, “did you two crack something else?”

  Luke choked. Behind me, Haze stepped forward and fist-bumped Hatter. I glared at them as Sunny’s blush deepened. She cleared her throat. “The solution came to me all at once …”

  “It had great timing,” Hatter muttered.

  “What is it?” I asked, ignoring Hatter before I had to rip his face off. “What are you adding to it?”

  “Nyny and I are still working through it. Don’t get your hopes up. I’ve got to go.”

  The fact that she wouldn’t tell me worried me. Whatever she was adding to the antidote must have been bad. She scampered down the hall and disappeared down the stairs.

  Luke shook his head at Hatter. “Dude, where do you find the time?”

  “If you need some pointers, I can help you out.” Hatter smirked.

  “Okay!” I clapped my hands. “We’re not talking about this. Luke, you’re with me. Eve and Haze, go over the hunter’s guard rotation. See if we can spare anyone to send to the Original families on Kodiak. They’re the ones in the most danger.”

  “You don’t think it’ll hop across the water?” Eve asked, straightening off the wall.

  “She doesn’t seem to travel far, at least for now. If you think we have enough hunters to keep the school def
ended, send the hunters off. Hatter, stop grinning. That’s my best friend you’re thinking crude thoughts about.”

  Hatter’s face flattened. He coughed. “Sorry.”

  “Whatever. You oversee the mass exodus this latest attack is causing.” I tried not to think too long about the fear that had ballooned since news of the Original family’s death had spread. The few students and professors that remained were halving themselves as I spoke. No matter how much I told them they were safer here, they wouldn’t listen. “I don’t want anything slipping through the gates in the chaos, okay?”

  Hatter nodded. As everyone dispersed, I grabbed Hatter’s arm and pulled him close. “Hurt her,” I whispered in his ear, “and I’ll kill you. She’s better than late-night bangs to distract you. Got it?”

  “It wasn’t—”

  “I don’t give a fuck. I’m telling you how it is.” I released him and stepped back, my smile spreading across my face.

  Eve and Haze had disappeared up the stairs. Luke waited a few paces away, his brows raised and arms crossed. His expression told me he didn’t appreciate me giving his best friend ultimatums about my best friend, but my middle finger aimed at him said I didn’t give a shit.

  “I love her, Ollie,” Hatter said. He seemed to shrink into his tall, lanky form. A hunk of red hair fell across his scarred face, and for a second, I saw the broken young man haunted by his parents’ abuse. I saw him counting and scribbling on endless pages. I saw him scooping Sunny’s body into his arms after Zero’s attack. It wasn’t enough.

  “Your love for her will get her killed.” Hatter rocked back on his heels at my words. “Love means nothing right now.”

  * * *

  Dean’s office had the musty air of a closed space not breathed in for a while. The curtains were closed over the massive window behind his desk. I turned on the brass lamp on the desk half covered in books and papers. A cup of coffee sat gathering mold. I wrinkled my nose.