Dead Man's Stitch

by Meg Collett

  I picked up my pace. If anyone would know about the difference in tonight’s aswangs, it would be my pack—my pack that was supposed to be guarding the school’s perimeter so this didn’t happen.

  I used my student badge to open the front door and slipped outside. The summer night air was brisk, and I hadn’t had time to change into a clean jacket. It was stiff with blood and bits of guts, but at least I’d washed my face. I couldn’t say the same about my hair. When I reached the rook’s nest near the main gate, the guards looked down at me in horror.

  I grimaced. Maybe I should have stopped and gotten a fresh jacket or at least brushed my hair.

  “Evening,” I called up to them. “Can you open the gate?”

  The guard, a young recruit from Nova Scotia named Henry, though everyone called him John Henry because he was tall and brutish and could deadlift three times his body weight, bit his lip. “Ah, evening, Ollie.”

  He was also socially awkward as hell. “The gate, Henry?”

  He glanced back in the darkened rook’s nest to check with another guard. When he turned back to me, he looked worried. “Mr. Clint said no students are allowed outside the gate. No exceptions.”

  “But I’m not just a student, Henry.” I felt a smile coming on. A dangerous one. One that reassured me I was back to my old self, not the blubbering version.

  “He specifically mentioned you.” Henry offered me a trembling smile. Poor thing. He didn’t know my smiles were as good as arsenic.

  “It was a misunderstanding. Open the gate.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Open. The. Gate.”

  “Mr. Clint said—”

  “Henry,” I growled. “Tonight is not the night. I’m covered in guts, and an aswang that was foaming at the mouth bit me. I’m going out to figure out what is wrong with these things. I’m not going for a midnight jog around the block. Got it?”

  He hesitated. “Shouldn’t you at least have Sunny with you?”

  “She’s doing the autopsies.”

  “Oh.” Henry chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Okay. Sorry about that, Ollie. Mr. Clint just said no students, especially you. But I’ll get the gate.”

  “Thank you.” My mouth softened into an actual smile, and Henry sighed in relief.

  The gate clanged open a few inches, and I pushed my way through with a wave before folding into the darkness. I kept to the trees as I followed the fence line toward the back of the school. I didn’t want any of the guards along the fence to see where I was heading. They didn’t need to know a massive pack of aswangs was camped within a mile of the university. And they certainly didn’t need to know the location of that camp.

  Luke had wanted to tell everyone about my pack. He’d said the time for secrets was over. I agreed. To an extent. The fact I was a halfling had been a bitter pill for everyone to swallow, but they’d done it because it was a pill that had saved their asses. Being the queen of the aswangs on Kodiak Island wouldn’t go down the hatch as easily. For now, this was one secret that would stay buried. A good decision considering Mr. Clint was revoking all my rights to come and go from the university as I pleased.

  I scowled.

  “You’ll get wrinkles.”

  It was a testament to all the time I’d spent around Zero that I didn’t immediately start slashing with my silver knuckles’ dagger. Or, given the weird mood I was in tonight, break down into tears.

  “Hey, Z.”

  “You going to the pack?”

  Of course, keeping a secret around a girl who used the dark as her personal public transportation was impossible. She’d also been there that fateful night when I’d killed my father and taken his role as leader of the pack. But she, Sunny, Luke, Thad, and Hatter were the only ones who knew.

  I nodded. “Have you found anything out about those things that attacked tonight?”

  “A large cargo carrier arrived this evening in Kodiak. It was marked as carrying oil drums, but the drums were empty. The carrier smelled like them.”

  “You’re saying they were shipped in?”

  Zero lifted a shoulder. She always wore the same leather pants and simple black shirt. No jacket. No gloves. No matter how cold the night. I’d asked her once if she was okay, if she had a good place to stay and food to eat. She’d disappeared and hadn’t returned for a week. I’d stopped asking questions after that. Better to have her around and keep an eye on her than lose her forever because I didn’t know if she was taking care of herself.

  Zero wasn’t the type to have a sleepover, eat s’mores, and gossip about her crush.

  We bonded over killing things. It was fine. Really. Totally healthy.

  We also shared a mutual deep-seated hatred for Dean Bogrov, and unlike everyone back inside the university, Zero understood my need to believe he was gone. Which was why I didn’t want to ask. This was dangerous territory for us, but I had to ask. “Do you think it was him?”

  Shadows wrapped tighter around Zero, tendrils of darkness curling around her skin. But she didn’t vanish. “That carrier could have brought over empty oil drums.”

  “And the aswangs could have eaten a bad batch of meat.”

  “He could be gone.”

  “Milhousse too.”

  We fell quiet. Everything was silent aside from our boot steps over twigs and rocks and the evergreens’ limbs swishing above us. I constantly scanned the surrounding woods, but my thoughts were far, far away.

  “Are we being naive?” I asked quietly.

  Zero was silent for so long I thought I’d stepped too far into personal territory. But then she said, “I see him when I’m tired.”

  Sweat broke out across my skin. My arm pulsed with heat. “The Commander?”

  Zero dipped her chin. A sharp jerk. More like a twitch.

  I didn’t turn to look at her fully. I let my blood-crusted hair fall across my face and watched her from the corner of my eye. She flickered in and out, constantly almost disappearing and hovering on the edge of substantialness. What did that feel like? To always be on the verge of disappearing? To see someone who didn’t exist outside her mind? Someone could easily say Zero was crazy or, worse, broken. But I knew better. She was just a product of her environment—like me.

  “I’m tired,” I murmured. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I cry all the time.”

  Zero glanced at me, her smoky eyes like vapor in the night.

  “All I’m saying,” I continued, “is if I had a Commander to see, I would be seeing him too.”

  “Maybe we’re not naive in hoping it’s not him.” She vanished to a point farther ahead and pulled back a low-hanging branch that we ducked under. “Maybe we’re just tired of fighting Dean.”

  We walked along in silence for ten minutes. I kept the pack far from the normal hunting grids. I didn’t want any gung-ho hunter coming across one of my pack members and taking them down. Everyone at the university didn’t buy into my credence that we only killed rogues. Most still thought the only good ’swang was a dead one.

  Which reminded me. It was time for my usual update, even if Zero pretended like she didn’t want to hear it.

  “He’s doing okay,” I said, speaking to the trees. “He’s one of the top first-years. Really handy with a crossbow, but I think that’s because he’s watched too much of The Walking Dead. Oh, that’s a television show about zombies. Do you know what zombies are? Anyway, he’s fine. That’s all I’m saying. The nightmares have stopped.”

  Zero didn’t speak. She knew who I meant. I talked to her as often as I dared about Sam, the boy whose family she’d killed back when she was a murderer bent on a form of vengeance the Commander had brainwashed her into believing. Back when, maybe just maybe, she’d been a little crazy.

  Hey, this was a no-judgment zone. I’d killed a few men too, and I’d liked it. At least Zero hadn’t enjoyed it.

  “I watch it.”

  I shot her a look. “What?”

  “The zombie show. I like Daryl too. He’s sex
y.”

  My mouth fell open. She could have knocked me over with a leaf.

  But then Zero disappeared, and a shadow loomed in the woods in front of me. A furry shadow with dark eyes and sharp teeth.

  We had company.

  F O U R

  Ollie

  Wariness washed over me. Call it a bad night, but I didn’t welcome the ’swang with open arms.

  My queen, it whispered to my mind.

  I recognized her a moment later: Sibyl. She was the head female of the pack, a young warrior with a lithe body almost as large as the males’ in the pack. She hadn’t taken a mate, even though she was in her prime. I’d met her twice before, and she unnerved me, even in her human form. She never blinked and had this unnatural ability to stand hyper-still, as if she wasn’t even breathing. And when she stared at me, it felt like she was considering how my bones would feel against her tongue.

  She wasn’t my favorite.

  “Where’s A.J. and Squeak?” I asked aloud. Mental conversations gave me a headache.

  And did I mention I wasn’t in the mood tonight?

  Gone for supplies in Kodiak. The aswang cocked her head, her ears delicate and curving. Even in her night-form she was beautiful, her pelt a gunmetal gray. It takes a lot of effort to sustain a large pack for so long in one area.

  “The pack hasn’t been feeding off more fear than allowed?”

  Just enough to get by, but some grow hungry. As an afterthought, she added, her lips pulling into more of a snarl than I liked, My queen.

  I gritted my teeth. The deal with my pack was they could feed off nearby towns, but only taking tiny slivers of fear so the person wouldn’t even notice they were being fed on. In exchange, I kept them safe from the university’s hunters. We worked together in a mutually beneficial relationship to make Kodiak Island a safe place for ’swangs. At least for the good ’swangs.

  The rogues could kiss their furry asses goodnight.

  “Do you know what happened tonight? Rogues with white eyes attacked the school.”

  Sibyl’s nostrils flared. So I smell. But our perimeters have not been broken. We were on patrol, my queen. I don’t know how they got through us.

  Her words were sugary and tasted like a sweet lie. “That shit can’t happen. We were nearly overrun. That’s how many there were—enough that the patrols should have seen something.”

  Her eyes were two simmering coals staring back at me. Unmoved. Unflinching. I told myself my stomach wasn’t flipping.

  Perhaps if we had more to eat, she suggested, her low voice curling through my mind.

  “You get what you get,” I snapped. “It’s plenty. That was the deal. If you or anyone else can’t agree to it, I will consider you rogue, and you will be hunted.”

  Sibyl’s silence stretched such that I regretted my words. Normally, I dealt with A.J. and Squeak. They relayed my messages to the pack and brought back any concerns to me. I wasn’t used to my leadership position, and I was used to people—to humans being scared of me. No one, aside from Sunny and Luke, questioned me. At least before tonight they hadn’t. People listened when I talked. But Sibyl … I regretted trying to rule Sibyl with an iron fist. She looked like she ate iron as a snack.

  As if she sensed my unease, she prowled within a few feet of me, closer than I’d been to anyone in my pack besides A.J. and Squeak.

  Sibyl’s eyes shifted over my shoulder, and I felt the vacuum of air compress, announcing Zero’s arrival.

  The aswang retreated a step. But just one. As if she were pretending there was a margin of respect between us.

  I apologize, my queen, she purred. It won’t happen again.

  “And you’ll have the patrols look into what type of aswangs these creatures could be? They were foaming at the mouth and had white eyes. They didn’t move right either.”

  Certainly.

  It took everything I had not to step back from her. The only thing stopping me was the fact Zero had my back.

  “When A.J. and Squeak return, send them straight to me.”

  Yes, my queen.

  The words—my queen—sounded a hell of a lot like curse words on her tongue. And I knew a lot about how curse words sounded. There was also an underlying sharpness, a hidden blade, that sent a tremble down my spine. Nothing and no one used to scare me, but I’d learned that fear was our greatest motivator. Our greatest asset. And out here, with Sibyl, when she stared at me like that and spoke to me like this, I was afraid.

  Because I heard the threat in her voice. The promise of violence. This tension building between us wouldn’t end well.

  “That’ll be all,” I said because she wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t she moving? Did she ever blink? Weren’t her eyes dry?

  Goodnight, my queen. She bowed, deeply, looking up at me as she did, her eyes black as the devil’s soul. Be safe on your walk home.

  With that, she turned and slid like spilled ink back into the shadows.

  I didn’t move. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was putting my back to where she’d disappeared. Zero and I waited for what felt like ten minutes before I allowed myself to breathe.

  “What did she say?” Zero asked.

  It always surprised me to remember everyone else couldn’t hear aswangs in their heads. Lucky assholes. “Nothing good.” I sighed, still staring hard at the darkness as if Sibyl might come back with more threats veiled as pretty words. “The patrols missed the rogues. She said they aren’t feeding enough.”

  “If she told you that,” Zero said, “then you know many more are saying it when you’re not around.”

  I ran a hand through my crusty hair. I needed a freaking shower. “That’s normally how this shit goes, I’m learning.”

  “Heavy is the crown.”

  I glanced at Zero, raising my brows. “Did you crack a joke?”

  She met my eyes briefly.

  “Fine.” I raised my hands. “But you can’t claim the brooding, damaged title anymore if you’re going to run around making jokes.”

  Her silence was answer enough. Zero didn’t swear, but her silences carried the weight of some almighty f-bombs. “Will you tell the others about her?”

  “You mean about Sibyl?” I bit my lip when Zero nodded. “Let’s see what happens when I talk to A.J. and Squeak. They’ll know more about the pack’s mentality than one power-tripping ’swang.”

  “You really think that’s all she is?”

  How many times would I lie to myself tonight? At least once more. “She’s all bark.”

  Zero closed her eyes for a moment. “That was a terrible joke.”

  I winked at her. “But you have to admit, you almost laughed.”

  “I wasn’t even close.”

  Finally, I turned to leave, putting my back to the trees Sybil had passed between.

  As we walked back in silence, I mulled over my exchange. I should have handled it better. Cleaner. More diplomatically. I needed Sunny out here. She would have done a better job.

  But it was fine. Sybil was just a hothead. I could handle the pack.

  After all, my father had, and we were cut from the same cloth. If Hex could manage a pack of ’swangs, then so could I.

  I couldn’t help but wonder, though, when hope crossed the line into foolishness.

  I hoped I wouldn’t be the fool.

  But I’d never been much of an optimist.

  * * *

  I’d barely shut the door to Luke’s tiny room in the hunters’ barracks when he snapped, “Where have you been?”

  I slowly faced him. “Excuse me?”

  His fingers tapped against each other, an erratic dance I both loved and hated. It was so Luke, like the caramel candies he constantly sucked on and the scent of cottonwoods that clung to his worn thermals. But that finger tapping also meant a storm was brewing inside him. Sometimes that storm raged, and sometimes that storm wrecked.

  “John Henry’s report noted you went outside the gates.”

  I walked farther into the ro
om, towel-drying my wet hair from my shower as I went. Luke stood by his side of the bed with his arms crossed. I didn’t venture over there. I went to the closet and dumped my towel into the hamper. “Since when do you read the guards’ reports?”

  “When they walk up to me on my way back here and tell me. You really freaked him out. Henry is a good hunter, Ollie. Cut him some slack.”

  “Slack?” I snarled, spinning around to face Luke. “Mr. Clint is treating me like a student. He specifically told the guards not to let me outside the gates. What the hell am I supposed to hunt inside the university’s fences, huh?”

  Luke leaned over the bed, pressing his fists into the mattress as if he could physically compress the air between us and pull me closer. I’d been right about the storm. There would be one hell of a tornado tonight. I was already excited.

  Then he said in a low growl, “Because you are a student.”

  Never mind. I was back to being pissed again.

  “I’m a hunter,” I growled back, matching his stance, fists against the bed and leaning toward him. “I’ve been through more shit than half these students—”

  “Which is exactly why you should just be a student!” he roared. He slapped the mattress hard enough to rattle the headboard against the wall. He paced away from me, dragging his hands through his hair. “Ollie, for fuck’s sake, you have been through too much. I mean, Jesus Christ, I thought I’d had it rough. But you …” He whirled back toward me, and his eyes begged things from me that he couldn’t speak. “You need a break. Don’t you see that? You need a break.”

  I backed away from the bed and crossed my arms. My scars, the ones above my heart where Max had tried to carve it out, leaked a putrid, oozing heat. Sometimes, I wished I felt pain just so the fire inside me would stop burning. “I need to hunt.”

  A look settled on his face like he’d just had a bright idea.

  I held up my hand. “If you’re about to say ‘I used to think that but then I stopped hunting and started teaching and look at me now! I’m happier than I’ve ever been,’ I’ll see myself out and you will never get in my pants again.”