Dead Man's Stitch

by Meg Collett

  And I can’t want you.

  “Remember Barrow?”

  I almost didn’t catch the words over the roaring in my ears. We sat side by side, Sunny’s arms around my shoulders, my arms around her waist, the sides of our heads tipped together, and our knees up against our chests like we could keep the world at bay. “What?”

  “Barrow,” Sunny repeated, stronger this time. “Our first Killing Season.” She laughed at that and added, “Our only one. But do you remember when you told me you were a halfling?”

  It felt like lifetimes ago. It felt like an entirely different person. I missed that person. She’d only been afraid of what she was. What a simple kind of fear.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled.

  “Remember how scared you were? You thought it would change how much I loved you. You thought Luke would kill you. You thought you would lose everything.”

  Sunny’s cheeks were wet too. Her tears mingled with mine as they streamed between the place where our cheeks touched.

  “That was different,” I said weakly.

  “In a way, but in many other ways, it’s pretty similar. It was an intrinsic part of you, something so inherent you couldn’t change it. You could only tell us and hope we could move forward with life and accept you weren’t exactly human. You couldn’t change it. It was a fact about you. You could only face the fear and hope everything turned out okay.”

  “You’re saying I should have this baby and hope it turns out okay?”

  Her cheek creased into a small smile against mine. She huffed out an exhausted laugh. “No. I’m saying you didn’t think you could do that. You didn’t think there was enough love in our world where we could still be friends and Luke could still love you and you could still have a home here. You were so afraid and so full of doubt. But you being a halfling has only ever been a blessing.”

  I doubted I could call it a blessing, but being a halfling didn’t suck. And I hadn’t lost everything like I’d thought I would when I told them my dirty little secret. But that was just me. That was just one affected life.

  Now there were two.

  I can’t want you.

  “I’m too young.”

  “You’ll be twenty soon. That’s practically middle-aged in this life.” Sunny grimaced. “That got dark, but you know what I mean.”

  I shook my head. “This entire thing feels dark.”

  Sunny leaned forward, her smile twitching back to life. As she spoke, her voice sounded thick with tears. “Can you imagine Luke’s face when you tell him? He’ll lose it, Ollie. He’ll be so happy because he loves you so much. When you tell him, when you say you’re pregnant, he’ll fall apart in all the best ways.”

  I laughed, but it was really a sob. I pressed a hand to my mouth and bowed forward. Sunny adjusted her hold on me, tucking me under her arm like a mother bird. She held me like I never had for anyone. Never could because sometimes I hated to be touched. Never wanted to because I was Ollie Volkova, a killer, and kindness would always be foreign to me.

  But Luke would be happy. I could see his face and his green eyes flashing wide. He’d be worried. He’d be terrified. He’d be everything in the span of one second, but it would dart away and then he’d just be thrilled. The wrinkles around his eyes from squinting and scowling would deepen into smile creases, and he would scoop me up in his big, strong arms. And he’d kiss me. And he’d love me more than he ever had before.

  But I knew Luke Aultstriver like no one else.

  I knew the nightmares that kept him up at night.

  After I told him, doubt would creep into his mind. It would sit there like a dark figure in the corner of an unlit room. Waiting. Preying on his weak moments. His moments of doubt. Late at night, when I was asleep beside him and he was staring up at the ceiling, hating himself, he would doubt himself as a father. He would think of his dad, and he would think himself incapable of being a better man.

  Because I loved Luke like I loved no other, I knew his greatest fear:

  That he would turn into his father.

  And could I fuel that doubt? Could I manifest Luke’s greatest fear?

  I loved him and I knew him, and I knew he was and always would be a far, far better man than Killian Aultstriver. But it would terrify Luke. Every day for the rest of our lives, he would live with that doubt.

  Could I do that to him?

  I can’t want you.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Sunny straightened away from me to stare into my eyes. Two bright splotches dotted her cheeks. Her eyes leaked small tears that trickled down her freckled skin. Loose tendrils of hair had fallen from the sloppy bun she’d hastily thrown up on our way to class this morning. She was barely holding herself together, yet she managed to clutch my pieces together too.

  “What am I thinking?” I murmured, staring back at my best friend, needing her to make everything okay.

  “You haven’t made this world safe enough for a baby yet. There’s still fighting and death and bad people running around. The school is only safe because of the pack, and you don’t trust the pack. Even if that wasn’t the case, even if our world was perfectly safe, you think that you”—she pressed her finger to my chest, right above my heart—“aren’t good enough. That you’re nothing but a fighter and a killer and only good people have babies and a family and someone who loves them.” Her nostrils flared as more tears welled in her eyes. Her lips trembled.

  “I—”

  “I’m not finished yet,” she interrupted, her voice strong even though her face said her heart was breaking. “You’re thinking you were always supposed to be the one standing in the back. The one with the scars on her body and the blood on her hands and the nightmares haunting her sleep. When this was all said and done, and our world was as safe as you could make it, and all the bad men were dead, you were supposed to stand back and watch as everyone else found their happiness. You were supposed to be alone, watching and dealing with those scars, blood, and nightmares by yourself.”

  My throat was tight. I didn’t want to. I wanted to hold it back. But the sob tore free from my throat, and I lost it.

  She was right. How could she be so right?

  The thing I wanted most in this world was to watch the people I loved—my family—be happy. I wanted to make this place safe for them so they could have families. They could be loved. They could have the happy home.

  That plan had never included me.

  I was just supposed to watch from the back row.

  “You were thinking all that,” Sunny said, her voice raspy, “and you’re terrified because this baby changes all your plans. You think you don’t want it because how could you want something you don’t deserve?”

  My hand went to my flat belly. “I can’t want you.”

  Sunny’s hand covered mine.

  I met her eyes.

  “You’ll be okay,” she whispered fiercely like fate might overhear and unravel all our best-laid plans. “Both of you.”

  Both of you.

  Both of us.

  “I can pick up the fight,” she continued. Steely resolve burned like embers in her eyes. “I can make this world safe for us. And you can be a mom. You can have your family and your home and your happiness. But most importantly, you can make this university into the place your mom wanted it to be. You can do all of that. You’re going to be such a good mom, Ollie. You’re going to make your mom so proud of you.”

  I didn’t know which one of us was holding the other together anymore.

  “I never wanted you to have to fight,” I whispered.

  She smiled and pressed her hand a little firmer against mine over my belly. “And I never wanted you to hate yourself for not wanting to fight anymore.”

  As if in answer, my belly fluttered. It was only growling for dinner, but I imagined it was something else. Something more.

  Funny how one flutter could change my fate.

  Change everything.

  “We’ll be okay,” I said to Sunny. “
All of us.”

  She hugged me.

  “All of us,” she agreed.

  S E V E N

  Ollie

  To say I hadn’t slept well that night would have been the understatement of my life, and I was fluent in understatements. It was the language of my heart. I hadn’t slept well Tuesday night. Or Wednesday night. By Thursday, I couldn’t remember what rested felt like.

  I still broke out in a sweat when I thought about the baby inside me. In the rare moments I forgot I was pregnant, something would happen or Sunny would tell me something she had found online, and I would suddenly remember and my entire world would crash down around me again. I’d become instantly sick to my stomach, and the feeling of my entire life’s foundation shifting beneath me would be so deeply unsettling that I would have to sit down in the nearest chair before I fell down.

  That happened at least thirty times per hour.

  “We can take your bandage off if you want.”

  The world around me came back into focus as I surfaced from my pregnancy fog. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs from my mind. “What? Sorry,” I said to Sunny.

  She sat across from me at the lunch table. Around us, the cafeteria was a hive of activity, with students eating and talking and laughing at a decibel that became a droning hum in the background. At our table, a few of our old first-year friends had gathered, along with some brave fourth-years and a handful of halflings, but everyone looked uncomfortable and no one was speaking much.

  Sunny pointed at my arm. “Your bandage. Your bite should be healed.”

  “Oh.” The white bandage around my arm poked out beneath the sleeve of the flannel shirt I’d stolen from Luke a while ago. I pushed up the sleeve and tugged on the bandage. It came undone easily, unwinding from my arm and falling free. Beneath it, faint black marks showed the impression of the bite, but it was nowhere near as black as my other scars.

  “You don’t have rabies, right?” a first-year asked with wide-eyed horror. “I heard the other hunters say those ’swangs had rabies ’cause they were foaming at the mouth and shit.”

  I snorted out a bitter laugh. “I wish I had rabies.”

  Sunny kicked me under the table. I hissed out a breath. But the other students just exchanged surprised glances.

  “I mean,” I amended, “no, I don’t have rabies. Yay.”

  I poked at my lasagna for a few more minutes. Honestly, if I thought too long about the cheesy curds hunkering down in the marinara sauce, I might puke right there. I set my fork down and swallowed heavily.

  I was about to excuse myself when Sunny whispered, “Uh-oh. Six o’clock.”

  She jutted her chin over my right shoulder. “That’s more like four o’clock,” I told her as I twisted around in my seat. But I instantly saw who she meant.

  Luke strode through the cafeteria with Hatter and a few other hunters. He was glancing around, scanning the students for my face when he didn’t find me at my normal table. I hadn’t slept in his apartment the last two nights. Luke was a typical man, meaning he wasn’t observant by any stretch of the imagination, but even he could guess I was avoiding him.

  “You better make your escape now, while he’s distracted by the cheesy bread,” Sunny whisper-hissed, her eyes glued to the group of hunters.

  I slunk down to the floor and crouch-walked out of the cafeteria like a coward.

  I had to tell Luke. Obviously, I couldn’t hide it forever, and it wasn’t like I wanted to hide it. His reaction didn’t scare me; he would love hearing we were having a baby. I knew Luke well enough to trust his reaction. But mine? I didn’t trust my reaction. This baby inside me still felt like a thing, a foreign body I shouldn’t have and didn’t deserve.

  I was a coward because a barely there baby terrified me.

  Safely outside the cafeteria, I walked normally toward the dorms. I needed to call A.J. and Squeak. I still hadn’t heard from them, and I was getting worried. It wasn’t like them to be gone for so long without getting in contact with me. They were my connection to the pack. Without them, my hold on the nearly two hundred aswangs was tenuous at best.

  I also needed to check in with Thad.

  I sighed. Checking in with Thad always put me in a bad mood. He and Luke had never gotten along, and after Thad had secreted me away to Anchorage to be with my father, their relationship got even worse. Not to mention I wasn’t his biggest fan either. He was arrogant and stubborn, and I could think of a million reasons why I didn’t want to check in with him. But he’d been in Anchorage for over a month now, looking for scattered halflings to bring back to the university where they’d be safe from Dean and Milhousse and aswangs with puritanical beliefs. He was doing a good thing, and I appreciated it. I still didn’t like him.

  Sniffling caught my ear.

  I paused in the stretch of hall between the cafeteria and the dorms. I hadn’t passed another student. The day was nice, and almost everyone was out in the courtyard, soaking up the last few rays of summer sun before it turned to fall. I glanced around, confused.

  My eyes landed on the toe of a tiny shoe sticking out from an alcove with a wooden bench and a few potted plants. I walked over quietly.

  Peyton sat tucked into the corner with his arms wrapped around his shins and his knees tucked under his chin. He looked up at me as I approached. His eyes were huge brown saucers shimmering with tears, and when he blinked his long lashes, the tears spilled down his splotchy cheeks.

  My heart squeezed.

  I sat down beside him. “What’s wrong, Peyton?” I asked.

  The little boy sniffed. “I’m a rat.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “A … a …” His voice warbled, and his breath caught in his throat. In his chest, his breathing turned quick and shallow.

  “Hey,” I said. I scooted closer, but not so close that we touched. Of this, I understood the lab kids best. They had a thing about touching, and everyone at the school always asked permission first, even before the simplest of touches.

  I offered my hand, palm up. It was our way of asking permission. Sometimes, they needed a hug, and sometimes, they just needed space.

  Peyton stared at my hand long enough that I thought he wanted to be alone. But then he spilled into my arms with such force that I nearly rocked over backward. I wrapped my arms around him as he crawled into my lap, pressing his tear-streaked face into my neck, his arms latched around me.

  For a second, I froze. I’d just meant to give him a reassuring hug. A pat on the back. A “you’ve got this, kiddo” before I sent him on his way. I wasn’t equipped for breakdowns in my lap.

  Haltingly, I brought my hand to his back and rubbed slow circles. Instead of a knobby spine like most of the lab kids had when they first arrived, my hand skimmed over fleshy rolls of baby fat. He smelled fresh with the bright scent of a clean child, like the world hadn’t sullied him yet.

  “Why are you a rat, Peyton?” I asked when he’d caught his breath.

  Against my skin, he mumbled, “Cause scientists use rats for experiments.”

  My hand stilled on his back, and I clenched my jaw. After a few calming breaths, I resumed the soothing strokes. “And because you were in a lab and they hurt you, you’re a rat?”

  He nodded jerkily, his tufts of downy hair tickling my cheek.

  “The older kids were calling you this?”

  He didn’t nod this time for fear of being a tattle-tail on top of a rat. I sighed. I was going to kill some students today. Kill them.

  “But you’re here now,” I said, keeping my voice soft. I shoved any traces of anger far away and focused on the scared little boy in my arms. “You’re safe in your room at night. You get all the cookies you want from Ms. Brightly. And you’re enjoying Mr. Aultstriver’s class, right?” I smiled; I couldn’t not. Mr. Aultstriver.

  Peyton nodded. He shifted in my arms.

  “And you have all your friends to play with after school. There are so many people here who love you, Peyton. And som
etimes, when you have so many people who love you, they think it’s funny to say mean things. But they’re only doing it because you’re like a little brother to them. We’re family here, and sometimes, family can be mean to each other.”

  Sometime during my talk, I’d started rocking him back and forth. Just little motions on the bench. My hand stroked his back in a natural rhythm in time with my rocking. It didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.

  My stomach tugged.

  Peyton blinked up at me. His eyes were dry. “You think so, Miss Ollie?”

  “I know so. And guess what else?”

  At my little smile, he smiled a sneaky one of his own. “What?”

  “If another kid says mean things to you, you tell them you’ll tell Miss Ollie their names and she will pay them a little visit during the night with her silver knuckles, okay?”

  His eyes stretched wide. He dipped his chin once in awestruck acknowledgment.

  “Okay, good. Now go play with your friends.”

  “Thank you, Miss Ollie!”

  He scrambled off my lap and raced off, none the worse for wear. I laughed. I wished I could be crying and heartbroken one minute and then perfectly happy the next.

  I stood from the bench. In the hall, leaning against the wall, Sunny smiled at me.

  I rolled my eyes at her. “How long have you been there?”

  She straightened and walked over. She offered her hand, palm up.

  I took it.

  She pulled me into a tight hug. “Long enough,” she whispered.

  E I G H T

  Sunny

  By Friday’s afternoon classes, I was a walking zombie.

  Sleep was a vague memory. The last few nights, we’d stayed up prowling the internet for everything from the best prenatal vitamins, to what type of foods Ollie needed to eat, to the best lotion for her belly so she wouldn’t get stretch marks. And then there were the hours during the night when Ollie would lie beside me and cry, her body shaking with fear, and I would hold her until she fell asleep.