Dead Man's Stitch

by Meg Collett

  “Confront her?” Ollie snarled. “She thinks she can fly in here on her helicopter and play nice and then burn this place down? Kill everyone? Oh, I’m gonna do a lot more than confront her. Her hick ass has another thing coming. I’m sick to shit of these narcissistic, masochistic fuckwads who think this school is their personal camp of minions meant to do their bidding.”

  She was almost smiling, and that was never a good sign. Someone normally died when Ollie smiled.

  “I just mean,” I tried again, “that we should find Mr. Clint first and show him the book.”

  “We don’t need his permission. We can’t—”

  “Evening girls.”

  We whirled around. Behind us, propped against the doorjamb, stood Marley in all her faded denim glory. A peep of surprise squeaked out of my mouth.

  Ollie slid on the silver knuckles her father had given her.

  Of course, I hadn’t remembered to bring my knives. Some protector I was.

  “I see you’ve found my sketchbook.” Marley entered the room with one long-legged step and closed the door behind her.

  She locked the deadbolt.

  “So, you admit it’s yours,” Ollie growled. The blade of her knuckles whisked out with a metallic hiss. The sound comforted me.

  “Of course.” Marley lifted a shoulder. Her auburn hair was braided neatly, perfectly, and fell over her shoulder almost to her waist. She was either very brave or very stupid.

  “You’re drawing the school burning and people dying.”

  Marley cocked her head. “Yes.”

  Ollie laughed, long and low. “Then why save us that night if you plan to kill everyone?”

  “Oh,” Marley said, nodding like she finally understood. “Oh, no. I’m not here to do those things in the book.” She smiled at Ollie.

  I glanced at Ollie, but she never took her eyes off Marley. “Then why are you drawing them?”

  Marley chuckled. “I guess you can say that I have visions.”

  I sucked in a breath, my eyes darting to the notebook in Ollie’s hand.

  “As in,” Ollie drawled, “of the future?”

  Marley dipped her chin. “Of the future.”

  “Are you fucking serious?” Ollie asked, but she didn’t sound that surprised. She didn’t sound much of anything at all. She adjusted the knuckles on her hand.

  Again, I cursed my lack of knives.

  “Some images of the future come to me. Not entire events, but important snippets. I draw them so I’ll remember.” Her cheerful demeanor flickered, and something that could have been pain darted across her eyes. In a softer, rougher voice, she added, “Lately, though, I don’t have to worry about remembering them. I worry instead that I’ll never forget them.”

  “Is that why you’re so confident Dean is on the island?”

  This time, I was certain it was pain on Marley’s face. Even more softly, she said, “Partly.”

  If Ollie heard the waver in Marley’s voice like she spent a good deal of time crying, she didn’t care to show it. “I’m taking this to Mr. Clint.” She held up the notebook. “If you think you’re getting away with something here, you’ve got another thing coming. If you’re working with Dean, I will kill you.”

  “Ollie,” Marley sighed. “I’m not working with Dean. I would never work with him. To be entirely honest, which I’ve tried to be, I’ve been running from him my entire life. I’m here to help you.”

  “Why would you run from him?” I asked, drawn in by her tattered edges I saw in the seams that held her together.

  “Because of my visions. He wants to use me. By now, he knows I’m here and he’s coming for me.” She glanced at Ollie. “Just like he’s coming for you.”

  “So let him come,” Ollie snarled. “I’ll kill him. And you if you’re working with him.”

  Marley’s eyes met mine, and without my permission, a moment passed between us, like a shared exhaustion of Ollie’s suspicions. I clenched my jaw and glared at her. “How can we believe what you’re saying?”

  “I found you in my room,” she said. “Aren’t you the ones in the wrong here?”

  “You have dead bodies drawn in your book!” Ollie practically shouted. “These are students, you sick freak. This is our home you’ve drawn burning.”

  There was that pain on Marley’s face again, but this time, it lingered. “I know.”

  “If you think I’ll believe you have visions of the future or that you’ve been running from Dean, then you’re more screwed in the head than I thought. I’m showing this to Mr. Clint right now.”

  Marley toed off her boot from where she stood by the door. It made her vulnerable for the first time since she’d swooped in on her helicopter. I bit my lip as I watched her use the wall for support while she took off her other boot.

  With a sigh, she said, “Okay, Ollie. Whatever you think is best. I’ll be here when you want to talk.”

  “Get out of the way,” Ollie snapped. She charged past Marley to the door as the older woman stepped aside.

  Ollie snapped the deadbolt back and wrenched open the door. She paused when she realized I wasn’t behind her.

  “I’m coming,” I said.

  But I moved reluctantly. I normally always agreed with Ollie’s assessment of people. Her intentions were always to protect the school and the students inside it. But she wasn’t seeing the real Marley here. She wasn’t watching as the woman practically limped into her room and slumped down on the bed. I saw the bags under her eyes like she didn’t sleep much, and the cheap yellow lights of the barracks dimmed her beauty, like maybe she put on a show of happiness just like I put on a show of bravery and Ollie put on a show of fearlessness.

  We were all liars.

  “Sunny,” Ollie said from the door. “Let’s go.”

  I hurried after her. Before we could close the door behind us, Marley called out from inside, “Ollie?”

  Ollie paused beside me. Together, we looked back at the woman sitting on the bed, her shoulders curled forward, her eyes on us, a sad smile on her lips. “Your mother would be so excited.”

  Ollie tensed. My heart started hammering.

  The hair on my arms rose, my skin prickling.

  “Why?” She sounded as unnerved as I felt.

  Marley cocked her head. She looked at us, but I had the distinct impression she was seeing some other sight far different from the one in front of her.

  “The baby,” she explained, eyes glazed. “She would be so happy you’re pregnant.”

  N I N E

  Ollie

  “Ollie!”

  On instinct, I turned toward the sound of Luke’s voice. It carried across the courtyard, over the steady thump of the bass from the dorm party in full swing. The night had a stiff breeze, and it pulled tendrils loose from my ponytail, sending them twisting across my face. I reached up to push it back and realized I still had the knuckles on my hand. Quickly, as Luke hurried over with Hatter in tow, I put them away.

  “Where have you been?” Luke asked in a rush. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “Ah.” I glanced at Sunny, still unnerved from our encounter with Marley. Her words rang in my ears. How did she know I was pregnant? How could she know? “We were looking for you guys.”

  Luke’s scowl deepened. “I won’t even ask what you two were up to. I just hope they didn’t catch you.”

  I grimaced. The notebook casually tucked under my arm felt like a stick of dynamite. For some reason, I kept it there, partially hidden, instead of showing it to Luke.

  He noticed my expression. “You’re getting rusty if they caught you. But that’s not—”

  Before he could finish, the gates at the front of the school screeched open, and a small convoy of trucks pulled inside. Hunters in night-vision goggles stood in the truck beds in full hunting gear. They jumped down as the gates swung shut. From the school’s main door, Mr. Clint strode out. He passed me with barely a glance.

  Over at the barracks, Marley
hurried out, tugging her boots back on, and headed straight for the hunters as if she’d known about their impending arrival too.

  “What the hell is going on?” I demanded, standing straighter.

  “That’s why I was looking for you. A fishing camp was attacked east of here.”

  I frowned. “A camp? Was it the rabid aswangs?”

  Luke’s jaw tensed. “We don’t know. We only picked up the call because it came through on the police frequency.”

  “What?” My mouth fell open. “The police got the call first?”

  “I don’t know anything else. We were waiting for the hunters to get back with news.”

  He’d barely finished before I strode away, straight toward the group of hunters cast in silver light beneath the moon. Mr. Clint and Marley stood in the middle of them, already discussing the attack as if they hadn’t seen me.

  They fell silent as I shouldered my way into the group.

  Mr. Clint leveled a dry look at me. “Ollie. How can I help you?”

  I chalked the urge to punch him in the face up to my hormones. “What happened at the camp? Why were the police called instead of us?”

  Kodiak was an island with a small population. The university had sat on this land for centuries. Over time, it became known that if anything strange or deadly happened, the university was called first. Then the authorities. Hell, we normally got calls from the police to check out certain events like attacks or sightings of strange creatures. It was an unspoken fact, a whispered truth that everyone knew but no one said out loud.

  So, what the hell had changed?

  Mr. Clint turned away from me without answering my question. To the lead hunter, he said, “Put away your gear then meet me in my office. We’ll debrief there. Get these trucks put away before the students see them. They don’t need to know about this.”

  “Excuse me? Are you just going to ignore me?”

  Luke put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

  But I ignored him and focused on Mr. Clint, who deigned to look at me as the hunters dispersed toward the barracks and the trucks trundled off to the underground garage. “This doesn’t concern students. That’s why I’m ignoring you. Go enjoy the party.”

  The surge of rage was instant and blinding, but my stomach fluttered. The tiny motion completely derailed me. I had a baby inside me.

  A freaking baby was inside me, and I was standing here ready to yell at Mr. Clint.

  I took a deep breath. “Fine.” His face spasmed in surprise at my sudden passivity. I handed him the sketchbook. “But look at this. It’s Marley’s. I don’t trust her, and she’s full of shit.”

  As I strode out of the group, I searched out Marley, who stood behind everyone else. She was still smiling, of course. I just blinked at her. I didn’t know how she’d done it. I didn’t know who had told her I was pregnant or if she was a halfling and could smell it on me or if it had been a lucky guess, but I would find out who the hell Marley Summers was.

  And I would bring her down before she ruined everything.

  * * *

  A week passed and I still hadn’t heard from Mr. Clint about Marley’s sketchbook. Every time I wanted to stomp to his office, I told myself he could handle things. As much as we fought, I trusted him. Hell, I even liked him. He’d lost his boyfriend in the attack my father had led, and I felt like I owed him leniency. He hadn’t asked to be acting president of a ragtag college full of misfit students, halflings, and lab-rat kids. But he handled the position with grace and steadiness, and I admired that.

  Now, if he would just do what I freaking told him …

  I drummed my pencil against my notebook. I couldn’t pay attention to the lecture. Even if my thoughts hadn’t revolved around Marley’s drawings, her talk of running from Dean, and her lucky guess about my pregnancy, I couldn’t have focused in class.

  Today was the day of my appointment with the baby doctor in Kodiak.

  The plan was to meet Sunny in her dorm after the last class of the day. From there, we would pack an overnight bag, steal a car from the garage, bribe the guards to let us outside the gates, drive to Kodiak, and visit the doctor safe and sound.

  Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy, as Sunny would say.

  Easy aside from the fact it wouldn’t fucking work.

  I sighed and dropped my pencil on the crumpled page of doodles. I caught a few glances from neighboring students, but most ignored me. The fourth-year class was the largest class we had here at Fear University after Dean had taken most of the students with him. There was a whopping thirty-six of us, counting me and Sunny. The numbers didn’t bother me. I didn’t want students walking these halls and filling these classrooms if they believed Dean’s rhetoric about fear and purity and war. But I couldn’t help staring at the empty spots where desks normally sat with a student slumped over in it, battling an afternoon nap. I tried not to compare this semester to my first one back when I originally came to the university, when the halls had brimmed with students, the courtyard had been a constant buzz of activity, and seats in the cafeteria had been as valuable as gold.

  Times were different now, and things had changed.

  I pressed my hand against my belly—a habit I couldn’t break. So much had changed.

  It seemed like my entire life, my entire existence, had changed in a blink.

  What the hell had happened?

  The bell rang, scaring the shit out of me.

  As my heart returned to normal, I gathered up my notebook and stuffed it into my backpack. Around me, the scrape of chairs was drowned out by the rising chatter of students finally free for the weekend. The professor tried to call out last-minute instructions on the homework, but everyone ignored him. We were out the door like a surging wave, splashing into the hall and scattering.

  Back at the dorms, Sunny was waiting for me in her room, already dressed in jeans and a Victoria’s Secret sweatshirt, her Vans-clad foot bobbing up and down. She chewed on her fingernail as I dropped my book bag beside hers.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. I knew that look.

  “Are you sure about this? Shouldn’t we just go to my parents? They’ll, like, understand. How are we going to pay for this?”

  I went to the drawer Sunny had given me so I could keep clothes in her room. I either slept in here with her or at Luke’s; I never used my own dorm. I hated the doors locking me in at night. I hated a lot about the Death Dome, but I was putting up with it because I was a coward.

  It had been ten days since I’d found out about Pinto. Ten days and I still hadn’t told Luke.

  I didn’t know what I was afraid of. He would be thrilled. He would be so happy. But the reason I hadn’t told him was probably also the same reason I couldn’t stand the thought of going to Sunny’s parents for my exam.

  If only I knew what that reason was.

  “If you’re worried about them keeping your secret,” Sunny continued.

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not that. I know they would.” I pulled out jeans, a shirt, and my leather jacket. I started changing right there in the middle of Sunny’s dorm. She got up and closed the door, rolling her eyes.

  “This is why you’re pregnant at nineteen,” she admonished. “Because you change your clothes in the wide open. Where’s your sense of decency?”

  I snorted. “It’s not like I caught a case of the sperms from the air because I don’t like wearing panties.”

  Sunny pursed her lips. She was wearing her glasses today, something about her contacts hurting her eyes this morning. “A case of the sperms. You’re incorrigible.”

  “Stop calling me names. It’s rude.” I hopped on one leg while stuffing my foot into my pants. “Please, tell me these aren’t already getting tight. What am I going to do when I get fat? Look, my boobs are already getting bigger.”

  “You won’t be fat! You’ll be”—she lowered her voice even though the door was closed—“pregnant. As for your boobs, your body is preparing to feed your baby. If you think you’ve
gained weight, it’s probably just the extra scoop of frozen yogurt you had today at lunch.”

  I cut her sideways glance. “Says the girl who had two scoops of chocolate, one of strawberry, one of mint, and vanilla chocolate chips.”

  “I was hungry. I think I’m experiencing a sympathy pregnancy, like what happens to husbands when their wives get pregnant. I’m eating with you to feed Pinto.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Hey, whatever you have to tell yourself to justify the calories.”

  Sunny watched me slip into my shirt and jacket before speaking again. “But really, Ollie, why aren’t we going to my parents? We could find someone else to fly us there.”

  I moved on to packing my bag, dumping out my school books and filling my backpack with weapons. The usual. No big deal. “Because I don’t want them to know. I don’t want anyone to know. The thought of telling anyone makes me want to puke.”

  Sunny’s face creased with concern, and her glasses slipped down her nose. She pushed them back up. “You have to tell someone. This won’t go away just because you’re keeping it a secret.”

  I shook my head, my eyes on all the weapons in my bag. My father’s silver knuckles. My mother’s stingray whip. The gun Luke had given me. All the clips of ammo. A few extra knives. This was my world. Not textbooks and classes, frozen yogurt and dorm parties.

  “It feels too sacred,” I murmured down at my bag. “And everything else feels too dirty.”

  I looked up at Sunny. We stared at each other in silence. The conversation played out in our heads, the back and forth instinctual as often happened with best friends. She knew me better than anyone. I knew her better than anyone. Words were for lesser bonds than ours.

  Finally, she nodded. “To Kodiak.”

  “To Kodiak.”

  * * *

  I expected an alarm to sound as soon as I stepped foot into the garage. But only our footsteps echoed across the concrete as we walked to a large black van Luke still had the keys to. It was the rig he and Hatter used the most to hunt with. At least, when they used to hunt.