by Jayla Kane
I fell asleep remembering the sky above us when Raven confessed to killing Jake, and Zelle corrected us all. Lightning. A swarm of clouds, a rush of dark rain that never reached us, of fire in the belly of the thunderheads that just… Disappeared.
Fucking magic, I thought, and that was the last thing I remembered.
Raven’s screams woke me. I transformed immediately, more than I ever had before—my canines dragged over my lip and I remembered to open my mouth just in time as I crouched low to the ground and sniffed the air, my ears ringing as I absorbed her terror… But there was nothing in here. Nothing. I jumped to the hall to check and then back to my room in the blink of an eye, allowed myself to scrabble the bathroom door open, my claws making it difficult to maneuver the locks; nothing again. It’d been ten seconds and she was still shrieking. I kicked in her door with another quick jump and reassembling my humanoid features on my face as I went; that was new too: multi-tasking.
In her room—Jake’s room—there was a strange scent. And that hum, I realized, the air moving around us with a whisper of energy that could only mean she’d gotten some kind of power. But she looked alright, after a quick inspection. She didn’t smell like blood… But something in the room did. I found the mouse and removed it as quickly as I could without using magic, then stripped the bed, knowing I’d have to come back after I got her to Jake’s so I could do a more thorough investigation. I couldn’t let my eyes adjust to the dark, sure as hell wasn’t going to let her see me smelling a dead mouse. No fucking thanks.
But that was all there was, as far as I could tell—no open windows. No cracks wide enough for someone to get in… Although the Rose could, I thought, having to bite back the snarl in my throat. She could transform into anything—an ant, a mite, anything. She could have ridden in on our bags as some kind of bacteria and just waited. Disgusting, but true. Any kind of lifeform, she said, and I suddenly realized I hadn’t seen that potted plant in the office unless she was there.
I swallowed all this down and worked on the equally formidable task of getting Raven to stay at the Warfield mansion with Jake.
It made me sad. She was so conflicted—and she should be, I know. I apologized to her, but I know that doesn’t mean shit when you’ve been watching your six for years. Waiting for the hammer to come down. But I could just see it, practically, the emotions in her running rampant—Jake wasn’t entirely delusional about them. His feelings about her were insane, sure, but not necessarily irrational. If that made any sense. And he seemed to be coming around. But Raven… She was now occupying the shit headspace he’d been in for years. Wanting someone, hating them. Wishing they were there, and that you could punch them in the face. I could almost see the gears spinning in her head; a couple times I swore I heard her say something and turned around to find her quiet and still, her eyes huge, her face plainly deep in thought. Don’t be a fucking idiot, I thought, and those eyes flashed up at me in understanding, as if she heard me too. She let me take her to Jake’s.
I came back and got to work after a quick jump down to check on Baby—still asleep—and a quick texting volley with Molly. She was excited that I wasn’t around as much right now; she’d been driving herself into town and riding the rest of the way to school with friends. It wasn’t legal, but I doubted old Leo, the local law, would give a damn if he caught her. He knew us pretty well. Too well, really. It’d be different if Molly wasn’t heading to homeroom but given the kind of kid she was—and the kind of kid I was—he’d be glad to hear her travel plans, probably. And it was all back roads… And she’d been driving since she was nine. I kept telling myself these things over and over as I crouched lower towards the floor, my claws coming out, my ears elongating, nostrils widening. I held very still, my body understanding innately what it needed to do, and listened.
There were no other mice in here.
Now, I know about mice—vermin of all kinds, unfortunately. Comes with the territory if you live in a thirty year old trailer in the middle of the woods. You will never find one mouse unless you bought his ass in a pet store… And don’t tell me if you did, because like all country people, I will think you’re a goddamn moron. But this meant the mouse had gotten in here somehow… In one piece.
That was a very disturbing thought.
I got down on the floor and closed my eyes, willing my nose to work. There was the splash of blood on the bed… Raw and over-powering, it almost drowned out the stink of adrenaline from Jake’s sweat, which covered the mattress and his chair. He’d been a wreck lately, that wasn’t a surprise. But it did make it harder to smell other things. I got down into a crouch, close to the floor, and tried harder. It was strange—as a human, I’d spent my entire life fending off unpleasant smells. As an animal—or whatever the hell I was now—there was no such thing. They were just guideposts, signs that pointed the way towards food, shelter, enemies… There. The mouse was alone in the room with Raven. It’d crawled onto the bed with her, by itself… I could smell it’s tracks where it scurried across the floor from the door, the sharp increase in scent where it flattened itself to get beneath the tiny crack. A mouse never would’ve decided to go in here on its own—there was a draft guard on the door, and a mouse would’ve thought it an insurmountable barrier. So why did the mouse squish its tiny body under the door and fistfight past the guard, just to crawl up in the bed beside Raven?
Had she decapitated it, and then called me in just to see what I would do? I sat up straight, thinking.
Raven wasn’t like that. She could be ruthless—she’d almost gotten Jake kicked out of school, after all… And he probably deserved it, sure, but that takes some serious backbone. But it was also a very specific kind of character that could snap the head off of a living creature and then blink up at you with perfect innocence. Baby could do it; Raven could not. It just didn’t fit.
And Baby wouldn’t do it unless she had a good reason—someone to protect. Raven wouldn’t be protecting anyone if she did this; this was just fucked up.
I went back in the bathroom and pulled the mouse out of the trash.
Sure enough, the only scent I could detect on it was Raven’s. Maybe she’d been laying too close to it in bed? Maybe she’d sweated on that side of the mattress, and the mouse absorbed the scent?
I just couldn’t see her doing this deliberately—the whole thing. The staging, the faking, and the killing. None of it fit.
I don’t know Raven, not really. But even when we thought she killed Tristan, I knew it must’ve been some kind of accident. I know cruelty; I know the language monsters speak, and not the kind like me—the kind that raised me. And Raven just didn’t have it in her.
So what the hell happened?
I wanted to go check on Baby again, see if she had any ideas. But Baby wouldn’t know either; I realized I needed to go and see the Rose.
I jumped out of Jake’s suite and landed directly in the office; it was getting easier and easier every time. I could picture where I was going and then, one hard push, and I landed there, not even out of breath. The room looked like it had when I walked through here, clutching Artemis Keller in my arms; the walls were a shambles, and wind whistled through the hole in the window, filling the little room with the mild noises from campus and smells riding the breeze. The door was closed tight, and I realized belatedly that I probably shouldn’t show up here unannounced. It could always be open, the modern version of this room available to anyone, and there I would be, eyes black, nostrils flared, claws out. Pretty sure that might earn a phone call to Leo, or a trip to the loony bin for any unfortunate soul that happened by.
What was it the Rose said? Sometimes you have to keep the plebes in line?
I sighed and hauled open the heavy door leading downstairs, then just jumped ahead to the dungeon. This talent of mine might end up making me lazy. I stood in front of Baby’s cell door—previously a trap, something horrible that locked her away, now something that hopefully gave her a modicum of privacy from that bastard acros
s the way. He hadn’t been back since I almost killed him, and I heard his question ring in my head: whose side are you on?
What the hell did that mean?
Well, the answer was simple, anyway; the answer was Baby’s. Every single time.
I knocked on her door and waited.
Chapter Fifteen
Baby
I head the knock on the door and sighed, wrapping the sheet around myself. “Hunter?” The door swung inwardly and I listened to his heavy footsteps as he slowly walked in, as if trying to give me a little more time. When he saw me, his forehead wrinkled, his gaze tilting down to my covered shoulders.
“What’s going on? You cold?”
“No,” I said, and rolled my eyes. “I stink. I haven’t had a shower in two days.”
Nothing. He shrugged and leaned against the wall; I must not be too bad if he could bear the stench, what with his new wolfly senses and all. We sat quietly for a moment until I couldn’t handle it any more and drew my shoulders up, twisting to face him from the edge of the bed. “I signed the book.”
Nothing again. Just an empty stare, eyes blank. And then, finally: “your funeral.”
“Hunter.” Don’t be like this, I started to say, but I couldn’t make myself do it—it sounded too much like… I don’t know. Like I needed something from him. From my frickin’ kidnapper. Yikes. “You know what? You’re an asshole.”
“Yeah,” he said darkly, still not looking at me. “Well.” He bit his lip, and it completely threw me off my high horse; his dark eyes flickered up to mine. “Are you alright?”
“What do you mean? Besides the fact that I’m stuck here, in this goddamn—”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said softly, and his eyes ran over my body; it took me a second to realize he was checking for damage.
“I’m fine. Nothing so far. Did you…” I furrowed my brow, remembering the Rose’s little speech the first day we spoke. “Did you ever notice anything different about yourself before?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like the Rose—she could change her appearance even before she signed the book, but it wasn’t so much that she really knew something was different about her. I think she hoped there was something different, but she didn’t know.” I gazed up at him, wondering if he would’ve noticed; there was a lot that was unusual about Hunter, but I don’t know if that would’ve helped single out the fact that he was magic.
“No.” His voice was blunt and sharp at the same time, like a rusted knife. “Nothing special about me.”
“Me neither,” I said, but he raised an eyebrow at me. “What?”
“I think… I mean, you look different from other people.” I wasn’t sure how to take that.
“You do too.”
“But… Not like you do,” he said slowly, and when he bit his lip again I had to blink down at my lap. I didn’t want to like him. I know we hooked up yesterday, but… Hooking up doesn’t mean shit. Not in this world, not today, not to anybody. But the thing is… I do like him.
And I liked him a lot more now that we’d hooked up. Jesus, how gross. I grinned inwardly at my juvenile revulsion with affection. With romance and relationships and just ugh… All of it.
“I look like a regular girl,” I told him, not able to meet his eyes. It was true; I had a steady hand when it came to the old Sephora and got pretty lucky in the boob department, but the rest was hard work. Well, hard exercise. Nothing anyone else couldn’t do. “A regular cheerleader, anyway.”
“No you don’t,” he said, and then I did glance over at him. “You’re beautiful, miss.” He wasn’t saying it to compliment me; his voice was flat, as if he was stating a fact, something anyone anywhere would objectively know. “Do you think your magic might be some kind of persuasive power, some sort of—”
“So, I appreciate your kind thoughts, Mr. Black, but the word most people use to describe me is hot. Not beautiful. Beautiful means—”
“I know what it means.”
“Then you know what I mean. I’m fuckable, not… Not magic. Kim Kardashian, not Grace Kelly.” I smiled up at him, and his gaze softened when our eyes met. “Although I love hearing you say it, there’s an important difference.” I couldn’t hold his eyes; it made me feel too vulnerable. When I glanced back down at my lap my smile faded away. “Listen, I understand what you’re saying, and there might be some truth in it—guys have always had ideas about me, and it would be a lie to say I didn’t use that. Maybe… I don’t know,” I told him, sighing, “maybe I’m just wishing for something a little more… Interesting.” Magical fucktoy? Not the riot of power she promised me. God, I hoped for better. I glanced back up at him. “You’re different though, seriously—your size alone is something else. Something that would set you apart. Was there ever any… I mean…” I didn’t really know what I was asking; Hunter had strange powers that would have been very noticeable, in particular that whole claws-and-teeth thing. He shook his head in answer, then scuffed his foot in a painfully relaxed way, as if he didn’t mind me seeing him being uncomfortable with the idea that he’d always been a freak. Well, I guess I should be glad he wasn’t completely immune to discomfort—did that mean he wanted to talk about yesterday? Ugh again…
“I brought you some more food,” he said, snapping me out of my head, and I looked over his offerings with my eyebrow raised. “I was hoping you had a chance to think of how I can get Molly out of this situation.” Grilled cheese, fries… a pickle. Alright, buddy. We just discussed how much hard work went into this ass, but alright. “So we can get you out of this situation.”
“I already signed,” I reminded him, swallowing a delicious bite of the grilled cheese—Havarti on rye. Interesting choice. “Hey. I have a favor to ask you.”
“I can teleport you out whenever,” he said, and the earnestness in his voice made me swallow harder; he definitely felt like shit for bringing me here. Too bad he couldn’t go back in time. “I’m sure I can. I was afraid of hurting you before, but my jumps keep getting longer and—”
“Alright, stop bragging,” I said, and snapped up another fry. “Listen, I need you to bring me some salads, big guy, okay? Or whatever sex-magic I might supposedly have won’t be worth a damn because I’ll have five hundred pimples and a new chin—”
“It’s not sex magic,” he said, and I glanced over at him, surprised by the steadiness in his tone.
“I was just joking,” I said, shaking my head at him. “So far it doesn’t look like I have any magic—”
“It’s charisma,” he said, and I swear to god, I blushed. “It’s not just sexual. And I said you were beautiful, anyway, and I stand by it.”
“Well, that’s very nice of you—”
“I’m not nice, miss,” he said quietly, and when I looked up at him this time, I didn’t just blush—I bloomed. I felt… It’s hard to describe. It felt like someone was seeing me for the first time, like I’d been hidden in plain sight until right now. This moment. His eyes didn’t waver, boring into mine, and his jaw was firm; stating facts, that was all. He wasn’t nice. And I was beautiful.
“Hunter…” Fuck. “We should probably talk about yesterday—”
“Why?”
“Because I hurt your feelings,” I said, and I could tell that’s not what he expected—or wanted--to hear. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back against the wall by the door, and stared down at the floor. I ate some more of my sandwich. “I’m sorry. This situation is complete shit, but I… I mean, obviously, of all people, I understand why you did it.” I swallowed. “And since you backed off of Raven, I imagine… I just think we get each other. So I apologize for saying all of those shitty things about you.”
“I did kidnap you,” he said, and there was a note in his voice that was far darker than I anticipated. “I made the call, and here we are.”
“Yeah, but the more time I spend with our friend upstairs, the harder it is for me to hate you for it.” And the more time I spent with Hu
nter, the more my first impression of him rang true—that stillness, that steady kindness, that was his defining characteristic. Which was completely bizarre, given everything else about him—Hunter was right; he isn’t nice. That would be a stupid thing to say about him. But he was kind. And loyal, and so far, very honest. He had a strong sense of integrity that made him grind his teeth every time we talked about this shitty set of circumstances and he was brave as all hell and let’s be real: the man was hot. Sexy as all hell, just like he’d been that night so long ago, after a kiss so deep it lasted for nine months after our lips parted ways. “I haven’t forgiven you, but I’m working on it, okay?”
He blinked over at me, his teeth tugging on that lush bottom lip again, and my heart melted a little bit.
So maybe, after all’s said and done—after my magically inherited sex-siren ways were put aside, and I forgave him for being a shit to Raven and getting us stuck in this fucked-up situation… After I could admit to myself that I definitely didn’t hate him after yesterday, I could also admit that I had a bit of a crush on Hunter. A reasonably sized one, nothing huge and mental. Just, you know… A crush.
“Okay,” he said, his voice ragged and quiet, and then he was staring back down at the floor again.
“It might help your case to say you’re sorry,” I said, and gulped. He glanced up at me, then stood up straight and looked me in the eyes.
“I’m sorry, Baby.” I believed him. I already knew he was.
“For Raven, too?”
“I tried not to mess with her too much, even before… Before.” He swallowed hard. “Thought it just encouraged Jake, made him sicker. But I did keep her out of the library when he was—”
