by Meg Collett
I scrambled as far away from him as possible, but Luke pressed in tighter next to me, cornering me. Carefully, I moved my knee so it wouldn’t brush against him. I wondered if anyone would hear me if I screamed.
“I know it looks like we kidnapped you, but we really didn’t.”
I glared at him. A bit of liquid squirted out of the needle’s tip. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”
I swear the corner of Luke’s mouth twitched, like I might, just maybe, have made him almost smile. “You’re a tough girl. You can handle it. We’re staying on the island, though, if that helps.”
“It doesn’t.”
Luke took my wrist, his grip tight but not tight enough to bruise, and exposed the crook of my uninjured elbow. The pads of his fingers were rough and calloused, making me wonder if his habit of tapping his fingertips caused their roughness. Too busy wondering about his twitch, he caught me off guard and injected the sedative in my arm. “You’re lucky you’ll be passed out during Hatter’s flying.”
I blinked up at him. I bet he scared a lot of people with his tightly leashed temper and dark look, but it didn’t bother me so much. His face was chiseled and distinguished, and he could’ve been handsome if this was any other situation. I caught a hint of a black scar behind his ear. “I should be running,” I managed to say. My words slurred together.
Luke watched me as I wavered back and forth on the edge of coherency, mumbling about my escape. “What’s your name?”
“Ollie.” My voice sounded foreign to my ears, and I bit my tongue a little as I spoke.
“Ollie with no last name?”
“Ollie . . .” I thought really hard, straining to come up with something. “Polly. Yeah. Ollie Polly. That’s it.”
Luke cocked a brow. “Who’s Max? Why did you think he’d sent us?”
“Not a fun guy.”
He steadied me when I slumped to the side. The edges of his face blurred as he watched me for another long moment before speaking again. “We’re taking you someplace where you’ll be safe while we figure out how you killed that ’swang. I promise, okay?”
“Trust you?”
“Yeah. You should.”
I tried to snort, but the sound came out more like a snore. “Never trust.”
Blackness edged in around his face, his bright eyes blurring as he said, “You should try it sometime.”
* * *
I surfaced groggily once during the flight.
The sedative scrambled my body functions, and my eyesight blurred hazily as my head flopped over to the side. Right next to me, on the floor of the rumbling and shaking plane, laid a dead body. A young man with a closely shaved head and dark, unseeing eyes. His jaw and neck were broken.
From the front of the plane, someone crowed with delighted laughter. The bush plane dipped abruptly, bouncing me into the body, the skin waxy and cool against my own. On the other side of me, someone cursed viciously. “Calm the hell down, Hatter! This isn’t funny!”
Hatter’s only reply was to howl like a wild wolf as the plane shook and wavered in a gust of wind.
A hand reached down and gripped mine tight enough to suggest they weren’t trying to comfort me. With every ounce of will I had, I turned my head the other way and looked up.
Luke sat strapped into a seat, his face pale and clammy, his other hand gripping the armrest. In the morning sunrise streaming through the window next to him, he looked like the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.
Clearly, I was delusional.
* * *
When I woke next, I was strapped down to a cot beneath a blindingly bright fluorescent light. People were talking near my bed.
“—found her right next to the ’swang with blood on her hands. Said she broke its—”
Don’t do it, I told myself. Don’t do it. I couldn’t help myself. “I did break its neck. Now, untie me,” I said, sitting up as much as possible on my cot.
Luke, Hatter, a young woman about my age with black hair and the smoothest golden skin I’d ever seen, and an older man with a large handlebar mustache all looked over at me like I’d grown two heads. Well, Luke’s expression was more of a dark scowl, like someone had just pissed in his cereal. They didn’t untie me before turning away and lowering their voices. I sighed and looked around.
More cots lined the wall next to me, one of which was occupied. The patient’s blond hair was lank and brushed back, and a thick bandage wrapped around his neck. The bandage dipped oddly in the middle, like a chunk of his neck was gone. He was hooked up to a ventilator puffing out his chest every couple of seconds with a mechanical wheeze.
I looked away, looked anywhere but the broken young man on the cot, and squinted up into the bright fluorescents. My nose itched with the burning, antiseptic hospital smell. White cabinets with glass doors full of bottles and packages of medical supplies lined the opposite wall with pristine counters beneath them. Seeing all those supplies made me heady with excitement. I could keep myself healthy for years with all that.
When I looked back to the people in the room, they’d all ignored me except for the girl. She peeked over Luke’s shoulder, big doe-like brown eyes blinking at me behind prim glasses as if I were the Loch Ness monster or some shit. I narrowed my eyes at her.
“She shouldn’t be here,” Luke hissed to the guy with the mustache. “No civvies. It’s too dangerous. They can’t handle this lifestyle.”
“You said she can’t feel pain?” Mustache Guy asked.
“Not a bit. We checked.” Hatter smiled as he spoke and shot a wink at the young girl, whose round cheeks turned a ferocious red beneath his gaze.
“That doesn’t mean anything—”
“It means everything,” the Mustache Guy snapped, interrupting Luke. They were squared off against each other, like two fighting dogs. I knew this was the guy Luke had spoken to on the phone from the hatred boiling between them. Luke opened his mouth to argue, but Mustache held up his hand. “Bring her to me in the morning. I want to talk to her.”
Clearly biting back his argument, Luke dipped his chin in quick acknowledgment, though his jaw clenched tight, making me think he hated having to give in to this guy.
“What about her injuries, sir?” the young girl asked, her voice trembling slightly.
“Get her patched up, Sunny. And thanks for working tonight.” Mustache Guy patted her on the shoulder before he left with Luke and Hatter. As the door swung closed, Luke glanced back at me, his eyes hidden beneath his dark brows. I took the liberty of flipping him off, even though I had to twist my hand around in the constraints. He still got the message though: sedate me again and die.
I turned my attention to the girl. “Your name’s really Sunny? Did your parents hate you?”
Sunny’s mouth flopped open and closed a couple of times before she managed to say, “Uh . . . it’s more like a nickname, I guess.”
“Right,” I drew out the word and threw in as much sarcasm as humanly possible. “Well, Sunny, why the hell am I strapped to this bed? And where the double hell am I?”
Sunny pushed over a little rolling tray full of bandages, a stitching kit, and some pills. She took a deep breath, shoulders heaving, and met my eyes. “You’re strapped down because Luke said you were a flight risk and would try to threaten me to let you go. He said you were a pain in the . . . the bottom. And you’re at Fear University. Also,” she added with a sniff, “I would prefer it if you didn’t curse in my ward.”
“You’re too young to have a ward.”
“Well, technically, it’s not mine, but I’m the nurse on duty tonight.”
“You’re too young to be a nurse.”
“Nurse-in-training.”
“What happened to that guy?” I jerked my chin toward the dead-looking patient a few cots over.
My question clearly threw her off guard; she stumbled for a moment, her eyes flickering over to the other occupied cot. “He’s hurt.”
“No shit, Sunny. How did he get hurt?”
�
�I’m not allowed to share that with you.”
“Am I a prisoner?” I asked, scraping my leather restraints against the cot’s metal frame.
“Not at all! I’m just not supposed to be talking to you.”
“Why not? Because I was kidnapped and you’re working with criminals?”
“No! We aren’t criminals.” She huffed out a breath, clearly flustered. “This is a good place. You’re safe here.”
“Oh! So that’s why they tased me, tossed me in a van, drugged me, shoved me on a plane, and then tied me to a cot. Because I’m safe.”
“They tased you?”
“Do you think I jump into strange vans for fun?”
“I mean, no. I guess not. That would be odd.”
I sighed. Our little question roulette had worn me down. Sunny positioned her tray beside my bed and then went back for a stool, her practical white shoes squeaking on the tile. After she was settled and had meticulously rearranged the supplies, she snapped on a pair of latex gloves. Up close, she was a pretty girl with her almost black hair and exotic eyes, chubby cheeks, and soft hands. But there was an obvious kindness in her naive questions and innocent, gentle approach, in her dull-gray scrubs and no-nonsense glasses.
“I’m sorry,” Sunny said, taking my hand. I fought the urge to yank it away from her. “I don’t have the keys to undo your restraints, but I’ll be as careful as I can, okay?”
“Fine. Just make sure to clean them good. Don’t use that cheap shit soap. I want the hospital-grade stuff. You’ll have to start me on a round of antibiotics, preferably Augmentin. Two doses twice a day for a week at least. I need a tetanus and rabies shot.” I took a breath. “Also, you’ll have to reset my elbow. I can walk you through how to do it.”
Sunny stared at me, stunned, for a moment. “That’s what I plan on doing. Except for the rabies shot. ’Swangs don’t carry it. And I know how to reset an elbow, but how do you?”
I couldn’t exactly tell her that I was on the run for murder, which meant hospitals weren’t an option. “I take care of myself.”
“So you were bitten?” she asked, probing the wounds along my palm with swabs.
“Technically, no. I pried open the dog’s—”
“Aswang,” Sunny corrected.
“Whatever. I pried open its mouth to break its jaw, because it was about to munch on my throat. Then I broke its neck. Its teeth sort of dug into my hands.”
“You just,” she said quietly, swallowing loudly, “killed it? You weren’t even scared?”
“Why would I be?”
Sunny stared at me a long moment before shaking her head. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Ollie. And don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not. It’s just . . .” Sunny’s eyes went to the door, like someone might sneak in, her voice lowering to a whisper, “Can you really not feel pain?”
“Why is that such a big deal? Because those things make their prey feel pain?”
Sunny bit her lip, eyes going to the door once again. “I can’t talk about that stuff with you. Dean told me not to.”
“Dean was the guy here earlier?” She nodded. “Do you always do what he says?”
My question clearly stunned her. “Yes. Of course.”
I wasn’t getting anything else out of her. I sighed in frustration and sat back on the cot. Metal tools scraped about on Sunny’s tray. I sensed her pause, her bright eyes watching me, but I didn’t look at her. Finally, she turned her attention back to my hand and began cleaning the wound. I scrutinized every move she made, ensuring she did as good a job as I would have. Later, as she made her clinical, precise stitches, my skin popped beneath her needle, like a finger poking through tissue paper. As she worked, she occasionally glanced up at me. I looked away, my eyes falling on the dead-looking guy.
Every now and then, his hand would jump, his legs twitching, caught in a nightmare, like he was running from something. Or trying to.
Sunny bandaged my hand, packing and wrapping my wounds with a skill even I admitted was good.
“Are you doing okay?” She finished with my right hand and rolled around the end of the cot.
“I’m fine.”
She settled her tray on the other side of the bed and turned over my left hand. “What’s it like?” she asked so quietly I barely heard her.
“Not feeling pain?” When she nodded, I continued with a heavy sigh. “It’s a pain in the ass. I never know when I’ve really hurt myself or if I’m sick unless the signs are obvious. I can tell if water is hot, but I don’t feel if I’ve scalded myself. I have to spend a lot of money on medical supplies instead of normal things like rent and food or cool shoes.”
“Why can’t you go to a hospital?” Sunny kept working on my hand, digging into the bite marks and cleaning them with rolls of gauze.
“I just can’t.” My eyes trailed back to the wounded guy. I hoped Sunny would drop the hospital thing. I didn’t want to explain I’d been on the run most my life, never used my real name, and was always too afraid that Max would find me if I checked into a hospital. I had to be a ghost.
“That sounds amazing. I wish I didn’t feel pain.”
I didn’t respond. Even after all I’d been through, I would trade not feeling pain for a normal life any day. Sometimes I wondered if my mom would have never left me if I wasn’t such a freak, wasn’t so hard to care for. But those were bad thoughts, and I swerved around them now, closing my eyes to them like they were a part in a scary movie. Don’t look, I told myself.
Sunny worked quietly after that, which I was thankful for. She stitched up my left hand and bandaged it. My elbow was another matter altogether. She had to reset the joint, telling me it was going to hurt before she remembered. With a cautious look, she set the joint, eyes wide while she took in my lack of response. She recorded my basic vitals and gave me a shot then helped me take the antibiotics due to my restraints.
Before the water was even to my mouth, I knew something was wrong with it. I jerked my head away from her. “What did you put in that?”
My harsh accusation rocked Sunny back on her heels. She looked between the water cup she held and me, finally realizing what I meant. “Oh! Nothing is wrong with it, I promise! I added some garlic and chile to it.”
Not what I was expecting, but now that she said it, I recognized the tingly hint of garlic in the murky water. “Why?”
“I’m sorry. It’s a habit. My mom’s side of the family is Filipino, and she always said a person should drink water with garlic and chile in it after being bit to reduce the risk of infection.”
My brows rose. “Wouldn’t the antibiotics do that?”
“Not from that kind of infection.” Sunny smiled. “It’s to keep you from turning into a ’swang.”
I lurched against my restraints, horror making my throat thick. “What the fuck? I might turn into one of those things? Shouldn’t you have mentioned that earlier?”
She shushed me. “Don’t yell! And the chance is very low. Normally only children turn into aswangs when they’re bitten.”
“Not comforting! Is this just Filipino lore or is this based in actual medical research?”
Sunny shrugged. “No one was ever infected under my mother’s watch, and she believed in all the superstitions.”
I gritted my teeth. Never one to believe in hopes and chants, I put my faith in the antibiotics. “Fine. But I want two weeks of antibiotics.”
“Sure thing.” Smiling brightly, she helped me swallow the pills and drink the infused water, which I choked down as my eyes watered. When I finished, she murmured under her breath, “Perausog. Perausog.”
“That was disgusting. And what did you just say?”
Sunny took the cup from me. “Warding off the usog. The evil eye. My grandmother says it all the time for protection from aswangs.” She shrugged. “I thought it couldn’t hurt. And it sounds cool, you know?”
“Sunny,” I said, feeling suddenly exhausted, “I don’t care wh
at you have to say to keep me from turning into one of those things. Send your grandmother my thanks.”
“Sure,” she said, still smiling, and turned away to tidy up. I sensed the tools and this dark ward gave her comfort, even though I didn’t know what a pretty, quiet girl like Sunny needed comfort from, but, then, I guess we all have those bad parts in our lives.
I was almost asleep when Sunny spoke again.
“Will you be okay alone?” In the long pause after her words, I realized she wanted to know if I was scared and didn’t want to stay down here by myself. No one had ever asked me that before. I managed a tight nod. “Okay. Try and get in a quick nap. Luke will come for you soon.”
“Great.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more,” she said, still looking down at her tray. “But maybe . . . maybe if you stay, we can hang out some.” Her words were so carefully casual, so carefully full of hope, I knew she didn’t have many friends, which surprised me. “And I can tell you everything then. If you stay.”
“Do I really have a choice?”
Sunny frowned and finally met my eyes. “I hope so. Because we could really use a hunter like you to save us.”
T H R E E
Weird dreams haunted me during those early morning hours when I napped. Dreams I’d never had before. I dreamed of a woman with blonde hair like mine and a kind smile that made her cheeks dimple prettily. My mother. But the dream didn’t let me hate her. Instead, I walked beside her, hand in hand, like a normal mother and daughter. It was wrong. It was a lie.
Then I was a little girl again, squeezing myself into the back of the closet and looking up at my mother with love and trust.
“Olesya,” she whispered, her voice quaking with fear, “Stay here. Stay hidden. I’ll be back for you, sweet girl. I promise. I’ll be back. I love you.”
She never came back.
I woke with a start. Someone was shaking my shoulder. Groaning, I tried to roll away from the jostling and go back to sleep but my wrists were still bound.
“It’s time to go.”
I cracked an eyelid at Luke’s impatient morning voice. I smelled coffee on his breath, and it made my stomach rumble with hunger. “What?”
