by Tess Adair
“Was anyone else there?”
He bobbed his head again, his gaze traveling up and around the room as he avoided her eyes. “Yeah. Uh, me and Missy were there. And Derek was, too. I think there were a few more guys earlier, but they’d left already when…uh, when Violet walked off.”
She nodded thoughtfully, wondering if that told her anything. It all depended on how thorough the summoner’s control over the beast was. It was unlikely that someone at the party could have pulled it off without anyone noticing, but not impossible.
“I really am sorry she’s dead, you know,” said Jason. For a moment, she wondered if she might have accidentally unearthed his deeper side, or at least something resembling a decent one. Her question didn’t live long. “I mean, there are only so many perfect bodies in the world, you know? And she sure did know how to showcase hers.”
Rhode scholar, this one. Can’t imagine why Violet wasn’t interested.
“Hmm. That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Violet’s appearance and implied that she dressed a certain way to please others. Did she ever express that sentiment to you?”
“She didn’t have to, ba—uh, man.” Logan’s right eyebrow twitched. Had he almost called her babe? Well, that’s gross. “I knew, and she knew it. And she sure knew what she was doing to me.”
“Right. Actually, I’m pretty sure when Violet Buchanan got dressed in the morning, she had very little interest in impressing you, Jason. None, in fact. At least, that’s where the evidence points.”
“Nah, every girl tries to look hot, man.”
She tapped an impatient finger against a crossed leg. “No, based on both your files, I’d say Violet very much did not want to ‘look hot’ for you.”
That sweet dull confusion returned to his features.
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Violet filed multiple sexual harassment complaints against you. So, I doubt she would go out of her way to earn your attention, when she clearly didn’t want it.”
Jason scoffed. “Oh, you mean that time she went and told on me. Whatever, man. She was just being a stuck-up bitch because she could. Any other girl would kill to hook up with me. But Violet just thought she was such hot shit.”
“A moment ago, you seemed to think she was hot shit, too. As a matter of fact, according to the timeline in the files, you continued to hound her long after you knew that she didn’t want you.”
“Oh, come on, she loved it! She liked being a bitch sometimes, and, sure, she was a huge tease, but that doesn’t mean anything. I never did anything she didn’t want me to do.”
“I’ve been told there was an incident at Homecoming. Is that correct?”
“What, did Missy tell you that?” He forced a puff of air through his lips, as though he were exasperated. Join the club, she thought. “God, she just won’t let it go. Who even cares what happened back then? I mean, yeah, look, I get why she’s mad, but it’s not like we didn’t get back together or anything. She should get over it by now.”
“I didn’t talk to Missy about it,” she said. It was a minor enough lie, and it served her purposes to keep him on track. “I’m going off the files. Are you confirming that you attempted to hit on Violet at Homecoming?”
“Yeah, I mean, we flirted a little bit. I thought we might hook up, but nothing happened. I guess she decided to be a bitch again.”
“I see.” For a moment, Logan let silence fall between them as she studied him, sizing him up. For all her father’s faults, she couldn’t help but feel a little grateful that his hectic lifestyle had consistently kept her out of school and away from reprobates like this. “So, let’s recap. You began aggressively hitting on Violet sometime last year, and she told you no repeatedly and asked you to stop. You didn’t stop, and according to other students’ accounts, you spread rumors about a fictional sexual encounter with her, and encouraged your friends to harass her over it. So she reported you to the school, and one of your buddies gave up the game. You received an in-school suspension and had to take classes over the summer to catch up. Even so, you refused to abide by Violet’s only request—that you leave her alone. You dumped her friend so you could try to force yourself on her, and, surprising nobody but you, she turned you down. But now, flying in the face of all known earth logic, you’ve chosen to interpret that as—she decided to be a bitch that night. Have I missed anything?”
Bemusement settled and froze on Jason’s face. She gave him a moment, but it quickly became clear that he had nothing to say to any of that.
“No, I suppose not.” With a sigh, she figured she had the measure of him by now. “I’ll tell you what I think, Jason. I think Violet saw you for what you are: a skeevy creep who wouldn’t stop bothering her, no matter how many times she told you no. I think you were a nuisance to her. A piece of muck you have to sidestep on the street, but unfortunately for her, the confines of school gave you voice enough to harass her daily. I think she hated you, and your poor pathetic ego couldn’t accept that. But you’d really better get used to it, Jason. The world is full of women who want nothing to do with you. So you really have to learn to take that no.” She glanced up at the clock. “But you’ll have to learn that on your own time. We’re done here, you can go.”
She didn’t bother to watch him leave. Instead she got up and crossed to the window, satisfied in her power to send the slime back out the door. Of course, even as she reached the window and began to gaze out it, she could feel the first hints of regret tunneling their way through the back of her mind. That wasn’t exactly the responsible thing to do. Guess if I’m lucky, he’ll be too embarrassed to tell anyone what happened.
Unfortunately, she also didn’t feel like she was making much headway on the case. Maybe, if he was the summoner, he’d hate her enough now to come after her, and that would reveal him. But in truth, she doubted it was him. He was too oblivious and too unlikely to undertake the work required. Whoever had killed Violet had worked hard to do so, and they’d done it out of sheer rage. Jason Reed didn’t rage against her; he’d convinced himself he still had a shot with her. Logan doubted the summoner would turn out to be someone with the kind of social power that Jason Reed or Missy Vreeland had—though Missy might have had rage enough to do it. But when Logan imagined the profile of a likely suspect, she couldn’t help but incorporate social isolation. Her image was of someone a little further down the totem pole.
Someone who didn’t come by power naturally, so they’d chosen to take it by force.
That was her theory, anyway. She had plenty of time left to be proven wrong.
Logan couldn’t remember ever feeling so grateful to see the inside of a downtrodden motel room. She tossed her jacket and helmet near the door and slid out of her stiff, uncomfortable counselor outfit, opting instead for loose cotton boxers. The air conditioning in her unit was predictably unsatisfactory, but by now the sun had gone down and the night had cooled, so she pushed her little window open for the breeze. Then she plopped herself in front of the ancient television and opened up the takeout she’d grabbed from the diner on her way.
It was hard to say exactly when she nodded off. She ate a small piece of her meal before leaving the rest in the room’s mini-fridge. When she crawled backward toward the pillows, the television still blared. She was sure she was still watching it, though she knew she was losing the threads.
Her last full conscious notion was a resigned dread at the thought of another day with the tiny monsters up at school.
And then she was somewhere else.
At first, everything was a muddled blur of color. Then pieces materialized out of the mess. She was at a masquerade ball. All around her people whirled and twirled, ball gowns and coattails flying out behind them, distorting them into abstract shapes. She knew she was dancing with someone, but she didn’t know who. Some part of her, a part that felt disconnected from everything else around her, knew that she wasn’t safe. Wherever she was, she wasn’t safe. There was something she c
ouldn’t see.
She turned to see whose arms were around her waist, but there was no one there. She floated freely. As she came to a stop, she felt skirts swish around her legs, weighing her down. She looked down at the cool, pale blue fabric, feeling its smooth silk under the tips of her fingers. Something about the fabric was wrong; it drew her in. But then someone spoke her name and she looked up.
Knatt stood before her, nodding solemnly.
“You must follow.” It was his voice, but his lips didn’t move. “You must run.”
As she watched, his mouth broke into a hideous inhuman smile, warping his face into something else, and his arm lifted slowly, as if someone pulled it up with a string, pointing it to the back of the large ballroom. She turned to look.
She could see something moving, far back. At first it looked like a spider. Then it looked like a doorway. She went toward it, but she couldn’t remember deciding that she should.
As soon as she moved, she was in another place. Bright colors and strange shapes still surrounded her, but they were of a different kind. As their edges hardened and evened out, she recognized it—a carnival. The alien sense of danger she’d felt earlier intensified, and her movements sped up and tightened.
She was looking for something, wasn’t she? Yes. But also—something was looking for her. She knew that.
A soft chorus of human laughter sounded from behind her, but when she turned around, all she saw were the horses on the carousel. They were empty at first, but then she looked again, and each one suddenly had a rider. When her gaze focused, she saw that the first rider was Missy—disgust distorting her features. After her, she saw Jason Reed, leaning back in his horse and leering at her.
Next—the girl she’d seen at the locker and on the field. She looked away before Logan could get her attention. And then—the next girl was Violet. Only she didn’t look like the bright happy girl in the photos. She looked like the body Logan had seen in the cooler at the sheriff’s department. Her eyes were blank and empty, staring motionlessly forward. Her chest was a bloody mess.
For a moment, Logan thought she saw another rider behind her, but when she looked again, it was gone.
But someone—someone was behind her. She knew it.
She began to run. The carnival was endless, like it was stuck on repeat. The more she ran, the more the shapes blurred again, until she might have been anywhere. She could feel rather than hear her pursuer—but when she did manage to glance back, she saw a figure in a dark cloak right on her heels.
Finally, the carnival faded out. The colors around her turned to blacks and greens, and she knew she ran through trees now. Her pursuer grew louder—not his tread but his breathing.
This time, when she glanced back, the shape looked different. It had grown misshapen and strange, the proportions all wrong.
It was a wolf. It didn’t look like a wolf, but somehow she knew that’s what it was.
She stumbled and fell, her heavy skirts catching on a million branches all at once, trapping her where she lay. The wolf was on her, and she saw a violent flash of light sear the sky before her. A voice sounded in her ear.
I worship the wolf.
The wolf bit down.
Logan jerked awake suddenly, almost like someone had hit her. Her heart was pounding, and it took her a few moments to work out where she was. Her motel room. Nowhere, Montana. More accurately, Wolf Creek, Montana. The television was still on, and the sky was still dark. She checked the red light of the clock by the bed—2:00am.
Well. It had been a few years since she’d woken up from a nightmare. She would almost call it a novel experience. Except it still beat in her ears, and her heart didn’t seem to want to calm down.
I worship the wolf.
She kept hearing that phrase. Her left arm reached up and back to touch the top of her shoulder, like she was checking in with the Key. It burned low, stinging her softly. Nothing she couldn’t sleep through, if she could just get her heart to slow down for a minute.
She got up and switched off the television, then planted her feet and stretched both arms above her head. She forced her breathing into a slow, even rhythm, and focused her mind on an image of tree roots, pushing into the dirt beneath her feet, spreading slowly downward. It was an old meditation technique she’d learned at Other Side. She’d resisted Other Side’s rituals and systems as a teenager, but during one of her longest stays a few years later, her aunt had introduced her to a teacher who had dragged acquiescence out of her, and eventually she’d embraced it all. Now, she attributed the continued success of her client smile to the centering techniques she’d studied there, as well as a few of her flashier tricks.
After a few minutes of slow stretching and deliberate mindfulness, she felt her body coming to its ease again. With one last stretch upward, she crawled back into bed and shut her eyes.
The words were on her lips as she fell into sleep once more.
I worship the wolf.
Chapter 4: Practical Revenge
Wednesday. When Logan woke up, she tried to remember the last time she’d looked forward to a weekend with such urgent need. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could deal with high school.
Still, there was one thing she was looking forward to that day, though it hung more like a question mark than a bright spot over her horizon: she would be speaking to Judith Li today.
Judith Li and Suzanne Grubb were, in a sense, Violet Buchanan’s last victims. If anyone had a reason to hate Violet, it was either of them. But Logan wouldn’t get a chance to interview Suzanne Grubb—the girl had changed schools shortly following her incident with Violet. They seemed to have moved to another town, and according to Miss Swinson, they might have moved out of Montana all together.
So, while Suzanne was still a possible suspect, she probably hadn’t even seen Violet in over a year. In Logan’s experience, teenagers weren’t famous for serving their revenge so cold. It was likelier that Violet had been killed by someone who still saw her every day—someone like Judith Li. So Logan felt pretty reasonable in her hope that Judith might prove her most useful interview yet.
Logan rifled through Knatt’s clothing rack, searching for something a little bit cooler than what she’d worn the day before. She landed on a pair of boot-cut dress pants in a light-weight blue material, and a loose black blouse in fabric so light it was almost see-through. The sleeves fell short of her wrists, but only short enough to show the first mark on each arm. That would have to be discreet enough. She couldn’t see herself getting through another day without some outdoors time on her break again.
Then, like before, she packed some snack food for herself and grabbed her jacket and helmet. It had been a grand total of one day, and already she felt herself chafing at the structure that school imposed. As she threw her leg over the bike and started it up, she wished she could take it anywhere else. Preferably somewhere she could go sleeveless.
Her ride was uneventful. Like before, she parked at the far end of the lot, though as she did so, her mind flashed on that first evening, and how she’d felt a presence when she left the building. But she didn’t have time to ponder it now, so she shook it off and made her way toward the break room inside.
She was about halfway through pouring her oversized coffee when Esmerelda Swinson, the small older woman under a wild pile of hair, accosted her again.
“Good morning, Miss Logan,” she said like an announcement as she planted her body between Logan and the cream. “I just wanted to come over and say thank you for everything you’ve been doing so far.”
“Ah—that’s very sweet of you, but honestly, it’s not necessary. I’m just doing my job.” With a bright smile and a wave of warning, she reached around Swinson for the cream and added it to her brew.
“Oh, but you’re doing so much more than that,” Esmerelda answered with enthusiasm. Her gray eyes were wide in wonder. “I know that Ashley Carson came to see you yesterday. I don’t know what you said to her, but whatever it was
, it was good. Oh, she was so distraught before. She’s in my classes, you see. She was just so torn up about it all, but I know that talking to you really helped her. I could tell that she was doing a little better yesterday afternoon, so I asked if she’d been in to see you yet, and she said she had and she felt just worlds better. She’s a sensitive girl, poor thing.”
Logan nodded, taking this in. In truth, the main thing she’d done was listen. It wasn’t a terribly difficult task. Ashley was a normal kid, though understandably shaken up. She was glad it had helped, though perturbed that it had required any intervention on her part in the first place. She had to hope that, if she hadn’t magically elbowed her way into this situation, someone would have thought to talk to the kid eventually—or, rather, to listen.
“Ashley seems like a bright young woman,” Logan answered blandly. “It was my pleasure to meet her. She’s welcome to come see me any time.”
“Wonderful!” Esmerelda Swinson exclaimed, clapping her hands together. Apparently satisfied, she tottered off once more.
Logan escaped before anyone else could stop her.
Her first appointment of the day was another non-starter. She kept her patience throughout, which wasn’t too hard after getting through Missy and Jason the day before. Still, Logan couldn’t help feeling like she spent the whole time metaphorically bound to the edge of her seat, waiting for Judith Li’s inevitable appearance. What would she be like? Logan knew it was an inappropriate thought, but the part of her that had already tired of interviewing teenagers hoped that Li would turn out to be such an obvious killer that her work would be done by lunchtime. Maybe the first thing out of her mouth will be a confession. Wouldn’t that be nice? Of course, Logan knew more than to put much stock in idle hope.
Then at the top of her second hour, perfectly on time, Judith Li walked into her classroom.
As she took her in, she realized with a start that she recognized her. Judith Li, it turned out, was the girl from the soccer field—the girl who’d slammed her locker that first day. She still looked like someone who wanted to disappear, in huge cargo shorts and another oversized sweatshirt. Fascinating. Brushing away her momentary shock, Logan carefully pushed her face into a welcoming smile.
