by Hannah Capin
and I collapse with my arms wrapped tight around Malcolm’s neck—
—and he falls with me.
Almost before we land Porter springs up and dashes past us. His heels are on fire and he swings the knife unsheathed and aimless. Flying breakneck fast down the stairs and into the hall and out the door before anyone can think to leap up and stop him.
“Get him!” Malcolm yells and flings me away. He runs for the stairs.
But outside a door slams and an engine roars.
He’s gone.
I stay where I am. Distraught and trembling. Staring between the polished metal bars of the landing and down to the front hall. Out the gaping space where the door still swings to the gate Porter leaped.
He’s gone, flying a hundred miles an hour down a road that twists tight enough to break spines.
Mads is behind him. Sharper than the blade that killed the king.
She’ll follow him to where Jenny and Summer wait.
Until they catch him and make him choose life or death—
prison or his pack—
confess to his father’s lawyers, or go back to the boys who want him dead—
—and he already knows he’s guilty. He saw it in the texts he sent Duffy. He saw it in the bloody knife. He saw it in the fear on my face when I told him, Run.
Duncan is dead. Porter killed him.
Mack is king.
Aftermath
Everyone tells the same story.
Lilia, shattered, standing in sunlight that burns through her skin—
Duffy and Piper, together again and arm in arm, her finishing his sentences when his face goes sick—
Banks with his eyes pinning a target to anyone who crosses his path—
Malcolm, eyes hard, hands digging against his thighs—
the second-rank boys and the flock-girls, even though they don’t matter enough to separate one from the other—
Mack, taller and broader-shouldered every minute and holding me close, swearing vivid earnest fury at Porter—
and me, trembling bravery, wrapped in silk.
We tell it to each other, anyway. By the time the whining sirens wind up the hill we’ve all gone silent. Their questions stack high and empty: who found him first, who saw him last, is there anyone with a reason to want him dead? We shut them down with thousand-dollar smiles and attorneys’ names. No one answers anything. No one except Piper, who slivers her eyes and says it was Porter and that when they find him they’ll find the murder weapon in his pocket and his motive on his phone.
The wolves and the starlings leave one by one. Washed out and dim-eyed in the close morning light. Thinking, who’s next?
I stay with Mack while dark unmarked cars pull through the iron gates to Inverness. The men cluster outside with one baby-faced baby-cop standing guard at the door to the master suite. I ask, shy and shivering, if I can just get my clothes from Mack’s room. He glances toward the landing and then back at me in my sheets and he nods.
He says, “Be quick.”
I lock myself in. The balcony door hangs open with the morning creeping close and I go out and stand in the sun. It’s Saturday and my week-old nails are still perfect. Sharper than they were. I stand so tall that anyone who looked, even all the way from the valley, would know I’m queen.
I call Mads.
She says, “Did they tell you?”
I say, “Who?”
She says, “The cops.” A careful pause. “He’s dead.”
“I know.”
“Porter,” she says.
My lungs pull in a sharp gasp of air so quick it stabs against my ribs exactly where Porter’s knife stabbed Duncan.
“He was flying,” says Mads. “He almost ran off the road. Jenny and Summer were waiting for him—”
A breeze swirls up and breathes itself into my wings.
“They cut him off,” she says. “The blind corner before the freeway, like you said. He barely stopped in time. We had our masks on.”
It won’t take much, I told them when we planned it. The boys will want him dead. A weak scared boy like Porter—if you tell him he can live if he just confesses—
they’d hold out a phone, dial 911, let it ring—
let it say what is the nature of your emergency—
watch him collapse and lie and say he did it, all tears and relief, because a weak scared boy like Porter would rather hide in prison for the rest of his worthless life than see the wolves circling him the way they circled Connor on the roof—
“But he was already dead,” says Mads. “I could see it in his eyes. He backed up and gunned it so hard Summer barely cleared out of the way and he went around that curve straight onto the freeway and—”
She doesn’t need to finish.
“Jenny and Summer left. I parked higher up and waited until they cleared off the road. They took the truck driver out in an ambulance. Porter’s dead.”
The little knife of air spins back out of my lungs.
Porter is dead.
I’m almost disappointed. I knew he’d never dare crawl back to the pack that was ready to let Mack dole out justice with a dirty knife. He’d cave. He’d take the phone and tell the police he killed Duncan all on his own. Plead insanity. Believe it. Wonder about texts he didn’t remember and birds I couldn’t see. Remember Connor’s empty eyes and the rough red letters: Who’s next?
Remember that he knew too much.
Remember the guilt.
Remember the fear.
He’d confess so well he’d make the tabloids. Hide behind iron bars, safe from the pack and from himself if he did do it—
—and from whoever really did it if he didn’t.
Dead someday. Probably not soon enough, but soon. And tortured until then.
But I never thought he’d die today, without confessing.
It leaves me feeling nothing at all.
Mads says, “That’s it.”
I say, “Good.”
We hang up. I pick up my clothes. They’re almost dry and absolutely clean.
I dress in the bathroom where Mack and I stood together covered in Duncan’s blood. Smooth my hair and put on enough makeup to look as innocence-pretty as I need to look, but not too perfect for a lip-bitingly brave girl who wakes up in a house from a horror film. Trail through the room, looking for anything out of place. Leave the bed unmade and slept-in. Wipe the dried blood off the sink. Slide the bookcase over the stained-dark spot where Mack sat trembling.
When everything is spotless I slip back out. The baby-faced cop nods, sicker than before. Duncan’s door is open now, leaking shadows—
—and a man in worn gray steps out.
He says, eyes on me, “What’s she doing up here?”
The baby-faced cop stammers and the man in gray waves him away. The detective, the one who stood at the back of the chapel for Connor’s service and shook dead Duncan’s hand. “Your name?” he asks. His voice sheds gravel and blame.
“Jade Khanjara.” I give him the same drawn smile I gave the rest of them downstairs. “If you have any questions, you’ll need to speak with my attorney. Ji-Hwan Kim.”
The detective’s eyes fade grayer when I say Jenny’s father’s name. He hates me the way he hates all of them: haughty rich boys and their numb mindless girls, untouchable behind defense teams only the guilty can afford. “Jade Khanjara,” he says. “Good lawyer your parents have.”
“My parents would do anything to keep me safe,” I say with a quaver that matches the girl he thinks I am. A girl like Lilia, ghostly and gone.
He nods. Hating me still, but toothless, because I’m just a girl.
“I’ll go,” I say, and I smile innocent again, and I pull the door shut—
—and his eyes lock onto the space just above my hand.
I shouldn’t look, but I do.
There on Mack’s door is a streak of dried blood, grasping toward the handle, one long drip trailing down to the floor.
I look up ag
ain and his eyes are back on mine. Hungrier now. “Miss Khanjara,” he says. “Who slept in that room last night?”
“I did,” I tell him, and my gaze darts away on purpose. Behind him, the baby-faced baby-cop shifts another step away from Duncan’s door. The smell of blood floats out so strong it almost makes me dizzy.
“Only you?” asks the man in gray.
Duncan is dead and his blood is in my lungs and I want to stay here and savor it until he rots to bone.
“Miss Khanjara,” the detective says. “Was there anyone with you last night?”
My lips pull at a smile. I hide it with a shuddering breath and one hand brushing at the corner of my eyes. “Just—a boy.”
“Name?”
I shudder-breathe again. “He didn’t do anything. He was with me.”
He says, “His name, Miss Khanjara.”
Duncan’s blood curls against my skin and my hair and my teeth. I see Mack with his knife, killing for me—
Mack in his bed, mine—
Mack in the dark, whispering betrayal: You shouldn’t have let him kiss you.
I smile sweet and fragile. I say, “Andrew Mack.”
Sunset
We meet at Mads’s on Saturday afternoon. Jenny and Summer and Mads and me.
I still haven’t slept.
They’re waiting for me when I drive through the gate. Standing in line in front of the door. My shoes are black arrows on the short bright grass, pointing the way to where we’ll breathe our secrets to life.
We go to the training room like always. Everything shines lemon-fresh.
Jenny swings herself up into the boxing ring and ducks under the ropes. She grabs Mads’s brother’s gloves and hides her hands inside. “Damn, it’s dark,” she says, and she shadowboxes the ghost blocking the light from the windows.
“You said it would storm,” says Summer, watching Jenny with enough longing in her eyes that it almost makes up for the strange heavy clouds blotting out the sun.
Jenny grins and throws three more punches: right-left-right.
“That’s not a storm now,” says Mads. She’s right. Last night was thunder and lightning and rain. Today the clouds are still and sagging. Hanging like the stinging haze in August the year the wildfires burned so close to the city that men stood on Mads’s roof three hours past midnight drowning it with water. “That’s smoke.”
“There’s no fire,” says Summer. She jumps up to join Jenny, clawed grace.
I say, “There is.”
“God, so dramatic,” says Jenny. “SoCal girls. It rains once and you think it’s the fucking apocalypse.” She swings at Summer but Summer slips past her, dancer-light. Her dress flares out and her necklace catches the only sunbeam in the room and throws it onto the wall. She hooks one arm around Jenny’s neck, but Jenny twists fast and suddenly they’re face-to-face.
They stay frozen for just long enough that it means what Summer wants it to mean—
—but then they spin away, exactly at the same time, and drop against the ropes on opposite sides of the ring. Mads and I climb up, too. We sit so each of us takes one side of the ring around the dim square of light in the middle.
“So,” says Summer, still breathing quick. “Murderess.”
I bow my head, but I can’t keep the smile from playing along my lips.
“Look at you,” says Jenny. She’s all shining ecstasy. “You love it. You fucking psychopath.”
I raise my eyes to meet hers. “I know what I’m doing.”
And Mads crosses her arms and says, “No one fucks with our coven.”
Jenny raises one boxing-gloved fist. “No one fucks with our coven.” Then she casts a sly little look my way and says, “But I’ve got you figured out.”
I wait.
“You don’t love him after all. You’re too us for love. You’re the most us of all of us.”
Summer shifts and bites her lip.
“You’re playing him worse than any of them. I mean, you’re destroying him, right? That’s the endgame. Soon they’ll all be dead and it will just be your golden boy all alone. Guilty and damned.”
“Not guilty,” I say, and it’s not even a lie. “Great.”
“All great men kill kings,” says Mads. Half soothsayer and half mockingbird.
Summer laughs a shivering-gold laugh. “You’d be sweeter to kill him. It’d be fair.”
I let my head fall back against the rope and stare up at the lush layered branches outside.
Jenny’s hand flashes out and a perfume vial lands in my lap. White powder gleams inside. “For when you’re done with him,” she says.
“You fucking didn’t,” says Mads, but she’s barely more than bored.
“Right. Summer did.”
Mads unfolds lithe and grabs the vial. “You made Summer break into the secret room again?”
“Not very secret,” Summer says, too pure. And it’s true: the secret room has been ours for as long as we’ve been us. The room off along a back hall, with bulletproof walls and bank-safe doors. With a portrait on the wall, Mads and her brothers, on hinges that swing back to a cabinet of pills and poison: better safe than helpless.
“Which one is it?”
Summer shrugs. “I don’t remember. The one with the prettiest name. Arsenic, or cyanide—” And her laugh sings out. “Something that works.”
“Let me see,” I say, and Mads tosses it back.
Jenny smirks across the ring. “Told you she’d want it.”
We stole the vial from the woman who smiled too much at Jenny’s father in the front-page photos four winters ago. We poured her perfume out. A defendant’s wife, the one who called Jenny a little creeping bastard brat. The one who spent nights when Jenny’s mother was away and left lipstick-stained coffee cups exactly where Jenny’s mother would find them, except we always found them first.
The one who called Jenny a little creeping bastard brat for the very last time the night I had Mads let us into the room with the bulletproof walls and the bottles full of poison. I measured out the one I wanted: not enough to kill, but almost.
When the ambulance left I stole back her last lipstick-stained coffee cup and breathed in the burnt-sweet smell of bitter almonds.
I send the vial spinning back to Jenny. “Not yet.”
“But soon,” she says. “For Mack.”
I glare.
“What did he do?” Jenny asks. No cherub-voice. All focus.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Bullshit. You chose him to take the fall. What did he do?”
“Nothing,” I say again. “That’s the point. He’s the noble one. The one they’d never suspect.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Jenny punches the sunbeam. “Can’t wait for the day you stop lying, by the way.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I’m just saying, we’re killing for you.”
“You know that’s what we do,” says Summer, slithering sweet. “You know what Jade’s done for you—”
“For me, or for her?” Jenny bites down on the smoke-still air.
“For us,” I say. My hand goes to the crucifix my coven left for me. I spin it between my fingers and my skin catches on a rough place. I scrape it with a nail and dull dark red flakes down onto my lap.
Mads sits up straighter. She’s taller than all of us. Anchored deeper and iron-steady, even when her temper fires bright. “Duncan is dead,” she says. “They blame Porter. What happens next?”
They all look to me. Loyal even when we have our clipping little spats.
“We use their fear,” I say. “Split each one of them off so there’s no one they can trust. So it’s every boy for himself.”
They nod.
“They’re ready to believe anything,” I say. “You saw Porter. He almost thought he’d really put that knife in Duncan’s heart. Now we make the rest of them think maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe—anything.”
They’re leaning closer. My whole heart swells for them. My beautiful coven.
My flock, but instead of starlings they’re falcons with wings that turn the whole sky dark. Summer’s doubts and Jenny’s sass. Mads knowing all my lies.
“We need a phone no one can trace,” I say. “We’ll tell them things they’re afraid to tell themselves. We’ll turn them against each other.”
Outside, the sky goes even darker. Like the night is stronger than the day. Like the day is afraid to show its face even when it should.
I say, “We’ll be the witches they don’t believe in until it’s too late.”
Hunger
We eat dinner together for the first time in a month. My father and my mother and me, sitting far apart at the long wide table in the sunroom. It’s eight o’clock. They’ve seen the news. I haven’t, but the messages shooting from flock-girl to wolf leave a trail of sparks hot enough to start fires worth the clouds still fouling the sky.
Porter’s dead, said Lilia. To Mack and me, to Duffy and Piper, to Banks.
And Banks said, Had it coming.
The rumors pitch and heel: Malcolm’s gone, they say. He’s afraid he’s next. No one argues back that Porter’s dead. They know it wasn’t Porter who left the dead-eyed signs in the parking lot and turned us afraid of each other.
Porter held the knife, but fear drove it between Duncan’s ribs, the same way fear shoved Connor off the roof. And if stammering-scared Porter could kill the king—
well—
—who’s next?
So by dinnertime I know everything I need to know.
My father says, when our plates are empty and our forks and knives rest against the china, “The boy. The one who died last night. You knew him?”
I say, “Yes.”
He says, “What sort of boy was he?”
I say, “The sort of boy with daggers in his smile.”
They watch me. Both of them. Their faces give nothing away.
I say, “The sort of boy who needed a dagger in his ribs to match.”
My mother says, “And the boy who killed him?”
I say, “He knew too much.”
My father straightens the napkin tucked into his collar.
My mother says, “There was no mercy last night.”
