Foul Is Fair

by Hannah Capin

  Banks makes a harsh sound that’s half growl and half laugh. “You sure you’re so innocent, golden boy?”

  “You know I didn’t do anything,” says Mack. I can feel the fight in him—feel the guilt clashing and rising. Guilt doesn’t work on boys like them, said Mads. But Mack was never one of them. The more his guilt pries him apart—the more he knows that someone thinks he’s the same as his pack—

  —the sooner he’ll bring the rest of them crashing down just to prove he’s not.

  It isn’t fair.

  I don’t care.

  And anyway, I’m making him stronger. The boy who always knew enough but never told them no.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Piper says again, and she grabs her phone and says it loud and angry a third time as she types in the words.

  “Who the hell did you cross?” I ask them. All of them at once, with a baiting smile.

  “Nobody,” says Piper.

  But Duffy blinks wide and mutters, “We thought.”

  “Careful,” says Banks. Still almost a growl.

  Little lapdog Duffy laughs nervous. “It’s her. It has to be. We might as well just say it.”

  My heart leaps up into my throat. I didn’t think they’d guess it so soon. I thought they’d turn on each other, and leave it like that. At least for now.

  “Watch what you’re saying,” says Banks.

  “Oh, fuck off,” says Piper.

  “It’s not her. It’s some dick who heard too much when everybody was drunk and running their mouths at Mack’s house. That shit got two of us killed already and it’s going to take the rest of us down if we can’t shut the fuck up.”

  Piper glares. “Was that a threat?”

  “It’s her,” says Duffy again. “It’s the girl from Duncan’s party. God, I never should’ve let Dunc make me—”

  “Bullshit,” Piper spits. “You had a choice.”

  “It’s not her,” says Banks. “I’ll prove it.” And he types fast and grins up at us. “Asked her who gave her the drink. This is a fucking joke.”

  “Jesus, Banks.” Mack pushes back from the table. “No, it’s not.”

  “It’s some second-string asshole watching like a creep from across the room,” says Banks, and Piper and Duffy turn and stare. “That’s the damn definition of a joke.”

  Mack knocks Banks’s phone out of his hands. “I meant what happened at Duncan’s,” he says. “You fucked up.”

  Banks grabs his phone back and swings the screen in front of Mack. “Then text the bitch back and apologize if that’s what you think this is about.”

  They all stay caught together. Anger flowing bright and fear snuffing it dim.

  So I say, “Maybe it’s her—”

  Banks snorts.

  “—or maybe it’s some second-string asshole, or maybe it’s Malcolm losing his shit.” I let my gaze wander off toward the doors. Two cops stand like sentries where before we could come and go unwatched. “Or maybe it’s that detective playing you so hard you’ll lock the handcuffs on yourself if you’re not careful.”

  Mack finally looks away from Banks. “What do you mean?”

  I scroll through nothing. Show them what a beautiful thing it is to be innocent, innocent, innocent. I say, “I mean it’s none of us. Right?”

  They nod. Hesitant at first and then too certain. A flagging lie, but it doesn’t matter.

  “So let’s make them fuck off,” I say. “Go somewhere they can’t get to you.”

  “We’re not running away,” says Piper.

  “Obviously.” I give her a glance that withers her better than Lilia ever could, because Lilia never saw her with her secrets flayed open and her fear spilling out. “But Mack’s staying on the boat this week. Let’s go out on the water tonight. None of Malcolm’s second-string boys this time. No telling anyone. Make it a wake for Duncan.”

  A pause hangs in the air. I can feel Mack nervous next to me. I take his hand in mine, guide his lips to mine, kiss him hard.

  “Fuck them,” I say.

  Banks caves first. “Fuck them,” he says, too loud.

  “Fuck them,” says Mack, right into my lips.

  “Fuck them,” says Piper. She slams her phone down.

  And finally Duffy clears his throat and says, barely a whisper, “Fuck them.”

  The bell rings. Outside the birds stir, restless and all together. I can feel it in my wings.

  Rift

  I walk Mack to class. I keep him silent. I tell him, The walls have ears, because it feels like just the right paranoid bullshit for the way they’re all shattering apart today.

  He nods like it’s true.

  I kiss him good-bye in the doorway to Magistra Copland’s classroom, so everyone has to watch. So everyone sees how unbreakable we are. When I let him go he almost looks fearless.

  I linger until he finds his seat. Wink and wave with the whole class watching. The ones who are left, anyway: too many chairs are empty. Too many names rang through the speakers all morning, calling one St Andrew’s Prepper after another to run away and hide when their parents heard that two more boys were dead.

  “Still think you’re a twisted bitch,” says Banks behind me. So close I can feel his too-hot breath on my ear.

  I turn. The door swings shut. We’re alone in the hallway, Banks and me.

  “Almost as twisted as your fuck of the week,” he says.

  I scoff.

  “I’m serious, new girl. You know what you’re getting into with us. Sure you can handle it?”

  “‘Us’?” I say, and I drench it in disdain. “I thought Mack was the golden boy I was supposed to corrupt for you.”

  “Yeah,” he says, “but there’s all types of twisted.”

  “I’m sure.” I turn again. “I’m late.”

  He lets me get ten steps away before he calls, “You know what happened at Duncan’s party.”

  I spin on my toes and walk straight back to him. I don’t know what he’s doing. I don’t have time to think it through. “You mean the part where you and Duncan and Duffy and Connor drugged some girl and raped her?” It echoes loud in the hall but the doors are closed and no one hears and even if they did they’d pretend they didn’t.

  His smirk digs in. I blink three times, fast, and see Duncan bleeding under my hands. Hold tight to every ounce of it so I won’t sink my claws into Banks’s throat right here.

  “Good story,” he says. “Where’d you hear it?”

  “Like any of you could keep your mouths shut. Like telling isn’t what got Duncan a knife in his throat.”

  “Damn,” he says. “Nothing’s too soon for you, is it?”

  “Duncan was no one,” I hiss. “No one’s losing any sleep missing him.”

  “Think your golden boy might be,” Banks says with his glittering carnivore grin. “Think your golden boy might be trying to atone for something all the Hail Marys in the world couldn’t undo.”

  I think of three nights ago at Inverness. The shifting sounds downstairs and Mack’s spiraling desperate words: The whole ocean couldn’t wash this blood away. The water running all night. The streak of blood on our bedroom door, painted fresh for Banks to see—

  “Whatever you want to say, say it.” I push too close to him. “Unless you want me to go get Mack so you can say it to him, too.”

  “Your call,” he says. Laughter barely buried. “Same story either way.”

  I wait. Teeth gritted and claws clenching my skirt too tight, but waiting.

  He says, “Ask your golden boy what he was doing Friday night.”

  “He was with me,” I say. “All night. Not that you’d know what it’s like to be with someone who actually has a choice about sleeping with you.”

  “Not Mack’s party,” says Banks. “Duncan’s.”

  “He didn’t go.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “He wasn’t there,” I say, and my claws dig so hard into my skirt I can feel the fabric tear.

  “A
sk him.”

  “I don’t have to,” I say, and for a splintering firing second the hall spins to white and I see Duncan and Duffy and Connor and Banks and the door slamming closed.

  “Your golden boy isn’t so golden,” says Banks.

  He winks.

  I shove him. Hard. I’m half his size but he doesn’t expect me to fight, so he stumbles and crashes loud into the lockers behind him. “Fuck!” he bursts out in a long slope of laughter. “Duncan was right about you.”

  “Fuck you,” I snarl in his face. “Fuck you and fuck your dead king—”

  “Young lady!”

  I step back. Magistra Copland stands halfway in her classroom and halfway in the hall. Her watery eyes flick from me to Banks behind her glasses.

  Banks turns his laugh into a cough.

  “Is everything all right?” Magistra Copland asks.

  “Fucking fantastic,” says Banks.

  She says, “Language, Mr. Banks.” Her eyes flick to me again. She still has one hand holding the door and I can see past her into the classroom. Everyone is watching me.

  I smile and smooth down my skirt. I say, “Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more.”

  She smiles back, frosty still, but thawing: “Si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi.”

  Banks snorts and mutters, “Veni, vidi, vici.”

  Her smile ices back over, slick enough to send him spinning into the ditch. “I’m sure you did, Mr. Banks, but let’s allow Ms. Khanjara to speak, shall we?”

  He says, “We shall.” Daring me to snap again. Daring me to tell.

  I give them my best innocent-little-flower gaze. “I’m fine,” I say. “Mr. Banks wouldn’t dare do anything—unchivalrous.” It’s the most ridiculous word I can think of. “We were just having a little disagreement about—” I pause. “How would you put it, Mr. Banks?”

  “Any way you’d let me, Ms. Khanjara.” His charm has gone cold. He barely bothers hiding what he means.

  I see dead Connor, dead Duncan, dead Porter. Dead Banks, soon. Next. Tonight, even if I still haven’t found his glinting smile on the boy who gave me the drink.

  I show him all my hate for a shining little second and then I look back at Magistra Copland. “About how we define certain concepts,” I say. “Guilt, for example. Truth.”

  “Sounds quite philosophical,” she says.

  “Consent,” I add. Sweet and deadly. Past the cracked-open door the whole class stirs. Mack pushes halfway out of his seat and hovers and sits again, fidgeting. A plain-faced not-it girl in the front row goes wide-eyed under her bangs. The girl behind her leans over her shoulder and whispers. They give me the sort of look you only give a queen.

  A queen who won her throne in battle.

  They know. All of them. What Duncan and Duffy and Connor and Banks did. Why two of them are gone and the other two are caught in fear thicker than quicksand, slipping under inch by inch.

  “Well,” says Magistra Copland, “I’m sure it was a very enlightening conversation.”

  “It was,” I tell her. My eyes flit to the whole thirsting crowd behind her and I raise my eyebrows just enough to send them diving back behind their hands.

  “Perhaps better suited to a different venue,” she says. “You and Mr. Banks both have classes to attend; am I correct?”

  I nod once. “Of course. Just—” I measure the angle of her chin. Measure the way Banks’s shoulders strain against his blazer.

  I take my chance. “May I speak with Mr. Mack? He’ll be right back, I promise.”

  She hesitates. Casts a look at Banks and makes a prim little cluck in the back of her throat. “You may.” She steps back and holds the door wider. Mack scrambles out of his seat and into the hall.

  “Get to class, Mr. Banks,” says Magistra Copland. The door shuts hard.

  All our careful cordiality shatters. “Fucking bitch,” Banks says, spitting venom but keeping quiet. “Wish Dunc were back to get her ass fired.”

  “What is it?” Mack asks me.

  I step back and give Banks a hard stare. “You tell him.”

  “She knows,” says Banks. The words leave a sick sticky trail.

  “What did you tell her?” Mack breathes in stony and sharp.

  “Just the truth. That you’re not as innocent as you want everyone to think.”

  This time it’s Mack who shoves Banks. “Your guilt isn’t mine,” he says.

  “Good thing.” Banks grins wide. “You’ve got plenty of your own to handle.” He checks my face. I paint Duncan’s blood across his eyes. I stay steady, almost.

  Almost. Not quite.

  Banks shakes his head. “You really don’t want me to spell it out, do you, Mack?”

  And I say, “We do.”

  He comes closer. “You’ve got it all, golden boy. The new girl. Connor’s spot, and now Duncan’s.”

  Mack is sepulcher silent.

  “You’ve got it all,” Banks says again. “Think you played dirty for it, though.”

  “Fuck you,” I whisper, tight and burning.

  “Playing the good boy,” says Banks. Eye to eye with Mack. “But you’re one of us. I know you, Mack. I’ve always known you.”

  He throws us both his winning-winner grin. “See you tonight, huh?” Then he heads off down the hall with a stride so hard no one would dare try to pass him. “And watch your backs,” he calls over his shoulder. “Nobody knows who’s next anymore.”

  He flanks right at the corner. The light shining in through the windows shades darker. Mack lets out a laboring breath. “Jade—”

  “Don’t,” I whisper, and I take his face in my hands.

  He flinches when my claws graze his skin. “He knows.”

  “Don’t,” I say again. “He doesn’t know anything. He’s turning on you. He’s scared.”

  “So am I,” he breathes out.

  “No, you’re not.” I kiss him quick and fierce and three-in-a-row. “You’re the king. You’re the one they’re afraid of.”

  “He’ll tell.” Mack’s eyes shift to his hands. He sees blood and daggers. He’s filled in Banks’s broad swinging accusations with his own guilt.

  “He won’t.” I press close. “We won’t let him.”

  “Not Banks.” He shivers. “I can’t.”

  “Then I will.”

  “This thing we’ve done.” He takes me in his arms. “It’s made good into bad. He’s my best friend.”

  “You know what he did to her,” I say. “He’ll do anything to get away with it. You heard him. He thinks he’s innocent. He said it—he said you’re as guilty as him.”

  Mack’s eyes close tight.

  “Tonight,” I murmur into his darkness. Reckless, but I don’t care. If the columns of St Andrew’s cracked when Connor fell, they collapsed to ash and dust when Duncan took his last breath. We’re buried in the wreckage. Grasping at the crown.

  We’ll fall, too, someday. I don’t care, as long as they fall first. As long as they know who pushed them.

  “Tonight.” Mack’s eyes open. “But far away from here. They’re all watching too close.”

  “Far away,” I echo. The thrill drips down my spine like water and blood. “So it’s done?”

  “It’s done,” he says.

  The words drop like stones and sink to hell.

  Flight

  I don’t go to class. I kiss Mack good-bye and let his hand linger on mine and stay close by Magistra Copland’s door until it seals shut behind him.

  Then I fly away weightless, out of the shrinking stifling halls, down the front steps, clattering over the stone. The campus stretches wide and deserted from the palm trees to the parking lot to the radiation-glow green of the field.

  I run into the lane. Fling my bag down and throw my arms out and spin and spin. Tip my head back to the blue-paint sky. Scream piercing and shrill.

  The sky screams back at me and the sun blots out to black—

  —and high above me, the thousand birds that perched on the roof all day
have sprung into flight. A thousand sharp-winged blackbirds, all rising up together. All shrieking mad calls. Scattering apart and drawing back close. Their wings churn the air and ruin it.

  I stand with my arms flung wide and stare up at the darkened sky. Watch the swirling flock sift and scream and soar away across the field and into the sun.

  When the sky is rancid bright blue again I chase their shadows down the little hill. The door to the combat room is unlocked and I go in and sit against the wall under the silver-X sabres. Daring them to break loose and spill my blood.

  I stare at the white wall on the other side of the room, far away and scarred with plaques. See tonight play out a thousand different ways until the wrong answers cut themselves free and die on the floor. Until the only right answer bows to me from the other end of the piste.

  I know how Banks will die.

  I stand and face the sabres on the wall. Run my fingers down the metal and find my reflection, warped but perfect, in the silver.

  The girl in the blade stares back with murder in her eyes.

  I love her.

  Threats

  Sunset starts early today.

  I watch the wolf-pack run fast across the field. Thick gold light paints them magnificent against the green. There are fewer of them than last week. They look over their shoulders in the halls, but when they play, they look to Mack. He wears the captain’s C now.

  He’s earned it.

  Just before they crowd into their final huddle Piper climbs the bleachers and sits one row below me, sideways and cross-legged with her blazer thrown over her shoulder.

  “Captain,” she says, dripping envy.

  I keep my eyes on the field.

  “Never thought your golden boy would grow up this fast,” she says. She watches the pack with me for a spun-out moment. “It’s all you, isn’t it?”

  I don’t hide my smirk. I don’t need to.

  I let her think what she wants to think.

  She laughs jealousy and it rains down onto the field. “You won’t even deny it. Little succubus bitch.”

  I don’t blink until she does.

  “How’d you do it?”

  I say, “He did it all himself.”