by Hannah Capin
On the field, the coach shouts and the wolves cheer hoarse and run in.
“I mean Porter,” says Piper. “What did you say to him?”
I say it again: “He did it all himself.”
Mack shouts and the team shouts back and they run for the locker room. Mack’s eyes find me at the very top of the bleachers. I blow a kiss to him and his smile breaks bright.
“I swear I know you,” says Piper. Her hand is on her sword. “And whatever your secret is—”
Her phone buzzes. Then her hand goes up fast, caging over the screen. She steals a flutter-fast glance at me.
“What?” I say. “Is Duffy sexting you from the locker room?”
“Shut up.” She pulls her blazer on and stands. “See you tomorrow.”
“What about the boat?”
Her shoulders hitch tighter. “Not coming.”
I let the taunt gleam through: “Why not?”
“I’m not fucking coming, okay?”
She turns and takes the stairs two at a time with her sabre bouncing.
“Later, sweetie,” I call in the same sugar-sweet voice she used on Lilia back when she thought Lilia’s crown would be hers. Her heel catches on the last step and she stumbles. She doesn’t slow down.
My coven told her, You know too much. Stay home tonight or you’re next.
I follow her down the bleachers, but slow. Soaking in the dripping-gold light. I’m barely to the sidewalk when Duffy rounds the corner, rushing and still in his lacrosse clothes.
I laugh. All carefree melody. “What, is Piper pissed at you again?”
He spins so fast he almost hits himself with his crosse. “I have to go. She—I have to go.”
“God, calm down.” I take a few easy steps toward him. “You look like you just saw your own murder.”
“Don’t even say that.” He stumbles back. His phone falls out of his bag and clatters to the pavement. I reach for it, but he yelps No and snatches it off the ground.
“Right,” I say, drawn out. “So, see you at the marina?”
“No,” he says. “No. I can’t. I—”
He leaves the sentence hanging broken in the air. Turns and walks fast toward the parking lot. Looks over his shoulder and sees me still watching.
His walk turns to a jog and then a sprint.
My coven told him, Duncan and Connor paid. Stay home tonight or you’re next.
So it’s just three of us now, tonight.
Banks and Mack and me.
When Mack comes out I kiss him before he can say anything. He tries to speak and I say, “Not here.” I wrap my arm around his waist and walk with him to his car. His boys keep their distance. Watching us—
the best of St Andrew’s—
the king and queen—
—and thinking, who’s next, and wondering if tonight it will be our names splashed across the messages that blink them awake.
I keep him there with me until there are only three cars left in the lot: his and mine and Banks’s, far away. I slide back onto the hood of his car and pull him close. Weave us together. He doesn’t hesitate anymore when I bring him to me—not since the night we killed Duncan.
He says, finally, out of breath, “Banks—I can’t—”
“He’s already dead.” It’s too much to say out loud but I don’t care. He’s seen his real self now. He can’t pretend anymore that the two of us aren’t the same. I bring my lips to his ear and whisper, “He deserves it.”
Mack holds me close and kisses me like there’s nothing else left in the world. And for this moment—
even now, with the sunlight shifting from gold to scarlet—
even now, with Banks waiting for fate to seal closed over his head—
even now, with the blood running thick—
—it’s only us.
I watch him drive away. Stand alone with my long shadow and my hair glowing red. When he’s gone I walk back and wait for Banks’s car to thrum to life.
He pulls up just as my door slams shut. Rolls down his window and says, “Jade.”
I lift my sunglasses. “Mr. Banks.”
He turns away and laughs into the empty passenger seat. Looks back at me. “Can you give me a ride to Mack’s?”
I wait.
“I’m serious. God, fuck this.” And he shakes his head and says, low, “Just follow me and let me leave my car and then I’ll ride with you to the marina.”
I wait.
“Come on, Khanjara.” He doesn’t say it right. He says it the way politicians say the names of countries they hate. “Just this one thing.”
“Why?”
“No questions.”
“Fine,” I say, smiling toxic. “No escort.”
He revs his engine and the growl rips across the lot. “I got a text.”
“So?”
“So I have to leave my car up at El Matador and get you to drive me to Mack’s. Or—” He pauses. “Fuck it to hell. Or I’m next.”
I stare.
“Fuck you.”
“Play nice,” I say. “You’re the one asking for a favor.”
“Fuck you,” he says, leaning hard against it. “Are you in or not?”
I let him dangle until finally he looks half ashamed. Then I say, “I’m in.”
We drive fast up the coast and the red almost-sunset pours down over my shoulders and the wind roars loud in my ears. And then we’re there on the bluff above the crashing waves.
He gets out but leaves his door hanging wide. I stay facing the sunset. “So,” I say, “are you coming?”
He looks at his phone. “Got another text,” he mutters.
I climb over and perch on the passenger-side door. “Tell them to fuck off.”
His eyes shift. He’s thinking about it.
“Come on. Let’s get away from this mind-game bullshit.”
He scoffs. “You’re not the one getting threats all day.”
I let my eyes stray down. Bite the corner of my lip.
“Wait—”
I look up. Guilty.
“The bitch texted you, too?”
I show him the message: When Banks asks you for a favor, say yes or Mack’s next.
“Damn,” Banks breathes out. “This bitch doesn’t play.”
I laugh. Not the silvered knowing laugh I gave him when we first pulled up to the bluff or even the nervous laugh that might make sense for the flock-girl I’m playing. A high cheerful giggle that sings out before I can stop it.
Banks stares.
I breathe in deep. “Nothing,” I say. “It’s just—it’s working, isn’t it? You know somebody’s going to break and go to the police.”
His eyes narrow and then he laughs, too. Edgy and loaded. He says, “Duffy.”
I say, “Definitely Duffy.”
“Fuck,” says Banks. “I’m finished. Let’s go get drunk.”
“Done,” I say. “Except—” And I hold my phone up to him and throw it into the back seat. “Nobody’s getting in my head tonight.”
“Fucking cheers to that,” says Banks. He throws his phone into his car and slams the door.
I slide back into the driver’s seat and Banks jumps in. We look out over the water—
at the sun sinking—
at the waves rolling in huge and unsettled—
at the whitecaps breaking against the jutting rocks below us.
A beautiful breathless night is coming in.
I start my father’s car and pull away. Banks glances back at the sun setting the water on fire. “El Matador,” he says, and he laughs again. Darker than before. “Know what it means?”
Of course I do. It’s why I chose it.
“No,” I tell him, and I step hard on the gas and pull into the stream of lights.
He grins. The sunset coats him in red. He says, “The killer.”
Tethered
The sky has scabbed over to almost black by the time Banks and I walk out to meet Mack on the boat. We stopped for liquor. Banks
is already drinking it.
“Mack!” he yells, loud and exalting and thrusting the bottle high. The lights gleam kaleidoscope-crooked through the glass.
Mack stays where he is, watching us from the upper deck with both hands gripping the railing.
So I shout it, too. Grab Banks’s other hand and raise our fists into the air. “Mack! Get down here and let us on.”
He lets go of the railing and comes downstairs. He slides the gangway out, but then he crosses it and stands blocking our way.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go.”
“This is a bad idea,” he tells me.
“Fuck, man, we didn’t drive to every corner of this whole damn state for you to flake,” says Banks. “Let’s go.”
And I say, “Mack. Come on. You know we need this.”
He takes me in. Windblown hair and bright eyes shining. I left my blazer and my tie in the car, and I’m barefoot with my shirt half-unbuttoned and my necklace dancing in the lights. “Jade,” he says, “what if this is what they want?”
I laugh and say, “Who?”
He takes his phone out and juggles it back and forth. “The girls.”
“What girls?”
Banks chugs from the bottle. “Hell, no. Not tonight, Mack.”
And I say it again: “What girls?”
Mack looks at Banks. Banks wipes his mouth and says, “The three bitches in the masks.”
I come closer to Mack and take his hand. “Were they here?”
The boys share a glance. “It’s them,” says Mack. “They’re the ones texting us.”
“Right.”
He pulls his hand away from mine and shows me his phone. I already know what it says:
The more you win, the more you have to lose.
And then—
We know everything.
“Jade,” Mack whispers. “They could ruin us.”
“Dude. Chill,” Banks butts in, like he wasn’t angry and shaken an hour ago. Like he didn’t drive winding miles up the coast because a ghost in his phone told him to. “We got messages, too, okay? I had to ask Jade for a ride or I’d be next. She had to say yes or you’d be next.”
“Me.” Mack still clings to his phone. “But not you?”
I say, “Not me.”
The air rushes out of his lungs. “Good.”
“God, you make me sick,” says Banks with a laugh. “When’s the damn wedding?”
I ease the phone out of Mack’s hand. “We did what they said,” I tell him, steady. I spin and crouch down by the locker next to the slip. “What’s the code?”
He stammers and says, “Three-two-one-three.”
I press the numbers and the lock clicks free. I drop Mack’s phone into the locker and shut it. Decisive. In control.
“Let’s go,” I say again.
His eyes hover between Banks and me. “What if it’s a trap? What if—”
“We’re going,” Banks yells. He cuts past us across the gangway. “It’s a mutiny. You’re outvoted, captain.”
Mack looks out past the even rows of boats, glittering holiday-bright under the lights. “You’re sure this is right?”
“Better than right,” I say.
I cross the gangway. He brings it in after us and looks for answers in my eyes.
And I say, whispering close even though Banks is already shouting from the upper deck and too drunk to care what lover bullshit we’re dawdling with—
“The more you win, the more you have to lose.”
He nods, wordless.
I pull him away from the railing and hide us in a dark little alcove. “We’ve done too much to go back,” I say. “We have to finish what we started or we’ll lose everything.”
“We already have.” The shadows etch themselves dark on his face. For a split-thin second I hate that I’ve done this to him—that I’ve taken the gold that drew me close to him and tarnished it.
But he wouldn’t be mine if I hadn’t made him like this. He would still be nothing, knowing enough and hating them for it but never cutting them down.
I nestle him deeper into our dark. Run my hand through his hair and smooth it down. I say, “What’s done is done.”
The words sink in the way I want them to. He nods again: more certain this time. “I can’t sleep,” he says. “Not since Duncan.”
“You’ll sleep when it’s over.”
“When we’re done,” he says, all resolve now. All loyalty.
All mine.
He leads me out of the shadows and to the stairs. “Night is coming,” he says.
His eyes stray up to where Banks chatters loud. His hand squeezes mine tight.
He says, “Let’s go.”
Adrift
The sea is rough tonight.
Safe in the marina we barely felt the breeze, but as soon as Mack guides us out into the open water the wind picks up and tears sharp and stinging at our faces. We head fast for the last red of the sunset. The cresting waves are bigger every minute. When they hit we stumble, Banks and me, and fall against the railing and each other and the wide window to the captain’s room.
“Mack, get out here!” Banks shouts. He hands me the bottle and I drink—
—or he thinks I drink, anyway. I’ve hardly had a shot all night, but I’ve grabbed the bottle as often as he has. Laughed louder when he did. Stumbled more when he did.
“Mack!” Banks bellows again. He presses his face to the window. “Come on!”
Behind him, I shake my head. Barely, but enough.
“In a minute,” Mack yells.
“Fuck,” says Banks. “Where’s he taking us? Japan?” The bow hits hard against a wave and he staggers into me. His knee knocks into mine and he steadies himself with one hand on my arm. He says, too close, “Can’t believe Mack’s the one who ended up with you.”
I blink slow. “Believe it.”
He holds on for another too-long moment before he takes his hand back and leans on the railing. He looks up, past Mack, past the highest deck, up into the stars. “You sure showed up at the right time to watch everything go to hell,” he says.
“I just assumed things were always like this at St Andrew’s.”
He laughs. “Twisted. I keep saying it because it keeps being true.”
“Thank you.”
“No,” he says, “thank you, Ms. Khanjara.” He stretches his arms out along the railing. Slides one hand across my back. His fingers burn through my shirt and into my skin. “You’re the only one who’s not losing your shit.”
Behind the glass, Mack keeps the course. The shoreline we left has faded away completely, and to the north only the dimmest lights shine from the cliffs. We’ll head out to sea until they’ve all died to dark. Until we’re past El Matador and too far away to see the shore even if we stayed out past dawn.
We’re a tiny lonely light on the tar-black water.
“Not scared of anything, huh?” Banks asks.
“No.” I flash a grin that glows bright.
“Damn,” he says. I know he sees my fangs. “Never met a girl like you before.”
That night at Duncan’s house the dazzle-smiled boy said, I’ve never seen anyone like you—
We crash hard into another wave and I say, right as we hit, “Maybe once.” A spell-quiet murmur he won’t hear until he’s all alone in the dark. Then, louder, “And you never will again.”
“This shit,” he says. “It’ll be over soon.”
It’s the truth.
We stay where we are. The lights vanish one by one and I feel the birds from the rooftop circling. It’s impossible, but they’re there. Diving together in the black sky. Watching over me. Blotting out the stars so not even heaven can peek through.
Finally Mack lets the boat idle. He comes out onto the deck and takes a long, deep drink. Then he kisses me and I feel the liquor hit my veins—
—except it isn’t the liquor, and it isn’t his kiss. It’s the moment.
“What now?” says Banks.
He scans the horizon. “Fuck, it’s dark out here.”
“Now the party starts,” I say with the wickedest smile I’ve let myself show since I stepped through the doors to St Andrew’s.
Then I say, “Truth or dare.”
“Again? Fuck,” says Banks, but he laughs.
“Have a better idea?” I say, all challenge and double meaning.
He scoffs. “Not as long as you’re playing. It’ll be my turn to ask next.”
I pull Mack’s arms tight around me. “I know.”
Banks takes the bottle back and drinks. “Dare.”
I say, “Jump.”
He blinks. “You mean—”
“No,” Mack says.
But I nod. “I mean in.”
“Fuck no,” says Banks.
I laugh. “Are you scared?”
“Hell yes, I am. You’re crazy.”
“Weak,” I say, searing and digging. “God, you’re a disappointment.”
He riles. “You do it.”
Mack grabs my hand and says, “Jade, don’t.”
I take the bottle from Banks and drink—really drink this time. Enough to dull my heartbeat so he won’t see it tapping fast through my skin. Enough to see him the way he looked that night, I hope, when I see him for the very last time.
“Don’t,” says Mack, urgent.
“She won’t,” says Banks. “Calling it right now.”
I pull out of Mack’s grasp and run across the deck and down the stairs. The boys clatter behind me. I call, “Where are the lights?” and Mack fumbles at the wall. The stern deck floods with daybreak.
I back away from them until I feel the railing cold against my legs. “Where’s the ladder?”
“On your right,” Mack stammers out. “But you can’t—”
I laugh. Burning bright with anticipation and every stupid reckless thing I’ll risk. I’d do anything—
I will do anything—
—to get what I want. And I know exactly what I want.
I unlatch the gate. Unhook the ladder and send it clanking down into the water. Spin back to the middle of the deck. The boat shines white but it doesn’t matter anymore, because now I know I can paint the white red.
I can take every single thing they tried to ruin and make it mine again. Make it a weapon that cuts them down and bleeds them dry.
I unbutton my blouse and let it flutter down to the deck. Unzip my skirt and let it fall. Stand there in jade-green lace and my silver crucifix. Bare skin and faded bruises but tonight, all the power is mine.
