Monster Mine (2 page)

“
Right. Well, I’m going to
take a shower,” Hatter said into the silence.

As he passed by, I swung my
leopard-print backpack off my shoulders. “Do you need some shower
flip-flops?”

“
I’ll risk it. Thanks
though.”

The door closed. Behind me, I heard
the snick of a safety releasing before Luke left too, slamming the
room’s door with a bang.

“
Good talk, you
guys.”

I tugged my yellow, elbow-length
gloves free and started cleaning.

When Hatter emerged from the shower
ten minutes later, I’d wrapped the mattress in a plastic bed bug
cover, replaced the sheets with a fresh set from my pack, and
plugged in a few air fresheners. The “Peachy Plum” scented trucker
sweat made my eyes water, but I felt better about what I was
touching.

I pulled off my rubber gloves with a
snap and tossed them in the trash. When I turned around, Hatter was
leaning against the bathroom doorjamb, watching me. The too-small
towel wrapped around his narrow waist stopped a solid six inches
above his knees. Scars, all black, lined his body like a
checkerboard. It was a game Hatter wasn’t winning, and it reminded
me all too well of what Luke had told me back in Barrow.

Eventually, the saliva from the ’swang
bites would drive Hatter’s temporary bouts of mania to a state
where they would become permanent. Luke had promised to kill him if
it came to that.

“
Luke’s
outside?”

“
He took a gun,” I said,
zipping up my pack and quickly noting my remaining supplies. Enough
for one more room. Maybe two if they weren’t too dirty. Not that I
was getting my hopes up.

“
That isn’t
reassuring.”

“
I figured. Do you think
he’s okay?”

“
Okay?” Hatter laughed,
the sound nothing like his normal, crazed, happy one. He hadn’t
smiled much lately. “He’s a freaking mess.”

I averted my eyes when he shoved a
hand through his wet red hair, causing the muscles in his stomach
to ripple, and said, “Yeah, well, he’s our mess now since Ollie
isn’t here.”

“
How you doing, huh?” He
padded away from the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed,
barely a foot away from me. With his elbows on his knees, he leaned
forward, the tiny towel stretching to its limits.

I swallowed. “I’m fine.”

“
The truth. Give it to
me.”

The truth? Truth was, I felt grimy and
ugly in my rumpled jeans and unwashed white cotton shirt—buttoned
up the front, all the way to my throat—with yellow smiley faces all
over it. Truth was, I thought my best friend had burned to death
after being tortured for weeks. Truth was, I wasn’t fine at all.
Not even close.

I looked up from the well-trodden
floor and met his eyes, my own filling with tears.

“
Ah, no,” Hatter said.
“None of that.” His long fingers closed around my wrist, and he
tugged me toward him. He eased me onto his lap, folding me up under
his chin and enclosing me in his arms.

He was wet. And warm. And Hatter. I
nuzzled the side of my face against his bare skin and breathed in
deeply.

His hand ran up and down my arm, the
other secure around my waist. Bending his head down, he placed a
chaste kiss against the top of my head. “I’m sorry,
Sunshine.”

I nodded, too choked up. But the
motion shook my tears free, and suddenly, I was crying.

“
I think she’s dead.” The
horrible truth, those awful words, tore from my mouth, along with a
sob. I swiped my hand beneath my nose, smearing mucus.

“
Maybe,” Hatter said,
holding me tighter.

“
Luke knows I’ve given up
on her.”

“
Hey.” His hand went to my
hair, fingering through the frizzy brown waves that had taken to
Oregon’s air like a hairdryer to water. But the soft lift and pull
soothed me, his tiny touches sending a shudder down my spine.
“Don’t think like that. He’s just a hard guy, okay?”

“
Do you think he would
know if she’s gone? Like, would he feel it?”

Hatter stayed silent for so long I
leaned back to look at him. He loosened his hold and watched me
watching him.

Quietly, tenderly, he said, “I like to
think so.”

He wasn’t talking about Luke and
Ollie. He meant himself. Meant me. Us. My heart squeezed. Maybe it
was the exhaustion from being on the road with Luke, or maybe it
was the fumes from the cleaning chemicals I’d sprayed too much of,
but I leaned forward. My hands settled on his shoulders, my fingers
brushing up his neck. I felt him shiver. My lips came within an
inch of his. His exhaled breath washed over me, rustling the tiny
hairs around my temples.

I closed my eyes. I needed this, to
forget for one tiny moment—for him to make me forget
her.

“
Sunny, wait.”

“
What’s wrong?”

He stood, hands on my
waist to lift me up. My feet gently touched the floor, and Hatter
turned away, tightening the towel around his waist. Heat swept
across my cheeks. Suddenly,
everything
rushed into the forefront
of my mind. My dirty clothes. My sweaty hair and dorky glasses. The
pimple on my chin. My flat chest and the cellulite on my thighs.
The un-Ollie-ness of me.

The un-special-ness.

“
I’m gonna take a shower
and, um, yeah. A shower.”

Hatter didn’t stop me. Facing away
from me, fists pressed against his eyes, head bowed as if he were
in pain, he didn’t move. I hovered at the bathroom door, watching,
waiting. Nothing. I slipped inside, closed the door, and locked
it.

A fine mist hung in the air from his
shower. His scent filled the tiny space, overwhelmingly sweet from
his strawberry shampoo, which he said made his hair soft, and the
rich, deeper spice that could only be Hatter. I breathed it in with
deep, sucking gulps. Outside, I heard him changing. Thoughts of his
naked body addled my brain, so I hurriedly tore open the molded
shower curtain and turned the water on, the pipes screaming in the
wall.

As the water ran, guaranteeing I would
be taking an icy shower, I sank onto the toilet’s lid.

Minutes later, footsteps crossed to
the bathroom door. A shadow hovered on the floor just outside. I
sensed Hatter out there thinking about knocking. About shouldering
the door open and breaking the lock and sweeping in and saying he
was stupid and pulling me into a kiss and carrying me into the
shower and letting his towel fall away and peeling off my wet
clothes and making my sadness go away, if only for a few
moments.

But the room’s front door opened and
Luke’s muffled voice distracted Hatter. The shadow moved away. They
talked, their words lost in the sounds of my forgotten
shower.

Standing up, I started taking off my
clothes and carefully setting my glasses on top of the pile. I
stepped into the shower, and the water stabbed into me like
projectile icicles. I forced myself under the spray, instantly
shivering, eyes screwed closed and mouth clenched against a gasp.
Only when I was numb did I pick up Hatter’s shampoo and work its
strawberry scent into my hair. When I bent down to clean between my
toes, I remembered I hadn’t worn my shower flip-flops.

I straightened, shampoo bottle falling
from my fingers, and turned my face into the spray that felt
neither hot nor cold. I imagined the germs seeping into my body,
working their way into my blood and into my bones, coursing through
me, overcoming me, and taking me down. I pictured dying in the
snow, shriveled up in a fire, my body’s husk softly
smoking.

“
Ollie?” I whispered into
the water, drops streaming into my mouth. “Are you
there?”

I felt only the very real ache in my
chest. Nothing else. Would I know if she was gone? Like Luke, did I
have that power?

“
I miss you.”

Nothing.

“
You should come
back.”

Still nothing.

Hatter knocked on the bathroom door.
“Sunny?” he called.

I didn’t answer.

“
We have to go. There’s
been a ’swang sighting.”

T W O

Ollie

D
eath did not come after I’d spent so long wishing it would.
I’d begged and prayed, and yet here I was. The ghost of those weeks
with Max hummed in the back of my mind. My chest blazed with
low-burning heat where he’d tried to cut out my heart. The skin
pulled tight, but the pain had receded into a black smudge in my
mind.

I wanted to sleep and forget, but
instead, I kept thinking of my mother. Just when I thought I was
getting close to knowing the woman she was, she’d slip away. Her
life had fundamentally changed after falling for Hex, my
father.

I opened my eyes, and there he was,
standing above me with his black hair pulled into a bun at the back
of his head, as though the thought had conjured the man himself. In
the dim lighting, his paleness stood out like a specter hovering at
my bedside. He sat down on the edge of the bed where I lay, his
body moving with chilling ease. His dark eyes wanted to reassure
me, but when he smiled, his teeth were much too sharp.

“
Hex,” I said, breathing
the word out in a rough rasp. I coughed.

“
Olesya.” His voice was
low and deep, more a rumble than actual words. He sounded like the
night felt.

Faintly, so very faintly,
I heard it:
Tick
tock
.

A shudder tumbled down my
spine.

He reached out and touched my cheek.
It was tender and full of wonder, as though he couldn’t believe I
was actually there. I pretended to fall back to sleep. I couldn’t
bear his touch, and I wanted to slink away from him, but I
couldn’t. I was frozen.

He leaned in close and said, “I’m so
happy you’re home.”

* * *

“
Ollie. Wake up. You can’t
sleep forever.”

The girl’s voice sounded familiar in
its cold, sharp beat. Her name floated up through my mind: Lauren.
Lauren from the car ride away from Max, when I’d only wanted to
die. I kept my eyes closed and my breathing even. I wanted to fall
away again, back into the numbness.

“
Wake up, you stupid
bitch.”

Not even that got to me.

“
I knew you were
worthless,” she said, poking me in the chest, which felt irregular
in its warmth and tightness. “We should have left you there with
him. With
Max
.”

My eyelid twitched at his
name.

“
Max,” she cooed, but I
schooled myself, keeping still. I started to sink away again. She
didn’t bother me. Nothing could at this point. “Max. Max.
Max.”

Nothing.

“
Ollie Volkova breaks for
no one.” She snorted. “But you look pretty broken to
me.”

A weight around my ankles eased me
down through the thick waters of exhaustion. I just wanted to
sleep, fade away, and not care about anything. Not care about being
a halfling. Not care about what had happened to my mother. Not care
about Max.

Lauren’s frustrated sigh smelled like
tomato soup and stale crackers. Her unhappiness was a balm. I liked
it.

The chair beside my bed squeaked. I
fought the urge to roll over as she leaned in close, her breath
inches from my face. “I have a secret, you know. Do you want to
hear it?”

My chest tightened against some
prickling hold as I held my breath.

“
I’ll tell you anyway.”
She leaned in closer, her lips almost brushing against my ear. “Do
you know why it took so long to find you? To rescue
you?”

I went hot. Then cold. Then hot again.
Memories threatened from the bad places. Words she and Thad had
spoken during the drive away from Max. Something I hadn’t wanted to
remember.

“
Thad knew where you were
days after you disappeared.
Days
, Ollie. We all
knew.”

My fingers flexed on the bed. The cuts
all over my body, from the places where Max had cut too deep,
flared to life. My heart beat so hard I knew Lauren could hear
it.

“
We waited,” Lauren
whispered. “We waited so he could break you. We wanted you in a
million tiny pieces. The order to leave you there came straight
from the top. From who, you ask?”

I hadn’t asked. I hadn’t even taken a
breath.

Lauren smiled, a wet cracking of her
lips. “We waited because Hex told us to. Your own father left you
there to fall apart.”

She leaned in and kissed my cheek. Not
sweet. Mocking.

“
We
waited
, Ollie.”

I reared off the bed and slammed my
forehead straight into her nose. It broke, cracking wet like her
smile. The blood splattered over me, and she flew backward,
screaming and clutching her nose. Blood gushed between her
fingers.