The Killing Season
Read The Killing Season Online
Authors: Meg Collett
T H E
K I L L I N G
S E A S O N
Fear University II
Meg Collett
The Killing Season
Copyright 2016 Meg Collett
www.megcollett.com
All Rights Reserved
This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the authors, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.
Cover Design by Najla Qamber Designs
Editing by Jessica West (www.west1jessedits.com) and Red Road Editing / Kristina Circelli (www.circelli.info)
The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, to factual events or to businesses is coincidental and unintentional.
O N E
Sunny
W
e flew to Barrow, to the Killing Season, as the sun disappeared for the next two months.
Flying through the sky in the last ray of light was tradition. Since the first arrival of the original Filipino hunters to Alaska, our hunters had been traveling north to follow the aswangs into their territory, into the arctic tundra, to hunt and kill.
But if you asked me, it was a really stupid tradition. I mean, I got the point of it—I’m half Filipino after all. We had a duty and responsibility to uphold, and before Fields, I would have thought the tradition cool. I would have felt the same sense of pride. But now I knew tradition killed people.
Outside my window, a sky of orange and red slashes cut through deep-blue clouds. The mountains stretched white fingers up toward the belly of the bush plane Hatter precariously piloted. I imagined a fleet of university planes sweeping north in this very same sky, colored up like melted crayons on wax paper. Many of the hunters in those planes, and likely on this plane, would die. The nerves in my stomach prevented me from enjoying the view.
I wasn’t the only one nervous. Tight, combustible energy rippled off the other people on the plane—Luke, Hatter, Ollie, Thad, and a handful of other hunters from the university who’d been sent to help back up the Barrow-based hunters. I imagined everyone else on the plane pictured themselves flying into the monster’s mouth. I know I did. We would land in a place where the ’swangs had the upper hand, where darkness reigned with no escape. Luckily for me, I wasn’t old enough to hunt, but for the other people on the plane, I knew it had to be terrifying to know a creature would be trying to kill you as hard as you were trying to kill it.
From my experience at Fields, I understood that feeling all too well.
Feeling suddenly airsick, I cut another sideways glance at Ollie, who sat bundled up in the seat in front of me, her eyes glued to the window. If she noticed me staring through the gap between her seat and the wall of the plane, she didn’t comment.
Her eyes were sad again.
They looked that way often since we’d killed the ’swang during Fields. The first actual ’swang I’d ever seen in my life. The first one to feed on my fear too. I bit my lip, thinking of how every wisp of air had smothered and shriveled up inside me.
I never wanted to be a ’swang’s snack again.
Like she felt my eyes on her face, Ollie shifted in her seat to look back at me through the narrow gap. “Hey,” she whispered so the others wouldn’t hear us.
“Hey.” I wanted to throw myself forward and wrap my arms around her and her chair and squeeze as hard as I could.
We hadn’t spoken much since Fields. I respected her silence and tried to understand it. I hadn’t wanted to talk much after Seth—my brother—died in a fight with a ’swang last year. He’d been stationed in the Yukon when it happened. No one in my family had talked much for a while, until, one day, we did again. The silence became something we all understood, and we didn’t speak of it. So I waited for Ollie’s silent time to pass, and when the words were easy for her to say again, I would be here.
Because I was her best friend and she needed me.
“Sunny,” Ollie said hesitantly, her eyes flicking to my window like she was too nervous to meet my eyes, “I’m sorry, you know? I really am.”
She brushed her fingertips against the bandaged claw marks adorning the side of her face. I knew the fresh scars bothered her. I wanted to tell her she was still pretty, still the fiercest girl I knew, but I settled for reaching forward and pulling her hand from her scars. I gave it a soft squeeze. “You don’t need to apologize. You can tell me when you’re ready.”
Her fingers tangled through mine, her skin ice cold. “We’ll talk at the base, okay? Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” I released her hand and sat back, relieved the sadness in her eyes had lessened slightly. She nodded and turned back around in her seat. The tiny conversation—the most words we’d exchanged since Fields—made me feel infinitely better. I took a deep breath and relaxed back into my own seat.
I glanced up at Hatter, his snapback hat sitting backward on his head, large purple sunglasses askew on his face, and a huge pair of headphones covering his ears with a microphone positioned in front of his mouth. Luke sat beside him, barking out a nearly continuous string of curses and clenching his seat in an effort to keep Hatter’s flying in check. Like the way he flew, Hatter was erratic, dangerous, and wonderfully terrifying. My stomach dipped at the thought of something happening to him or Ollie. For the countless time during our flight, I said a quick prayer that we would all make it out of this Killing Season safe.
I wasn’t stupid. Dean hadn’t sent Ollie and me north to help the hunters. We were here for other reasons, deadlier reasons that only Ollie knew about. As I watched, she touched her face again, huddled deep into her puffy jacket, eyes unblinking as she stared out her window. Apparently our conversation hadn’t comforted her as much as it had comforted me.
I imagined how different my life would have been if I’d never met Ollie. I would be home safe with my family for winter break. Tucked away from the dangers of the Killing Season. But that wasn’t what I wanted. If Ollie was here, then I wanted to be here too. I had to keep her safe.
The orange glow across her face shuttered and darkened, and I looked out my window. The sun slipped into the horizon’s hungry maw, taking all the light, warmth, and safety with it. Darkness quickly ate the few remaining colors in the sky until we were enveloped, flying into the unknown with no light to guide us.
We were alone now. And suddenly, as I sat on the plane that dipped and shuddered in the turbulence, I felt like this winter, it would be Ollie and me against the world.
Ollie Andrews had changed everything the day she arrived at Fear University. And now, as we flew to the Killing Season, I knew nothing would ever be the same again. Even now, she was changing things.
T W O
Ollie
L
uke had warned me about the Barrow base. He’d said there were no windows and only one way in and out. During the polar night, without the sun’s light, a madness would set in. Paranoia. Fear. He said people commonly heard or saw things that weren’t there. He made me promise to keep my grip on sanity, to come to him if I started unraveling.
I promised. But I lied.
My unraveling had already begun.
Loose threads like Max Taber and Dean Bogrov. Hex and my disease. Killian and Luke Aultstriver. Fear and pain. Aswang and human. Daughter of a monster. Lost girl. Dead girl. All of it tangled together no matter how hard I tried to sort them out.
I pulled on those threads as we rode to the base in a massive all-terrain vehicle with thick, churning tires that crunched over the semi-frozen gravel roads. A wet snow fell on the windshield, thick and unwieldy against the windshield wipers. The headlights cut a narrow path through the heavy darkness and allowed me to see nothing but dirty snow and mud.
The irony of Luke and his hunters going north to kill aswangs made me want to laugh. I wanted to raise my hand and say, “You can start right here!” My jaw ached from holding back the truth: I was part ’swang. In a car packed with innocent people born into a war they didn’t choose and fighting against monsters who used their fear against them, I was the greatest impostor. My blood contained dirty things. Tainted. Stained. Less-than. I wanted to cringe away so no one touched my foul skin, but I couldn’t. Or else they would know.
Sunny sat beside me, her hand occasionally grabbing mine whenever we hit a particularly nasty rut in the road. Behind me, Thaddeus Booker and the other hunters sat, talking quietly amongst themselves. On my other side, Hatter listened to the music whispering out from his headphones. I didn’t miss the sideways glances Sunny kept sending his way, and I’m sure she noticed how I kept staring up at Luke, who sat in the passenger seat helping the driver navigate through the night’s snow. We hadn’t spoken about anything other than Barrow and surviving the Killing Season because we both knew we were keeping secrets from each other. It was a deal breaker for both of us, which really sucked, because the sex had been so great.
Thinking about how he’d reacted after it, how we’d yelled at each other, I flinched.
“Are you okay?” Sunny asked immediately, concern etched deeply in the smooth golden skin between her brows. Hatter glanced over at us just as Luke’s attention went to the rearview mirror.
“I’m fine.” I met Luke’s eyes for a split second before looking away.
“How are your ribs?”
Almost two-and-a-half weeks had passed since Fields, but my injuries from the ’swang battle were bad enough that I was still healing, though I’d ditched the bandages around my ribs days ago. “Fine.”
“Your collarbone?”
I’d refused to wear the sling for my shoulder faster than the bandages for my ribs. “That’s fine, too.”
“What about your face?”
Frustrated with her questions, I shot a glare at Sunny, but my expression instantly softened when I saw her grinning back at me. She was just trying to make me smile. It worked. My lips pulled into a lopsided grin, making the bandages covering my new blackening claw marks pull along my cheek, jaw, and neck.
Back when I was just a runaway, flitting from one city to another, my prettiness had been a hindrance because it garnered me too much unwanted attention. My face presented endless issues back then. But after a few more ’swang fights, being pretty wouldn’t be much of a concern anymore.
My attention slipped back to Luke, who was still staring at me in the mirror. He said, “We’re here.”
Sunny shivered against me, and Hatter lifted his arm along the back of the seat, his coat skimming against my hair, and put his hand on the back of Sunny’s neck. He gave her a little reassuring squeeze before moving away as Luke and the driver opened their doors. I felt the heat from Sunny’s blush as Hatter got out of the vehicle. “Do you need me to open the door or can you manage?” I asked, elbowing her ribs like everything was normal between us.