The Killing Season (13 page)

Stop asking questions about the Volkova family or you’ll end up out in the cold.

“Who all knows we asked Nyny about the genealogy books?”

“Anyone,” I said, shivering a bit. “She could have told anyone. But we never specifically asked about the Volkova family. Only you and I know that.”

“So someone else knows why I’m here. Maybe what I am too.” Ollie frowned down at the note. “Whoever left this didn’t threaten me with a death like Sin’s.”

“That’s good, right?” My shoulders relaxed a fraction.

She chewed on her lip, her fingers skimming along the raised scars on her face. The darkening claw marks looked so freaking cool, but I doubted Ollie thought of them as such, which made me sad for her. “Unless they weren’t connected . . .”

“What wasn’t? The note and Sin?”

“No . . . Sin and the opened doors.” She turned and looked at me, lowering her hand from her face. “I think Killian killed Sin but I don’t think he opened the doors. He seemed really freaked out earlier when he couldn’t find Abigail. Like he thought ’swangs were inside. He wouldn’t have been that worried if he opened the doors himself.”

“Maybe this is one of those fun murder mystery things, where the bodies are fake and everyone is an actor and we all have to work together to solve the mystery.” My voice squeaked there at the end.

“I don’t know. Sin looked very real and very dead when I saw him. I think it’s pretty hard to mimic the snapped spine and torn blood vessels in a severed head. He was fresh too. Blood wasn’t coagulated yet.”

I put a hand to my head, feeling for a fever. Did she even hear herself when she talked? Apparently not, because she took the note back and studied the careless, uneven loop of the handwriting. Had she said “snapped spine?” I shuddered and gagged.

A knock sounded on the door. Ollie’s head snapped toward me, her expression grim, which, I’d come to learn, meant Bad News Bears. “If it’s Killian,” she whisper-hissed as she tucked the note under her pillow, “tell him I made you come to my room. That you have no clue what happened to Sin and you were sleeping all night.”

“Not much of a stretch,” I said, murmuring under my breath.

Ollie opened the door and let out a relieved breath when Luke stalked in, followed by Hatter, who wore loose pajama pants, a shoulder holster for his gun, and nothing else. The room was small to begin with, but now it felt positively festive, especially with Hatter and his bare skin inching closer to me. He wasn’t as broad and commanding as Luke, but his chest rippled with sinewy muscles and black scars.

“You good, Sunshine?” he asked, staring down at me with his beautiful, different-colored eyes. The scar stretching down to his mouth made his lips twist up in a permanent grin, but I saw the worry and fear in his eyes, the way his shoulders hitched up toward his ears when he inhaled.

“Fine.” I tried not to squeak the word. “You?”

“Never better.”

“What’s going on?” Ollie asked Luke. “I thought you had to help your father.”

“Not much to do when the only person he wanted to question was you.”
Luke leveled a serious gaze at her. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

I couldn’t help it. A hysterical laugh bubbled up my throat, and I snorted. When everyone turned to look at me like I was crazy, I shrugged. “You have to admit, it’s a fair question.”

“I didn’t kill anyone. Yet.” Ollie scowled and crossed her arms. “But I’m not making any promises.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Luke said. “We know.”

“You say that like this is somehow my fault.”

They squared off against each other, ready to go at it. I didn’t know whether they were going to make out or brawl, but I often wondered that when I caught them staring at each other. An intensity sparked between them that was borderline terrifying and almost always uncomfortable. They were both angular and jagged, fueled with rage and short on patience, but they worked. They softened each other enough for them to meld together, to make their pieces fit in whatever way they could. But they were both too stubborn to stop fighting it and just realize they worked better together as a team. But then, Mom always told me I tended to live with romance-novel-colored glasses.

Another knock sounded on the door. Thad didn’t wait for anyone to let him in before he entered.

“Just come on in,” Ollie said dryly.

“What is he doing here and why does he just barge into your room?” Luke’s fingers twitched.

“Calm down, Hulk. I heard voices and wanted to make sure Ollie was okay,” Thad said, holding up a hand in peace. It might have been a good gesture to calm Luke down if Thad hadn’t been smirking like a kid who’d stolen cookies before supper.

“She doesn’t need you to make sure she’s okay.”

“Shouldn’t you be helping Daddy Dearest bury the bodies? I heard it was a favorite pastime of the Aultstriver family.”

“Already got a hole big enough for you,” Luke snapped.

“I hope you accounted for my sizable—”

Ollie smacked Thad on the back of his head hard enough to make his chin snap down before pointing a long finger in Luke’s face. “Shut up,” she warned him when he opened his mouth. “I’m exhausted, hungry, and pissed the hell off. So if you have a dick and your name isn’t Sunny, you have exactly five minutes before you all have to get the ever-loving fuck out of my room.”

On the inside, I smiled, grateful to be included, even if Ollie had used foul language that would make my mother wash my mouth out with a bar of Dial soap. I really didn’t want to sleep alone. I eased out a tense breath and sat on the bed since standing room was limited. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Hatter sidle a little closer to me again, like he wanted to keep me close. Not that I minded. He really did look good in his pajamas and leather holster.

Pajamas
. Oh, mothertrucker!

Horrified, I looked down at myself. Grams had gotten me a fleece pajama set when I was younger. It was pink with yellow dancing ducks all over it. When I had nightmares, Grams let me wear them, telling me no one could be scared when they wore dancing duck pajamas. I’d brought the set because it was warm and soft, but I’d worn it tonight because I missed home. My blush threatened to burn me alive.

My eyes slunk toward Hatter as I prayed he hadn’t noticed. Maybe he thought dancing ducks were sexy. Maybe he imagined I wasn’t wearing anything under the pants and shirt. I was—granny panties and a training bra because boobies didn’t run in the Lyons family—but that was beside the point.

“—keep each other safe,” Luke was saying when I finally managed to calm down.

“We don’t need you to watch over us,” Ollie fired back.

“Sin was a great hunter,” Luke said, the words ripping from his mouth like daggers, but Ollie didn’t back down. Didn’t even look scared. “He was practically fearless. Ruthless. He could defend himself against six ’swangs at once, alone, in the dark woods of God’s Forgotten. Yet, his goddamned head is spiked onto that wall like a fucking stuffed turkey by someone inside these walls.”

I went a little woozy somewhere between six ’swangs and turkey. Hatter reached down and grabbed my hand, giving it a soft squeeze before pulling away. His fingers skimmed along the edge of my sleeves, trailing over the worn material.

“Sin was an idiot,” Ollie growled.

“The point is,” Thad interjected, “he could protect himself. We need to watch our backs with a killer inside.”

Luke crossed his arms over his chest, which was a feat given the size of his arms and chest. “Where exactly were you tonight, Thaddeus? I remember you didn’t react well to that ’swang’s head on the wall when we first arrived. Looking to prove a point?”

I sighed. We’d lost them again. Thad and Luke went at it with Ollie joining in to threaten and glower. Hatter sank down onto the bed beside me. I scooted over to make some room, but not much. The bed was small, and I have hormones. So, you know, I didn’t move over
that
far.

Hatter leaned back, his arm stretching out behind me as he propped himself up, causing the muscles in his arms and chest to flex even more. I swear, I felt every inch separating our bodies, how if I just shifted a tinsie-tiny bit, his shoulder touched mine, how his breath warmed against the side of my ear. Every single nerve in my body positively tingled.

“He can’t help it, you know,” he said by my ear, whispering the words so the others wouldn’t hear us, even though they probably wouldn’t have heard a freight train barreling through the room.

“What do you mean?” I glanced back at Hatter to find him staring at me, his eyes roaming between my hair and mouth. When he finally met my gaze again, I was melting into one big warm puddle of girl goo.

“The bite makes Luke like this. Protective. Primal. Thad is pushing his buttons and he knows it, but with Ollie in here, he can’t help it. Protecting her is the only thing he can think about right now.”

“Oh.” I think my eyes went a little dreamy but Hatter didn’t notice. “That’s so romantic.”

He snorted. “More like instinctual at this point, but I don’t want you to think he’s always an asshole. He just can’t help it right now, and he’s only going to get worse the more we hunt.”

That got my attention. I turned a little bit on the bed to face him. As I did, my shirt hitched up over my waist and caught his attention. I smiled a little, feeling a tiny sliver of power spike through my blood. I’d always thought Hatter never noticed me, but sitting like this with him, with his eyes on me and only me, I imagined he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

“What about you? Will you be okay if you’re bitten?” I asked, focusing on him and not my hormones.

“I can handle it.”

I imagined he probably knew exactly how to handle his manic reactions, but I hated the thought that he would do it alone. “If you need any help, come to me, okay? I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

My voice came out strong as I spoke the words, though my belly quivered somewhere deep inside at the thought of a powerful hunter like Hatter coming to me when he was hurt. And if he needed the kind of hanky-panky help like Luke needed from Ollie, so help me gosh, I would do it. I would do it so fast, I would give the poor man whiplash.

“You’re too good for me, Sunshine,” Hatter said, rubbing a hand across my lower back.

When I managed to make my eyes un-cross from his touch, I realized the others had calmed down and Thad was talking, “—all stay in one room. Keep an eye on each other.” He held up a hand when Ollie started to object. “It’s not just for you and Sunny. We all need to watch out for each other. The hunting wears us out. Not to mention the bites. We could use an extra set of eyes on our backs, especially at night.”

Oh, he was good. He knew exactly how to say the words to Ollie to make her soften and consider them. He presented the scenario to her in a way that made her feel like she was still the protector, not the protected, which she undoubtedly would be with Luke in the same room. Ollie was already nodding.

“That’s a good point,” she said. “But what if Killian finds out?”

“We’ll just say someone has to protect the younger students.” Luke shrugged. “It makes sense, and even he can’t object too loudly about that.”

Ollie’s focus honed in on me. Every time she looked at me that way, I felt like a little bunny with a broken leg. I wanted to argue I could take care of myself, but I knew better. I needed her. But she needed me too. She protected me and I offered her a safe place to land. Luke wasn’t soft enough, easy enough. She needed a friend like me.

“Someone needs to watch them during the day,” Hatter said.

“Not really, though.” Ollie leaned against the door, putting her hands in her jeans’ pockets. She wore an oversized white undershirt tucked into the front of her pants because it hung so loosely on her. “It’s just Nyny, Abigail, and Coldcrow here during the day. And none of them could be the killer.”

“Why not?” Luke asked. “We don’t know much about Nyny and Coldcrow is a bit of a mystery. He’s lived up here for decades. That has to have him on a short thread.”

No one brought up the fact Luke had been raised here or what that might make him.

“Luke,” Ollie said, “it’s not them. I know we’ll be safe here during the day.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “The first night we were here, I saw Sin and your mother hooking up.”

So much for giving it to him gently. Hatter choked beside me, and Thad looked ready to vomit.

“What?” Luke asked slowly, dangerously. How Ollie managed to see past his exterior and not be intimidated by him blew my mind. The man was terrifying. At least Hatter laughed and smiled some. Luke never smiled.

“I think Killian killed Sin because of it.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?”

“It’s not like we’ve had a bunch of chit-chat time. I’m doing the best I can.”

Hatter stood, drawing Luke’s attention from the door, which he looked ready to charge out of. “We have to be careful with this. If your dad knows how much you know, he might use someone as leverage against you. Right?”

Ollie rolled her eyes. We all knew Hatter meant her.

“We should let someone at Fear University know what’s going on. He has to pay for this,” Luke said through clenched teeth.