The Killing Season (20 page)

“You can’t tell him, Ollie. You have to trust me. I’m just here to get you back safe.”

“Safe?” I scoffed. “And where do you think that will be?”

“With the others like us. Ollie, Hex isn’t a bad guy. He’s just trying to figure out a way where we can all live together without so many deaths.”

My hand on the whip wavered; Thad noticed, but he didn’t take advantage. “Others?”

“Yes, Ollie. People like you and me. Others who understand. All led by your father.”

“My father didn’t even know I was alive until a few months ago,” I said.

“He couldn’t have known, but you can’t trust Fear University. Killian and Dean are using you. They’re feeding you lies and manipulating you. That’s why I volunteered to help Nyny. I was cleared to break my cover to help you escape today.”

“I don’t want to escape,” I said, but the words were quiet. I was turning over what he’d said in my mind, but no matter how I arranged them, the words never fit right.
Others who understand.

“Why aren’t my scars white too?”

“Every halfling’s ancestry manifests in different ways. Mine are white scars and heightened senses from my aswang side.”

From the look in his eyes I knew he wanted to know how mine manifested, but I kept my mouth shut. But in my head, I added them up: pain when bitten and an ability to communicate with night-forms. Slowly, my eyes drifted back toward Thad as I thought that over. Maybe I could speak to him too using only my thoughts like I could with full-’swangs.

Can you hear me?
I asked, sending the thought to him. Nothing. Either he was lying to me right now, or I couldn’t talk to half aswangs or halflings, as Thad had called us.

“So what happens now?” I asked.

“I have to take you tonight.”

“Oh, heck no!” Sunny snapped, moving in front of me too quickly for me to grab. “She has a head injury and a concussion. She needs medical help. You’re not dragging her anywhere. Gee whiz, Thad or whatever your real name is,” she scolded, shaking her finger at him, “she was almost abducted. What the heck is wrong with you?”

Thad’s gaze wavered between us. “Ollie,” he finally said, “we have to go. It’s your only chance.”

“And your orders,” I snapped back.

He nodded, conceding the point. He wasn’t bringing me to Hex to help me, but to follow orders. “You get treated tonight, then we leave first thing tomorrow.”

Sunny stiffened beside me. “The snowstorm will be here by tomorrow night. You can’t take her out in that.”

“It’s good cover,” Thad said quietly, his eyes on me. “With my hearing and sense of smell, I can move through it better than a normal human.”

Thad wanted to take me to Hex. To answers. Part of me wanted to go just for that. After all, I’d come north for answers, and Hex had them. But things had changed now. Not just with Sunny but with Luke. They were my home. Fear University had taken me in when I had nothing. They were the ones who’d kept me safe. Not Hex. Hex had even admitted he thought I was dead. I had to think this through more when my headache wasn’t so bad. I had to tell Luke, let him know who he proclaimed to love. Then I would form an opinion about what I wanted.

“Fine.”

“Ollie!” Sunny said, whirling to face me. “What about Luke?” She blinked big, round eyes. “Or me? I can help you with this.”

I gathered up her hand in mine and squeezed. She got the message: to wait. Thad regarded us like a monster with two heads and not simply two friends who were close enough to not use words.

After carefully doing up his bandage and throat guard, Thad led us back through the town, which was still quiet. Most of the hunters were out of sight, still combing the buildings for Sunny’s ’swang. Back at the post office, only one snowmobile remained, which caused Thad to curse. Nyny had gone off alone to fix her precious cameras. “That woman is crazy,” he muttered under his breath.

I cocked an accusing brow at him. “So not every ’swang is a misunderstood creature, huh?”

“You know that, Ollie.” Thad gritted his teeth. “But we’re not all bad.”

A roar built from down the street. I turned back and looked, along with Sunny and Thad, who cursed again. “Right on time,” he said under his breath.

A fleet of snowmobiles rocketed toward us, their thick whine deafening inside my aching head. In the lead, Luke leaned over the handlebars, his black ensemble making him blend into the ever night around him. A black rag with the bottom half of a skull’s face covered his mouth. Thick goggles kept the snow out of his face. Off his right shoulder was Hatter, going just as fast, his purple goggles flashing. No cloth covered his mouth, and, beneath the town’s floodlights, I made out his twisted, scarred grin.

Luke and the band of the hunters, including Eve and Haze, came to a screeching stop in front of us, Luke’s snowmobile skidding within inches of Thad, who had to jump back or get run over. Luke spared him no attention as he leapt from his ride and grabbed me.

“What the fuck happened?” His eyes went to where I still kept pressure on my head wound. He pulled the glove away and instantly noted the blood. “The radio said a ’swang was in town. Did it get you?”

“Long story,” I said, my voice croaking.

Luke narrowed his eyes, but he let it slide, though I saw the threat of
later
in his eyes. Turning slightly, but still keeping me tight against his side, he motioned to his hunters, ready to spread them out in search of the aswang.

“Oh, uh, about that,” Sunny said quickly. Her eyes darted from Luke to Hatter, who still sat on his snowmobile with his shoulders hunched and an abnormal curve in his spine from exhaustion, but he was ready to take off again at a moment’s notice. “There’s no ’swang.”

“What?” Luke snapped off the question, and I punched him in the ribs for barking at her like that. “What the hell actually happened?”

Sunny cleared her throat and clapped her hands, drawing everyone’s attention. Over Luke’s shoulder, I saw Hatter’s tired grin twitch as he watched Sunny clamber onto the seat of Thad’s snowmobile. “Listen up, people!” she called over the group of hunters. “Ollie here has a head wound. She’s going straight back to the base. As the nurse, I’m going with her. You,” she pointed at Thad, “can drive me, but go slow. This isn’t some friggin’ race, okay? And you,” she pointed at Luke, “can take Ollie if you insist on being such a brute. But so help me gosh, if you bounce her around I will cut you.” She raised her brows, leveling what she probably considered at glare at Luke. “
Cut
.
You
. Got it?”

Hatter climbed down from his snowmobile and crossed over to Thad’s, claiming his spot. “The little dictator rides with me.” When no one moved, he whistled sharply, causing a new ringing in my ears. “You heard the woman. There’s no threat here so get your asses in gear! Thaddeus, you can take my ride, but be easy with her. She spooks at the sharp corners. You gotta massage her around them, you feel me?”

He put on a good show, but I knew the state he’d been in this morning. It made me wonder what I’d missed or overlooked since I’ve known him. How many times had he covered up his pain with humor and smiles and I hadn’t even noticed? But I did see the new way he stared at Sunny, like he was claiming her, and didn’t care who saw.

Through the disbanding group, Thad’s eyes met mine, and I got his unspoken message loud and clear:
we’re leaving soon whether you like it or not
.

When everyone began to move, Luke practically carried me back to his snowmobile. He paused while everyone took off around us. When he looked back at me, I was in position, tucked against his back and holding onto his waist. “What happened, Ollie?”

“Max Taber happened.”

T H I R T E E N

Ollie

U
nder Sunny’s squinty-eyed glare, we made our creeping, crawling way back to the base with only the snowmobiles’ sharp headlights cutting a path through the tundra’s frozen expanse. Along the way various hunters swerved off in a spray of fresh snow to resume their careful, lethal combing of the Barrow hillside for ’swangs before the snowstorm moved in. When we finally arrived back at the base and sealed ourselves inside its protective walls, only Luke, Hatter, Thad, Eve, and Haze stood gathered around Sunny and me.

My head wound had reopened during the journey because no matter how slow Luke went, I still got jostled over the hard-packed snow. We all stood in the entry while Sunny reapplied pressure with her other glove and growled like a pissed-off kitten.

“I told you,” I said for the millionth time, “just let him go.”

“And I told you, that’s not an option. He’s too close. We eliminate the threat.” Luke snapped the words at me as his fingers tapped madly against each other, causing the tendons along his forearms to flex like a strobe light. A thread had pulled tight in him, it seemed, and it was seconds from snapping.

“Max is mine to kill.” I tried to push Sunny away, but she swatted at my hands with a hiss.

“Fine. You can go all Lizzy Borden on his ass.
After
we find him and bring him back here. I’m not letting him roam about in town where he could ask any hunter where Ollie Andrews is staying.”

“No one would tell him,” I argued. Luke refused to see reason on this. Max was
mine
. After today, after feeling the fear that coursed through me, I wanted to feel his blood splatter on my face more than ever, but if Luke brought him back tonight, I wouldn’t be able to be in the same room with him. I just needed some time to gather myself, to tuck those bad memories back away. After I stopped trembling every time I thought of his hands on me, I would be perfectly okay. I would be fine. Totally, perfectly fine.

If I told myself those words enough times, maybe I would start believing them.

“This isn’t up for discussion,” Luke said. He’d barely acknowledged me since we returned; his eyes kept skipping over me in time to the tap-tapping of his fingers. “We get him now.”

He turned away from me and gathered the hunters to discuss tracking and capturing Max; they spoke quickly and divided up areas to search with a nerve-rattling efficiency. Since Killian was still recovering from yesterday’s attack, Luke was in charge, and no one was complaining as he delegated equally and fairly.

Over Luke’s shoulder, Thad met my eyes. His gaze told me I wouldn’t have enough time to kill Max myself. We were leaving. And soon. Depending on how quickly the snowstorm developed.

Thad possessed the ability to crumble every relationship I’d built with these people. Relationships I treasured. But he also represented an opportunity to find out the truth about what I was and if I could ever come back to Fear University. If I knew the real truth about myself, I could make my way in the life I wanted with the people I wanted in my life.

Luke loved me, but he didn’t know the real me. Lying made me a coward, but at some point I needed to find the strength to tell the truth and hope he wouldn’t hate me. Or kill me.

Getting my throat slit by the man I loved would really suck ass.

The Max lynching party disbanded and Hatter headed toward the door with Haze, Eve, and Thad in tow. I glanced at Luke. “You’re not going?”

Instead of answering, he asked Sunny, “Is she okay?”

Sunny swiped the back of her hand across her brow. “I got the bleeding to stop again.” She tossed her second bloody glove on the ground beside us. “But head wounds are serious. We need to keep an eye on her, and if the wound opens up again, I’ll need to staple it.”

“Okay. I’ll keep an eye on her. We’ll be in my room if you need us.”

Sunny ignored him and turned to me, leaning in close to whisper, “What about Thad? Will you be okay? Should we tell someone?”

“Not right now,” I said. I just wanted to close my eyes and let my thoughts catch up inside my head. I was too rattled from Max to think clearly. “Let’s talk later.”

Sunny nodded, though she bit her bottom lip, eyes uncertain.
“Luke, I don’t think she’s up for—”

Before she finished, his arm snaked around my waist, his other sweeping my legs up so smoothly I didn’t realize I was in his arms until his scent filled my nose and my head rested in the nook between his neck and shoulder. “I just need to hold her for a bit, okay?”

He stayed put until Sunny nodded, letting her acquiescence be the reason he took me away. I smiled at her, loving her more for her protective nature.

I wanted to say something snappy and funny about him carrying me up the stairs to his room, something to make Sunny blush, something to convince everyone I was okay, but my head hurt too badly and I was still too rattled to come up with anything.

Luke held me tightly as he traversed the stairs and long hallways to his second-floor room. Only when the door was closed and he’d lain me on the bed did he look down at me and frown, his eyes lingering on the bruises Max’s fingers had left around my mouth. “You scared me today, Ollie.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he pulled off his jacket, yanking the arms inside out in his urgency. His shirt went next, ripping over his head, revealing his bare chest beneath, which was wrapped up in bandages from yesterday’s bites. When he reached for my thick thermal, I held up my hand to stop him. “My head really hurts—”