The Killing Season (29 page)

Thad looked between him and Hatter, muscles tense, like he was ready to be attacked at any moment.

“Is it true?” Luke finally asked, looking at Thad like he’d never seen him before.

Thad nodded. When he didn’t go on, I said, “We saw his scars in town. They’re not black. He told us he was working for Hex.”

Luke’s eyes stayed on Thad’s throat. “Can you track her then?”

“Luke—”

“Just tell me!” he shouted. His fingers danced against each other, tap-tapping. But he never looked Thad in the eye.

“I can try to follow her scent, but if I can’t,” Thad said carefully, watching Luke’s every breath, “I can gather some ’swangs who will.”

“Then go.”

I stepped forward then, suddenly unsure what evil I was sending after Ollie. Thad had come to Barrow with a very specific reason, and I’d seen how devoted he was to getting her out of here. I was giving him the perfect opportunity. But if he could find her, take her far away from Max, then it was worth it. “Luke, he won’t bring her back here.”

Luke jerked his chin in a sharp nod. “Good. It’s not safe here anymore. Take her to the school. We can protect her there.”

“She means,” Thad said, “that Fear University or anyone associated with it isn’t safe for someone like Ollie.”

“Someone like her?”

I couldn’t let Thad explain this part. This secret was Ollie’s greatest fear. I had to tell Luke the right way, any way that wouldn’t make him hate her or want to kill her. But the time for secrets was gone. Especially if they were ones that might get her killed. “Luke, look at me.”

He practically had to tear his eyes away from Thad before he turned his attention to me. I noticed how his body seemed to hum with a low vibration. His fingers twitching. He seemed bigger suddenly, or the entry smaller. The air got a little . . . less too.

“Killian gave Max vials of ’swang saliva,” I said slowly, allowing the words to sink in. “The effects make her feel pain.”

“What?” Luke’s fingers paused. “Her reaction is to hear them.”

“No, Luke. She isn’t like us. Her reaction is different.” Hatter’s grip on me tightened but I didn’t look at him.

“Why didn’t she tell me that?” Luke asked quietly, his eyes focused over my shoulder, his head cocked slightly to the side. I half expected to turn around and see Ollie behind me.

“Thad’s right. She isn’t safe here. Or at the university. We have to help her, Luke.”

His desperation was gone. The rage. The fear. All gone. He’d gone hollow.

“Luke,” I took a step toward him, Hatter’s hand trailing after me, as I spoke.

“Don’t,” Luke whispered. “Don’t say it.”

“She’s part aswang too.”

Nothing happened. No outburst, no yelling. Everyone was still, quiet. The tension was there, floating along beneath the silence. The only noise came from outside, where the storm’s wind sounded like claws scratching on the door.

“I’m coming with you,” Luke said calmly to Thad, like he hadn’t heard me. I almost wished he’d started yelling, because his quiet evenness, the steadiness of his hands, the lack of finger twitching, was all wrong. His eyes had gone too dark. His jaw too loose.

“Not happening,” Thad said, already moving away. Step by step toward the door.

“You’re bringing her back here.” Luke didn’t follow. Didn’t move. I didn’t know if he could.

Only when Thad had opened the entry door and stepped into the security room did he say, “I’m not bringing her back here so you can kill her, Luke Aultstriver.”

“I wouldn’t.”

Thad laughed, the sound cruel. “No one believes that. Not even you. You never deserved her anyway, and now you’ll never see her again. She’s going home, where she was always meant to be.”

With that, he was gone. He jerked the door closed and disappeared into the security room. From the other side of the entry’s door, we heard the second door open, the howl of the wind, and then quiet. Neither Hatter nor I moved any closer to Luke, who stared at his hands.

He’d begun to tremble.

“I wouldn’t,” he repeated, to us or himself, I couldn’t tell. “She’s part . . . But I wouldn’t . . . I love her.”

He looked up at me then. His eyes held a wildness inside that had Hatter stepping in front of me, squaring off against his best friend like he was the enemy, the one we shouldn’t trust. I leaned around him too see Luke. He stared at Hatter’s chest, where I’d been a moment before.

“I love her.”

But it sounded like a question.

E I G H T E E N

Ollie

“W
ake up, Ollie,” the little girl whispered, her tiny hand in mine, her whispered words brushing against the fine hairs around my ear.

Her hand was so cold. Why was it so cold?

“Bad things happen why you close your eyes, remember?” The little girl nudged me. “You told me never to close my eyes. To never fade away. Made me promise, remember? Now you have to promise.”

Her fingers trailed across my cheek, ice cold. I smelled wet earth. Felt dirt tumbling onto my shoulders from her touch.

She leaned in closer and whispered, “We know better than to fall asleep with him. Wake up, Ollie. Wake up.”

The dream shifted. I was in the basement. The little girl in my arms, her eyes closed. Barely more than a girl myself, I’d made her promise to keep her eyes open all the way up until the moment she couldn’t anymore. When she died.

I jolted awake from the nightmare wearing a too-small nightgown and nothing underneath it. Slowly, the thought registered, along with the chill, causing my skin to prickle all along my body. Max had undressed me at some point. He’d touched me without me knowing it. Thinking of his hands on me froze up my insides, made me feel like I might break in half, shatter like a sheet of ice. I’d made the first mistake, the first lesson I’d learned at the Tabers. Never close your eyes. Never fall asleep without someone watching over you. Bad things happened when your eyes were closed.

I hung suspended from the low ceiling of a small, drafty room. A rope most likely wrapped around a beam bound my hands. My feet were tied together and secured to the rough-hewn wooden floor.

Keeping my head down, my hair falling around my face, I examined myself. Nothing broken. Not yet. Nothing cut off. Not yet. Nothing bloody. Not yet.

All a surprise.

The gown I wore stopped a handful of inches above my knee. It pulled around my shoulders, tight and uncomfortable, many sizes too small. The hem, a lacy edge with swirls of pink threads, like little flower petals, made me blink. Made me think. I lifted my head, eyes traveling up to my arms above my head. The gown stopped mid-forearm on me now, but I recognized those pearl buttons.

I’d worn this gown before. Years ago. In a basement.

“The blood and dirt took a while to get off, but I got it clean for you.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said automatically because I knew how this worked with him. I’d lived through this once before, and the Tabers were strict about manners. Beneath my gown, my naked skin prickled tight, my scalp tightening with a little shiver, because I’d prayed to never utter those words again.

“You were a good girl, Ollie. Such a good, sweet girl.”

Across the room—a room that appeared to make up the entirety of the one room cabin—Max sat in a faded plaid recliner beside a lamp. A small kitchenette filled up one corner of the room, a series of knives laid out on the small, rickety table in front of the cheap vinyl counters. There was one small box television with rabbit ears pushed into a corner, a single twin bed with a mattress that only had a fitted sheet on it, and the recliner where Max sat. Nothing else.

“Where are we?”

Max stood, the recliner squeaking and rocking, and walked to the center of the room, where he pulled a string suspended from a dusty light on the ceiling. One ancient bulb sent sputtering light across the room and over Max’s face. He’d shaved his beard and long hair, revealing the young man I knew, only a few years older than me. He wore thick pants tucked into heavy boots and a denim shirt that stretched across his massive shoulders. He’d rolled up the cuffs, his hands scrubbed so clean they were raw and pink. Another Taber ritual.

“Killian kept this little safehouse a secret from the others, but even if they knew, they’d never suspect we stayed so close. We’re practically right under their noses.”

Close. The word gave me hope. Max still thought of me as a little girl, which meant he would underestimate me. I could escape. I could get out of this situation before it got bad. I shifted and tested the ropes. But my legs had already begun to ache. He’d suspended me a little too high, meaning I either had to let my arms and wrists bear my weight or I had to stand on my tiptoes and help brace my body. Either way, pain.

“Is she still down there?” The question was a raw rasp, but Max understood. He had excellent hearing. Had always heard when his father was coming down the stairs or into a room. Always heard my whispers to the little girl. Heard all the things I never wanted him to hear.

“Yes. I put down concrete, though. The dirt just held in the dampness, and she started to smell a bit.”

I turned my head away so he wouldn’t see my eyes. Watching the floor, my heart broke for her, for the millionth time. Unending heartbreak. But imagining her underneath concrete was so much worse. My throat constricted and I had to work at keeping the panic away. Now wasn’t the time.

Max walked across the room, his boots thumping loudly against the floor. I didn’t cringe when he stopped a few feet in front of me. I checked his hands before I lifted my head. Empty. He smiled at me, but his eyes were sad.

Sad for all the wrong reasons. He and his father might have tried to break me once, but Mr. Taber had succeeded in breaking Max long ago when he was just a boy. Broken him and then rebuilt a man who genuinely believed he was doing the right thing. That he could show me the right way. That he loved me enough to hurt me.

“I never stopped looking for you,” he said, voice reverent. “No matter how far you ran, I went after you. To bring you home.”

I nodded, my chin jerking quickly to hide how my lips quivered. “Thank you, sir.”

“Not everyone would have done that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“My father raised me to be a gentleman, Ollie. I would have treated you with respect. But you ran.”

“Yes, sir.” My voice broke a little over the words. My body anticipated what was to come.

“I think you forgot our lessons.”

I had to look at the floor again. My eyes were watering. Max took a step closer and lifted my chin, his thumb stroking across my lips. “Yes, sir,” I whispered.

“I have to remind you. So you’ll never run again.”

“Thank you, sir.” I choked over the thickness in my throat.

He reached up to unbutton the breast pocket on his shirt, and, though the movement was slow, I flinched sharply, making the rope around my wrists scratch and pull at my skin. He waited until I stilled, though the trembling didn’t stop, before he pulled some vials out of his pocket. He held one up for me. “That Aultstriver man assured me this would make our lessons go faster this time. That I wouldn’t need that girl from town to help me teach you.”

I shuddered.
Sunny
. She’d come so close . . . Oh, God. I couldn’t breathe anymore. I lifted my head, stared up at the ceiling, and tried to suck air into my lungs. Max waited. “Yes, sir,” I gasped.

“He told me things. Odd things. Things that they hunt up here. He said I would need to be careful of the dark. But those bad things he said about you, I didn’t listen. I know you, Ollie.” His hand slipped around my face, his calluses scraping my cheeks. I remembered how soft his hands had been last time. What had he been doing to make them so rough? “I know you,” he whispered the words.

His grip tightened on my jaw until I said, “Thank you, sir.”

Slowly, Max released me and turned away. He took a step then paused. Looking slightly back over his shoulder, he said quietly, “Killian said you . . . you tarnished yourself with his son. Is that true?”

Luke
. Did he know yet? Was he out there, in the storm, with the monsters?

“Yes,” I whispered because he would make me tell the truth eventually anyway. Eventually I would tell him everything. “Sir.”

Max’s shoulders sagged. He walked over to the kitchen, where the light didn’t quite reach, and started working on something. I didn’t watch too closely. I knew enough.

From the kitchen, Max said, “He wants me to kill you. He said he
required
it.”

“Yes, sir.” I doubted Max heard my words from the kitchen because I barely heard them myself. I tested the ropes. Tested how they wove around my wrists and ankles. Everything was spectacularly secure. I shouldn’t have expected anything different. Max had always been good at tying knots.

“But you don’t want to die, do you?”

I would. I would want death very much, very soon. But this was something I had to lie about. “No, sir.”

“Good.”

Two years of running. I thought Fear University would give me time. A safety net to prepare. To get myself ready for when I had to face Max again. But I hadn’t had enough time. I wasn’t ready. Maybe all the time in the world wouldn’t have been enough.