Kin

by Lili St. Crow

  “It’s taken care of, Cami. Go on. If you go anywhere else, call the house if you need me, Stevens will know how to reach me.”

  “Okay. Ruby, we’ll t-take you to the Hill—”

  She finally got a word out. “No.” Muffled against Cami’s collarbone, which was weird because she had always been taller. “Home.” She was shaking, and couldn’t stop. If she spent the night with either of them she was going to start talking, and the last thing either of them needed were her problems vomited all over them.

  They’d had enough to deal with. She had to deal with this, and she would.

  Please let Gran be okay.

  She took a deep breath, tried to stand up straight, and gently, very gently, worked her way free of their clinging, helpful arms.

  “I want to go home,” she repeated. “Please.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE SPYDER WAS A NICE CHUNK OF AUTOMOBILE, cornered like it was on rails and purred like a kitten even though Cami didn’t ask of it even a quarter of what it was capable of. The interior was butter-soft leather and smelled faintly of new car and lemon.

  Cami drove agonizingly slow, obeying every traffic law to the letter. She even stopped twice at stop signs—once next to the sign, pulling forward to see what traffic was coming, and stopping again. It was like ripping out your nails, one at a time.

  Still, it was kind of soothing to just lean against the door, put her fevered forehead against the glass, and listen to them try to make awkward conversation while the tires hummed. They tried to draw her out, but she didn’t want to talk about it beyond I came home and found her, that’s all.

  They didn’t ask why she skipped, or why she looked like she’d been rolled around in bushes and mud. The cop hadn’t asked either.

  When someone found the body—or when she told someone—he would probably remember, though.

  Katrina Rufina. She kept repeating the name, wishing the syllables could drown out the noise in her head. Why wouldn’t the kin speak her name? Had she . . . maybe they didn’t talk about her because she’d done something awful? Could that be it?

  It’s not what she did. It’s what they did. To her.

  “—Thorne,” Cami said, and Ruby jolted out of the roaring.

  “What?” She stared at the water on the window, fat beads rolling down. The lightning had backed off, but the rain showed no signs of slacking.

  Cami punched the defroster. “I said, everyone’s looking for Thorne. They’re under strict orders not to hurt him, to bring him to Gran. Nico thinks—”

  Words burst out of her. “He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have.”

  So much for staying quiet.

  “Do what? All they’re saying is that he’s missing.” Ellie, folded up in the backseat, leaned forward, her elbow resting on the side of Ruby’s seat. “I’ve tried locator-charms, but no dice, and Livvie won’t let me do anything real high strength. The charmstitcher keeps scaring her.”

  Because your stepmother almost broke your charming. Or that thing you were staying with almost did. Ruby suppressed a shiver. “Everyone’s looking for him.”

  “I thought you’d know where he was.” Cami stared past the wipers, their steady rhythm a heartbeat. Her slight frown of concentration just made her more beautiful.

  Ruby’s entire body itched. “Well, I don’t.” If I did, I wouldn’t tell anyone. Not until I could talk to him.

  Ellie made a clicking noise with her tongue. She smelled like expensive fabric softener, a faint edge of active charming like cherries, and the good green of approaching rain. “We were kind of relieved you’d skipped, until we both got called out of class. Did you know Nico even tried to walk into Juno’s? Mother Hel had to come out on the steps and talk to him.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so polite.” Cami’s shy laugh, soft and musical, shriveled everything up inside of Ruby.

  How could she laugh, with everything going on? Ruby sank her teeth into her lower lip, just on the edge of drawing blood. Again.

  It sort of helped.

  Not really.

  Ellie made the peculiar little chuffing noise, not quite a laugh, that meant she was amused. “Well, at least he’s got some sense.”

  “Not as much as I’d hoped. But it’s developing.” Cami turned right, then left, then right again, and they were three blocks from the cottage. “Ruby . . . are you s-sure you want to go home? I mean, it’s probably better if you’re . . . with us. You know?”

  “I need to be home.” Her lip stung as she forced herself to say it quietly. “We’ve got a guest. And if—when Gran comes home, it has to be clean.”

  The Spyder crept along, its wheels pushing water aside. The windshield wipers kept doing their job, like the idiots they were.

  “Conrad,” Ellie said finally, and Ruby almost gave a guilty start. “So . . . maybe we can come in and meet him?”

  Oh yeah, that’ll go over really well. “Now’s not a good time.”

  “Well, when is?” Ellie persisted.

  “Ell . . .” Cami sighed.

  Ruby gathered herself. “When it is I’ll let you know. Let me out here, Cami.”

  She kept the Spyder to a creep. “It’s still r-raining.”

  “I could get out and walk faster than this.”

  “Don’t.” Ellie’s fingers on her shoulder, rubbing a little. “We want to help, Ruby.”

  There’s nothing you can do. “You’ve got your own problems.” She played with the door-catch, scraping her broken nails over the silver bar. She wasn’t even wearing any polish.

  “You are our problem.” Ellie squeezed a little.

  Ruby almost flinched. Maybe that’s what Conrad thinks too. That I’m his problem. “I’m nobody’s problem.” Besides, I’m a selfish bitch, remember? She stared out the window, willing the cottage to appear. Everything was blurring, running together.

  Or maybe it was just that her eyes were leaking.

  “That’s not true.” Cami pulled to a stop. “We’re your friends, Ruby.”

  Funny, how she remembered being in the driver’s seat, and trying to convince Ellie of the same thing. Stop being a selfish bitch. I realize it’s your default, but just try. “There’s nothing you can do right now. Thanks for the ride.”

  She was out of her seatbelt in a hot second, and out in the rain before Cami could say anything else.

  The flagstones were a little slippery, and the front door was still open. As if Gran wanted fresh rain-washed air, or she was expecting someone.

  But Gran was in a hospital bed. She was old, and it wasn’t like kin to just collapse.

  Maybe she didn’t just collapse. You ever think of that?

  Of course she had. She’d been spending the entire time sitting there trying not to think about it.

  Maybe once she got inside, she could just close the door and go upstairs. Lie down. Rest. Figure out how to fix the gigantic mess that had just descended on the world.

  She trudged through the rain, her left maryjane flopping a little and her eyes still welling with hot water. She didn’t see the gleam in the upstairs window, a pair of eyes watching her from the guest room. Golden eyes, narrowed and thoughtful.

  And frightfully, scarily empty.

  PART IV:

  WHAT SHARP TEETH

  TWENTY-NINE

  EVERY WINDOW AND DOOR ON THE FIRST FLOOR WAS open. She wrestled them closed, her arms aching savagely as if she’d been playing hang-me-man all day in the Park with the cousins. With that done, she made her way upstairs, step by painful step. The dishes were washed and the floor freshly mopped; Tante Sasha had probably run home to make dinner for her family. She had three boys, and they were all growing. The silence said she’d taken Conrad with her, though she hadn’t left a note.

  Ruby wanted a shower, but just getting into dry clothes was all she had time
for. Because after that she would clean the house from top to bottom, so that when Gran came home, she could see that Ruby had been responsible and grown up, a good kingirl.

  Jeans, tank top, a cerise silk jumper—the one she’d met Conrad at the train station in, it felt like a lifetime ago. Her uniform was filthy, her socks worse, and nothing was going to save that left maryjane. There was one tiny luckcharm still clinging to the strap; she stuffed it in her pocket and started dragging a comb through her tangled, air-dried hair. Her schoolbag lay on her bed, a rain-darkened blot, and it would probably leave a mark on the comforter.

  Her head had turned into cotton fuzz. It was a welcome change from the roaring.

  Dry socks felt good. Her old battered trainers were just right. She gathered up her uniform, holding it crumpled in a ball at arm’s length as she smelled the sweat and fear and desperation on it.

  Underneath, the faint brassy note of that awful, awful sight.

  She turned, meaning to head out the door and down to the utility room—the whole uniform, blazer included, needed a good soaking—and dropped the entire ball, letting out a choked cry.

  Conrad leaned against her doorframe, his eyes reflecting gold from the overhead light. For a moment they were too big and luminous, and a ripple ran through him as if he was going to shift, the points of his ears lengthening . . . and receding.

  Ruby’s heart threatened to explode. “Mithrus Christ!” she hissed, forgetting how much he didn’t like being told what to do. “Make a little noise next time! You scared me!”

  “Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry. Instead, he looked thoughtful. “Where are you going?”

  “Downstairs, to put this in the . . . have you been here the whole time? Did Tante Sasha go home?”

  “So many questions. You always ask a lot of them.” He nodded, as if he’d said something profound. “I think it’s time we talked.”

  I don’t have time for this. “I’ve got to get the house cleaned up. Plus I have to make dinner. When Gran comes home—”

  “Is she coming home, then?” Why didn’t he sound interested?

  “Of course she is.” Ruby bent to pick up the stinking uniform. “I mean, she’s stabilized. That’s what the cop said.”

  “Cop?”

  “Yeah. Haelan. The one who came . . . came by and said . . .” She straightened, slowly. “Why were all the windows open? And where were you? Did you just come home when Gran—”

  “Ruby, shut the fuck up.” Calmly, quietly. “Or I will beat the shit out of you.”

  Her jaw dropped. She stared at him.

  He held up his hand, slowly, and something fluid silver dangled from it. Alive with its own light, it twisted and turned, curling around his fingers. Its scales rasped against his skin, and Ruby’s entire body chilled.

  It was a collar. Those scales would draw tight around the throat, and the shift would be inaccessible. Your senses would dull, only mere-human instead of the sharpness of kin. No more fullmoons either, unless the keyholder decided you could control yourself.

  If he was holding the collar, he had the key, too.

  “This is for your own good.” Almost kindly. He stopped leaning against the doorframe, drawing himself up, and the small satisfied smile he wore made his face into a stranger’s. His teeth were very white. Kin-white. “Your grandmother would agree.”

  She took a single step back. What do you know about what Gran agrees about? You’re Grimtree, you’re a guest.

  “Don’t make this hard.” He moved forward, and his smile widened. His boots crushed her uniform, and in a blinding flash, Ruby saw the mud—dried now—coating them.

  The same as the mud on her maryjanes.

  “You were in the Park,” she whispered. “You were . . . you . . .”

  A zing, like biting on charmed tinfoil, all the way down her spine. Her brain refused to put the pieces together, but her body knew.

  A snarl drifted over his face, a cloud over the sun. “You go poking in where you don’t belong. It’s going to take some training, but you’ll learn.”

  Training? “What are you talking about? Look, put that thing away. You can help me make dinner, and we’ll just—”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” he screamed, and lurched forward.

  THIRTY

  AFTERWARD SHE WASN’T QUITE SURE WHAT HAD HAPPENED. She only remembered bits and pieces. First the red flare of agony when he backhanded her, kin strength making the blow just short of neck-snapping force, and a welter of confusion with her desperate screams and his growling roar. The bed—she’d fallen, half-sideways, and was scrabbling, the comforter tearing and her fist tangling in the strap of her schoolbag.

  He grabbed her hair as she slid off the bed on the other side, her scalp searing red-hot as she tore free, and somehow she was on her back, her knees drawn up, and she kicked, catching him square in the jaw. He went over backward, the collar making a jangling sound as it was flung in an oddly perfect arc, smacking against her bookshelf and spilling downward.

  Somehow on her feet, lunging for the door, trainers slipping in the pile of damp uniform, and she was in the hall, hearing his cheated howl behind her.

  He’s going to be so angry.

  A noise—breaking glass. Had he broken the window? Her mirror? Bad luck, just like in a feytale.

  He was in the Park, a cold, rational, almost-adult voice in her head spoke up, quietly and calmly. Get out of here, Ruby, before he kills you too.

  She blundered down the stairs, trapped in the syrup of a bad dream. The nightmare just kept getting worse, and worse, and she was beginning to suspect there was no waking up.

  She’d locked the front door, and now her fingers plucked at it, clumsy with terror. Heavy footsteps on the stairs behind her, and that awful, rasping, jangling sound.

  “Quit running. I love you. You’re my way out, Ruby.” His nose sounded clogged—had she broken it? Oh, God, he was going to be so angry, and after weeks of seeing what he could do when he was just irritated she just didn’t even, oh God, her fingers would not work on the deadbolt, just scrabbled blindly. “We’ll just get this on, and then you’ll be mine. All mine.”

  Mithrus please oh please—the lock suddenly yielded, she ripped the door open and almost tripped over the threshold.

  “Ruuuuuuby!” he roared behind her. “YOU’RE MIIIIIIIINE!”

  The roaring was all through her, a red madness, and sky-tears spattered her face and hands as Ruby fled into the gathering, rainy dusk.

  THIRTY-ONE

  WHERE DID YOU GO, WHEN THE WORLD HAD BECOME a carnival-mirror reflection? All distorted, nothing in its right shape.

  She ran for a long time, splashing through puddles, dodging headlights and the screaming of horns, the screech of tires. Dashing across streets, keeping to shadows like any hunted animal, as the sky gathered indigo folds close and began to dump water on New Haven in earnest.

  As soon as full night fell, the shift bloomed inside her bones; the confusing patchwork jumble of streets, pouring water and bright headlamps, black-wet trees shaking off scab-leaves and showers of droplets was a Dead Harvest nightmare.

  Every time the wine-fume of terror inside her retreated a little, she heard footsteps behind her. The scream was still echoing inside her head, weirdly modulated as if falling into a well.

  You’re miiiiiiiine!

  After a long while the rain slacked, she smelled trees and water and crushed green, and the thought that she was perhaps in the Park brought her to a shuddering, sweat-soaked halt.

  Blinking, stumbling, she fetched up against a huge oak tree, every bruise and scrape suddenly demanding to be heard, a chorus of pain. The shift retreated all at once, water through a sluice, and her sides heaved with deep gasping breaths. It was too dark, her eyesight no longer as sharply adapted for a long moment as she altered into baseform. The ripples under her skin
retreated, she coughed and blinked more, rainwater and salt-sweat stinging her eyes.

  Where am I?

  It wasn’t Woodsdowne. Hot, massive relief filled her, and she glanced nervously around, straining her ears. No footsteps. No cars. It was quiet.

  What . . . oh. I know.

  Another jolt of relief, so hard and fast it thumped her in the stomach a good one. She bent over, struggling with nausea, long strings of her wet hair falling in her face.

  It was the park atop Haven Hill. She could see glimmers of city light through the trees, and the edge of a parking lot. Wet streetlamp glow ran on the paved surface, and she could see enough of the shape to know it was the south end. It probably would have been developed before now, except all around it were the estates of the rich—mostly Family, they liked to settle up high. The charmers lived around Perrault, and Woodsdowne was its own little country.

  New Haven was a collection of parts, and all of them were jumbled now.

  She swayed, her nails driving into tough bark. The wind had gentled, a steady north keener, shaking fat droplets out of the treetops. The heat was gone, swept away just as a broom would slide across a kitchen floor.

  Kitchen. Red linoleum squares, and Gran’s hand, so small and still. Conrad, just standing there, dripping . . .

  Don’t think about that. Her brain shut down. Shivers gripped her, great waves of them, her teeth chattering and her hair swinging, tapping her cheeks.

  Something else swung too, bumping her hip. Ruby looked down.

  It was her schoolbag. She’d grabbed it as she went over the bed, probably, and habit had made her keep hold of it.

  The thought of herself half-shifted and running all the way through New Haven carrying her French textbook suddenly struck her sideways, and she bent over again, this time wheezing with laughter.

  It hurt, and there was a screamy, breathy quality to it she didn’t like, but it wasn’t sobbing. So there was that.