Jay scowls at her. “I know you hate him, and you’ve got fair reason to. But don’t take it out on me.”
“It’s… God, Jay, what you’re doing is so fucking dangerous. Idiotically so. Just look at what happened to Bette.”
Jay opens his mouth to reply, then stops himself and shakes his head.
“No, what.” Lily bristles, still nervy and tense. “Say whatever it is you wanna say to me, come on.”
“Fine. You deserve to know,” snaps Jay icily. “It was you.”
Lily stares at him, confused. He continues to speak.
“Nobody in Blake’s gang hurt Bette. They were the ones she called after she woke up from being killed. They didn’t kill her. She’d been dumped in a grocery store parking lot. The vampire had bitten through the tattoo on her arm. It healed crooked, and she has a scar now. Right through the wing of the little ink bird.”
Lily takes a step back, as if she can physically distance herself from what Jay is telling her. “No.”
“So get off your high horse. You’re no better than the rest of us,” he says, and walks away into the crowd. Lily, struck still by shock, can only watch him go.
She killed Bette. She’s a murderer and a liar, even if she can’t remember it. That doesn’t change the fact that she’s capable of such things. That she did them.
She killed Bette.
As if summoned by her thoughts, Lily catches sight of the girl on the other side of the room, slipping away from the door to the bathroom with a satisfied smile on her wicked red-gloss mouth. Her eyes lock with Lily’s for a moment, and Bette gives her a jaunty, mocking wave.
When Lily steps inside the ladies’ room, afraid she’ll find the worst, she’s unimaginably relieved to see a living, breathing Rose beside the washbasin, drying her hands on one of the stack of thick white hand-towels. Once the moment of relief has passed, though, Lily notes the extra-pale cast of Rose’s face and the high flush along her cheekbones, and the two little purple bruises beginning to bloom on her young neck.
Lily can’t even feel angry, or blame her. Not when Rose looks so sad.
“I miss her,” she says simply. Lily nods once and turns away, rage boiling in her blood like a waking volcano.
She promised Jay that there wouldn’t be any bloodshed at the party, and she’ll hold to that.
But she knows where Blake lives.
~
She waits outside the townhouse as the night shifts from late to early, barely noticing the intermittent rain which soaks her clothes and chills her cold skin colder. Finally, three well-dressed vampires approach on foot, sauntering at a leisurely pace, as if they haven’t a care in the world.
Lily’s making a low growl in her throat before she even registers that she recognizes the face of the middle one of the three. Blake laughs, the sharp shape of his teeth flashing in his smile as he tilts his head back. “A late night visitor. How charming.”
Lily puts one foot back, ready to pounce. The two other vampires step forward, gaining the small amount of ground she’s lost in the movement. Blake stops them with a quick motion of his hand.
“You think that orchestrating street brawls between other gangs is the worst we can do? It was nothing. When the real battles come, you’ll be standing at my side, mark my words.” Blake’s voice is low and lazy, and makes the hairs on the back of Lily’s neck prickle.
“I’ll see you dead before then,” Lily spits.
Blake cocks his head to one side, making the soft curls of his hair fall forward. “You can’t frighten me, Lillian. You’re a petulant child, a bratling. You’ll grow out of it soon enough.”
“Lily,” Lily corrects, wondering if she’s going to live through this. She doesn’t really care—maybe she deserves to die, after what she did to Bette—but she hopes that she can take Blake down with her.
“It took him hours to die, you know,” Blake says in the silence between them.
Lily blinks, trying to catch up with the abrupt change in subject. “What?”
“William. You didn’t think I’d simply drain him dry all and once and ruin the game so fast, did you? Honestly, even you should give us a little more credit than that. I took my time with him before I let him perish. I’m very patient.” Another lazy grin, another laugh.
Lily’s lips curl back from her teeth, hands clenching into fists at her side. Blake still has his head at an angle, like he’s giving his full attention to something especially fascinating.
“He tasted like you,” he tells Lily softly, as if it’s a secret he can’t help but spill. He’s still smiling. “A little sweeter, perhaps. But a lot like you.”
The anger is so overwhelming that Lily can’t even see for the red haze in her eyes. She springs at the three of them, barely conscious that Blake gestures for the other two to hold back just before her fist connects in the first punch.
WILL
Chicago is louder than Will remembers, but that’s to be expected. He keeps his head down and makes his way back to the warehouse quickly.
The scene in front of him as he steps inside his old home is like a conjuration of ghosts. Lily is bleeding on the floor, clothes a wreck of stains and tears. Rose is beside her, kneeling in the spreading dark pool of water, blood-tinted, that’s seeping from Lily’s sodden clothing, a cup of blood clutched in her hand. Rose’s lips are chapped from cold weather and her short hair is tucked away from her face under one of Will’s old caps. Her eyes are wide and afraid and on her throat, above the collar of her shirt, is the dainty snakebite bruise that marks a vampire encounter.
All the elements are so familiar, and strange in their familiarity, that for a moment Will can’t move. A rattling, choking laugh from Lily shocks him out of his freeze.
“You should see the other guy,” she quips, face a twist of pain.
Will crouches next to Rose, easing Lily up to lean her head against his shoulder, sliding one arm under her knees and the other against her back. He gently lifts her, carrying her through to the dusty, unmade bed that nobody has slept on since before he died.
“She says she got into a fight with someone named Blake,” Rose explains, setting the cup of blood down on the nightstand and then, ineffectually, trying to brush some of the mess off her own clothing. “She claims that he was even more hurt than her by the time they were done.”
“Wouldn’t have gotten away alive, otherwise,” Lily offers in a slur. “Motherfucking asshole.” She coughs again. “He took too much. I’m not healing up.”
“Here.” Will raises his wrist to his mouth, ready to bite. Lily waves one hand, the movement uncoordinated like a drunk’s.
“Should have known you’d pick the most dramatic moment to come back from the dead,” she says.
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Will replies, climbing onto the bed beside her. Rose leaves the room, and a few seconds later Will can hear the slosh of water filling a bucket at the sink, and then the sounds of scrubbing.
It’s no effort to reposition Lily between his knees; she’s limp and light and too weak to protest. Will winces a little at the sting as he bites through to the vein in his own wrist.
“’s like deja vu all over again, heh,” Lily says, looking up at Will with a smile that’s nothing but pain. “Gonna let me die this time?”
“Drink, Lily,” Will says, and tries to ignore the waver in his voice. “C’mon.”
And that’s like deja vu, too.
~
When Lily has swallowed all she can before passing out, Will leaves her to rest and goes out to the main area of the warehouse. Rose is sitting at the kitchen table, but stands as he approaches her.
“Thanks for your help,” Will says. “She’s going to be okay, I think. Did she say anything else to you before I got here?”
Rose shakes her head. “No, sorry.”
“How did she know to call you?”
“I’ve been hunting with Lily for a little while now,” Rose explains. “I’m learning fast. She says I’l
l never be a natural fighter, not really, but that at least I’m determined.”
“Your neck…” Will says, not sure how to broach the subject tactfully. He’s got no high ground to judge from, but he wants everything to be out in the open. Secrets are always harmful.
Rose’s jaw tenses, and she raises her chin defiantly. “Yeah. Take me as I am, or not at all. Scars are part of the package. What I do when I’m not here is my personal business.”
“Okay,” Will nods. Then, hesitantly, he holds out a hand. “Glad to have you around.”
Rose lets out a sigh of relief, smiling as she shakes his hand. “I’m glad to be here. Glad to be hunting, and making a difference.”
Will can imagine just how unimpressed Sofie would be by that sort of attitude. He grins.
Rose covers a yawn with her palm. “Look, are you gonna be okay if I take off? I’ve got school in the morning. She’s really gonna be okay now, right?”
“Yes. I’ll be here when she wakes up in the evening. You go, and don’t worry. Everything’s okay.”
Rose gives him a disbelieving look, her expression making it perfectly clear that she is too old to believe that everything would ever be okay again. Will just pats her on the shoulder and sees her to the door, locking it behind her as she steps into the clear cold pre-dawn light.
Lily’s bruises are fading, cuts healing almost fast enough to watch the process. She murmurs something, restless, a line of worry appearing between her brows. Will lies down beside her in the darkened room, holding her close to him as carefully as he can. She settles, falling into deeper rest, and after a long, long time, Will follows her down into sleep.
LILY
The note Lily leaves on the bed is short: TAG, YOU’RE IT. She leaves a thumbprint on the page, too, so that Will will have her scent. Then she sets off into the evening world, darting up and down city blocks as the light fades to something comfortable. She still aches all over, but it’s better. She can ignore it.
Every twenty minutes or so, she leaves another thumbprint on a wall or window. She loops back over her own route, goes up onto fire escapes and rooftops, down into cellars and subways. Then, when it gets too much, she sits down in an alley behind a restaurant, pulls her hood up, and waits.
“What the hell are you trying to prove?”
Lily looks up. Will’s faster than she expected. “I forgot you’ve had time to get used to what you can do now. I should have made this harder.”
“Get up.”
Lily stays on the ground. “You shouldn’t have left.”
“I had to.”
Lily stares up, sure that she’s baring her teeth as she does it. “Bullshit. That’s bullshit. You think I didn’t want to run?” She stands, determined not to show that her bones still hurt from the beating that goddamn fucking asshole Blake gave her. “When you lied to me, and let me come back after they killed me, you think I didn’t want to run?”
Will pulls the collar of his shirt to one side sharply. “See that? It’s a scar. It’s never going to fade any more than it has, because everything about me is forever now. So I’m gonna have this forever. Your scar.” His mouth is a thin and angry line. “You should have drained me dry that night. Killed me when you had the chance.”
“I wish I had. I wish I’d taken it all.” Lily snaps, and sees something surprised and wounded flicker in Will’s eyes.
And Lily’s just tired, she’s so tired, and she hates Will for leaving and she wishes there was any point to being angry, because she’s so angry and there’s nowhere for all of it to go, so she punches Will in the jaw just to see if Will is going to punch back. It doesn’t work.
“Better me than them, right?” she tries, and that doesn’t work either, so she hurls himself at Will and knocks them both to the ground, landing kicks and slaps wherever she can. “Do something! Fight back! I didn’t save you from them! Hate me for it, you f-”
And then Will’s got the upper hand, and rolls them until gravel crunches on the concrete under Lily’s back, and he’s staring down at Lily. There’s blood on his lip from a split that’s already healed and vanished.
“Do something,” Lily says again with a snarl, bucking up to throw the balance of Will’s hold on her.
“What?” Will asks. It sounds like a genuine question. His eyes look very dark in the low light. The blood on his lip is dark too, and still wet. “What do you need me to do, Lil?”
The word comes out a hiss, quiet enough that Will never could have heard it when he was human. But he’s not human now, and so it hangs on the air between them. “Stay.”
Will makes a faintly startled sound as their mouths collide, like he’s the one being caught unawares by the kiss. It’s an awkward angle, with Will still holding Lily down, and Lily feels the tear as her own lip splits a moment before she tastes the bloom of blood. That makes Will’s surprised noise twist into something darker and deeper, and the flat of his tongue drags across the pain-sensitized skin over the little cut.
“Don’t leave,” Lily begs, digging her fingers into Will’s forearm like that’ll keep him close forever. “You gotta stay. Can’t do this without you.”
“I’ll stay,” Will says against Lily’s mouth, the words broken up by more kisses, more scratches of sharp teeth against her lip. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Lily wants to say that they’ve already established that Will’s promises aren’t worth shit; they did that the night Lily died.
But if she does that, then maybe Will is going to prove her right, so she doesn’t say a word, and tries to just hope instead.
WILL
Their bedroom is very, very dark. Will isn’t quite used to it yet, but it’s becoming more familiar with every day.
He remembers how he used to watch Lily, just after sunset when Lily wasn’t quite awake yet, and would lie in her cupboard with her arms crossed. Like she was really dead. Like Will had been able to handle the thought of a world without her, and had kept his promise.
Now Will can’t see, can’t watch. Not with the darkness so complete around them both. But, waking slowly, he can sense Lily beside him, already fully conscious.
Tonight Lily’s tracing her fingers over Will’s temples and the bridge of his nose. “You don’t wear your glasses anymore.”
“I don’t need them now,” Will reminds her. Lily doesn’t stop the small movements. Will opens his eyes into the pitch black and feels his eyelashes brush the whorls of Lily’s fingertips. “Lil?”
“I miss them,” Lily confesses quietly. It’s easy to confess things here, in the dark. Will’s done his fair share of it in the last few nights. “Sometimes.”
“I could wear them, if you wanted,” Will offers. “Sometimes.”
“Okay,” Lily says, and Will knows she’s smiling. She twines her hand in his, the light scars of their tattoos pressed together. Love is all you need.
FAIR GAME
BOOK THREE
OF THE
WOLF HOUSE SERIES
Dedicated with love to the memory of Joe Borsellino, whose faith in me is a light I will carry forever.
TIMOTHY
Death by wolf was an accepted risk in that first life he led, just as car accidents are a justified tragedy now. Terrible, certainly, but there was no alternative but swallowing the occasional loss as a side-effect to the comfort of many. The people needed wool, to spin into the long thick cloaks and hoods which kept them from shivering through the stark winter days, and wool needed sheep, and sheep needed shepherds. And sometimes the shepherds died in the teeth of the wolves. That was just how it went.
His name wasn’t Timothy, then, but on the rare occasions he allows himself to revisit the memories he thinks of himself as Timothy anyway. His other name, the older name, is one that he is doing his best to forget. The past is another country, and his lies across wide oceans of time. Even he doesn’t know how long ago those winters really were. The almanacs his father bought every spring from the peddler had the names of the months
and the seasons, but that was all. Knowing what year it was wouldn’t have meant much of anything to anybody.
He is trying to forget his old name, but there are other names that are burned into his memory like pokerwork in wood. Ilia, that was the shepherd’s name. He was a little older than Timothy, by perhaps two winters. People remembered how many winters they’d had. Every one was a mark of survival. On the worst nights, the wind was so sharp that grandmothers would tell children that the air itself had teeth to bite with, and the children would believe with all their hearts. Those nights were hungry, snarling, shivering nights.
Ilia had soft hands, from the lanolin in the wool. They didn’t call it lanolin, of course. The village joke called that skin-smoothing oil the Shepherd’s Mercy, because it was the one consolation for the wives whose husbands spent season after season out herding on the hills. Ilia didn’t have a wife. He was young enough that his beard was scruffy and half-made, like Timothy’s. Duckling-down, the grown-up men called it with good-natured laughs, the hard-won fluff that boys prized so highly.
Timothy would join Ilia on the hill some evenings, when he wasn’t needed in the house, and they would make up stories about the stars and watch the sheep and laugh and kiss and cuddle, and they were in love. Their families knew, and treated the pair with the same fondness that all young sweetheart pairs in the village had always been treated with. Everyone knew that the boys would each find a wife, or have a wife decide to find them, in the next few seasons, because if a man didn’t have a wife then who would spin his shirts and bear his children and cook his dinners? Wives and husbands were a part of life, like being born and growing old and wolves. And if a woman’s husband wanted to take his warmth on winter nights in a bed with another man, well then, that was her good luck then, wasn’t it? For less nights spent lying with a husband meant less chance of more babies down the line, and that meant a better chance at longer life for the wife herself.
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