by Meg Collett
I should have.
But I didn’t.
I drew another knife with my left hand and threw myself back into the fight as Sibyl rolled off me, limping a few strides before she sorted herself out with a shake of her head, blood slinging off her sleek gray fur.
Somewhere behind me, in the well, rocks scraped against each other and fell loose, splashing far below. Someone might have been shouting my name, though the sound came down a long tunnel, muffled and distant.
A mere whisper compared to the roaring in my ears.
I felt my pulse in my torn bicep. Blood beaded at my fingertips. I sloughed it off with a shake of my hand as Sibyl and I circled each other.
“That hurt,” I told her, cradling my right arm to my side.
She snapped her teeth as she prowled around me.
I kept her at a distance. I had to. Already, I felt my body sucking me down, my legs growing heavier by the second. It got harder to move away as Sibyl stalked me. With concentrated effort, I drew and slid the slender blade between my fingers, the motion concealed from Sibyl’s view. The saliva’s effect on me had been growing shorter with every dose. It took more to keep me high, and the little bites on my hand and arm had barely done a thing.
I stumbled.
Sibyl pounced.
I threw the blade with an upward flick of my wrist. It missed her eye and glanced along the outer edge of her eyelid, digging into her ear. She yelped, her paw swiping at the blade.
My vision slanted, and I fell to my knees. But I had time to throw more blades, even if my aim was a disaster. More than a few connected, but the blade caught near her eye panicked her most. She thrashed and cried, her desperate howls ear-splitting.
Shaking her head, she sprang off into the woods and disappeared.
I sat on the ground and waited. My heart pounded at the base of my skull. Each breath felt like I was sucking air through thick tar. But she didn’t return.
She didn’t realize how close she’d been to finishing the job.
Staggering upright, I stumbled over to the well and dropped to my knees again. I leaned over the edge, sending tiny rocks crumbling downward. They connected with something solid that let out a stream of growled curse words. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I made out Thad’s form, his fingers digging into the grooves, his legs splayed in footholds that barely held him and Zero, who was slung over his shoulder.
He looked up at me, his eyes catching a sliver of moonlight.
“You still alive?” he asked as if surprised.
“Looking better than you.”
He laughed roughly. “Not the time for jokes, Sunny girl. Give me a hand, would you?”
I reached down, but our fingertips barely touched. It took an agonizingly long time for him to climb up a few more inches. When we finally clasped hands, I felt the weakness in my body.
“Oh, shoot,” I gasped, his weight dragging me toward the edge.
“Don’t let go.” He shifted, pulling me forward. “I’m almost to another hole …”
For a delirious moment, his weight lifted. I scuttled back, pulling on his arm. His head appeared above the lip of the well.
“On three,” he rasped. “One.” He shifted again, and white pain flashed across my eyes. “Two.”
“Hurry,” I hissed.
“Three!”
I heaved one last time with everything I had left. Thad’s feet scrambled against the rock, fighting for purchase. With a grunt, he tossed Zero’s limp form out of the well with his free arm. Before he could fall back down, he grabbed the rocks with his fingers as I pulled.
Somehow, when I fell backward, his wrist having slipped through my hand, he was on the ground next to me. He breathed in ragged rasps and his clothing was drenched, but he was alive and not at the bottom of a well.
“You stink,” I muttered, my heart hammering.
“Bite me. Was it a rabid ’swang?”
“Sibyl.”
“Even better. Did you kill her?” He flopped onto his back and weakly lifted his head to check on Zero.
“Got away.”
“Too bad. You could have been their queen.”
Half drowned and having narrowly escaped death, he was still a sarcastic asshole. I didn’t have the energy to berate him.
I crawled over to Zero and checked her pulse. It was there. Barely. “She needs to get to the ward. Where the hell is Sam?”
“He’s not coming back. You know that, right?” Thad pushed himself up and raked his grimy hand across his face, smearing Heaven knew what across his skin. His fingers were bloody, his shirt soaked through with more of it, likely Zero’s.
Sam wasn’t coming back; I didn’t need Thad to tell me that. But I held back my sharp retort. The fight had drained me, and I was crashing from the saliva high. Sibyl’s bites hadn’t been enough to last me longer than a few minutes. I would be suffering soon.
The withdrawal made me itchy with ants that marched angrily up and down my skin.
“Can you carry her?” I asked instead.
He nodded, but he had to be drained. Climbing up that well had taxed him.
“We can carry her together.”
“No.” He stood and took a deep breath. “I can do it. Just keep an eye out. I don’t want to run into any more ’swangs tonight.”
He carefully scooped Zero off the ground and folded her limp body against his chest. She looked so small, so vulnerable. I’d only ever seen her as larger than life. As something more. Something inhuman. But she was just a girl.
My eyes lifted to Thad’s face, which was drawn with more than exhaustion.
“Do you want to save her life? Or would you have left her in the well if I wasn’t out here?”
At the question, his face shifted like he’d drawn the curtains to keep me from seeing too much. “It won’t matter either way if you don’t get a move on. She’s losing blood as we speak.”
“Just don’t suffocate her when my back is turned.”
He snorted. “Better not turn your back then.”
S E V E N T E E N
Ollie
“Where the hell is she?”
I’d stomped across the entire school—or it felt like I had—and I couldn’t find Sunny anywhere. A sick feeling was spreading through my stomach.
“You don’t think she went outside, do you?”
I glared up at Luke. Fear settled like a hard stone in my belly, but it was easier to feel anger—and to turn it on him. “She wouldn’t do that. Not without telling me first.”
Luke nodded, but he disagreed. It settled like an itch on a raw wound.
“She wouldn’t,” I emphasized. “She knows the pack is watching the fences. She wouldn’t go without telling me.”
The words “she wouldn’t go without me” were on the tip of my tongue. But I held them in. Because she would.
She would go without me.
She would go without telling me.
“Luke,” I whispered, freezing in my tracks. I dragged my gaze up to his eyes. “Luke.”
He held out his hands as though placating a scared doe. “She’s fine. I’m sure. Maybe she and Hatter are busy making up.” He tried to smirk, but it fell flat. He didn’t believe that either.
I shook all over. “Something’s happened to her.”
“No.” Luke shook his head. But the gesture was just for show. Just for pretend. He was lying.
My heart pounded hard against my scars, against my bones, against my skin. “Luke.”
He grabbed my arms. And he squeezed. He knew just how hard. Hard enough to send warning heat into my bones. Hard enough to draw my attention. Hard enough to center me on him.
“Stay calm, Ollie,” he commanded, his eyes boring into mine. “She wouldn’t get herself in a bad spot. You know that. I know that. Hatter must be with her, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”
“But the pack,” I said, pleading as if he could tell me Sibyl was gone, the pack was gone, and the woods were safe
.
He didn’t.
“She’s a good hunter,” he said instead. “You know that. She’s okay.”
But I felt it. The wrongness. She wasn’t here. And she wasn’t safe. And I wasn’t with her. “Luke.”
His face twisted in agony. “Go inside. Let me look for her.”
“Absolutely not.”
He gave me a tiny shake. “Think of Pinto. Let me find her, okay?”
His question demanded something vital of me.
A compromise of character.
An admission that things had changed because of Pinto.
I nodded. “Hurry, Luke. Something’s wrong.”
“I’m already gone.” He kissed my cheek and then he was gone, racing to the front gate.
I spun back toward the school with my hand over my mouth as the front doors opened and Marley barreled out.
She caught sight of me and said, “Ollie, I’ve been looking for you. It’s time we talked.”
“Now isn’t the time,” I snapped back.
“But—”
“Fuck off, Marley.”
Her spine snapped straight. At her side, her fists clenched. “I called the governor.”
It was the opposite of fucking off, but I whirled on her and snarled, “And?”
“He said he can’t justify sending planes or boats to save the criminals at this prison. He said their souls had been damned long ago.”
I blinked at her. “Criminals.”
Sure, the rest of the world thought this place was a prison. Thought we harbored the world’s worst. But … but there were children here. I’d brought children here and told them they’d finally be safe and they could eat Ms. Brightly’s cookies and sleep soundly. I’d lied.
“Criminals,” I repeated.
“He wouldn’t listen to me,” she said. “But it’s time we talked.”
“We need to figure out how the hell to get these kids out of here.”
“We will,” she reassured me. “I promise. But we need to talk.”
She was the last person I wanted to talk to.
“If the governor won’t do shit, we have to …” My mind went blank. What could we do? How were we going to get all the kids, students, professors, and hunters safely off the island with Sibyl’s pack watching the fences and rabid aswangs running all over?
“Ollie.”
Her voice was strained like mine had been when I was pleading with Luke. I glanced over my shoulder. He was gone. Whether outside the fences or somewhere else, I didn’t know.
But what could I do, besides listen to crazy Marley Summers?
“You’ve got five minutes,” I told her. “And those better include a solution to getting the hell out of here.”
She nodded briskly. “That’s all I need.”
She led me to Dean’s old office. I hated that it would always be his office. No matter how many other presidents came after him, I would always picture Dean, with his ridiculous mustache and his stupid smile, sitting in that big leather chair like he owned the world.
I expected a crowd of people to be waiting for us, but it was just Marley and me. She closed the door behind us.
“I don’t have much time,” I said, crossing my arms. “I’m looking for Sunny.”
Marley walked around me to sit in a chair in front of Dean’s desk. “She’s fine. Don’t worry about her. Why don’t you have a seat?”
I didn’t move to sit beside her. “How do you know she’s fine?”
“She went outside the fences. I don’t know why. I know she’s with a young man with blonde hair and blue eyes and another young woman who lives in the shadows. They fell down a well, but they’re okay now.”
“They fell down a what?” I sputtered.
“A well. I marked it for Sunny so she would remember. Aswangs were chasing them.”
I dropped my arms. My mouth hung open. Blood roared in my ears. “How do you … But …” I waved my arms. “They’re in a well?” I shouted.
“They were. They’re on their way back now.” Marley checked the slender gold watch on her wrist. “Actually, they’re probably already back. They’re taking your shadow friend to the ward.”
“Zero?” I was still shouting, but my voice was thin and high-pitched. “What happened to her?”
Marley lifted a shoulder. “My vision didn’t show me that. But she was bleeding a good deal.”
I spun toward the door. “I have to check on them.”
“Ollie.” Marley stood behind me. “Wait. We have to talk.”
“My friends were in a well, and you want to talk?”
“Sunny wasn’t. Just the young man and the shadow girl. They’re fine. I promise, Ollie.”
“You expect me to trust your visions?”
Her face fell into an expression of such complete sadness that I turned away from the door and faced her fully. “You’re going to have to,” she murmured, her big doe eyes wide as she stared at me. “So many lives will depend on it.”
Had I believed in energies and spirits and all that mumbo jumbo, I would have sworn the energy in the room had shifted. I would have sworn there was something else in here with us. My skin tightened over my body, suddenly too small to contain all my vital bits. My blood whooshed ice cold through my veins.
“Why are you telling me this?” I whispered.
Marley slumped back into the chair and went hyper-still, her breathing steady as the dawn. A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth like a memory pulled at a forgotten corner of the mind. “Because I made a promise.”
She spoke the words so quietly I almost missed them. I’d been busy opening my mouth wide to scream and shout some more, maybe throw something, when she said them. I paused. Closed my mouth. Then asked, “What?”
“I made a promise,” Marley said a little louder. Her smile trembled and fell away.
I hesitated. “To who?”
“Your mother.”
A chill swept through me. I pressed my hand to my stomach. “Don’t bring her into this,” I whispered, rage cooling my voice. “She’s not a weapon to use against me.”
“I want you to know I’ve made so many mistakes with this … this … curse, but what I did to your mother,” Marley said, shaking her head, “that was the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
Her voice thickened with tears, with such agony that my anger seeped right out of me, replaced by a soul-deep weariness. I couldn’t speak, but I didn’t have to. The words spilled from her as if she’d been holding them in for a long, long time.
“We didn’t get along from the start. But it didn’t help that Dean pitted us against each other. From our very first year, we were in a competition to be the best student. We hated each other. Every day, we tried to one-up the other, constantly vying for Dean’s approval.”
I recoiled. “My mother would never want his approval.”
“You have to understand he was different back then. He was driven and a little mad, yes, but he was charismatic and handsome and powerful and …” Marley’s auburn curls spilled over her shoulder as she dipped her chin. “He was just different. I guess—no, I know I’m responsible for his change too. You have to understand, Ollie, my visions ruin people. And when I understood that, I used them to ruin your mother.”
I was trembling. When had that started?
Marley stood. Her eyes locked on mine, wide and pleading. “It took years for me to understand my visions. To know what was happening to me. For so long, they were just fragments. Tiny nightmares superimposed over my life. But then they started coming true, and then one day, in Dean’s lab, we had a breakthrough, and I finally understood what they were. It was like by understanding, a floodgate opened, and they started coming faster and faster. But they won me Dean’s favor, and I was finally better than your mother in his eyes. I soaked it up even as the visions tore me apart. Then one day, I saw the vision that changed everything. I saw this.” She held up her notebook. “But I also I saw Dean’s death the same night these drawings w
ill happen, which according to the governor, will be tomorrow night.
I expected more relief to hear Dean would die and not me. But perhaps I was still skeptical of Marley’s psychic abilities because I only stared at her and asked, “How exactly will he die?”
“I saw him lying in his own blood while he watched his creation—this school—burn in the dark. He will die alone, in the dark, afraid and swimming in his own blood. Drowning in it. I saw the fire, and I saw the end. That’s why I know he’s on the island. He’ll be here tomorrow night, looking for me. He needs my visions, and he will plan on getting me out of here, no matter what. I’m too valuable to him.”
She dropped her arm, and the notebook tumbled to the floor, the pages spilling open.
“How did your vision ruin him?”
“It drove him crazy to know how he would die. I watched the fear consume him. He began to run from death. And by telling him the vision, he ran from me and straight to Irena and their research. I was a bad person, Ollie.” Her voice cracked. “It broke me. When I had the vision of your mother, I did the worst thing I could think of.”
I told myself it didn’t matter. I told myself to leave the room and not look back. Instead, I asked, “What did you do?”
Marley’s shoulders slumped. Tears trailed down her cheeks. Her nostrils flared, a teardrop trembling at the tip of her nose. “I told her. I told her about the night she would die. I told her about the snow. About the knife. About you.” The tears poured out, and I watched a strong woman fall to pieces in front of me. “I told her about you waiting for her in the closet. I told her how you would be hungry and thirsty and scared. I told her you would hate her for that night. I told her to destroy her.”
My heart spasmed. I knew my mother had been hunted. I knew she’d run from many different enemies. I knew she’d lived in fear those last few years. I knew, and still I asked, “Did it? Did it destroy her?”
Marley smiled, and it was more than just a trembling, forgotten thing on her lips. “No. Not at all.”
For some damn stupid reason, I returned her grin. “No?”
“It only made her fiercer. The weight of knowing had crumbled Dean, but Irena, your mother, took it and fought like a demon to ensure your survival. I’d caught just enough visions of you to help steer her, and together we figured out a way to keep you safe. And for all the blank areas, for all the parts I couldn’t see, she made me promise I would be there to help you as much as I could.”