Shutter

by Courtney Alameda

  “Hang tight,” I whispered to Ryder, brushing the hair out of his eyes. Hurrying to one of the mirrors, I tapped on the glass with my knuckles, hoping the girls wouldn’t hear. “Captain Kennedy? Can you hear me?” I called softly.

  He stirred. I rapped harder. “Captain, please.”

  Kennedy lifted his head, blinking slowly. “Micheline?” he asked, his voice far away. Watery. “What are you … Bianca, come quickly!”

  Seconds later, a triangle of yellow light spilled into the basement, and Bianca’s footsteps creaked on the stairs. “Is everything okay, sir?”

  Kennedy jerked his head toward my antimirror, and I pounded my palm on the glass, frantic now. Bianca gasped, racing over to the mirror. “Micheline? How did you get in there? What’s happened to you?”

  “No time to explain,” I said. “There’s a baseball bat in my brothers’ bedroom closet. They’re coming for us—please, hurry.”

  She turned on her heel and ran up the stairs, taking them two by two. I counted down the seconds, listening to the girls stalk through the house, croaking and calling to one another. Their long toenails clicked on the hardwood floors overhead. Helsing and Harker women, Stoker and Seward women …

  Jude dragged Ryder’s chair close to me, so Ryder could lean his head against my side. His breath rasped off his lips, harsh as sandpaper. I kept one arm around his shoulders, reassuring him. We’d be home in seconds.

  The basement doorknob made a half turn, then clicked back into place.

  “I hope you’ve got a brilliant exit strategy, Princess,” Jude said, aiming his rifle at the door. “I don’t have enough rounds for them all.”

  “Working on it,” I said. To my relief, Bianca leapt down the basement stairs, baseball bat in hand. She ran up to the mirror, her face flushed, her hair askew.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Break the glass on your side of the mirror and electrify the pane,” I said. “There are power clamps on the worktable—”

  She didn’t even let me finish. Taking a huge swing, she cracked the glass. A second swing shattered the mirror’s shell. Dropping the bat, Bianca disappeared for a moment and returned with the power clamps.

  Drawn by the sound of breaking glass, a girl smashed into the door upstairs, sticking her face between the door and jamb. She screamed at us, alerting her sisters. Their footsteps shook the floor overhead and the whole house trembled with their fury.

  “We’re out of time,” Jude shouted. He fired once—a neat shot that clipped the girl in the torso, but didn’t take her down. Another girl slammed into the door, making the hinges moan.

  “Does it matter where I set them?” Bianca asked.

  “No!” I shrieked. Bianca plugged the cord to the clamps into a socket. Electricity sparked and danced over the antimirror, the whole pane glowing like a searchlight. “Let’s go,” I said, helping Ryder to his feet. He stumbled forward, almost taking me down with him. I locked my arms around his waist. Together, we shuffled toward the mirror.

  One of the girls broke down the basement door.

  Another shot cracked the silence.

  Chaos erupted—

  “Two more steps, Ry,” I begged, half dragging him toward the mirror, my hand pressed against his blood-slicked chest, holding him upright.

  My shoulder touched the surface, light rippling around my skin.

  Hands reached through the glass. Bianca grabbed Ryder, helping me move him through the mirror. I stumbled through, too, clinging to him. I’d never let him go, never again.

  Together, Bianca and I laid Ryder on the floor.

  Blood. There was too much blood.

  Ryder coughed, spattering his lips in gobs of red. Instinctively, I pressed my palm into his chest to compress the wound. Jude fired another shot as he stepped through the antimirror, then kicked the electrical cord out of its socket, killing the portal. One of the girls smacked into the cold mirror, snarling at us. Jude backed away from the mirror, shoulders heaving.

  “Here, use this,” Bianca said, balling up her jacket and pushing it into Ryder’s chest. I applied pressure as she leapt to her feet and sprinted back upstairs. When she returned, she had the big med kit and shouted at Jude to call dispatch.

  The girls stalked around the mirrors, watching, growling, trapped in the dead panes.

  All I could do was cling to Ryder’s hand,

  And pray he’d hold fast to mine.

  * * *

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, HELSING EMTs stabilized Ryder and carried him upstairs on a stretcher. Captain Kennedy helped them transfer Ryder to a gurney and wheel him out to the chopper waiting in the front yard. I followed them out into the dawn, wrapped up in a blanket. I hadn’t realized I’d been shivering until an EMT draped it over my shoulders.

  Helsing vehicles pulled up to the big house, their emergency lights dazzling my eyes. When Damian jogged toward me, still blood splattered from last night’s chaos and asking about Jude, I jerked my thumb in the direction of the house. He nodded and continued inside. I ignored everyone else, going to Ryder’s side and clutching his hand. As the EMTs started him on a blood drip, Ryder grinned at me.

  “How do you feel?” I asked him.

  “Alive,” he said. “The pain’s a bitch but”—he turned his head and coughed—“I reckon it means I’m going to live.”

  “Yeah, you will,” I whispered, tears bunching up in my eyes. He let go of my hand to wipe them away. “I’m sorry. If I’d listened to you back at St. Mary’s, if I hadn’t broken all those rules…”

  I stopped, because everything I wanted to say wasn’t true; whether or not I’d followed my father’s rules, Luca would’ve lured us into his trap.

  “Y’know what I think about the rules now?” Ryder propped himself up on one arm, wincing and ignoring the EMTs when they ordered him to lie back down. “I think any rule that keeps you from doing what’s right isn’t worth honoring.”

  I pushed a lock of his dark hair off his forehead. “Then how do you know which ones to keep?”

  “Easy.” He reached over to cup my cheek in his hand. “Your heart tells you what to keep and what to break.”

  We kissed—simply, chastely. I didn’t even care who saw, focusing instead on the warmth of Ryder’s lips and the way my heart proclaimed break this rule with every drumbeat. After what we’d been through together, we’d deal with whatever repercussions the world threw our way.

  A wolf whistle broke us apart. Jude leaned into the porch railing, making an eww-kissing face at us. “It’s about time, you pansies,” he called. I flipped him off and he grinned.

  One of the EMTs stepped out of the chopper, looked over my shoulder, and saluted. Ryder looked up and chuckled, pressing his fist to his chest as he sank back against his pillow.

  Dad stood in the midst of the yard, leaning on a crutch, watching us. His face was a landscape of uncertainty. I’d never seen my father appear hesitant about anything—or using a crutch, for that matter—so the look put me on my guard. How long has he been standing there? I wondered. Did he see Ryder and me?

  And then: Does it matter if he did?

  The reapers gave me a wide berth as I walked toward my father. Emotion flickered and died and flared again on his face, fast as firelight dancing in the shadows. When I imagined this moment in my head, I thought I’d be striding toward him, triumphant; but all I wanted now was a hot shower and a soft bed in a safe place.

  I came within striking distance but stopped short of embracing him.

  “You’re alive,” we said to each other at the same time, with the same inflection, the same surprise. He looked away. I looked at the ground.

  Dad cleared his throat. “When you jumped into the antimirror, I…”

  He faltered.

  “Ordered a bunch of burly Spec Ops guys to go in after me?” I asked.

  A smile tugged on a corner of his mouth. “Not exactly,” he said, but he didn’t finish his thought, either.

  An uncomfortable silence p
ushed between us, one the reapers and staff pretended not to notice. They bustled around as if it were normal for a father and daughter not to look at each other, not to speak to each other, to be a few feet away physically but stand oceans apart emotionally. I looked back at Ryder, surrounded by Jude, Bianca, and Damian.

  One person was missing from the picture.

  “How’s Oliver?” I finally asked.

  Dad shifted his weight, leaning on his crutch. “The surgeons were able to save his hand. He woke up a few hours ago and doesn’t remember anything.”

  “That’s probably for the best,” I said, hugging myself.

  To my surprise, Dad reached up and stroked my bruised cheek with the back of his finger, tracing the mark he’d left on my face. “Micheline, this … was a mistake,” he said, almost too softly to hear. It took him several seconds to choke out the next few words: “I’m sorry.”

  I looked up at him. Blinked. I hadn’t ever heard my father admit guilt or wrongdoing, and wasn’t sure what to say or how to respond.

  “Tell me you stopped her.” His hand trembled on my skin, showing me his seams. He didn’t say Alexa or even your mother, but I knew who he meant. I tried to keep my upper lip stiff, but my core quavered and my face crumpled.

  I nodded.

  When he opened his arms, I buried myself in his bear hug, careful not to disturb the bandages around his waist. I hid my face in his jacket and let him hold me for a while, remembering what safety and home felt like for the first time in a long time.

  My father was human.

  Human meant fallible.

  Human meant forgivable.

  He kissed the top of my head. “Tell me everything.”

  And just like that, dawn broke in my heart.

  TEN DAYS LATER

  I STOOD INSIDE THE foyer of St. Mary’s Hospital, watching the camera-wielding sharks on the other side of the glass doors. Hundreds of people crammed into the hospital’s tiny parking lot, hoping to get a first glimpse of the boys and me.

  “Vultures,” Dad said, straightening the cuffs of his suit coat. One of the PR ladies tutted at him, dabbing a bit more gloss on my bottom lip and admonishing me not to scrunch my brows so much. “Press corps and family and friends of the deceased only. I want the rest of them gone.”

  The PR lady lifted a shoulder. “The crowd will create a lot of buzz for Miss Helsing’s announcement—”

  “Or a big, bloody security risk,” Ryder said, appearing at my elbow. Kennedy stood two steps behind him, and both wore plainclothes suits, comms hooked around their ears, and nine millimeters. Ryder was supposed to be confined to a bed for a week, doctor’s orders. But he stayed down for all of thirty-six hours before I found him doing push-ups in his room, chest stitches be damned. He’d insisted on coming today to be a part of my security detail.

  He squeezed my arm and said, “You ready?”

  I bobbed my head, wishing we had one last private moment before I stepped in front of the cameras. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “You look beautiful,” he said, leaning down to kiss my cheek—gently, aware of the bruises hidden under my makeup. “I’ll be in the crowd.”

  Dad didn’t even scowl when Ryder kissed my cheek or glare at Ryder’s back when he headed outside with Kennedy. As soon as PR discovered how much the tabloids were paying for photographs of Ryder and me together, they pressured Dad to let us date. People eat up a good love story—the head of PR, Samantha Marquez, told my father—and you will look positively medieval if you continue to keep them apart, sir.

  Dad took her assessment with surprising aplomb.

  I owed PR one, so I didn’t complain about the shellac on my face or the curls in my hair, or how off-kilter the heels made me feel. How did women wear these things on a day-to-day basis? What did they do if they needed to run to catch a train or cab? I’d be lucky if I didn’t topple off the dais in them.

  “We’re live in five,” PR lady said, arranging my curls so they cascaded over the shoulders of my suit. “Remember, we’d like you to smile as you make the announcement, miss. You should seem thrilled about it, okay?”

  “Thrilled?” I asked, arching a brow high enough to wrinkle my makeup. “We’re giving the people of San Francisco restitution, not building them ‘the happiest place on earth.’”

  Her right eye twitched. When she opened her mouth to retort, Dad shook his head. She sniffed and turned on her heel, clip-clopping outside to fuss with my teleprompter.

  “You’re sure about this?” Dad asked. “About the Presidio?”

  “Positive,” I said, staring down at the podium outside. Addressing the crowd might be more daunting than running into St. Mary’s on my own, but it felt right. I’d never held a press conference before, but I’d issue only a single statement with no question-and-answer session. Easy. Maybe.

  By now, everyone knew the official story. Dad held a large news conference one week ago, releasing a version of the soulchaining events fit for public consumption. He didn’t reveal the ghost’s identity, nor did the official statement include any mention of Luca. Reynold Fielding remained in Helsing’s custody, sullen and suicidal. I doubted he’d ever reveal the rest of Luca’s—or the Draconists’—secrets to us.

  Only a small group of the Harker Elite knew about Mom, people who’d sworn their loyalty to our family. They wouldn’t talk. As for Luca, Dad asked to keep his potential identity a secret between the boys, myself, Dr. Stoker, and Damian. We don’t know for certain he has any real connection to Dracula, Dad had said. He could be nothing more than a charlatan and an opportunist.

  Our story went viral, hitting major national news networks and blowing up across social media platforms. Dad shielded the boys and me from the media fallout, declining all interview requests, keeping us off camera and low profile.

  Until today.

  “Once you announce your plans for the memorial park, there will be no revoking them,” Dad said for the hundredth time.

  “I know,” I said. “But I think it’s what Mom would’ve wanted.”

  One corner of Dad’s mouth tugged up, but the smile didn’t quite touch his eyes. He put a hand on the small of my back and kissed the top of my head. He’d been good to me since I’d gotten home, even sending my cameras to specialists for repair and replacing those too broken to salvage. He’d given Ryder permission to take the Harker Elite exam as soon as he was cleared for active duty; awarded Jude the Harker cross for his service to the family in the Obscura; and as for Oliver, Dad gave him a large research grant and space in the R&D department to develop prosthetic eyes for Gemma. Ryder, Jude, and I had already taken bets on how long it’d take him to develop a working prototype. A few months, maybe less. As for Bianca, Jude still saw her die every time he touched her—but somehow, he still managed to smile.

  I never developed the roll of film I brought back from the Obscura, but burned it instead and scattered the ashes around Mom’s grave. Somehow, I’d find her killer.

  “Miss Helsing?”

  I looked up, finding the PR lady waiting just inside the sliding doors.

  “It’s time,” she said.

  “Okay.” My nerves twisted into a tight bundle, and I tried not to think about how Jude told me most people were more afraid of public speaking than they were of death itself. If people saw the world the way I did, knew what I knew about ghostlight and death … well, that was my duty, to protect the living from the kinds of terrors that could kill.

  Dad gave me a gentle push toward the doors. “Good luck.”

  “You’re not walking out with me?”

  He shook his head. “The world should see you’re strong enough to stand at the helm.”

  His words squared my shoulders, lifted my chin and my soul. When I turned to face the crowd, I smiled.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BRINGING A NOVEL INTO the world requires the work of many hands, hearts, and minds. First and foremost, thanks to my literary agent, John M. Cusick, whose unflagging enthusiasm
for this book turned me into a believer, too. No author could ask for a better agent or friend, and I am blessed to have both in one amazing person. You have my deepest and sincerest gratitude. Thank you.

  To my keen-eyed, sharp-witted, wonderful editor, Liz Szabla—I do not exaggerate when I say it has been an honor to work with you. The wise, gracious advice you gave me shaped this novel in unimaginable ways—thank you for leaving your mark on this project and for everything you taught me. I am a far better writer and person for having worked with you, for which I am most grateful.

  Jean Feiwel, thank you for believing in the project (and in me). After I met you, I knew Feiwel and Friends was the only place I wanted Shutter to be, and I know how richly blessed I am to be on your list! To Allison Verost, Ksenia Winnicki, and the marketing team at Macmillan—you all deserve to be showered in cupcakes (not literally, as that would be awkward). Thank you for everything you have done and will do for this book, my gratitude is immense! And I cannot forget Rich Deas, cover designer extraordinaire: Thank you for all the hard work you put into the book’s terrifying and wonderful cover; you are a gem!

  To my amazing critique partners, who have been my most stalwart supporters through this whole journey—Kate Coursey, Chersti Nieveen, Kristen Knight, and Jane Hughes. Thank you for your shrewd insights, your indefatigable friendship, and your constant confidence. You keep me afloat. And to the writers who read this tale first—Katherine Mardesich, Jennifer Mardesich, and Rachel Mardesich—thank you.

  Thanks to Carol Lynch Williams and the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference—you changed my life and will always have my gratitude. To Holly Black, who I had the good fortune to meet at said conference, thank you. Your words gave me the courage to throw out the early draft of this book and start afresh, and it made all the difference. And to Cynthia Leitich Smith, thank you for being my literary fairy godmother. I keep expecting the clock to strike midnight, but I am starting to think your magic is real.

  To Gene Nelson, thank you for letting me run amok in your library and for all the extraordinary things you empowered me to do. Thank you for “going steampunk” with me and for being the best boss (and most well-read one) I have ever had. To all the librarians, staff, and patrons at the Provo City Library—you are my joy. Thank you for the years of support, friendship, laughter, hard work, and celebration. I am lucky to have you in my life. And to Carla Zollinger … you now have your name in a book! (Blame Breanne Gilroy.) Thank you for bringing me home again.