by Meg Collett
“Ollie! We have to get Luke back!”
His words finally spurred me into motion and I took off down the alley. Hatter flung the passenger door open for me and I jumped in, hauling myself inside as Hatter rocketed out of the little fishing village. I slammed the door shut and locked it for no good reason other than the fact that I was creeped the hell out.
“Is he okay?” I asked, craning around to look back at Luke. Even to my ears, my voice sounded breathless and terrified.
Fear, my first real and honest dosage of it that I’d felt since my time in the Tabers’ basement, made my body shiver.
“He will be once we get him back. Lost a lot of blood.”
I turned back around and looked at Hatter’s hand, which he cradled against his chest. “Are you okay?”
“Lost a finger in that fucker’s mouth. Had to get it off Luke though,” Hatter mumbled, his words losing themselves around each other. His eyes shone with adrenaline and blood loss, a clammy sweat across his brow. As he drove, his hands bounced against the wheel, drumming to some mad beat only he heard. The saliva had to be in his system by now. Briefly, I wondered if I should have driven.
We were back on the main road outside the village, the van hitting its top speed, when Hatter looked over at me and asked, “Ollie, were you talking to those ’swangs?”
I didn’t answer before crawling into the back with Luke.
I had talked to the ’swangs.
And one had answered, calling me by my name.
E L E V E N
Hatter radioed our emergency into the university, his words one big jumbled up mess.
When we arrived at the main entrance, the gate was already opened wide enough for us to pass through. Or at least it would have been if Hatter had gone in straight. Instead, in his manic, blood-loss state, he ripped off a side mirror on the unyielding iron gate.
I bounced around in the back with Luke, applying pressure to his chest, which was a mess of blood and jagged claw marks. He hadn’t gained consciousness the entire trip back. His skin looked stark and clammy, and his body kept convulsing against the floor of the van so badly that I had to lie across him to keep him still.
Hatter hit the brakes hard enough to toss me against the van’s front seat. I bit my tongue, and my mouth filled with blood. Before I’d recovered, the back doors flung open and flashlight beams seared into my eyes. Orders were barked off as I shielded my eyes, blood pouring down the back of my throat. People pulled Luke out and secured him to a gurney before whisking him away. Someone reached inside for me, hand grasping my ankle, and jerked me forward.
As I was about to fall out of the back of the van, someone caught me. I looked up into Dean’s face. “Are you okay?” he asked quickly as he hurried us toward the school’s main building. Hatter and Luke were gone.
“I’m fine.”
“Ollie, I had no idea this would happen. Otherwise I wouldn’t have suggested it.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say, because my gut told me Dean knew exactly what would happen. I shoved the thought aside, though, and kept searching for glimpses of Luke.
“Go to the ward. You can sleep down there, but don’t tell anyone that you were out hunting, okay?”
That got my attention. “What?”
“The other students aren’t privy to hunters’ activities. You can’t say anything about tonight, or that Fear University catches live ’swangs. Not even to Sunny. Tell them that you were worried you had a fever and checked into the ward.”
I frowned. I didn’t like it, but my thoughts kept skittering back to Luke bleeding out in the alley, and I couldn’t focus on why Dean’s words bothered me so much right then. When we were halfway down to the ward, I tried to pull myself free, but he didn’t let go. I glanced down at his grip on my arm, and saw the bruises already forming beneath his fingertips.
“Let me go,” I said through gritted teeth.
He ignored me. “Did you see anything out there, Ollie? Feel anything?” His question startled me, but I hid it well enough to keep my little secret. There was no way he knew about me hearing and speaking to the ’swangs. Or that Hex had known my name.
“No.” I jerked my arm again and Dean finally released me. I hurried away, daring one last glance over my shoulder. He remained in the hall, staring down at his hand that had just been crushing my arm. I shuddered and picked up my pace.
Maybe Luke was right to not trust him, but if I couldn’t trust the President of Fear University, who could I trust?
All the nurses and doctors had been called in to help. Luke and Hatter were placed in different operating rooms. I stood on tiptoes to see into Luke’s room, but I was pushed back by nurses rushing inside. As the door swung open and closed, I made out Luke’s bare chest, streaked with rivers of blood.
* * *
I was back to being the freak.
Except no one else knew. I retained my badass status, the girl who’d kissed Jolene and killed a ’swang. Students still sat at our lunch table and talked to me in the halls between classes. I had people to share notes with and chat with before classes started. But I was the freak. At least in my own head. The freak who talked to ’swangs.
Peg, my psychology professor, stopped me on the way out the door the morning after the hunting excursion. “Ollie,” she called, one hand resting on her pregnant belly.
I paused at the door, weary and overly tired from today. I wanted to get through sixth period and then go check on Luke. I’d heard whispers and rumors about his condition, but I needed to see for myself. “Yeah?” I asked.
“The other hunters are saying you came in with Hatter and Luke last night. Is that true?”
I’d kept my word to Dean and not told anyone about last night, but, of course, all the hunters, professors, and doctors knew. I nodded, not wanting to really talk about it.
I’d tossed and turned all night thinking about it, hearing Hex say my name like he knew me. “Don’t trust them,” he’d said.
Peg smiled at me kindly, and I relaxed somewhat. “That must have been pretty intense,” she said.
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“Some of the doctors said that you fought off the ’swangs single-handedly. That you ran them off so Hatter could get Luke to the van.”
“They’re saying that?” I was shocked. I hadn’t done that at all. The ’swangs had left because Hex told them to.
“That’s what Hatter told people. But he was so delirious he needed to be sedated. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
To Hatter, seeing me in the alley facing down Hex right before the ’swangs ran off, it might have looked like I ran them off, but I wanted to talk to Luke first before I clarified the story to anyone else. Though it went against my better judgment, I was going to tell him about hearing the ’swangs and talking to them. About Hex calling me by my first name. I had to trust someone, and Luke was highest on my list besides Sunny. So until I talked to Luke, I wasn’t going to share with anyone else.
“Honestly,” I said, “I don’t know what happened. I better go. Don’t want to be late.”
Peg nodded. “Sure thing, Ollie. Don’t forget that you can always talk to me, okay? I’m on your side.”
I glanced back at her and tried to smile. After last night, I doubted anyone was really on my side. Except me. Just like always.
* * *
Sixth period drug by. By the time I wound my way down the stairs to the ward, my teeth were on edge. Professors had studied me in every class or watched me walk by in the halls. Even the few hunters who came and went in the school during the day stared at me, wondered about me. It was ridiculous. It wasn’t like I’d ripped a ’swang’s head off with my teeth or anything. If they knew the real truth about last night, they would have thrown me in a real jail cell instead of letting me go to class.
The hall in the ward was quiet. I checked the private rooms until I found Hatter. He slept with his hand heavily bandaged, a large gap where his missing fing
er should be. I cringed. None of the rooms housed Luke.
The nurse on duty would know where he was, so I headed toward the main room in the ward, but Dean’s voice drew me to a stop. The door was open, and I heard him clearly.
“—really fought off those ’swangs?” I recognized Mr. Abbot’s voice.
“If she did, this is better than we thought.”
“You think she’s that valuable?”
“I plan on finding out.”
I frowned. They were obviously talking about me. What was better than they thought? And what the hell was my value based on? Something in Dean’s voice really pissed me off. He was talking about me like I was some prized heifer.
“Killian will want to know,” Mr. Abbot said. I leaned closer to the door to hear Dean’s response. “It might help convince him of her worth.”
“Killian will do what I tell him.”
Footsteps sounded in the main room, and Dean’s voice drew closer. I stepped away from the door, moving down the hall slowly so that I still heard Mr. Abbot’s response before I had to run.
“He’s worried about Luke spending so much time with her. The purity of their family line is his primary concern.”
The door started to swing open, and I took off down the hall, my steps silent. I bounded halfway up the steps and paused, leaning back to hear more. I held my breath and forced myself to breathe deeply through my nose.
“If she is who I think she is—”
I couldn’t risk waiting to hear anymore; Dean and Mr. Abbot were almost to the base of the stairs, their voices ringing up the stairwell to me. I spun and skipped the steps two at a time. When I was out of earshot, I took off out the front entrance’s door, straight to the barracks.
The building was quiet during the day, except for the sounds of vacuums coming from the apartments’ open doors as the cleaning crew worked. Luke’s room was the only one closed off, music seeping from beneath the door. This time, I knocked.
“Come in,” Luke’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door.
“Hey,” I said softly as I opened the door and stepped into his room.
Surprised to see me, he shuffled up in his bed, wincing as he moved his chest, which was bare and wrapped tightly with bandages. Between the thick gauze and tape, I finally saw the extent of his battle scars. He was a mess, like he’d tangoed with a permanent marker and lost. A barrage of black, raised scars marked his chest and shoulders, so many I needed to look away. His hair stuck up in a disheveled manner and huge dark circles stained the skin beneath his eyes. “Hey,” he said, clearing his raspy voice.
I closed the door behind me and locked it, which earned raised brows from Luke. “Why aren’t you in the hospital?” I crossed the room and sat on the edge of his bed. His heat filled up the small room, his scent overpowering me. Caramel candy wrappers littered the bed.
“The nurses won’t let me eat candy in there,” he said, his lips pressing together in an expression that so closely resembled a pout I grinned. “And I can take care of myself.”
“Right,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I nearly had my heart clawed out of my chest.”
“Yeah.” I cringed slightly. “Last night didn’t go so well, huh?”
Luke gritted his teeth. “You could say that. Has Dean talked to you yet?”
“No, but I overheard him down in the ward when I went looking for you. He and Mr. Abbot were talking about my value.” I kept out the part about Luke’s father, because I didn’t know what it meant and I really didn’t want to upset him when he was hurt.
Luke fisted the bed sheets, crumpling them and the down comforter into a wrinkled ball. “Dean talked to me this morning.”
“Are you in trouble?”
Luke shrugged a shoulder, the movement minimal so he didn’t tweak his stitches. “No. These hunts go sideways all the time. Everyone is freaking out about . . .” His eyes met mine. “You. How you fought off those ’swangs.”
I took a deep breath. I’d never trusted anyone before, but look where that had gotten me. “Something else happened last night.”
Deep lines formed between Luke’s brows. He reached for my hand. “What?”
“I didn’t fight those ’swangs off.” At my words, Luke frowned, his worry clearly growing. Instead of looking in his eyes, I watched as he twined my fingers through his, my smooth skin scraping his calluses. “They ran off.”
He squeezed my hand. “They wouldn’t run off. You must have done something to scare them away.”
“It wasn’t me who scared them off. Do you know Hex?” I said his name in a whisper, like it was cursed. It tasted cursed on my tongue.
Luke gripped my hand, tight enough that I knew my bones were surely protesting. My fingertips turned red then white. When I met his eyes, he looked furious. “How do you know that name?”
“I heard the other ’swangs call him that.” There. I’d said it. Part of it, at least. I still had to tell him that I spoke back. That Hex knew me.
“Heard?”
“In my head. I heard what they were saying to each other.”
“What?” Luke shoved himself farther up on the bed, not bothering with his injury. I put my hand on his chest to keep him from surging out of bed, but touching him messed my head up more. “How?” he kept asking, over and over. “What?”
“It happened once before too. I heard the ’swang the first night you found me. When I was attacked.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I swallowed, feeling like my tongue was going numb. “I thought it sounded bad.”
“Jesus Christ, Ollie. It is bad. I’ve never heard of something like that.” He raked his hand over the scruff along his jaw. “Why did they run off then? What did you hear?”
I shifted off the bed and smoothed the sheets back down. Luke watched me with narrowed eyes. “Hex called them back.”
“Why?”
He fired the question off like it was a bullet, and I cringed. This wasn’t going well. “He told them to leave because Hatter was coming, but he said he would be coming for me.”
“Oh my God.” Luke dropped his head into his hands, a gesture I’d never seen him do. Watching him freak out freaked me out.
“Who is Hex?” I asked quietly.
Luke shook his head, grinding his teeth. “He’s their greatest warrior. Christ, Ollie. Hex has killed almost half of all the hunters who have ever died. He’s a legend.”
“I thought these things weren’t immortal?”
“They’re not. He’s that good.”
I shuddered. “Oh.”
“Ollie . . .”
I met Luke’s eyes. In that moment, I wanted to tell him everything else. About how I’d spoken back and how Hex had known me. But the words dried up in my mouth. What did it mean that I talked to aswangs? Or that one of them—their greatest warrior—knew me by name? Maybe, like Luke, Hex worried about Dean building an army like me. Maybe it was all coincidence.
Maybe I was the real monster they should be hunting.
“What should I say to Dean?”
Luke gripped my hand again. “Don’t tell him, okay? Don’t tell anyone else.”
“Is this bad?”
“’Swang saliva affects people in all different ways, but if Dean knows about it, you’ll become even more valuable.”
Luke thought the ’swang saliva made me hear them. But it wasn’t some reaction to their spit. The very first night the ’swang attacked me in Kodiak, I heard it long before its saliva got on my hands.
“Should I run?” I forced the words out of my mouth. I hated saying them with every ounce of my being. I didn’t want to run anymore, but I also didn’t want to die. “I’m good at being hunted.”
Luke shifted and lifted his arm around my shoulders so he could pull me close. The gesture could have been friendly—and I counted him as a friend now—but I felt too much flipping action in my stomach to let myself put this in the friend zone. Besid
es, I liked tucking myself in Luke’s nook. He gave good nook.
“I could take care of him. I could make it so that you would never have to worry about him again.”
“Max?” Startled, I glanced up at Luke.
“I’m trained for it. We could get rid of him the same way we get rid of the ’swang bodies. No one would ever know.”
Maybe it was twisted. Maybe it was wrong. But my heart soared. No one had ever offered me anything so kind as murdering my enemy for me before. Smiling, I leaned over to kiss his cheek. I had to tear my lips off his skin, but I managed to pull it off. “I appreciate that,” I said and I meant it. But my voice turned dark, and I said, “But I’ll be the one to kill him.” I meant those words even more.
“What happened? What did he do to you? That scar on your back that Thad mentioned, was that Max too?”
I felt Luke’s gaze on my face as he watched my reaction. But I kept my feelings pushed down tight. “When I have nightmares, they’re not about dark nights or ’swangs. Instead, I dream of him and the things he and his father did to me. They gave me all my scars. They made me this way.”
“We can kill him together.” His words were fierce, protective, perfect, but killing Max was one thing I couldn’t consider too closely. The things he’d done to me were still too sharp, too fresh. I needed time to grow cold enough for revenge.
“Luke,” I said quietly, our conversation about dark subjects making me wonder about his own, “what did Thad mean about your father?”
Luke tensed beside me. “What part?”
“All of it.”
The silence between us stretched out so long that I thought he wouldn’t respond. When he finally did, I almost jumped at the sound of his voice. “It’s true.” I reared up in bed, ready to start yelling, but Luke put his hand over my mouth and pulled me back down beside him. “About the sexual aggression. It runs in our family. When we get bit, the saliva gets us heated, aggressive, primal. It translates sexually.”
“Did he . . .”
“No.” The word hung between us for a long moment. “You have to be careful around me, Ollie. If I’m ever bit . . . I don’t want to hurt you.”