House of Slide: Hunter

by Juliann Whicker

  He caught me staring. I glanced over and studied the windows, the beautiful stained glass depictions of pain and sacrifice.

  My mother invited Osmond’s father for dinner, well, my parents invited him since technically my dad was standing there, nodding, but he was so obviously not in the moment, well, maybe it was just obvious to me.

  That meant that after church, I set the table in the dining room, enough plates for Osmond, his two little brothers, and his dad.

  Dinner was pleasant, like it could be anything else with my dad and my brother there to make sure that everything went smoothly, that no feathers were ruffled, that communication was crystal clear, and everything else insipidly dull.

  It was after dinner, when I was loading dishes into the dishwasher with more force than was absolutely necessary that my brother put an arm on my shoulder. I couldn’t help but relax against him even though I knew that he did it on purpose, soothing away my worries as easily as someone else would blow on a dandelion and send the little lace umbrellas flying into a blue sky.

  “You haven’t looked at me all day,” he said in his low, melodious voice, a half laugh beneath the words. “What mischief are you hiding from me?”

  I rolled my eyes as I turned and put my hands on his shoulders, soaking his immaculate white button-up shirt.

  “That’s it. You caught me planning to ruin your shirt.”

  “Dariana,” he said, ignoring me, pushing on me, nudging me towards telling him, opening up, enough that I knew he wanted to help me, that he was interested, but obvious enough that it wasn’t pushy.

  “I’m bored with leaning.”

  He looked surprised, black eyebrows rising in his pale face, framed by locks of perfect, slightly waved black hair. His dark blue eyes had worry in them.

  “I…see,” he said looking confused.

  My moment of satisfaction did not last very long. Confusing Devlin didn’t help, not when I always doubted myself, confused myself.

  “Why won’t you let Osmond date me?”

  He shook his head slightly. “I don’t control Osmond. He can date whoever he likes.”

  “So that’s it? He just doesn’t like me? Why is it that the only people who I can’t manipulate don’t like me? I’m beginning to think that it’s me, that there’s something wrong with me.”

  “Why don’t I go get changed and then we can go hunting. You’re not usually bored when we’re in the woods.”

  I shrugged, letting him change the subject without answering my question. It was my job to figure out my place in the world, not his, and certainly not Osmond’s.

  Hunting was typical, me with my knife, him with a variety of tools in his long pale hands, flicking his dagger as delicately as a surgeon, moving with such grace and speed that the huge creature with a furred abdomen and pincers didn’t even bleed on him after it lay twitching in a pile of its gore.

  “Feel better?” he asked as we walked home, the air heavy with a storm that wouldn’t break until we got there.

  I had been until he asked the question.

  On Monday, since school was still out, my mother suggested that I go over to the nursing home and do some good. I wasn’t sure how much good I did, not when I was too depressed to cheer anyone else up.

  On the way home, I stopped at the basketball course by the elementary school and started playing, all by myself with no one to lean into position, or to impress. I threw the ball at the hoop, laughing when I missed, cheering when it went swish through the orange hoop.

  “Nice shot,” Osmond said from behind me, making me stumble and drop the ball I’d been about to throw.

  I chased it down, but he got to it first, picking it up and throwing it towards the hoop in one perfectly smooth motion.

  “Lucky shot,” I said, running to chase down the ball. I grabbed the ball and threw it. It hit the corner of the backboard and shot across the court.

  “And you meant to do that, right?” he said as he ran to get the ball.

  I crossed my arms over my chest as I watched him, but I forgot what I was going to say. He moved so beautifully, so efficiently. When he got the ball, he turned and ran back to me. I forced myself to act normal, but my heart was racing as he came closer. What was wrong with me?

  “Thanks,” I said as he handed it over. We both stood there.

  “Are you going to throw the ball?” he asked.

  He was smiling at me, such a nice smile on his soft looking mouth.

  “Yeah,” I said turning away. I could feel the blush on my face. Why would I blush? I had no reason to be embarrassed, unless you counted the fact that I wasn’t as good at basketball as Osmond was. If I’d wanted to be good at basketball, then I would be.

  He moved closer to me then reached around me, fixing the position of my hands. Had he always smelled this good? I let him adjust my position, running his strong, calloused hands over mine.

  I could feel his chest against my back, could smell his spicy aftershave mixed with his warm skin. The ball in my hands felt heavy. I lifted my arms, holding the ball with his hands over mine. I followed his lead, throwing the ball so that it curved in the air. It hit the rim and bounced back at me.

  I laughed as I caught it, his hands still around mine then looked back over my shoulder.

  My laugh froze in my throat as I stared into his perfect blue eyes, inches from his lips. My heart beat fast in my chest, my hands tingled where his skin connected to mine, a shiver chased its way up my spine as we stood, so close, closer, closer until he turned his head, dropped my hands, and stepped away.

  I stared at the cement, tracing the red curves of paint with my eyes like that would keep my face from flaming, from my eyes betraying the ache in my chest. I’d asked him out, because I’d felt like it, because he was my brother’s cool friend, but now, this was all too real. It hurt in my chest in a way I’d never hurt before.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said before he took off, but I didn’t respond. I waited until he’d cleared the park before I threw the basketball at the hoop, missing it entirely. Stupid ball.

  School on Tuesday, I glared at the people who smiled at me. I was not just Devlin’s sister. If no one really liked me, there was no point in pretending that they did. It was all so fake, so pointless.

  Ms. Briggs called on me and this time I didn’t bother to answer at all, or lean her and smooth her feathers. She could do what she wanted with that. She sent me to the principal’s office. Smoke sat in the office with his long legs sticking out.

  He scowled when he saw me, which was fine. I smiled back, but it wasn’t my nice fake smile.

  “What are you here for?” I asked sitting two chairs away from him, dropping my bag on the floor under my chair.

  “I’m trying to get signatures for this…” he said reluctantly handing me a clipboard with animal cruelty stuff on it.

  I read it then signed my name on the next sheet of paper, handing it back to him. My name was underneath two others, but other than that, the sheet was blank.

  “What about you?” he asked reluctantly.

  “I’m here for talking back to Ms. Briggs. I hate her.”

  He looked surprised even as I stared at him, daring him to correct me, that I didn’t ‘hate’ anyone, since that would be completely insecure and inappropriate behavior for a Wild daughter or Devlin’s sister.

  He nodded. “She’s tough.”

  Huh. I hadn’t expected sympathy from the guy who wouldn’t share his ice cream.

  “I know that I should be nice to everyone.”

  “Why?”

  I looked at him, surprised. “Because it’s wrong to misuse the power you have.”

  He shrugged. “You don’t have to use it at all.”

  “But why wouldn’t I?”

  He scowled again, looking pretty ridiculous. He just wasn’t a scowler.

  “Whatever. None of my business if you can’t live your life without messing up other people’s.”

  I opened my mouth to
say something, but at that point the principal came out of her office to see me. I followed her into the lovely, sunshine filled room and sat on the comfortable chair opposite hers. She was prepared to be sympathetic, to understand, but not when I was done with her. I didn’t lean her, didn’t do anything at all, just let her do what she wanted with me. I made it clear that I didn’t like Ms. Briggs and wouldn’t pretend otherwise since she didn’t pretend that she liked her students, and the principal gave me detention. I was relegated to cleaning the windows and roof of the glorious gothic school with the custodian after dance practice.

  So that was fun. I told Snowy; she didn’t get it.

  “Why didn’t you talk her out of it?”

  I shrugged without answering, trying to lose myself in the intricate dance steps Tawna had choreographed for our next performance. It almost worked.

  Cleaning the roof and windows with Carl, Sanders high school custodian was actually pleasant. The sky was clear, the air crisp, and Carl didn’t talk much.

  “You missed a spot,” he said at one point when I’d almost forgotten he was there as I leaned over the skylight, holding myself up on a metal beam between panels, careful not to fall through the glass. That would be lame to plummet the two stories to the hallway below.

  “Thanks,” I said, nodding to him as I found the spot I’d missed.

  “Why is a good kid like you in detention?” he asked after another few minutes.

  I looked at him surprised by the question. He didn’t seem like a talker, not with the way he nervously chewed his bottom lip and kept his baseball cap low over his eyes.

  “I’m tired of pretending,” I said simply.

  He nodded and I wondered if he was like Smoke, or the mysterious Ash I still hadn’t met. That would have to change.

  Time seemed to blur until I stood in the woods, in the dark, a few weeks after detention, watching the darkness expectantly with Devlin beside me.

  “I’m not the only one worried about you, Dariana,” he said, his voice beautiful and melodious, like my father’s only even more perfect.

  “I can’t stop you from worrying, and even if I could, it’s your choice.”

  “What about mother?”

  I’d had enough talks with her, received enough of her warning looks that I was fully aware of what she thought about me throwing away my education. It just didn’t make a difference.

  “I’m me, not just some extension of her power and name. Same with you. I’m not just Devlin’s little sister. I’m myself. And I don’t like everyone. And I don’t want to do everything perfectly. I’m not interested in being liked by people who can’t help it. How can you stand to be adored by people who don’t know you at all?”

  He sighed. “The point isn’t to be adored, but to improve people’s lives.”

  “Even if they don’t want improving?”

  “They don’t know what they want.”

  I shook my head. “Dad wouldn’t agree with you.”

  “He doesn’t have to see the future. If I didn’t intervene, bad things would happen. I’m not going to do nothing when I can make a difference. To do so would be unethical.”

  “I know that’s your opinion, and mine is that some people would rather have something bad than something they didn’t choose. People have a right to mistakes, even accidents. You can’t single-handedly save the world, Devlin.”

  He sighed. It seemed like he was always doing that around me those days. At school, I’d stopped going to the classes I didn’t like, and nothing my mother or brother could say would make me feel like it was worth my time. I’d go to the woods during my last class, when I was supposed to be in Ms. Briggs’s, and I’d track and hunt. I wasn’t supposed to do that kind of thing alone. I was supposed to have assistance in case something happened, but it was just one more rule that I hadn’t made but other people could dictate to me.

  One day, kind of cold, mid October, I stood in the woods, tracking something with a print the size of my head. It’s lair was somewhere ahead past a nasty stand of thorns that I really didn’t want to go through.

  I heard a sound behind me and whirled around, my knife at the ready.

  Osmond put his hands up, both of them holding weapons, while he gave me a slight smile.

  “I surrender,” he said with a smile that showed his dimples as he moved forward with his stealth walk, different from the way he walked in the halls of school.

  I turned away, back to the brush, trying to think about the creature and not the way he looked, not the way he didn’t like me.

  “Did you come here to lecture me on cutting class?”

  “No,” he said simply, stopping behind my left shoulder.

  I licked my lips as his jacket brushed mine. The wind rustled and blew his hair across his forehead.

  “Did Devlin tell you to come and find me?”

  “Your brother didn’t send me.”

  He spoke quietly, his words almost a whisper that made me close my eyes for some irrational reason. I snapped my eyes back open, checking the dark woods for signs of anything hungry.

  “You just felt like hunting in the woods today? You got bored with…”

  The creature with enormous paws and equally long and vicious claws sailed over the thorns, its mottled pelt the gray, brown color of the branches.

  I barely had time to duck away and bring up my knife. Osmond didn’t move though, instead he shot at the creature, five rapid bursts before the creature hit him, knocking Osmond down, covered with the huge body.

  “Osmond,” I screamed as I ran to help, but the creature was still moving, and Osmond, beneath him, at least what I could see of him, was not.

  “Osmond,” I shrieked as I stabbed the monster then grabbed the fur and pulled and pulled until finally I was able to roll it to the side off of Osmond.

  Blood covered Osmond and his white shirt.

  I grabbed his shirtfront and shook him once before dropping him down limply to run my hands over his body, searching for the wound. I had to apply pressure. I had to stop the bleeding. I had to save him. What if I couldn’t save him? I couldn’t find the wound.

  He looked pale beneath the blood, pale and perfect, with a soft mouth that twitched. I put my cheek to his face to see if I could feel his breath, with my hand on his chest. I could feel the steady thumping beneath my palm as his warm breath tickled my cheek.

  I pulled away and ran my hands over his body once more, searching for the wound. It must be on his back, I thought as I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up.

  He started laughing, throwing his head back as I tried to lift his still limp body. It took me a second to realize that he’d been faking.

  I gasped as I dropped him, pulling back to stare at him in disbelief while Osmond laughed so hard, his body shaking and tears coming to his eyes.

  “That was…” I sputtered as relief fought with anger. I got to my feet and started walking as I worked through what I felt in a rational way.

  “Hey, wait up,” he called, coming after me at a run.

  “No.”

  “Oh, come on. You didn’t really think that I was dead. You could see my soul or something.”

  I spun around. “If you’re so sure that I would think you were alive, why would you bother to pretend to be dead? I can’t believe you would do something so cruel. That’s not you. You’re nice, and gentle, and perfect, not some callous idiot.”

  He kept smiling even as he said, “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  “You didn’t scare me.”

  “Oh, okay. For a second there, I thought you were scared.”

  “Why would you want to scare me? I’m scared all the time. I’m going to live my whole life as myself. What could be more terrifying than that?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “Right. And that’s why you don’t like me.”

  “Dari,” he said, taking a step closer to me.

  People didn’t usually call me by my nickname. Snowy
did when she said sorry, just to be annoying.

  “What?”

  He pushed my hair back, away from my face and leaned down. I did not see that kiss coming. I thought maybe he was going to smell my face to identify what kind of blood I was wearing, or something else, anything other than him pressing his soft, sweet lips to mine. I’d grabbed someone and kissed him when I was younger to see what it was like, but not like this. This was warm breath and soft skin with his hand skimming the skin of my cheek. I felt the press of his lips all the way to my toes where they curled in my boots.

  When he pulled away I stared at him, feeling blank but not empty.

  He started walking out of the woods, slowly, and I followed, barely noticing the lack of monsters around us.

  Osmond kissed me.

  Chapter 12

  I blinked in the night outside of my mother’s house, shaking my head as I shifted the keys in my hand until I could get the house key in the lock that no one had used since Devlin had died. I missed him so much. I forgot sometimes. I’d be so angry about him taking my soul, but then I’d remember the way he smelled or smiled. Osmond. I swallowed hard and fought down the ridiculous guilt. I should have been more careful. I didn’t need to see more vision of me living a life I could never have, not when my brother left me without a soul. But I had to find out what Devlin wanted.

  I opened the door and reached to turn on the light then froze as I heard an ominous click. The light flashed on and I found myself looking down the barrel of a gun.

  “Turn around and go,” Snowy hissed. “I have no problem shooting a drug addict who’s looking for some free pharmaceuticals.”

  “They’re all at the warehouse, anyway,” I said calmly.

  She gasped and lowered the gun. “Dariana?” she asked, staring at me in horror without uncocking the gun.

  “Hi. What are you doing in my house?” I asked, turning to close the door behind me. I slipped off my boots carefully so I wouldn’t drop the stone still wrapped in my shirt.