Hungry Ghost

by Allison Moon

  Renee half-snarled.

  “Maybe we need to process,” Jenna offered.

  “We don’t need to process.”

  “Maybe we do,” Jenna insisted. “Everyone’s miserable, no one trusts you, Lexie can’t even find her wolf, and we don’t know what the hell to do. We’re getting sloppy, everyone stepping over shit like this.”

  “Shit like passive aggression? Or shit like corpses?”

  “Both.”

  Renee shoved away from the table and grabbed her stuff. “You know where to find me for the latter, but I’m not down for any group healing lesbian circle bullshit.”

  Three hours later, the Pack sat in the living room, in a circle around the low table. It reminded Lexie of that first party: kissing Renee, warmed by candlelight, the first of so many things. But that stormy night felt like years ago, not months.

  Renee looked the least happy of the bunch, which was quite a feat, considering how dreadful the rest seemed.

  “I’d like to share,” Sharmalee offered.

  Jenna nodded.

  “I miss Blythe, but not really,” Sharmalee said. “I miss what she was to me, but not who she was in the world, not toward the end at least. And that makes me feel really sad. That’s all.”

  “Thank you for your share,” Jenna said. “Anyone else?”

  No one spoke.

  “Okay, yeah. I’m worried,” Hazel said finally. “I’m really freaked out a little bit. I’m just gonna say it.”

  “Thank you, Hazel. Anything else?”

  Hazel nodded, her whole body rocking with the force of her enthusiasm. “I mean, we know we let one half-blood go free.”

  “You mean Lexie let go free,” Corwin muttered.

  “No cross-talk,” Jenna scolded.

  Hazel continued, “And we know there are more. Like how many? At least two, right?”

  The girls looked to one another. Renee answered, “Well there’s the half-blood Milton student who we—Lexie—let go.”

  “Stefan,” Hazel interjected.

  “Right, Stefan. And,” Renee continued, “the full-blood that attacked Lexie near the barrens, the one who mauled the girl last week, and the one who killed Bree, which could be the same one. That’s all I’m aware of.”

  “But it’s gotta be the tip of the iceberg,” Mitch muttered.

  “You’re right,” Sharmalee said. “Those woods are too big to be hiding one measly full-blood.”

  Hazel nodded. “So then what the hell are we doing?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Corwin growled.

  “Okay Corwin,” Jenna said. “Let’s let Hazel finish.”

  “I’m done. I guess,” Hazel said. “I’m just wondering. Like I’m happy to have a normal life right now, really happy. I’m happy I can strip again, I’m happy we’re not all walking on eggshells because we’re afraid we’ll be the ‘wrong’ kind of women or feminists or whatever. But it feels like a lie. Nothing’s normal. Another girl died.”

  “We let her die,” Mitch mumbled.

  “It wasn’t our fault,” Lexie said, so quietly no human would have been able to discern her voice above the crackling fire.

  “Well you’re the one who let Stefan live, so I guess you’re right. It’s your fault,” said Corwin.

  “Corwin,” Jenna scolded, “we have no proof that Stefan was responsible. It’s just as possible Bree was killed by a different Rare. Or by a full-blood.”

  “Great, so it could be a bigger werewolf, which means we’re even more screwed.”

  Sharmalee slumped in her chair. “It’s still not fair to blame Lexie.”

  “None of this is fair!” Corwin erupted. “Blythe is dead. Renee’s in charge, which hasn’t exactly been a smashing success, and another girl died on our watch.”

  Renee shot Corwin a look. Corwin met it, not backing down.

  “Thank you, Corwin,” Jenna said. “We hear you, and you’re sharing some important feelings. Let’s just try to keep this constructive. Why don’t we talk more about our feelings around Blythe’s death?”

  Everyone shifted uncomfortably and Renee held her temples. A full minute of awkward silence passed before Lexie finally spoke.

  “I wish I could speak on behalf of Archer,” Lexie said. “I don’t know what she’d say. I never really knew what was going on in her head. But I do know that she cared about you all and what you were trying to do. She wanted to stay, to help. But I wouldn’t let her.”

  “Fucking genius,” Corwin said.

  Jenna shot Corwin a cold look.

  “I could never be the woman I needed to be as long as Archer was around. If that’s selfish, then fine, I’m selfish. But I know that you feel the same way about Blythe. She helped you all to grow, but then when you were strong enough, she held you back. She demanded your allegiance when she should have been encouraging you.”

  “You don’t know shit about Blythe,” Corwin said, standing. “You knew her for what, three months? She saved my fucking life, all of our lives, not to fulfill some ambition, but because she cared. Don’t project your ex’s personality defects onto Blythe. She stuck around. Your girlfriend bolted, and you, I don’t even know why you’re here!”

  “Corwin, chill!” Renee shouted. “I’ll tell you why she’s here, but first you gotta stop acting like a stuck up bitch!”

  The girls gasped. The b-word had been verboten when Blythe was around, and now Renee was the first to use it against one of their own.

  “We all need to take a breath,” Jenna said. “Renee, please use your ‘I’ statements.”

  “Fine,” Renee said. “I think Corwin’s being a bitch.”

  Jenna sighed.

  “That wasn’t what she meant,” Mitch mumbled.

  “Listen,” Renee said, sinking back into her chair. “This circle shit is killing me. Just let me say my piece and I’ll shut up for the rest of it, alright?”

  The girls looked to each other. Jenna waved an exasperated hand.

  “This is what I’m seeing,” Renee said. “We’re all happy Blythe is gone and we’re ashamed to say so. You need to blame someone for killing her, and it should be me. Because I did kill her, with my own fucking jaws. So let’s leave Lexie and Archer out of that.

  “I’m sorry she’s dead, only because she was a good lover to you, Mitch, a friend to the rest of us, and a leader when we all needed one. But don’t you dare doubt that I killed her because she would have killed us.”

  The girls sat still as Renee stared into the eyes of each member of the Pack. “You get that?”

  Mitch chewed on his lips. Sharmalee hid her body behind her knees. Corwin stretched her fingers. Hazel twisted the tips of her hair into tight coils. Jenna scrunched up her mouth at the sudden loss of formal process, and Lexie shifted a mouthful of air back and forth between her cheeks.

  “Blythe didn’t know how to improve our odds, so she decided to start killing humans by profiling them—poorly. With that much heat on us, we’d be found out in no time. Tracking half-bloods and waiting for them to harm someone is not only a losing game, it’s unethical. But taking out humans we only suspect to be werewolves is just as bad. Either way, innocent people die. We need a way to figure out who really is a werewolf without having to wait for another girl to end up like Bree. We need Lexie.”

  Lexie, whose mind had been wandering during Renee’s speech, sat up as all eyes fell on her. She forced an uncertain grin.

  “Lexie is a peacespeaker,” Renee continued. “She has an ability we don’t. She can see the wolves while they’re dormant in human forms. With her help, we can spot them and take care of them before any more innocents have to die.”

  “Why isn’t she called a peace-seer, then?” Sharmalee asked.

  Renee paused and they all looked at Lexie, who shrugged.

  “We don’t know,” Renee continued. “This is all fairly new to us. As far as we know, Lexie’s all there is. Her mother died in the battle with the Morloc full-bloods, and unfortunately, s
he was the only one who had the knowledge. What we’ve got to work with is the somewhat-questionable powers Lexie’s gleaned through her dreams and memories.”

  Lexie fidgeted, pretty sure there were better words for it than the ones Renee used, but she didn’t know what they were.

  “Whoa whoa whoa,” Corwin said. “We’re relying on prophetic dreams to decide our strategies now?”

  Sharmalee said, “She’s right, Renee. How do we know Lexie isn’t just crazy? No offense, Lex.”

  “S’alright,” Lexie mumbled.

  “We’re going to put it to the test.”

  “What?” Lexie said.

  “I’ve been trying to talk to you about it for a month now, Lex, and you’ve dodged me every time,” Renee said. “I’m introducing some accountability. You’ve got to pull your weight around here if you want to stay. Let’s take your powers for a test drive.”

  She walked to Lexie’s side. “We’ll find someone using your vision, we’ll capture him, we’ll wait for the moon, and then we’ll know.”

  “Are we sure this is the best approach?” Jenna asked.

  “Blythe took those boys’ innocence when she ordered their deaths, but she also took ours. She made us murderers. Now, we are free from her tyranny and we have the chance to think for ourselves. The issue now is how we decide who we are as a pack without her telling us,” Renee said. “Another girl has died, and I see no end and no easy solution. We are the only ones standing between these wolves and the women of this town.”

  Renee’s energy increased as she spoke. She sat up straight, leveled a finger and swept it over the group. “I’m calling an end to innocent deaths. Beginning after the next full moon, the Pack plays offense.”

  5

  Lexie hadn’t planned on making the drive out to The Cat Club.

  The club was smoky by design, flagrantly bucking Oregon’s anti-smoking laws to provide a safe haven for the addicts. Lexie liked it, feeling that this was what a real urban venue must have felt like once, when smoky clubs were still smoky.

  It was a thin crowd. She ordered a can of club soda and grabbed a chair at a table halfway between the bar and the stage. Randy walked on soon after, a single spotlight on the microphone. She wore a plaid shirt, a fedora with a red feather, and a black guitar. She greeted the crowd with a few words and began to strum. Lexie liked being able to observe Randy in this way. Acutely aware she was being watched, she seemed to actively disengage from that reality by focusing nearly all of her attention on the sounds she made. Lexie found herself rocking back and forth in her chair, plucking the soda can’s tab in rhythm with Randy’s downbeats.

  Randy was an assertive player, though not aggressive. She hit each string with precision but no preconceptions. It took her a while to lean into the mic and sing.

  I hate you for loving me so well. You’ve forced me to reevaluate my imaginary hell …

  Lexie nodded with the lyrics and continued to sway in time. Randy’s grin, no matter how wide or shrouded, always looked sly. Something about her narrow jaw and the creases around her eyes made her look as sharp and brash as a coyote. Her voice was raspy but elegant. The mic was old and warm, the amp filling the space with music like heat from a wood furnace.

  After the set, Randy walked over and knelt next to Lexie’s chair.

  “You came,” Randy said. Her hair was damp with stage-light sweat.

  “Yeah,” Lexie shrugged. “I try to say yes to nice invitations.”

  “Adventuresome?” Randy asked.

  “More like a spiritual practice,” Lexie joked, and Randy nodded in appreciation.

  “You came alone?”

  “Did you want me to bring people?”

  “No, it’s fine. Last week it just looked like you ran with a tight little posse.”

  “Oh. I guess. I mean, we’re friends. We’re supposed to be … more I suppose. I guess I don’t really know why they want me around. I’m not sure if I belong.”

  “A common problem.” Randy swayed back and forth, her elbows on her knees, squatting in her black leather boots and slacks. She had removed her outer shirt to reveal a white tank top and suspenders. Their black lines cut a shadow along the whiteness of her shirt, a curved band that stretched from her hips across meager breasts to her slim, rounded shoulders. Tattoos began at her jaw, stretched in swirls of black and red lines down her throat and across her chest, and joined up with a colorful chestpiece: a red heart with angel wings, stretching from sternum to shoulder in each direction. Her hat cast her eyes into shadow.

  “You want anything?” Randy asked, gesturing to the bar.

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  Randy left and returned with a non-alcoholic beer a minute later, pulling up a chair beside Lexie.

  “Do you have class tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bad girl,” Randy said with a crooked grin.

  “Are you kidding?” Lexie asked.

  “I don’t know, am I?”

  Lexie shrugged.

  “I suppose ‘bad’ doesn’t really describe you.”

  “It’s not obvious?”

  Randy relaxed into her chair, resting her ankle on her knee, her black leather motorcycle boot catching the dim club lights in its shine. “You’ve got something in you, that much is true.”

  “Something?” Lexie squirmed, thinking about Jenna’s encouragement and Renee’s decree. Was her wolf so close to the surface it was detectable even by norms? Whatever piece of her willed away the wolf worked twice as hard to shove it further down.

  “A thirst, maybe? For adventure, risk?”

  “Thirst?” Lexie mocked.

  “I can tell you’re looking for something.”

  “Yeah, small talk.”

  Randy laughed, keeping her eyes on Lexie. “Fair enough.”

  After three seconds of silence Lexie spoke. “Where are you from?”

  “Heh,” Randy shrugged and pulled the brim of her hat further over her eyes. “Seattle,” she said. “That’s where I met the, ah—”

  “Cocksucker,” Lexie offered.

  “Yeah,” Randy smiled. “Her.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “How about you? You ever get your heart broken?”

  Lexie nodded, stretching her jaw against the tightness that threatened any time Archer came up. She opened her mouth as wide as she could and let her tongue hang out. She wiggled it and stretched her lips with a long “Bleh” sound.

  “Sorry,” she said, finally. “I’m not being very articulate.”

  “And yet you’re saying so much,” Randy laughed.

  “I’m still kind of … getting over someone.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Lexie plumbed her mind for the answer, but her name was no longer a mere denotation of a person in a space. The word “Archer” had come to attach itself not only to that woman, but a myriad of memories and systems that tangled Lexie’s insides, squeezing like ratchet straps across her heart.

  “It’s not—” Lexie said.

  “It’s cool.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So then, you chasing this one still?” Randy asked.

  Lexie plucked the top of her can. “I’m the one who sent her away.”

  “Why?”

  “Good question,” Lexie said, bending the can tab back and forth. “I thought it was ambition, but now I think it may have been fear.” At Randy’s incredulous expression, she asked, “Does that make sense?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person. I’m kind of a burnout, though I can appreciate ambition in theory.”

  “In theory?”

  “Sure. I see ambition like I see a really beautiful naked man. I can appreciate the aesthetic and potential, but I’m not going to go chasing it down.”

  “You’re pragmatic,” Lexie said.

  “Or a burnout,” Randy laughed.

  “The kind of girl my mom wouldn’t have let me play with.”

  “Nah. Moms love me. I remin
d them of their wild pasts.”

  “Wild woman?” Lexie asked. She was flirting; it was strange.

  “That’s me.” Randy said with a tip of her hat. Lexie assessed her and wondered what she meant by wild, now that Lexie understood a whole new definition of that word. Drinking and dancing it was not. Not anymore.

  “Oh, sorry,” Lexie said. “I didn’t even ask, do you use female pronouns?”

  “Hell yes. I’m all woman,” Randy said. “A dying breed.”

  “Women?”

  “Butches.”

  Lexie snorted.

  “True fact. Seventy-five percent of the dykes I used to ride with are now dudes. It’s the end of an era that never even really got to start.”

  Lexie fidgeted. She thought of Mitch and his new predilection for masculine pronouns. She thought of mentioning it, then resisted.

  Randy left to begin her second set, and Lexie contemplated leaving. It would have been an easy thing to do had the club held more people. Instead, whenever Randy glanced up from her hand on the fretboard, her eyes caught Lexie’s, trapping her in her seat. She squirmed with the attention, but the heat of Randy’s glance held her in place.

  After her set, Randy walked Lexie back to her truck.

  “How did you know my ex was a ‘she’?” Lexie asked. “Is it obvious?”

  “Straight girls tend to be more afraid of me.”

  “Really?” Lexie said with a snicker. “And they don’t drive out on a school night to see you, huh?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “So I’m either a bad girl or a not-straight one.”

  “Either way you win,” Randy said as Lexie hoisted herself into the driver’s seat. Randy stepped forward to fill the space Lexie left behind. “And me too, maybe.”

  Lexie smiled. “Maybe.”

  On her drive home, humming the refrain of Randy’s song, Lexie told herself that she’d likely never seek Randy out again. In the telling, though, she knew was lying.

  6

  Lexie and Renee walked along Milton’s main drag, the heels of Renee’s red cowboy boots clacking on the sidewalk. They stopped under the neon sign of Uncle Mao’s.