Hungry Ghost

by Allison Moon

  “So what was her story?”

  “Bree? She was a good girl … mostly,” Stefan said. “Wanted to be a diplomat’s wife someday.”

  “We all can dream,” Taylor sighed.

  “Rory is political royalty around here. His dad is Governor Blackwell. Owned a bunch of local corporations and basically bought himself the governorship. Used to be the mayor of Milton and now there’s all sorts of presidential hubbub around him.”

  Lexie’s gaze slid back to Rory, who was digging through his backpack. “If he’s so rich and powerful, why the heck is Rory going here?”

  “Civic pride, probably,” Stefan said. “Oregonians might give his daddy side-eye if Blackwell shipped him off to New England.”

  “Presidential hubbub,” Lexie muttered, trying to imagine the kid in the tech vest and slouchy jeans wearing a fancy suit in Washington.

  “I think Bree was trying to get in on the ground floor,” Stefan said.

  “Though he doesn’t exactly look like a Kennedy,” Taylor sassed.

  “A Schwarzenegger more like it,” Stefan said with a slight growl.

  “Which is pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?” Taylor asked.

  “Oh my god, right?!” The boys laughed.

  Lexie said, “And you were hoping to be, what, the pool boy?”

  “Ugh, this skin doesn’t tan,” Stefan said. “Maybe like the stable boy or something. Whatever. Fuck it. He’s straight.”

  “You’re finally admitting that? Good boy!” Taylor golf-clapped.

  “He’s not like straight-straight. I had a chance.”

  “Straight-straight?” Lexie asked.

  “He’s got something going on. I think he’s got some unique tastes. Bree wasn’t all good, and there are plenty of pretty white girls on campus he could have had that are all good. But Bree had a wild streak. I think that’s why he liked her,” Stefan said. “Actually, I’m surprised he hasn’t sniffed up any of your trees lately.”

  “The Pack? We’re dykes.”

  “Exactly,” Stefan said.

  “Weird.”

  “There’s more in heaven and earth, Whore-atio, than is found on your Kinsey scale.” Taylor tittered at his joke and Stefan gave him props in the form of a delicate high-five.

  Corwin emerged from the student union with a smoothie, scrolling through text messages. She hadn’t seen Lexie and the boys when Rory shouted, “Hey Corwin, wait up!”

  Rory leapt from the porch of the Union and chased her down the sidewalk. He was military-handsome: tall, broad-shouldered, with a strong, clean-shaven jaw and light brown hair. He looked well-fed and proud.

  “Hm,” Stefan said. “Spoke too soon.”

  Corwin smiled at Rory with an open grin Lexie hadn’t seen from her before. Lexie and the boys turned their ears toward them, breathing lightly and tuning into the breeze-blown conversation.

  “I’m going to go lift later,” Rory said. “Wanna join?”

  “Training already?” Corwin asked. “It’s only mid-February. Doesn’t your season start in March?”

  “Yeah, well, my mom’s Christmas cooking hasn’t worn off yet and I don’t want to be the only dude in the gym with a keg instead of a six-pack.” He grabbed his belly and laughed.

  “Six-packs are overrated,” Corwin said with a curled lip, digging through her backpack and pulling out a bag of rolling tobacco and a lighter. “Everyone likes a little softness. Gives you something to grab onto.”

  Lexie struggled to hide her confused shock. Stefan wasn’t nearly as successful. He leaned in Rory’s direction with hanging jaw and incredulous eyebrows.

  Rory and Corwin spied Lexie and the boys and headed in their direction. Stefan struggled to look nonchalant as they approached.

  “And then I said,” Stefan rushed, “why not the whole team? I’ve got nowhere to be! Right? Am I right?”

  Lexie and Taylor rolled their eyes as Corwin and Rory stepped to them.

  “This is my friend Lexie,” Corwin said, twisting her freshly made cigarette and lighting.

  “The Rare wolf hunter!” Rory said.

  Lexie’s heart jumped into her throat. Stefan shot her a look. “What?”

  “You were the one those hunters shot when that wolf attacked you. Weren’t you, like, tracking it or something?”

  Lexie struggled for composure. “Oh, yeah. I was … trying to track it.”

  “It sucks that the Rare got that old guy.”

  “Hal Speer. Yeah. It sucks,” Lexie said.

  Rory shook his head. “Nasty fuckers. We should just carpet bomb these woods once and for all.”

  “Yeah, plants and animals, who needs ‘em?” Stefan said.

  Rory laughed. “Right?!” he said, smacking Stefan on the arm.

  Stefan reddened and rubbed his arm. Lexie rolled her eyes.

  Rory turned to Corwin and elbowed her in the bicep. “So, whaddya say? You want to lift with me tonight? We could grab dinner after.”

  Lexie didn’t try hiding her horror this time. She chattered to Corwin, so quick, quiet and subtle it would’ve registered to any normal person like a hiccup. He’s not wasting any time.

  Corwin glared at her then looked to the boys, who had been throwing shade but now tried to cover.

  “Yeah, that’d be fun,” Corwin said to Rory. Lexie stepped close to Rory and sniffed, trying to find a trace of him in her memory of Bree’s scent.

  “Cool.” Rory jogged away. Lexie barely waited until he was out of earshot to launch in on Corwin.

  “What the hell was that?” Lexie asked.

  “Since when do you care, Miss ‘Dudes aren’t that bad’?”

  “Dudes aren’t so bad, but that doesn’t mean you have to sleep with one. You’ve been the most ardent anti-dude person I know. You’re even mad at Mitch for wanting to take testosterone.”

  “That’s different. That’s about solidarity. Rory can’t help he’s a man,” Corwin said.

  “But that doesn’t mean you should sleep with him.”

  “No one said anything about sex. We’re lifting together.”

  Lexie gave her a face.

  “Christ, Lex. I’m curious! I used to sleep with guys before my attack and I kinda liked it.” She looked sheepishly at the boys.

  “Don’t look at me, sweetheart,” Stefan said. “I think guys are filth, and I still go bottoms up for them.” He and Taylor nodded gravely to one another.

  “Out of all the guys on campus…?” Lexie asked. “How do you know you won’t get triggered?”

  “In what universe is that any of your business?”

  “Fine, it’s not. But Sharm is. The happiness of my Pack is—”

  “—Your Pack? Since when?”

  Lexie rolled her eyes. “His girlfriend was murdered like two weeks ago. That’s suspicious.”

  “And scary,” Taylor said.

  “Rory’s not a murderer. She was killed by a Rare, and he’s not—” Corwin cut herself off and looked under her heavy brow at the boys.

  “They’re cool,” Lexie said.

  “Yeah, we’re totally werewolves,” Taylor said with a flip of his hand.

  “What?” Corwin said.

  “Yep,” Stefan said. “We are.”

  “It’s true,” Lexie said. “I caught Stefan munching on some dude the other night in a seriously unsexy way. I’ll explain later.”

  “Christ, Lexie!” Stefan hissed.

  “What?” she said. “It’s like an open secret now.”

  “No, it’s like a secret secret.”

  “Sorry,” Lexie said. “Sorry to all of you, but seriously Corwin, everything about this is screaming Bad Idea to me. I know you can handle it, and it’s fine if you want to kick it with men-types, but that one? Now? With the body count hopping up every day? It’s just … it will destabilize the little stability we have left at home.”

  Corwin furrowed her brow and shook her head in disbelief. “Uh. Okay. Um. Well, Rory isn’t a werewolf, though I guess
he’s the only non-Rare around here. Bree was killed by someone for some other fucked-up reason. She probably had something going on that none of us knew about.”

  “Like what?” Lexie asked.

  “I dunno. An affair?”

  Lexie made a face. “Ew.”

  Stefan made a sound in protest. “Don’t knock it til you try it.”

  “But feel free to knock it immediately afterwards,” Taylor said.

  “You guys are grossing me out,” Lexie said. “I just had three images of wolf peen race through my head and now I need a brain enema.”

  “The papers said she was killed by a pack,” Stefan said.

  “Well it wasn’t ours,” Corwin said, her cigarette stuck to her lips as she fumbled one-handed for her lighter.

  “Not ours either,” Taylor said. “Ick.”

  “Then unless we’re way off base,” Corwin said, “it’d have to be the Morloc.”

  Taylor shared a confused look with Stefan. “The whatnow?”

  “Morloc,” Lexie said. “It’s the name of the full-blood Rares that live up near the barrens. Direct descendants of the original pureblood werewolves.”

  “Oh sure, I know those guys,” Stefan said. “Big, scary, total assholes.”

  “That’s them,” Corwin said. She handed her smoothie to Lexie while she lit her cigarette. Lexie took a sip.

  Stefan shook his head. “And they never needed a reason to kill anyone.”

  “See? Not Rory,” Corwin said. “Let me handle Sharm. Our relationship has always been open, and we’ve talked about this kind of thing before. It’s not going to ruin anything.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Sharmalee was sobbing in Jenna’s arms, and Corwin was trying every tactic to smooth things over.

  “I’m not choosing anyone! And if I had to, I’d choose you. This isn’t about that.”

  “You’re straight! You’re straight, and you’re a liar.”

  “I’m neither of those things. I came to you first! I could’ve snuck around on you, but I didn’t because I love you.” Corwin reached out to stroke Sharmalee’s hair. “I love your body and your mind and your femininity. I love that you’re a woman. I love our relationship. I’m just curious. We’ve been open since we got together, and I’m finally not afraid of men anymore. Why can’t you let me explore that?”

  “Because. I can’t touch a woman who’s been touched by a man.” She batted Corwin’s hand away.

  “I had sex with, like, four guys before you and I even met.”

  “This is different!”

  “How?”

  “Because you never wanted to touch a man again when I met you.”

  “I was raped, Sharm.”

  “Well, that was good enough for me!”

  “Wow,” Corwin said. “That was a condition for our relationship? ‘Must be traumatized by men so as to never want to be around them.’ Nice.”

  “It was sympathy. Not many girls could understand what I’d been through.”

  “That’s a good thing, Sharm. But if you’re saying the only reason we were together was because of trauma empathy, that’s hella fucked-up.”

  “It’s not!” Sharmalee fell into sobs again.

  Jenna spoke next, her soft tone cutting under the cacophony. “Everybody breathe. I know this is a lot for everyone to handle right now.”

  Hazel spoke up from where she was stretching on the living room floor. “Isn’t he Bree’s boyfriend?”

  “Was,” Lexie answered.

  “Yeah, well, he’s not a wolf, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Corwin said. “I sniffed him out.”

  Sharmalee heaved a sob.

  “Not really,” Hazel said. “More wondering if he’s a murderer or something.”

  Jenna spoke quietly, “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Corwin? I don’t have a problem with you being curious about boys, but this feels a bit suspect.”

  “He’s harmless. He’s a nice guy, he’s not a Rare, and he had bad luck with a girlfriend who was probably cheating on him in the first place.”

  “Cheating?”

  “Why else would Bree have been in the woods in the middle of the night?”

  Lexie shrugged. “I think that’s what the police are trying to figure out.”

  “Whatever,” Corwin said. “Rory’s one of the good ones, all right?”

  Jenna sighed and stroked Sharmalee’s hair. “I guess we’ll all have to trust your instincts about this.”

  Lexie and Hazel shared a wary look. Corwin leaned close to Sharmalee, taking care not to touch her. She whispered, “I love you, baby, but I’m going. I’ll be back soon.”

  12

  “The word Virgin comes from the same root as Virile. There is little evidence to suggest such historically-significant women as Joan of Arc, Mary of Nazareth, and Queen Elizabeth, often referred to as virgins, were actually virgins in the modern sense. Rather, the term was more likely interchangeable with the male version of the word: virile, with which the term virgin shares a root. Read this way, the term virgin likely referred to the self-sustaining nature of these women’s sexualities. A virgin, in this respect, refers to a woman whose sexuality is not claimed by a husband. Rather, she is her own guardian, her own master, and her own hero.”

  Lexie listened as Duane read aloud, her eyes crossing as she tried to follow along in her own book.

  Duane uncapped his green highlighter and struck it across the page, perfect lines glowing in the library light.

  “Okay,” Duane said. “So if we apply this to the reading, are the ‘unwomen’ virgins or … prostitutes, I guess?”

  Lexie drew a crescent moon with her yellow highlighter, and added heavy eyebrows and a frown with her pen.

  “Lexie?” Duane said. “Hello?”

  “I dunno.”

  “I doubt Professor Spencer will find that a compelling thesis statement.”

  Lexie sighed and rubbed her head. She looked forward to a future where she could deal with life without having to be burdened by five-page papers, if she made it that far.

  “They sound like the same thing to me,” she answered.

  “How so?”

  She sighed and rolled her head back, the ache burning behind her eyes indicating a need for sleep, food, or alcohol. “I don’t know. But who’s more virile than a prostitute? If the original virgin meant an unmarried woman in control of her sexuality, then a whore is the most virginal virgin who ever did virgin.”

  Duane cocked an eyebrow.

  “The virgin/whore dichotomy isn’t a dichotomy,” Lexie continued. “They’re both. They’re the same.”

  Duane rested his head on his hand.

  “Right?” she asked, suddenly unsure.

  “I mean … sure. Yeah. We could make a paper out of that, easy.”

  “Awesome,” Lexie said, slamming her book shut and tossing it into her backpack. “Can we talk about it … later, then? Tomorrow?”

  Lexie cracked her knuckles and neck, wanting fresh air to purge the old-book smell from her nose.

  “You want to get dinner?” Duane asked. “They’re serving bacon cheeseburgers in Butler tonight.”

  Lexie’s stomach gurgled.

  “Whoa,” Duane laughed. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

  Duane’s smile was gentle, and she knew he cared, but a splinter of doubt shadowed his gaze, as though he needed the company more than he was letting on.

  “Sure.”

  After long minutes of nothing but their footsteps and a few scattered voices from corners of campus, Lexie spoke.

  “How are you doing, by the way?”

  Duane cleared his throat and made a face, but a thread of tension ran under his lightness, like it was all a cover for a trigger.

  “All right, I guess.”

  Lexie waited a few more silent paces.

  “I mean—nightmares. Which is expected. And, you know, flashbacks or whatever.”

  Lexie nodded and gave him a sympathetic smile.<
br />
  “It’s just weird, because the Rare that attacked us was so … sentient. So smart. I would’ve expected an animal to be more impersonal, but it wasn’t. And the fact that they haven’t gotten it … I know it sounds stupid, but it just makes me feel like I’ve been targeted. Like he’ll come back to finish the job.”

  She, Lexie thought, though she didn’t correct him.

  Duane shuddered. “We’re all screwed, I suppose. Any word on the wolf that killed Bree?”

  “Plural,” Lexie sighed. “It was a pack.”

  “They run in packs?” Duane asked, blanching. “That means … there are more of them.”

  Lexie nodded.

  “How many?”

  “Too many,” Lexie said. Duane’s gaze shifted furtively across the quad as they walked. He was still so scared. Moreso than she was, more than she could even really understand. She felt cruel for not understanding, for not telling him everything right that moment, but the coming clean would surely destroy the tiny thread that held him together. “They don’t know where they’re from or why she was in the woods in the first place, but I have a feeling it’s because of Rory.”

  “Rory Blackwell? No way. That guy’s like a giant Golden Retriever. He’d never hurt anyone.”

  Lexie shrugged. “She was alone in the woods for a reason, and I can’t imagine a girl ever doing that by choice.”

  “Uh … you used to hang out in the woods alone all the time.”

  Lexie wanted to counter, but Duane was right. She managed a small laugh.

  He smiled in return, but it didn’t last. “I was always one of the stronger guys, you know. I mean, I’m not huge, but I can run, I can jump, I can throw things. It just feels so terrible to be so weak, you know?”

  Lexie couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, Duane. I know. I’m a girl. It sucks.”

  “But I mean, to feel so vulnerable … ”

  Lexie scoffed. “Duane, that is like every woman’s daily situation.”

  “Yeah, but,” Duane continued, “it’s not like you’re constantly scared a monster’s going to jump out from behind a tree and eviscerate you.”

  Lexie stopped walking to reassess the boy she was just starting to consider a friend. The boy who had four teenage sisters. The boy who survived Renee’s jaws and Blythe’s orders because he was one of the good guys.