by Meg Collett
He held out his hand. A knot of metal and crystal caught my eye, and I had to trace its joined circles for a moment before I recognized what it was.
“Brass knuckles? Really?” But then I looked closer at the silver rings spiked in crystalline points. “Wait, are those diamonds?”
The redhead behind Tully smirked as I gaped, but Hex said dryly, “They are. Diamond cuts through anything, even ’swang.”
“Hurts like a bitch,” a thick-necked guy said.
“More importantly, it’ll make your punches more powerful. And . . .” Hex paused to fit the knuckles over his slender fingers. They had clearly been made for him. He pushed a smaller diamond on the side of the silver ring around his forefinger. A slender, three-inch blade flicked out the opposite end by his pinkie. “It makes for an easy, stealthy kill.”
“Wow.” I might have been drooling. I couldn’t say for sure.
The blade retracted with a hiss, and he slid the knuckles off and weighed the piece in his hand. “My father gave this to me when I was thirteen, the hunting age for us.” He met my eyes. “Now, I’m giving it to you.”
He held out the diamond and silver knuckles, which caught the dust-laden light of the warehouse and glittered. I forced myself to look up from the weapon. “Are you sure?”
He smiled what I imagined was the type of smile fathers often gave their daughters, one like pride. “I’m positive.”
My heart stuttered a bit, and a voice in my head whispered not to trust that swelling sensation pressing against the backs of my stitches. It was too close to something good, something too much like love, so I shoved it down.
When I reached out and took the knuckles, my words came out evenly, almost coldly. “Thank you.”
They were heavier than I’d thought, the diamonds even brighter up close. I slid them onto the fingers of my left hand, moving the cool kiss of silver so it rested against my knuckles. The rings fit securely enough; I wouldn’t lose it in a fight. I pressed the diamond by my thumb and the blade swiped out along the back of my fist.
I looked up at Hex, who was watching me. “Let’s get to work then.”
I tightened my grip and grinned at him as the others fanned out around us.
“Here, you’ll need this.” I turned in time to catch my whip, which Tully had tossed to me, taking it from where I’d left my jacket on the railing. I hadn’t even noticed him moving away.
“What if I hurt you?”
The redhead laughed. “If you land a shot, A.J. has to cut his hair.”
The thick-necked guy scoffed. “I think the better deal is we get to cut those locks, pretty boy.”
“Nobody is landing or cutting anything,” Tully said. He glanced at Hex. “She’s still healing. Should go easy today, right?”
Hex cut his gaze to me, his eyes slits above a smirk that crinkled his cheek. “It’s not like she’ll feel it.”
Hex lunged.
* * *
My legs felt like overheated rubber as I tried to haul myself up the stairs. If I could just make it back to my room and sit under the shower’s cold spray, I might feel human again. Maybe.
A trickle ran down between my breasts that felt too thick to be sweat. It seemed I’d proved Tully right and pulled a stitch somewhere. Not that I didn’t appreciate his worry, but I hadn’t given him much time to keep admonishing Hex when his turn came up.
He’d had to focus too much on avoiding my whip’s metal tip.
I’d landed a blow, so A.J. had to cut his hair.
The redhead, whose name I’d learned was Squeak, now sported a busted lip.
I would need to clean the diamonds on my knuckles. They probably have some blood on them, I thought, a sloppy grin on my face.
When I managed to reach the hallway, I picked up my speed. I needed to hurry. Hex had told me to meet him and the others outside in an hour to hunt the Manananggal.
To hunt with his pack.
Not even Thad’s Bravo Team got that privilege. They only supported the pack or followed orders, but never hunted alongside them.
Hex only gave me the offer after I’d busted up Squeak’s lip—and probably for taking my punches with curse words and growls instead of whines and whimpers.
I felt like I could do anything. I felt strong. Capable. Solid. I hadn’t felt that way in a long time, and it was on no one’s terms but my own.
Just as I grabbed the doorknob to my bedroom, it twisted in my loose grip and the door sprung open.
“Where the hell—” Luke cut off when he nearly ran me down. He had an arm wrapped around his middle, his chest bare and bandaged.
“Look,” Sunny said, popping her head around him, “there she is. Totally fine.” She lowered her voice, her eyes sweeping back into the room. “Now calm down before you upset Hatter.”
“I don’t know about fine. What happened to your eye?” Luke scrutinized me, his eyes sweeping over every inch of me as Sunny took a few steps back toward Hatter, who was sitting on the edge of my bed, his eyes cast to the floor, his lips moving around silent, hurried words.
I wanted to push him back so I could get to the shower, but the thought of touching him threatened to take away the brief happiness I felt.
“I was training with Hex,” I said when Luke spotted my numerous new bruises. Nothing serious, but Hex had told the guys not to hold back, though I suspected Tully had. “Move.”
As soon as I stepped inside, Luke slammed the door shut and slid the lock home.
I rolled my eyes. “Isn’t that a little dramatic? Those people out there did save your life last night.”
“Oh, really?” Luke crossed his arms over his chest. Black circles smudged the areas beneath his eyes, and his collarbones popped out sharply whenever he moved. “Those same people who waited to save you?”
I bit my tongue to keep it from saying the bitter, hateful words that wanted to roll off it. You couldn’t find me. You couldn’t save me. I hated myself for them. I didn’t feel them. I told myself I didn’t.
“You’re bleeding.”
I glanced at Sunny. Her eyes were on my shirt, but she didn’t move toward me. “Just pulled a stitch, but they needed to come out anyway.”
She nodded.
I took in her unusual silence, Luke’s prickliness next to me, and Hatter’s faraway, lost gaze. “What’s wrong?” I asked, looking between all of them.
“Why are you training with him?” Luke asked, catching me off guard.
“Because I want to learn.”
“Ollie.” Sunny fiddled with the hem of her button-up shirt. “I understand you need to learn about your mother and Hex might be the easiest way, but we thought you didn’t trust these people.”
“I . . .” I had brought them here because I didn’t trust Thad and the others, but things were changing. Here, I saw my mother in the concrete floors scuffed from hundreds of shoes, in the numerous bedrooms open to anyone who needed a place to rest, in the way the stairs could be lifted during an attack. For the first time in years, she was all around me. I hadn’t expected that when I called Sunny.
Never in a million years did I think I would start to understand the halflings—or Hex.
And possibly myself.
“Shouldn’t we be heading back to the university?” Luke asked.
I bristled at the annoyance in his voice. “To the man who tried to kill me numerous times?”
“We can deal with Dean,” he snapped.
“Has it occurred to you that I might not want to ever go back to that place?”
“Come on, Ollie,” Sunny said. “Don’t you think these people might be clouding your opinion of the university? There’s a lot to figure out there, but isn’t it safer there than here?”
“The Manananggal’s on the loose.” The words were a weak excuse, and Luke pounced on them.
“That thing isn’t our problem. Let them”—he waved his hand at the door, wincing as he did—“deal with it.”
“What if she flew to Kodiak? Then is
she our problem?”
“It,” he emphasized, “isn’t in Kodiak.”
“Hex said—”
“Hex murders hundreds of hunters every year. He’s a killer.”
“Did they deserve it?” A cold, frosty silence punctuated my words.
“What?” Luke said, speaking so quietly I barely caught the word.
“Hex only hunts by a code my mother started. He wouldn’t kill hunters who hadn’t slaughtered innocent ’swangs.”
I watched him wrangle with the words he wanted to say. He barely managed to fight them down. He wanted to scoff at the thought of an innocent aswang. The words to say there was no such thing were right there, battling behind his teeth. I was going against everything he, and Sunny and Hatter, had ever believed in. They hadn’t come here to have their minds changed about the aswangs.
Still, his prejudice punched me in the gut. “Do you remember your father killing Tully’s family? Were you there?”
“Who’s Tully?”
“Exactly. You don’t even know. Do you at least know when you murder children, Luke? Does that matter to you? Or do you just see a ’swang?”
He recoiled at my words and his nostrils flared. Behind him, Sunny inched toward Hatter, and I knew I’d gone too far. There were some things you didn’t mention when it came to war.
“Max really fucked you up, didn’t he?” Luke said slowly, lethally. “Do you even know what you’re saying?”
“You don’t look so good yourself. You were taking saliva.” I spat the word. “Really, Luke?”
“To save you,” he said, fists clenching. “To find you.”
“Too. Late.”
“We’re going to the other room,” Sunny said, interrupting us. She had Hatter on his feet. “Hatter needs to rest.”
“I’ll help.” Luke went to his friend’s side and took Hatter’s weight off Sunny. “I think we’re crowding Ollie here in her room.”
I stepped back as they passed. Only Sunny shot me a look. I couldn’t quite read the expression on her face. Something between tired and sad. Defeat, maybe.
I cringed at the thought. I was screwing up. My bones sang with the failure, but I couldn’t get the words out to call them back and ask them to stay in my room. Even though it did feel crowded and I couldn’t sleep, the thought of being alone terrified me because all I heard in my head was Max. Max asking me if I loved him. Max asking what was wrong with me. Max. Max. Max.
I let them go. Sunny softly closed the door behind her.
I had enough time left for a shower, but I suddenly felt like the dirt on me couldn’t be washed off. Instead, I went to my bed and lay down on top of the sheets, my legs dangling over the side, a hollowness in my stomach.
I woke up hours later, late enough that the darkness outside my window coated the room in thick shadows. I turned on the light next to the bed, my eyes blurry with sleep.
“Shit,” I mumbled, scrubbing at my face. I had no clue what time it was, but I knew it was late enough that everyone was out hunting. The ’swangs had all changed. The Manananggal was probably out flying around. And I was missing it.
I wondered if Hex thought I’d flaked on him and backed out. Why did it matter what he thought? He’d waited to save me. He’d threatened my friends.
But it mattered. It mattered the same as how I was in my mother’s bed. It mattered how Tully had stood in front of the halflings last night during the fight. It all mattered, now more than ever.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
I swung myself upright, my boots hitting the floor with a thud. My stitches pulled tight, stiff with blood, but I didn’t bother changing my shirt. I grabbed my mother’s jacket and headed for the door.
In the hall, I slowed long enough to scan the shadow beneath Sunny’s door. They could be asleep or somewhere else in the warehouse. Thad had firmly suggested they not go outside again. Part of me hated to leave them behind, but I knew where I needed to be.
Downstairs was a ghost town. The bay doors were locked up tight. Only a single fluorescent light lit the room. I walked across the space; the only sound came from my boots clapping across the concrete. I buttoned up my jacket as I went. Inside my pocket, I felt the reassuring weight of my whip and diamond knuckles.
“Missed the boat, huh?”
I jumped at the voice, my hand fumbling in my pocket as I swung around to face the sound.
“Ghost,” I said, huffing out a breath. The skinny kid was sitting cross-legged against one of the side bay doors, waiting. “What the hell are you doing?”
He shuffled a pack of cards, flicking them between his hands like he’d done it countless times before. The cards looked worse for wear too. “They wouldn’t let me go. Again.”
I heard the obvious pout in his muttered words. “Go out hunting?”
“Yeah.”
I swear his bottom lip trembled.
I crossed over to him and toed his knee with my boot. “But watching the house is a big deal. It’s important.”
He scooted away from me, his cards falling in waves to the floor. “Thad says I’ll just get in the way if I go out with them.”
“Thad’s kind of an asshole, isn’t he?”
Ghost snorted. “Yeah, he really can be sometimes,” he said, eyes glancing around as if someone might overhear him.
“Don’t worry about it too much, okay? You’re not missing much.”
“Whatever.”
“Okay. See you.”
He didn’t say anything else, and I didn’t press. I eased out through the side door, making sure it locked behind me. The parking lot in front of the warehouse with the Jeep my friends had come in along with a few other cars for the halflings was completely dark, the moon lost behind a thick bank of snow clouds. Before I started through the buildings, toward the woods, I coiled my whip around my wrist and pulled the knuckles over my fingers.
Only when my eyes had adjusted to the darkness did I move, my boots crunching over loose stones. My breath condensed in the air in front of my mouth. Above me, I sensed the heavy snow clouds pressing down, charging the air with an electric snap that made my molars ache. I kept my head low and my shoulders hunched, but my eyes were always scanning the shadows and tracking every movement around me.
Look vulnerable, Hex had told me earlier today. Look weak, like you aren’t paying attention.
Apparently, bad ’swangs loved an unsuspecting person.
Makes their fear taste fresher, Squeak had chimed in, clearly from experience.
Tully had shot him a dark look.
The other hunters were far ahead of me, and I came across no one and nothing aside from castaway litter and old tires. I rubbed circles around the diamond switch on the silver knuckles, craving to hear the blade’s metal hiss and the way it sliced through the air, like a breeze of death against your neck right before the blood came.
Max would’ve had fun with this type of blade. I imagined all the ways he would have liked to cut me up with it. Maybe, if he’d had something as sharp as this, he could’ve made it past my bones and cut down to my heart.
If he had, I would be dead.
Would death be just a deep, hollow blackness? Or would it feel like sinking through water, cool and slippery, but with a vague hint of panic?
I’d never thought much about death before, but I did all the time now. I’d brushed it with my fingertips, and I missed it like a friend.
The only warning I had was a flash of black fur glinting beneath the moonlight before the aswang collided into my side.
I hit the pavement with a crack against the side of my head. Stars, bright white, sparked across my vision. The taste of dirty pennies flooded my mouth as my back teeth clamped down on my tongue.
Claws dug into my waist and slashed my shirt. As I blinked away the stars, I had a moment to be thankful it hadn’t shredded my mother’s jacket, only my skin. Good, more scars.
I was on my side, and then, suddenly, my body was flipping through the air, feet over head,
and I crumpled against the building’s side. My lungs contracted, shoving all the air out of my body with a coughing wheeze. For a second, it felt like my chest was caving in again, but without the pain this time. I ignored it, ignored breathing, and moved.
Keep in motion, Hex had said. A ’swang isn’t that fast. They have a lot of body to move through space, and when they jump, if you can gauge it, you can make them land in the wrong spot, where you just were. They can’t turn back easily because all that weight is going in one direction. That’s your kill spot. Tuck in tight and go for the side of their neck.
What if it’s a good ’swang? One who obeys your rules? I’d asked.
If you’re fighting, they aren’t good, so kill them.
But when the ’swang leaped for me, I couldn’t get to my feet fast enough, and it collided into me. My whip and knuckles were useless with my arms pinned down by its massive forelegs. The ’swang leaned into the light and peered down at me with its teeth inches from my neck.
I stared into its eyes and again wondered about death.
Then, I wheezed, “A.J.”
I’d seen those crooked bottom teeth earlier, when he had me in nearly this exact same position. We’d been working on side attacks. Clearly, I’d failed the field test.
He snapped his teeth at my cheek. Not good enough, Ollie dear. You owe me an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Yeah. I get it. Now get your fat ass off me.”
I shoved against his furry chest and he eased back.
Around us, I heard the scuffle of gravel. Hex’s pack had surrounded me.
I searched for him right away and found him back a bit from the rest, his body a fold of darkness. His arched ears swiveled around, but his eyes stayed trained on me.
You’ll have to be better than that, Olesya, he said. Don’t fall behind. We won’t come back to save you if a rogue attacks.
He turned around, his pack moving a fraction of a second later, and bounded off.
It’s just Ollie, I said back, flinging my thought into the night around me. No one answered back, so I ran after them, my very human legs churning to keep up with them, and I merged into the pack like they were my own.