Jade, don’t—
—but tonight I decide.
I take Duncan’s hand in mine. Coil my fingers around the cold glass and his kill-tight grip. He stands up. Taller than me and stronger and balancing on the knife-thin edge of control. Glinting greed and power.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. His mint-and-aftershave smell rolls over me, and vodka drips off his breath, and the blood rises in my throat. He’ll taste it when he kisses me. “You wanted this, didn’t you?”
He presses hard against me and I swallow down the blood. His smile etches deeper. His hand slips off the broken bottle and onto my back—under the waistband of my skirt—onto my skin—
—but the knife-sharp glass is in my hand now.
He cages me against him. One hand on my ass and the other on my neck, three fingers pressing up under my skull.
He kisses me.
Everything goes wreckingly white and the scream that lives in my lungs cracks every rib and poisons all of me. And there’s nothing except dead white and his mouth suffocating mine and his hands burning into the bruises he left last week—
—but I kiss him back, exactly like he wants. Exactly like he would have felt anyway no matter what I did. Fangs grazing his lips. Claws finding his skin. Broken bottle sliding up his throat.
He lets me go.
Three tiny cuts under his jaw bloom red. I can still taste his tongue. He slips his hand back out of my skirt and I bring the bottle down. Slow and deliberate, so I don’t lose myself and bury it in his neck in front of all of them.
“Damn,” says Duncan, drunker than before.
I am deadly. I’m a poisoned blade. I’m all the power he thinks he has and more.
I say, smoke and dusk, “Truth or dare.”
He says, starving, “Truth.”
I say, “Do you believe in fate?”
He says, “No.”
I say, “You should.”
Before he can ask me what I mean Porter yelps again from the door. Around the table everyone comes back to life. Banks picks up the last scrap of the joint. Mack sweeps his hands across the shining wood and gathers the shards of glass together. He doesn’t look at Duncan or at me. Duffy whispers into Piper’s ear and she pulls away.
“Mack,” Porter calls. His voice wavers and echoes. “Mack. Come here.”
Mack sweeps up another handful of glass.
I walk out on them.
Porter cowers in the front hall. He has his knife out and his face pressed to the window. Outside, the lights on the gate beam bright and the spotlights buried along the edge of the house leave us blind.
“Out there,” says Porter. He reaches behind him with the hand that isn’t on the knife. His hand finds his glass on the side table and he drinks deep. He’s so scared I can smell it on his skin. He taps the glass with his knife and the blade shivers.
Beside the gate, in the oleander tree, the huge dark bird is still waiting. Watching. Its belly and its eyes gleam in the steady light.
“What is it?” Porter asks, all wonder and fear.
I think of Mads in her car in the dark. Jenny and Summer far down below, where the road makes a breathless tight turn into traffic that speeds too fast. The good long knife from my sister’s wedding silver. My own black wings wrapping Inverness in a darkness so heavy not even the stars shine through.
I say, “There’s nothing there.”
Oath
When I get back to the dining room Mack is gone. Banks stares out the window at the lights in the valley. Duncan is back in his seat, elbows balanced on the armrests, fingers tented together. Duffy leans against the wall next to Piper’s chair and pulls at her arm. The broken glass is a glittering pyramid in the center of the table.
“Where’s Mack?” I ask.
“Upstairs,” says Banks without moving.
I turn to leave again.
“Stay with us,” says Duncan.
Piper stands up and pushes Duffy away. “You’re drunk,” she says. “And you’re drunk, and you’re drunk. You’re all drunk. Good night.” She brushes past me and stalks into the shadows. Duffy trails after her, stumbling.
“I need to talk to Mack,” says Duncan.
Banks pulls a clip out of his pocket and lights another joint. “He’s not going to give her up,” he says.
“Leave us alone, Banks,” says Duncan. Outside, past the faraway lights, a tiny white flashbulb burst burns itself out.
“I’ll find him,” I tell Duncan before the flickering white can come closer.
The stairway is wide and waiting. It shifts under my feet, but only a little. It’s with me—the hidden turns and the dark corners and the huge black bird outside. Loyal. Lined up to make the night unfold exactly the way I want it to.
I find one more switch at the top of the stairs and plunge the landing from dim to pitch. I don’t need light to find my way down the hall to Mack’s room. I hear him—his footsteps pacing, his voice rising and falling, his heartbeat matched with mine.
“Mack?” I call, quiet. I open the door.
The night breeze rushes up to meet me. Mack is on the balcony, turning back toward the house. His room is dark.
“Jade,” he says. And then the words tumble out: “What we have to do—we have to do it now. So it’s done. So we’re done.” He takes a quick step toward me. The guilt glows on his face. “If this ends it. Just Duncan. No one else.”
“Just Duncan.” I close the distance between us.
It’s a lie. But he’ll forget once he’s killed Duncan. Once he knows what he can do, he won’t ever be afraid again. He’ll beg me to let him kill the rest of them.
“Everything there is says I shouldn’t do it,” he says. “We’re brothers, the whole team—like soldiers are, you know? Duncan and us.”
“Connor was one of you,” I say. “Duncan will turn on you the same way he turned on him.”
“I should be the one fighting off whoever left those notes. Not the one holding the knife.”
I take his hands. “It was Dunc. He knows someone else is going to talk. You know what he’s willing to do. He’ll kill you like he killed Connor if he decides he doesn’t trust you. And he’ll—”
I look away. For him, so he’ll see what he needs to say. And because behind him the sky is fluttering white again.
I say, low, “You saw how he looked at me. You know what he wants.”
His breath catches between his teeth. “You shouldn’t have let him kiss you.”
A biting bitter laugh slips out before I can stop it. “He would’ve even if I didn’t let him. That’s what he does. Don’t you get it? He’s not all great and virtuous. He—”
“I know he’s not,” says Mack. He takes me into his arms. Not like Duncan did—not like I’m something he owns. Like I’m something he treasures. “He won’t touch you again.”
“He won’t touch anyone again.”
“This is the only way,” he says. But he’s asking me, not telling me.
“You know it is.”
“The only way to end it all.”
I nod. “You’re the one St Andrew’s needs. You’ll change everything.” I let the words sink all the way down into his bones. “You deserve it. Just like Duncan deserves to die.”