“We’re not running away,” says Piper.
“Obviously.” I give her a glance that withers her better than Lilia ever could, because Lilia never saw her with her secrets flayed open and her fear spilling out. “But Mack’s staying on the boat this week. Let’s go out on the water tonight. None of Malcolm’s second-string boys this time. No telling anyone. Make it a wake for Duncan.”
A pause hangs in the air. I can feel Mack nervous next to me. I take his hand in mine, guide his lips to mine, kiss him hard.
“Fuck them,” I say.
Banks caves first. “Fuck them,” he says, too loud.
“Fuck them,” says Mack, right into my lips.
“Fuck them,” says Piper. She slams her phone down.
And finally Duffy clears his throat and says, barely a whisper, “Fuck them.”
The bell rings. Outside the birds stir, restless and all together. I can feel it in my wings.
Rift
I walk Mack to class. I keep him silent. I tell him, The walls have ears, because it feels like just the right paranoid bullshit for the way they’re all shattering apart today.
He nods like it’s true.
I kiss him good-bye in the doorway to Magistra Copland’s classroom, so everyone has to watch. So everyone sees how unbreakable we are. When I let him go he almost looks fearless.
I linger until he finds his seat. Wink and wave with the whole class watching. The ones who are left, anyway: too many chairs are empty. Too many names rang through the speakers all morning, calling one St Andrew’s Prepper after another to run away and hide when their parents heard that two more boys were dead.
“Still think you’re a twisted bitch,” says Banks behind me. So close I can feel his too-hot breath on my ear.
I turn. The door swings shut. We’re alone in the hallway, Banks and me.
“Almost as twisted as your fuck of the week,” he says.
I scoff.
“I’m serious, new girl. You know what you’re getting into with us. Sure you can handle it?”
“‘Us’?” I say, and I drench it in disdain. “I thought Mack was the golden boy I was supposed to corrupt for you.”
“Yeah,” he says, “but there’s all types of twisted.”
“I’m sure.” I turn again. “I’m late.”
He lets me get ten steps away before he calls, “You know what happened at Duncan’s party.”
I spin on my toes and walk straight back to him. I don’t know what he’s doing. I don’t have time to think it through. “You mean the part where you and Duncan and Duffy and Connor drugged some girl and raped her?” It echoes loud in the hall but the doors are closed and no one hears and even if they did they’d pretend they didn’t.
His smirk digs in. I blink three times, fast, and see Duncan bleeding under my hands. Hold tight to every ounce of it so I won’t sink my claws into Banks’s throat right here.
“Good story,” he says. “Where’d you hear it?”
“Like any of you could keep your mouths shut. Like telling isn’t what got Duncan a knife in his throat.”
“Damn,” he says. “Nothing’s too soon for you, is it?”
“Duncan was no one,” I hiss. “No one’s losing any sleep missing him.”
“Think your golden boy might be,” Banks says with his glittering carnivore grin. “Think your golden boy might be trying to atone for something all the Hail Marys in the world couldn’t undo.”
I think of three nights ago at Inverness. The shifting sounds downstairs and Mack’s spiraling desperate words: The whole ocean couldn’t wash this blood away. The water running all night. The streak of blood on our bedroom door, painted fresh for Banks to see—
“Whatever you want to say, say it.” I push too close to him. “Unless you want me to go get Mack so you can say it to him, too.”
“Your call,” he says. Laughter barely buried. “Same story either way.”
I wait. Teeth gritted and claws clenching my skirt too tight, but waiting.
He says, “Ask your golden boy what he was doing Friday night.”
“He was with me,” I say. “All night. Not that you’d know what it’s like to be with someone who actually has a choice about sleeping with you.”
“Not Mack’s party,” says Banks. “Duncan’s.”
“He didn’t go.”
“You sure about that?”
“He wasn’t there,” I say, and my claws dig so hard into my skirt I can feel the fabric tear.
“Ask him.”
“I don’t have to,” I say, and for a splintering firing second the hall spins to white and I see Duncan and Duffy and Connor and Banks and the door slamming closed.
“Your golden boy isn’t so golden,” says Banks.
He winks.
I shove him. Hard. I’m half his size but he doesn’t expect me to fight, so he stumbles and crashes loud into the lockers behind him. “Fuck!” he bursts out in a long slope of laughter. “Duncan was right about you.”
“Fuck you,” I snarl in his face. “Fuck you and fuck your dead king—”
“Young lady!”
I step back. Magistra Copland stands halfway in her classroom and halfway in the hall. Her watery eyes flick from me to Banks behind her glasses.
Banks turns his laugh into a cough.
“Is everything all right?” Magistra Copland asks.
“Fucking fantastic,” says Banks.
She says, “Language, Mr. Banks.” Her eyes flick to me again. She still has one hand holding the door and I can see past her into the classroom. Everyone is watching me.
I smile and smooth down my skirt. I say, “Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more.”
She smiles back, frosty still, but thawing: “Si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi.”
Banks snorts and mutters, “Veni, vidi, vici.”
Her smile ices back over, slick enough to send him spinning into the ditch. “I’m sure you did, Mr. Banks, but let’s allow Ms. Khanjara to speak, shall we?”
He says, “We shall.” Daring me to snap again. Daring me to tell.
I give them my best innocent-little-flower gaze. “I’m fine,” I say. “Mr. Banks wouldn’t dare do anything—unchivalrous.” It’s the most ridiculous word I can think of. “We were just having a little disagreement about—” I pause. “How would you put it, Mr. Banks?”
“Any way you’d let me, Ms. Khanjara.” His charm has gone cold. He barely bothers hiding what he means.
I see dead Connor, dead Duncan, dead Porter. Dead Banks, soon. Next. Tonight, even if I still haven’t found his glinting smile on the boy who gave me the drink.
I show him all my hate for a shining little second and then I look back at Magistra Copland. “About how we define certain concepts,” I say. “Guilt, for example. Truth.”
“Sounds quite philosophical,” she says.
“Consent,” I add. Sweet and deadly. Past the cracked-open door the whole class stirs. Mack pushes halfway out of his seat and hovers and sits again, fidgeting. A plain-faced not-it girl in the front row goes wide-eyed under her bangs. The girl behind her leans over her shoulder and whispers. They give me the sort of look you only give a queen.