Chapter Two Shea #2
“I guess it’s more like a snack. I didn’t have time to stop by the butcher’s after school. I had to stay late, and then I ran into Asher at the shop. Asher Thorley. Do you remember him? He used to come over and walk Camellia home. He always ate all the leftovers.”
She used to be unnerved by the way her mother stared. By the way her jaw hung slack. By the way she never bothered to push her hair back from her eyes, when she used to hate having it in anything but a braid. She’s not unnerved anymore. She’s used to it.
When Shea tosses the mouse, her mother lunges.
The chains rattle as she drags herself across the floor on all fours, snatching the rodent with birdlike fingers and then ripping into it with completely unbirdlike grace.
Shea takes a seat on the bottom step and tries not to watch, unbothered—after months of the same—by the snap, crackle of bone, the wet tear of flesh.
“I’m sure you want to know why I’m home so late. I politely suggested to Owen Davies where he could stick his pencil, and Mrs. Lennox was standing right behind me. She slapped me with a detention, which I personally think was an overreaction.”
There’s not much meat on the mouse. Her mother will be done soon. Still starving. Still silent. Still squatting there, listless, her hair in her eyes. At the top step, Hemlock has settled in to watch, tail flicking.
“Dad would have laughed,” Shea adds, watching the moonlight drag along the floor.
“If he were here, I mean. He would have tried not to, but he’s always had a terrible poker face.
And I know you’re disappointed—you’ve told me a million times to keep my cool—but I’m telling you, Davies deserved it.
He was saying these horrible things about Dad.
” Her voice sticks in her throat. “About him leaving.”
The mouse drops to the floor. Slowly, her mother’s face lifts. There’s blood on her chin. A blank, hungry look in her eyes. For a fraction of a second, she looks at Shea.
Right at her.
A wick of impossible hope alights in Shea’s chest. “Mom?”
There’s a loud meow from the top of the stairs.
A single warning caterwaul. And then her mother lunges.
Like so many times before, the chains clatter noisily behind her.
Unlike the other times, there’s no resounding clank at the end.
No violent rattling of the shelves. The couplings come loose in a horrible trill, and her mother is still advancing.
Rocketing upright, Shea staggers backward up the stairs.
“Mom— Mommy , it’s me.”
The woman before her—this being, this creature, this almost-mother —doesn’t stop her pursuit. She lurches onward, tangled in the chains, her arms outstretched. Shea’s boot catches on a step and she lands hard on her tailbone, scrabbling on all fours.
“It’s Shea. Mom, it’s Shea .”
A hand cuffs her collar just as her mother lunges.
She’s hefted unceremoniously onto her feet, the basement door careening shut with a slam that rattles the floorboards.
Asher is there, his patrol-issued shotgun strapped to his chest, listening as her mother beats her body against the wooden partition.
“She won’t get out,” she manages. “She’s too weak.”
He cuts her a look. “So all those locks are just for decoration, then?”
Her heart gives an ugly squeeze. “I can explain.”
She’s not given the chance. Asher pries his shotgun loose, loading the chamber with his jaw wired tight. The slugs are wooden. White oak, hewn by hand. Horror grips her like a fist.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer, but then he doesn’t need to. They both know exactly what he’s doing—what he’s been trained to do in his eighteen months away. Assess a threat. Put it down. On the other side of the door comes the muffled sound of Ivy Parker’s fingernails scrabbling over wood.
“Asher, you can’t.”
He racks the bolt with a click she feels in her spine.
“Asher, please . Let’s just slow down for a second and—”
“Open the door.” His order slams into her gut like a punch.
She doesn’t budge. “No.”
“Parker.”
“She’s not like the others. She’s not a predator. I swear to you, Asher. I know this seems bad, but she’s different. She’s sick . She can’t help herself.”
A soft chitter comes from under the door. A guttural clicking that sounds nothing and everything like her mother. Asher’s response is instinctive. All reflex, he swings the shotgun into position, finding his mark through the wood.
“Open the door,” he says again, pinching one eye shut. “And then get out of the way.”
She, too, is all reflex. She flings out a hand, unthinking, folding it over the barrel and pressing the muzzle toward the floor.
“Asher, look at me.”
He does. Not at her face, the way she’d intended, but at her wrist. With the cuffs of her blouse gathered at her elbows, Lys’s bite is painfully visible. It sits in a dozen raw half-moons along her forearm.
The mark of the devil, incisor deep.
She wrenches her hand to her chest, tugging the sleeve back into place.
It’s too little, too late. He’s already seen.
For the next several seconds, neither of them says a word.
On the other side of the door, her mother has gone quiet.
The only sound is the faint rattle of chains, the plink of couplings dragged over wood.
Uselessly, Shea says, “It’s not what it looks like.”
“It looks,” he says, in a voice flat enough to be dead, “like you let him feed on you.”
Him , not one of them . Him , like he already knew. He looks unfairly resigned, like he’s always known they’d end up here. For a moment she’s sixteen again, standing outside the Thorley garage with her shoulders singed red by the sun, her voice a whisper: “There’s a rumor he’s recruiting.”
Asher’s astonishment had been decimating. “You want me to pledge fealty to the devil?”
“If it keeps you from dying in a watchtower, yes.”
“I’m not planning to die, Parker. How many times do I have to tell you? We have a plan. You and me. Yeah? We get out of here together—that hasn’t changed, it’s just delayed a little.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he says now, as if he’s been remembering the same.
The resignation in his voice makes her hackles rise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means.”
“Spell it out for me anyway.”
“Come on, Parker. You’ve always had one foot in the Gravewood.”
Shame threatens to saw her open. She refuses to let it.
Once, she used to wish for Asher Thorley to come back home from the watch.
She tallied the days, keeping careful track in the leaded margins of her math notebook.
Now she tallies nights. She counts supplies and she watches them dwindle.
The only promises she cares about are the ones she makes herself.
She won’t let anyone make her feel sorry about it.
“I think you should leave.”
He doesn’t. He says, “My sister is in the Gravewood.”
There’s no need for him to elaborate—she understands exactly what it is he’s implying. She shuts it down quickly. “Lys already told me he had nothing to do with Camellia’s disappearance.”
A thunderous silence follows. In a voice that has gone dangerously subdued, Asher says, “Well, if Lys says so.”
“He’s never given me any reason not to trust him.”
“No, of course not. Aside from the fact that he’s a bloodsucking predator.”
She bristles, biting back a retort. She doesn’t need to stand here and spar with him, she needs to get him out of her house. She needs to figure out what to do next, now that her cover is blown. Shoving past him, she wrenches open the door. The cold night air spills into the foyer.
“Leave.”
He doesn’t. He remains firmly planted, his jaw set. “I want to meet him.”
She’s positive she’s misheard. “What?”
“You know exactly what I said. I want to meet the infamous Lys.”
“He’ll kill you before you even get in the door.”
“I don’t think so.” Asher yields a step toward her, flicking the brim of his cap out of his eyes.
His stare is a wall, hard and unrelenting.
“I think he’ll make time for me. There’s been rumors circulating the garrison for weeks.
The northern rangers are saying there’s a girl from Little Hill who has the devil wrapped around her finger. He’ll do anything she says.”
Understanding hits her like a brick. He already knew.
Their encounter at Silas Brer’s wasn’t an accident. He’d been looking for her.
“The rumors are wrong,” she says. “Lys doesn’t answer to anyone.”
“Maybe.” Something inscrutable has crawled into Asher’s features, making him impossible to read.
“But you’re wearing his mark, and that’s good enough for me.
I came back to find my sister. I plan to do whatever it takes to bring her home.
You want me to look the other way? You want me to pretend I didn’t see what you’re keeping down in the cellar?
Fine. Get me in front of Oliver Lysander. ”
Anger bursts into flames inside her chest, smoking out whatever shame she might have felt.
“You’re threatening me.”
“I’m bargaining with you.”
“No, you’re telling me that if I don’t take you to see Lys, you’ll kill my mom.”
He has the decency, at least, to flinch. He recovers quickly, doubling down. “That thing in the basement isn’t your mother, Parker. Not anymore.”
“I already told you. She’s sick .”
“She’s a contagion risk, and you know it.”
As if she needed reminding. As if the fear of her mother escaping the confines of the cellar hasn’t haunted her since she first woke to find Ivy Parker standing over her bed, the light gone out of her eyes.
As if she doesn’t spend every hour, every minute looking over her shoulder.
Triple-checking the latches. Lying through her teeth.
Letting her secrets consume her from the inside out.
“What you’re doing is selfish,” says Asher. “If anyone finds out you’re keeping her here, we’re dead. Not you and me—everyone in Little Hill.”
“I may be selfish, but at least I’m not cruel. This is blackmail .”
“Call it whatever you want.” The look in his eyes is impassive. She can feel the trust between them drawing its last, rattling breath. “You’re going to get me an audience with the devil, and you’re going to do it tonight.”