Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
ZIGGY
Shit.
The metal slices through my finger, and a bubble of blood springs out, then slips from the cut. Stupid. How hard is it for me to pay attention? I suck my finger into my mouth, pressing my tongue piercing to the sting as I inspect my handiwork.
I’ve raided our supplies barn for everything I need to make a little wire bird, and while it’s slowly building into something recognizable, it’s taking longer than I thought it would.
Slow, talentless, thoughtless.
I set the little statue down and walk back inside to drown out the words.
My home is built into the hillside and was used as a mine shaft back when Wilde’s End was built.
Something caused it to cave in and kill a bunch of people, so since then, the town has all but been forgotten about. Until us Wenders took over.
I love my home. It’s cozy. And most importantly, echoey.
The small box TV is turned up loud, and voices from whichever show it is are filling the cave-like space, bouncing them back to me in a way that makes no sense but keeps my head so full my thoughts can’t run away with themselves.
Between the TV, the road that passes overhead through Hobby Straight, and the birds that wake me every morning, I’ve landed in the best spot I could have hoped for.
Especially now that the brothers are here.
Unlike Wilde, our leader out here, I’m not scared of what the brothers are planning.
Do I want to be pushed out of my home? Of course not.
But I packed it up once and moved out here, so I know that if I need to do that again, I’ll manage.
We’re squatting on this land, so it was only a matter of time before all this good came to an end.
I’m not here to make an enemy of anyone … especially not Kennedy.
The way I get all floaty—and sick—thinking about him isn’t something I’ve ever experienced before. Sure, I had crushes when I was younger, and thought Wilde was hot when I first moved here, but that died quickly.
Wilde is … closed off. I don’t do well with people who bottle everything up inside, because I have enough of my own stuff bottled.
Kennedy doesn’t even seem to know where the bottles are stored.
And more importantly, he talks. Even when I don’t. There’s rarely a moment of silence when I’m with him, and the way it fills that deep, frightened gap in my soul isn’t something I’ll ever be able to put into words.
And I’m full of them.
Words, I mean. They’re on an ever-present rotation in my head, loud and needy and sometimes too much. All the words I’m scared to let out build and build, until it’s this constant buzz of words and letters and shapes that don’t make sense but weigh me down.
I reach my sink and open the side drawers as I rinse my still-bleeding finger under the water.
The second one has most of my first aid shit in it, and I snag a Band-Aid before drying off my hands and wrapping it around the cut.
It’s not deep enough to worry about, but the damn thing stings, and I don’t need to catch an infection out here.
That will lead me to Booker, which is a visit I always avoid.
And still I don’t have a gift for Kennedy.
I look around my place for the millionth time to see if I have anything that works, but other than the necessities, my place is barren.
Gifts and trinkets aren’t something I’ve ever worried about before.
Beyond washing his bike again or checking his car’s oil again, there isn’t a lot else I can offer him.
Like me, he doesn’t have a lot of things, at least not here, so there’s only so many acts of service I can shower him with.
Even if he never knows the way I feel about him, it doesn’t matter. I’m a realist. I know I don’t have a chance with someone as sunshiny as him, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do everything in my power to make him smile.
A birdlike whistle from outside makes my ears perk up because there’s only one person who gets my attention that way.
I reach the entrance to my place as Lynx appears from the tree line, Bob, his adoptive bobcat, trailing close behind.
“Got a nice, fat rabbit this week,” he says, holding up the large pot, forearms and biceps more distinct under the weight. “Should do you for a couple of days.”
That means stew, and Lynx’s stews are some of the greatest things I’ve ever tasted. He passes me to walk inside and tuck the pot away in my fridge.
“Heat it up whenever you’re hungry.”
I tap my chest twice in thanks, but he pretends not to see me. Lynx drops by twice a week with food since he knows I don’t cook, then normally leaves right away, but this time, instead of disappearing, he rocks back on his heels.
“So.” His deep voice comes out cold as a snake. “I heard you’re working with those outsiders?”
News sure travels fast. The way I see it, the brothers need an electrician, and I am one. Well, I was in my life before here. If I can help them, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t, considering they’ll find someone else for the job anyway.
And this way, I get to spend time with Kennedy, doing something that will make his life easier.
Not that I can or will tell Lynx any of those things.
It’s not like I can’t talk. My voice works.
Apparently. Sometimes the anxiety of letting out words is barely present, but most of the time, it’s like the words are strangling me.
Like my whole body is braced against them, at war with myself over setting them free.
Because once the words are out there, I can’t get them back, and people have a real skill for using those words against you.
“Why don’t you ever talk? What, you think you’re too good for us?”
I shake the memories away.
It’s easier to let things happen around me rather than to me. The soundless, inoffensive shadow that goes unnoticed and forgotten.
Because Lynx is still waiting on an answer, I nod.
“They’re using you,” he says in a low, deadly voice. “They’re mining our resources and disrupting our homes, and you’re helping them do it.”
Again, I say nothing, only blink at him, waiting for him to get bored of this and leave.
“Don’t let them walk all over you.”
While I agree that Hudson and Hartwell are more than capable of using people and spitting them out, there’s no way Kennedy could. He’s not cruel. It’s one of the many reasons I gravitate toward him.
Lynx can sense my disinterest in the conversation, so he changes topics.
“Wilde is fucking one of them. The oldest one.” He paces closer to the entrance of the mine and looks warily up at the sky.
“First twins. Then Wilde falling under their spell, and now you. Something bad is coming. The forest feels dark.”
Since meeting Kennedy, the forest feels like pure sunshine. I wait until Lynx looks at me and give him my most skeptical expression.
“You don’t believe me? Bob feels it too, don’t you, Bob?”
Like it can understand him, the huge thing stands and lets out a creepy demon sound.
Whether that was supposed to be confirmation or not, I’m not about to take an animal’s word for it, especially when the animal willingly chose Lynx to bond with. It doesn’t strike me as having sound judgment.
I slap my thigh loudly, pulling Lynx’s attention back my way.
“What?”
I do it again, then make a slashing motion over it before pointing to Bob, then my throat. If he wants to talk about bad, I’ll remind him how that’s already happened, thanks to him and his animal attacking Wilde.
Lynx’s hand flexes toward the machete strapped to his leg.
“Wilde touched me. Of course Bob was going to attack. The leg was an accident, thanks to his pretty boy toy. Trust an outsider to not know what happens when you push a man with a knife.” He spits on the ground.
“Could have killed me. No one cares about that though, do they?” He turns his hazel eyes on me and gives me a narrow, searching stare. “Who would make your rabbit stew then?”
I make sure he’s holding my eyes when I tap my heart again, forcing him to see it this time.
His gaze darkens, and he looks away. “Right. Enjoy. Don’t forget to heat it over one seventy.” I’m sure I’m not supposed to hear his mutters as he walks away, but I do. “Don’t want you getting sick.”
The thing about Lynx is that he never tries to be liked, but sometimes he does things that make me like him anyway. Even though he’s as much of an animal as Bob is.
They leave, and I’m once again alone with the TV voices and my thoughts.
Thoughts that follow Lynx instead of focusing on the stabbing voices inside. Follow him down the hill, through the forest, and stray back into Old End.
I turn back to the twisted metal and grab the blowtorch to keep working, anything to help distract my mind. By the time this thing is done, I’m going to have so many scratches and burns that it’ll be easier to remove my fingers than deal with them.
But it will be worth it.
To see Kennedy smile.