Chapter 5
Most of the rules meant to govern my existence and that of others like me are obscure, outdated, and sometimes utterly incomprehensible—no one is stealing a sacrificial lamb anymore. Who would even want to?
But one of those rules is clear, timeless, and sacrosanct: Don’t call too much attention to yourself.
The humans will think you’re mentally ill or a threat or both, and the Old Ones do not want to be bothered coming in to clean up your mess. And if you take it far enough, the Old Ones might see you as a challenger, a usurper to their questionable throne(s).
You’ll vanish in a spectacular fashion as a warning and a cautionary tale. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
So all of this—the tiny, stuffy interview room in the Beecher city police department, the handcuffs around my wrists, the body of my friend below my window, maybe even the blood from overfeeding on my face, if my opponent had done their research well enough—is a chess move.
Strategy. To take me out of play, or to demonstrate my weakness, thereby humiliating my sire.
Or for shits and giggles. Any or all are equally possible.
“I hate this magic bullshit,” I mutter, right as the door to the interview room opens.
“What was that?” a woman in a navy blue suit, one slightly too large for her small frame, asks as she enters. She’s holding two coffees in her hands—the smell of burnt grounds makes my nose crinkle—with a notebook tucked under one arm. She nudges the door closed with her foot.
I say nothing, holding my handcuffed wrists up in mute request. The emergency blanket around my shoulders crinkles with the movement. Its shiny fabric hides the worst of the see-through dampness of my shirt and shorts, at least. Not that that is my biggest worry.
But I’ve been through this before, unfortunately, and right now the most important thing is to keep my mouth shut and stay calm. Never mind the anxious palpitations making it hard to breathe.
“Sorry about that,” the woman says, setting the coffee and the notebook down on the table and producing a handcuff key from inside her jacket pocket. “Just needed to make sure we knew what we were dealing with.”
She releases me, folding the cuffs into her pocket with the key.
I snatch my hands back under the blanket—for warmth, yeah, but also to keep the little voice in my head, the one that speaks to my worst impulses, from getting any bright ideas.
The hunger inside me seems to be comfortably quiet for the moment, satiated still from this morning.
But I never put it past that part of me—the part of me that is my father’s daughter—to impulsively choose to take the easy way out of any given situation.
“I’m Detective Ximena Morales. You’re Jocasta…” Morales pauses, her mouth twisting. “Jocasta Regine Trelane.”
Thanks, Mom. My mother is a classics professor; I was never going to end up as a Madison or an Ashley. But, as always, Mom takes things to the next level.
“Jocasta is perfectly acceptable in England,” my mother had said when I learned the full context of my first name.
My response then was exactly what it is now: “We don’t live in England!”
And the Regine bit, that was just cruel.
“And you live in Branwick Hall,” Detective Morales says.
She pronounces it “Brannick,” like a local.
That … is probably not going to help. The locals are not particularly fond of the “Beecher kids,” despite the influx of money and business that the university brings to town.
Granted, a lot of “Beecher kids” are spoiled, private school assholes. “Room 308?”
I remain silent.
“Right. And the victim is Lennon McCarthy.” Morales picks up her coffee, nodding at the cup in front of me in invitation. But this is not a casual chat, no matter what vibe Morales might be trying to set.
“You want to tell me what happened this morning?” Morales asks, blowing into her cup, steam rising in her face. “You push your friend out of a window?
“What?” The word bursts out of me before I can stop it.
Morales arches an eyebrow. “Heard the two of you had a pretty spectacular bust-up at Happy’s last night. Someone called it in, but you were gone by the time we rolled up.”
“That was an accident. And I didn’t even get down to the garden this morning until after she was already … until after,” I finish awkwardly.
Shut up, shut up! The mental version of Chessa shouts at me. Innocent or guilty, stay quiet. Chessa is prelaw and one of her hobbies is shouting at stupid people on true crime podcasts, reality shows, and police footage from Dateline episodes. I guess I would be one of them now.
“Which is what would happen if someone pushed her. Gravity and all.” Morales takes a sip of her coffee.
I grit my teeth. Frustrating that my best defense is “I didn’t kill her because I wouldn’t have done it that way.” Not exactly an argument I’m eager to make.
“Am I under arrest?” I ask. Another tidbit that I’ve learned from living with Chessa—I don’t have the right to a lawyer if I’m not under arrest, but I also don’t have to stay here.
“Should you be?” Morales asks, leaning forward across the table. She hasn’t even opened her notebook.
I study her. Young, maybe only five or six years older than I am. But there’s an eagerness glinting in her eyes. Not many murders in Beecher, and definitely not many “might be” murders. It’s probably a prime opportunity for Morales to prove herself.
“I’m sure you’re going to run tests on the blood on my face,” I say finally.
The officer in the squad car had handed me tissues to wipe my face, taking them back with gloved hands and stashing the used tissues in a bag.
Not a coincidence, surely. “It’ll be mine.
You might also want to take a look at the windows in Branwick.
They don’t open far enough for anyone to jump or be pushed out.
Safety precaution.” Also a pain in the ass when it came to trying to get decent cross-flow in the warmer months.
“So you lured her to the roof,” Morales says.
“Through a door that I don’t have a key for?” I ask flatly. “Besides, aren’t there security cameras in the lobby? And outside by the main doors?”
“She called you. Seven times, early this morning,” Morales says with a shrug.
My heart stutters. She did? Before I fell asleep last night, I thought about texting Lennie a dozen different times to apologize. Even had my phone in my hand to do it.
But I didn’t, thinking that giving her some space was the better choice. Now I won’t ever be able to again.
And apparently she was trying to reach me? Oh, God.
“I didn’t hear it,” I say hoarsely. “I was asleep.”
“That’s what you’d say, of course,” Morales agrees. “But her car was found in the open lot across the street from your dorm. You’re smart enough to know how that looks.”
“Residence hall,” I correct automatically. So there were calls. Maybe. Police can lie, another Chessa-sourced nugget. “But then I was dumb enough to kill her at my building?” I ask.
Morales shrugs again, as if to say, you said it, not me.
In that moment, I can see exactly how this is going to go—Morales countering everything I say with another possibility that leads to me being culpable, regardless of whether it makes sense or not.
I wrap the crinkly blanket tighter around myself and then shove back in my chair. The metal legs shriek on the tile floor. “If I’m not under arrest, I’m leaving.” I sound more confident than I feel, knees wobbling as I stand.
But Morales doesn’t object. “We’ll give you a ride.”
And find myself in the back of a police car for hours with Morales at the wheel taking the “long route” back to Branwick? “No. I’ll find my own way.”
A flicker of hardened amusement crosses Morales’s face. “You don’t have your phone. You don’t have shoes. We’re four miles from campus.”
And whose fault is that?
“I need to make a call,” I say.
Morales pulls a phone from her pocket, taps on the screen to unlock it, and then places the device lightly on the tabletop. A silent challenge.
I only know a few people on campus with cars, even fewer whose numbers I know by heart. One of them, the one I would have called first, is likely in the morgue or on her way there.
The other … is even more complicated.
I take the phone, punch in the number. What I hope is the number. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it on my screen.
“Memorized,” Morales notes. “Must be someone important.”
I don’t owe Morales an explanation. Don’t need to tell her that I refuse to save certain numbers in my phone because it screams permanence, a symbol of attachment and closeness that I’m more than a little uncomfortable with.
The phone on the other end begins to ring.
Please pick up, please, please.
“Hello?” Carter sounds raspy with sleep, wary at the unknown number on his screen.
Oh, thank God. Relief washes over me in a wave of dizziness. I steady myself with fingertips on the table, under Morales’s scrutiny. “Hi. It’s me.” I hesitate. “Jocasta.”
“Is everything all right?” Fabric rustles, Carter sitting up in bed, most likely. It’s still early.
I brace myself for the low murmur of a female voice in the background—I wouldn’t blame him after last night—but there’s silence.
“I, uh, need you to come pick me up at the police station,” I say. “City, not campus.”
“What happened? Are you okay?” His voice sharpens with concern. Concern for me. So whatever he may have seen and heard at Happy’s, at least that hasn’t changed.
For some reason, that is what breaks me, everything hitting all at once. I’m finally full but only because Lennie’s dead. Someone left her poor smashed body at my doorstep. And it’s my fault. My messed up life that brought Lennie into range of this danger.
I turn my back on Morales, trying to blink back tears. “Um, yeah,” I say, working to keep my voice even. My throat is tight, though, and it’s a losing battle. “But it’s been a shitty morning.” My breath catches on a sob. “And I don’t have my phone or a way back to campus.”
“Or shoes,” Morales reminds me loudly.
“I’m … not in Beecher right now,” Carter says.
So there is a girl. Just not another student.
“Um, you know what, it’s fine,” I begin, the lump in my throat swelling. “I can—”
“I’m coming,” Carter says firmly. A flurry of activity on his end of the call includes what sounds like the jingle of car keys and a door slamming shut.
“Twenty minutes. Just hang tight. Jocasta…” Carter pauses.
I press the phone harder against my ear, trying not to sniffle audibly.
“I’m coming,” Carter says again, and it feels like a promise. Then he adds, “You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”
His certainty, even without knowing all the details or any of the details, makes me want to cry harder.
Sometimes that’s what you need—someone to tell you it’s going to be all right, even if that’s not true.
But God, I hope it is.