Laci's house looks empty. I frown, pressing my face against a window to look inside. The white walls are freshly washed, the commercial-grade, stain-resistant carpets and furniture cleaned. When I move to the bedroom windows, I see hangers dangling in otherwise empty closets.
Everything's ready for a new occupant.
I check my phone again, wondering if the address Laci sent me years ago isn't her latest. At least I'm on the right street. The front door is locked, so I sit on the steps while calling the hospital contracted out for this community. It takes two tries and lying through my teeth about being a member of the family before I get a sympathetic receptionist willing to reconnect me over to the hospice division without a case number.
The woman who answers sounds brisk but tired. "Corinna Hernandez was pronounced dead yesterday. A Ms. Laci Hernandez, niece to the decedent, ordered the body to be flown back to Orion City that night."
"Did myâcousinâgo with her aunt?" My eyes scan the empty house again.
A trace of impatience enters her voice. "I don't know that, ma'am. We only transfer the deceased from hospice to funeral home. Surviving relatives and companions need to arrange their own traveling."
After I hang up, I press the phone against my forehead, willing the cool metal case to ease the pounding headache there. Well, shit. That created more questions than answers. I know Laci, and she wouldn't leave like this. When a hospice patient dies, the surviving loved ones can legally remain in community housing for three more days. Enough time to finish any lingering paperwork and move out. Laci would take those days to keep after Valentine. I know it in my gut.
There's nothing else to help me here, so I get back in my car and drive, trying to figure things out. Okay, so if Laci didn't go back with her aunt's body, what happened? Did Valentine find her on his property and call security? They'd just give her a fine to pay. Unless she tried to stake him. No. I might be oblivious at times, but even I would notice an ambulance taking away someone with a piece of wood sticking out of his chest. Then what happened? He found her spying on him. And killed her? Kept her?
My fingers tighten on the steering wheel as the idea burrows into me. Even if vampires don't exist, monsters do. Rapists, murderers; being a victim of Fivefield doesn't say anything about what kind of person you are.
No, I can't keep thinking that. If I do, I'll run over to his house and rip off the door to look for Laci. That guy repulses me like nothing else. The thought of him even looking at her makes me want to twist off his head. Maybe Laci never believed it, and certainly doesn't now, but I really do love her. Just because I didn't feel anything when she kissed me doesn't mean I feel nothing. That freak has another thing coming if he thinks I'll give up looking for her.
The steering wheel groans under my grip. I flex my fingers and see dents left behind. "Don't you get weird on me, too," I mutter to my car. Then I reach for my phone again.
I still have forty-five minutes of free time left. It takes five to call Mrs. Kent and promise to make her meatball soup from scratch in return for learning the address for the Burnetts, and another ten to drive there.
The stocky white guy who answers the door isn't much taller than me. He's old, probably the same age my dad would be, and dressed in a sweater and slacks despite the heat outside. "Yes?"
"I'm friends with a friend of your daughter, Melanie. We're worried about her being gone, and want to know if there's any news." I rehearsed the words on the drive here to make sure they sound concerned instead of outright panicky.
He runs a hand through thick, brown hair that looks frizzed at the tips, like he does that a lot. "I can't reassure you; I'm worried, too. But you're welcome to come in."
As soon as I'm inside, I realize why he's dressed for winter. The temperature in the room is at goosebump-levels. "My wife has the scorchfever curse," he says, probably seeing me shiver. "If the temperature rises above fifty degrees, her skin blisters."
I grimace. Nasty stuff to deal with. His wife must have been caught deep in Fivefield to break into full-out spell effects. "I'm sorry. I won't stay long; I just want to know what happened."
"Might as well sit. These chairs are the most comfortable." He waves me over to the kitchen. It looks exactly like the one at our house, except the appliances are dull with dust. Only the microwave and the fridge look regularly used. The fridge probably for medication, and the microwave to thaw frozen dinners.
When we're both settled in our seats, he thinks things over for a few moments, absently running his hand over his hair again. "My daughter didn't want to come here. It strained family ties that were already very stretched. I persuaded her to see a therapist, but things only seemed to get better when she found a girlfriend. I'm sure you know more about that than I do; I never met the girl."
He pauses and glances at me, as if wondering whether I'm her. Whatever he sees makes him dismiss that idea pretty quickly, though, because he keeps going. "About a month ago, things grew worse again. She crashed her car in what may have been a suicide attempt."
I latch onto that. "You don't think it was one?"
There's a long moment where he seems to weigh what I ask very carefully. "It wouldn't have been her first. Did she talk to you about it?"
My stomach balls up as his tired eyes fix on my face. Following my instinct, I say, "She only said that if she told me why, I'd think she was making it up."
He nods. "She said the same thing to me. I didn't understand, and still don't. We had yelling matches that shook every window in the house, but we never stopped talking to each other."
A bad feeling creeps up my spine. So, everything seemed fine until the crash. I open my mouth to ask more about it, but he's already speaking again, like he can't stand dwelling on it. "Last Monday, she never came back from school. She left a note in her room that was more a fuck you than a farewell."
His eyes look dim and flat, like he's talking about the most boring thing in the world. But I notice the whiteness of the skin over his knuckles; he's fighting hard to keep in control. I make sure my next words sound polite instead of derisive. "Can I see the note?"
"The security officer who responded to my call took it with him. Her journals and scrapbooks as well; they didn't want to overlook anything."
"Then, there's really nothing left?"
"Don't believe me? Go and look for yourself. Up the stairs, second door on the left." His words sound too flat to be offended.
The generous offer makes me nervous, like he'll snap back to his senses in a moment and throw me out. So I thank him in a murmur and quickly head up for the room, unsure of what to expect.
The walls are pink and so are the curtains, like she tried to make it look more like a home than a place to wait while her mom slowly died. I did the same thing, only with purple. Torn-up photographs pieced back together into abstract collages are pinned to the walls. A closer look at the photos reveals Laci isn't in any of them, just Melanie. She has pretty hazel eyes and a hell of a scowl. I can see why Laci would be into her. Lines of poetry are scribbled onto the top of her desk. Most of the drawers are empty, and I realize that's probably where her journal stuff was kept.
I poke around her room but don't find much else. It's kind of odd that Melanie doesn't have any photos of Laci; I have two or three of Elliot. Did she hide anything? Hospice housing is built for function instead of form. There isn't much space to hide anything. So, if Melanie wanted to keep something secret, she'd have to come up with something really sneaky. Mr. Burnett said the cop who took her things was a guy. If that's true, then I can think of a place he probably didn't think to look in.
The bathroom is the same as ours. After opening two or three drawers as quietly as possible, I find a box of tampons and rifle through it. Bingo. Underneath the army of feminine hygiene, I find sheets of paper, small and ragged as if torn from a hand-held diary. The handwriting filling them up is fucking horrible, cramped little letters sure to take me forever to squint through.
I know I can't stick around long, so I shove the papers in my jeans pocket and put everything back as it was. By the time I come back down, Mr. Burnett is in his wife's room, sitting by her side as the click and hiss of her ventilator fights with the sound of soft piano playing from a radio. Not wanting to disturb them more than possible, I give him a little wave to make sure he sees me and then leave, shutting the door as quietly as possible.
The pages feel like they're burning a hole in my pocket as I walk back to my car. Just as my fingers move to pull them out, light flashes on my left, and I'm snarling at it before my eyes even clear.
Elliot takes another picture. "Just me. Skipped class, saw your car, and stopped to see what you were doing."
"You..." I swallow the word jerk. He still looks irked, which means he's ready to use anything to resume our fight. "You surprised me."
He shrugs. "I figured I'd grab some photos before you changed your mind. There's empty land two houses down that'd be good to shoot in."
I eye his camera, my fingers tapping against the pocket and its treasure. I don't want to spend the rest of my free time making awkward poses. But if I do it at all, I'd rather do it here so he can't drop hints about going inside to take some of Gran. "How do we start?"
The land is a thin strip left untouched because it's over a leyline; I'm sensitive enough to feel the raw magic pulse beneath our feet while we walk through brown weeds, reaching a tree with branches of twisted, delicate fused glass gleaming rainbow colors under the hot sun. Silver-veined leaves chime softly in the wind. It's a pathfinder, a natural formation of magic that appears only along leylines. I can't do shit with magic, but I still know enough of the introduction and departure rituals to stop and murmur an acknowledgement to the tree. In response, leaves flutter and a few branches dip toward me. Dimly, I hear Elliot's camera click, and his voice telling me to smile, but I'm doing that on my own as I look at the leaves.
People argue over how sentient magic is; some say it's raw material that only gains personality when harnessed into spells; others think it has its own awareness, just one that we meatbags can't grasp beyond the most obvious signs. Normally, I don't know what to believe, but at this point I'm not about to dismiss anything.
Elliot already moved ahead, finding an outcrop of rocks big enough for a person to lie on comfortably. "Ready?"
Posing isn't as hard as I expected. Elliot's pretty good at giving directions for how to tilt my head this way and look over my shoulder that way. Mostly, he wants me to look at the camera and show my teeth while in various positions of sitting, crouching, and lying. By the time we move to me leaning against the side of the fence that separates the strip of land from a nearby house, he starts talking. "I should've been nicer, earlier. You know, about that stupid agent."
It's my turn to apologize, but when I open my mouth, the truth comes out instead. "I really wasn't flirting with him. We just got to talking."
He frowns. "Don't shrug, it makes you look like you have no neck."
After forcing my shoulders to relax, I give him a smirk. "Hey, my neck is gorgeous." I almost add it's probably why my parents named me after a bird, but stop at the last second, not wanting to admit I've already told Gideon about that. Glass. Agent Glass.
"Sure it is, which is why I want a better angle." After a few more clicks, he adds, "It's okay; it's probably pretty hard, resisting a guy like that."
So, he still doesn't believe me. Well shit, if he's only going to grill me, I'll take it toward the opposite direction. "Who, Agent Slake? He is a snappy dresser."
He lowers his camera long enough to give me a look. "You know who I mean. I bet he bangs a different girl every night."
I shrug, wishing he'd just leave it alone. "If he likes to fuck a lot."
"Who doesn't?"
Me, for one, which is why this is ridiculous. But before I can say that, he adds, "Think he flashes that cheesy smile every time he takes off someone's underwear?" The camera clicks again.
Now I'm really irritated. I know he's poking at me, looking for a jealous reaction he can magnify with his camera lens. So, I give him a sweet smile, curving one shoulder provocatively. "Not if he pulls them off with his teeth."
"Is that what wolf witches like?" There's a new edge to his voice. Even joking won't lighten up this conversation.
I back off, taking a moment to jump over the fence so I can lean back against it, eyes wide and dramatic. "Don't know. Never met any others. Anyway, why are we talking about a guy who already forgot this place exists?"
"Because no one forgot about him. Or how he talked to you the longest."
Keep it light, Nina, keep it light. "Well, there goes my sterling reputation. Nina Belmonte, seducing INKtech agents in one minute flat." I twist to look at him over my shoulder. "Come on. Even if you don't believe me when I say I'm not interested in him, the guy's still gone forever. What's to worry?"
"Wait. Hold still." His camera clicks a few times before he adds, "Okay, relax."
I raise my eyebrow at him, prompting another round of shots. Then he straightens up and says, "He's not gone forever in your head. What if you can't help comparing us?"
I blink. "Well, yeah, but I could have done that, anyway. Elliot, help me here. I don't know what you're getting at."
"Nina..." He hesitates.
Immediately, I'm wary. I know that tone of voice. Whatever it is, I won't like it. "What's up?"
"Your birthday's really soon."
I nod cautiously.
Earnest brown eyes stare into mine. "I was thinking we should do something special to celebrate, since it'll be your eighteenth. We can be together again. You know, physically."
Understanding trickles in. So, he worries that once I can have sex with legal adults, as a legal adult, I'll go wild and run off after guys like Agent Glass.
When I don't say anything, he adds, "I want things to be perfect on that day. Nothing coming between us. These last three months without you have been torture."
I didn't think so. But, as I learned from previous experience, that's the worst thing to say. The one time I admitted to not caring about sex, he took it as a personal affront. Like the power of his dick was supposed to render me senseless or something. Who knows. For me, sex is just a thing. They say wolf witches are more in touch with primal carnality as part of their nature. Fucking in the dirt while covered in blood and all that. Obviously, that was another part I missed out on.
But Elliot really needs it; the first two weeks after he turned eighteen were hell for him. And if he's worried over me thinking about other guys, he'll use any reluctance I show toward sleeping with him as proof that I am. Damn. It's another prove it situation, isn't it?
I sigh and lean sideways on the fence. "What'd you have in mind?"
"I was thinking more photos."
"Photos..." I repeat, putting the question into my tone.
"Well, nudes. Tasteful ones," he adds hastily, as if that makes all the difference.
My brain catalogues how badly I compare to the average vid star. "Why? Once I turn eighteen, everything will go back to like it was before. You won't have to settle for imagining me."
He reaches out, taking my hand in his. "Yeah, but I want to capture how beautiful you are, inside and out. No layers of illusion and societal dictations of decency to obscure your light. Just you. The person I love."
Sometimes, I think the problem is Elliot feels too much and I don't feel enough. When we were friends, that meant debates ending in laughter. Now it means trying to figure out what we can agree on without hurting his feelings. "Look, you don't need to take these photos to show how much you care. Just talk to me, and listen. That's all I need. It always has been."
For a moment, I think he gets it. There's something in his face I remember from when Gran was healthy enough that I could leave her alone for hours, and would, going with him to find stretches of grass to lie on, side by side, and talk about whatever popped into our heads. It was impossible to feel happier during those times, our hair mingling together, blond and black, while we poured out our hearts. Petty feelings, deep fears, silly what-ifs. I thought we were stripping ourselves bare, naked souls under a brilliant, blue sky. At least, I did until the day he rolled over, body smothering mine while he kissed me.
The moment his tongue pressed against my lips, I realized what I considered perfection he considered an opening to other things. And that I never warned him otherwise.
So, I let him in.
I still wonder what might have happened if I pushed him away instead. Maybe I would have lost him as a friend, and looking at him now, like he used to be, I remember why that seemed unimaginable. It makes me want to snatch that damn camera out of his hands, pull him close, and say, this. This is the you I want to be with, always.
But the old him disappears as his lips tighten into a hard line. He never had a frown like that before the kiss. He thinks there must be a bigger reason, or maybe that I'd save a better answer for someone else.
Then I see the words forming in that frown. Agent Glass. And suddenly, I'm just so tired. Gran fades more each day, Laci is missing after asking me for help, and the creep next door invaded my nightmares last night. Nothing about life is going right, and this is the only thing I have control over to make it a little better. "If you really think it'd be good, then let's do it."
His smile is beatific, enough so that I feel a little bad for adding, "But no way will I do any where we're actually fucking." I give him a look to make sure he gets it, but he's still ecstatic. And why not? Three hours ago, I said no to taking any photos.
"It'll be amazing, Nina," he says, kissing my hand on the knuckles.
Thinking up a joke feels harder than normal, so I only smile and say, "We still have fifteen minutes left; want to keep shooting?"
Five minutes later, he's still in such a good mood that I decide to poke around. "You hear anything about Melanie Burnett being in a car crash?"
I'm hinging on the chance he recognizes her name; with his mother being a hospice nurse, he knows most of the news centering around patients and their families.
"Raise your head a little; I want your back more arched. Yeah, like that." I hear a few clicks before he adds, "Something about it, yeah. It happened at night, over on Lizard Bake Stretch. She ran into one of the bigger rocks. Nobody's sure if she was driving drunk or just trying to off herself. My mom's dating the EMT who responded; he said the car looked like a can crushed in a garbage compactor. And that was before it caught on fire. Couldn't figure out how she survived. Her girlfriend saw the car before she saw Melanie, and got pretty frantic."
Laci never said anything about that. Then a line of guilt runs through me. I didn't give her the chance to, did I? "Was she really hurt?"
"Not too bad. She lost some blood from a gash on her arm; it was ripped to shit and needed staples. Greg said it looked like a shark attacked her. Get in a bad enough wreck, and that's what wounds look like, I guess. Then he gave me a half-hour lecture on driving safely. The fucking nerve. He gives my mom a few flowers and suddenly he's my new dad."
I wait for him to stop brooding. "So, she didn't say what happened when Greg got her out?"
His mouth twists into a scowl, and I realize there's not much time left before he'll get surly with me, too. "He didn't get her out. He's not a hero all the fucking time, even though he acts like it. Some guy drove by, saw the crash, and pulled her out before the car went up in flames."
Trying to ignore the chill running through me, I say, "Pretty brave. Was he a visitor?"
"A patient. My mom recognized the name as a new arrival. Greg didn't talk much about him except to say he had long hair like mine. Don't squinch your eyebrows like that. Relax, Nina. I'm pointing a camera at you, not a gun."
I try to relax my face even as my heart thumps in my chest. "You mean, in a ponytail and everything?"
"Yeah. Greg made a stupid joke about how he must've been an artist, too." His voice turns resentful.
After that, the words dry up in my mouth. Here I thought Laci had seen Valentine acting oddly and decided to investigate. I hadn't even considered he did something to her girlfriend, first. A bad car crash he somehow pulled her out of. With some blood loss from a wound as mangled as a shark bite. What do vampire teeth look like, anyway? And had he crashed her car himself?
We finish a few minutes before my filched free time runs out. As we walk back to our cars, Elliot slips his hand in mine and gives me another kiss. "See? That wasn't so bad."
I manage a smile at him. It wasn't. If I hadn't spent half the time growing more convinced I blew off my friend when she really needed help, I might've even liked it.
I'm five minutes late by the time I coax my car into the driveway. Despite the fact Mrs. Kent charges an extra dollar for each minute over, I keep my steps slow so I can look over Valentine's house. It seems perfectly drab and unassuming, like every other house in Mercywing, but nerves shudder down my spine, anyway. So what if the tile and plaster looks normal; what's on the inside?