Part Nine
"I know this is hard, honey."
Scotch prowled from one side of his bedroom to the other. Step, step, step, turn. Step, step, step.
"You loved Kiria, we all did."
Turn. Don’t think about Kiria. Step, step.
"But blaming yourself for what happened-"
Step. "I’m not blaming myself!" he shouted. Turn, step.
Gedmark rattled the doorknob. "Can I please come in?"
"No!"
He had dragged the dresser up against the door, and then jammed his desk against that. In an emergency his parents would still be able to bust through, but at the moment they were continuing to hope that he would come out on his own.
"Go away, Mom!" Step, step, turn, step.
He had a feeling that the news hadn’t sunk in yet. If it had, he wouldn’t have been able to speak or move or draw breath. As it was, he simply couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept, and so he was left with an all-consuming, frantic fury at his parents and his pack.
They were going to kill Thursy.
Turn.
And Coalise.
How the hell she had ended up in Thursy’s basement he didn’t know. Why Yared had been reduced to a raving lunatic was a mystery. Who had really been responsible for Kiria’s death – and why, sweet Bast, why? – was unknown.
Turn, step, step.
He didn’t believe Thursy had done it. Sure, she over-reacted and it was true that she was fiercely protective of Yared, but her interest had always been in making him happy, and Scotch knew she had a fair impression that Kiria might have been good for him. He, at least, might have been good for Kiria. Thursy took care of her own like no one else.
"Scotch-" Kvyn called.
Step, step. "What, are you all just out there having a party in front of the door? Go away! I’m not coming out until you realize how insane this is. Thursy didn’t kill anybody."
With a sigh he could hear right through the door, Gedmark asked, "Then how do you explain what happened to Kiria?"
"Did I say I could explain it? All I’m telling you is that Thursy isn’t a murderer. If anyone should get stuck with that title, it’s you three for sentencing her to death."
"But look at the facts," Ramble began.
"Shut up, Dad. The facts are bullshit." Step, step, step. "You know what this is? It’s that thing humans do, it’s a framing. Somebody framed Thursy."
"What for?" Kvyn asked.
Step, turn, step, step. "How the hell should I know? You’re the ones obsessed with facts and evidence, you go figure it out."
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a little voice was pointing out to him that he would never ever have a decent relationship with his parents after this.
Step, turn, step—
He jolted to a stop. Standing outside his window, framed by the black curtains, was a girl. She had heavy bangs that partially obscured her eyes and wore a navy blue flannel shirt, and around her neck was a diamond solitaire on a delicate chain.
She lifted one finger to her lips.
"Scotch?" Ramble called. "Are you all right?"
"Go away!" he shouted again. "I mean it! I’m not saying another word to you, probably for the rest of my life. Just leave me the hell alone!"
The girl outside nodded at his words. He listened to his parents confer quietly and then their footsteps as they went down the hall to the kitchen.
Step, step, step, to the window. He brushed back the curtains and very carefully would the window open. Without a word, the girl climbed inside and tugged the curtains shut again behind herself.
They were standing in near pitch-blackness. She smelled faintly of blood and almonds, and her body radiated less heat than he expected.
She leaned close to him, her hand touching his shoulder for balance as she rose onto her toes. Brushing his ear with her breath, she whispered, "I can help you get the human out."
His heart pounded and he grabbed her elbows. "Easy," she whispered.
"Who are you?"
"Keep your voice down. My name is Maple. We don’t have a lot of time, we have to leave now."
"Fine," he told her, and moved toward the window.
"And you can’t come back," Maple added.
Unconsciously, he had already known that, but the idea still came as a shock. If he didn’t live in the village, where would he live? If having a brief conversation with Coalise rattled him so much, how would he function in the human world?
On the other hand, how would he function without her?
"Let me grab a few things."
"Make it quick. I’ll be outside."
It only took him a minute to dig through his desk drawer and find the strip of pictures. On one of their brief excursions into the human city he and Brandy had gone into a picture booth. The pack had no interest in photographs but Brandy thought they were quaint, and Scotch had taken them from her room after she died. He stuck them in his back pocket and climbed out the window.
Maple didn’t speak until they were crouched next to the back door of Thursy’s house. "This is where they’re keeping her," she whispered. "Tish is on guard. All you have to do is knock her out."
Scotch stared at her. "Knock Tish out? Have you seen her?"
Maple opened a leather satchel attached to her hip. She removed a bottle of sludgy orchaer liquid and poured a tablespoon onto a piece of white cloth. "Press this over her face, but make sure you don’t breathe any of the fumes. Oh, and let her see you. I’ll follow in a minute."
"Wait, if you’re coming with me, why can’t you help me knock Tish out?"
Maple glared at him. Her eyes were a luminous blue-green in the moonlight. "Because I have to stay here and deal with her father afterward, and if he finds out I helped you, he’s going to kill me."
"Not if my parents don’t first," Scotch muttered, and turned to the front of the house. "Okay, I’ll do it. But don’t take too long coming after me."
He crept up to the front door. He had no idea what a lamia was doing in his village, and he would have protested her presence if he hadn’t been about to abandon the place and everyone in it. And she was helping him, so what did it matter?
The front door opened easily in his hands and he stepped inside. The kitchen was dark, as was the living room. He decided to play innocent a while and hissed, "Tish? Tish, where are you?"
No reply. He snuck across the living room, still able to make out the blood smears on the wall, and down the hall. Under the basement door was a crack of light.
"Tish?" he called. He opened the door and found the basement brightly lit below him. At the bottom on the stairs, Tish was standing sentry.
She looked at him. Tish had fallen off a cliff when she was just a little cub and split her scull right down the middle. Scotch had always wondered if something in her brain hadn’t been permanently dented.
"Tish, I need your help." He kept the cloth folded up in the hand behind his back as he moved quickly down the steps to where Tish stood.
"Scotch?" Thursy asked.
She and Coalise were chained to opposite walls. Thursy had been allowed to wash up and was wearing a black sweatshirt with clean jeans, but there was still blood clotted in her hair and caught under her nails.
The bruise on her temple was dark, but it was nothing compared to Coalise’s face. Scotch couldn’t figure out what had happened to her, both sides of her face were swollen and bruised, and one eye was almost forced shut. The rest of her visible skin was deathly pale, her lips and even her brown-smeared hands. She was leaning against the wall, her breath just a flutter, eyes open but seeing nothing.
"Oh god, Scotch," Thursy said.
Tish frowned at him. "Leave."
"But look at her." He pointed and Tish’s eyes obediently followed his finger. While she was looking away, he pulled the cloth out from behind his back and smashed it down on her face. The base of her scull smacked against the cement wall and he used it as leverage.
Tish’s hands turned gooey and then hardened into paws. Scotch ground his teeth while she tore the hell out of his arms and then abruptly went limp.
Her fall to the floor looked painful, but he wasn’t sure he could have picked her up if he had tried anyway. When he glanced up, he saw Maple moving quickly and silently down the stairs.
Thursy was staring at him, shocked. "Hey, beautiful," he said gently as he crouched on the floor beside her and kissed her forehead.
Her hands wrapped around his wrists, keeping his hands on her cheeks. "I didn’t think you’d come," she whispered. She was trembling again, or maybe she had been trembling since she woke up that evening and never stopped.
Maple had taken the keys out of Tish’s pocket and was quickly unlocking the shackles around Coalise’s wrists. The human girl looked at her with surprise but didn’t speak.
"She’s fading," Maple said, sliding an arm behind Coalise’s waist and lifting her off the floor. Coalise’s eyes opened all the way with the shock of pain and she made a soft, strangled sound. "You’re going to have to carry her."
Scotch nodded, only half listening. Most of him was busy being insanely happy that he was looking into Thursy’s green eyes again. Her grip on his arms was almost painful. He knew that she was counting on him to get her out. She was trusting him.
"Scotch," Maple said, "you have to go. Now."
He nodded again. "Unlock Thursy and we’re out of here."
Silence. He finally turned, releasing Thursy, and looked at Maple. Coalise was a dead weight beside her.
"You can’t take Thursy," Maple said simply.
Thursy groaned as if she had known it was coming.
"Why not?" Scotch demanded.
Maple shook her head. "This is too complicated for me to explain. Just take Coalise and get her to the highway."
"Look," he said, "I’m not leaving without Thursy."
"Just unlock her and let’s go," Coalise agreed in a rough, half-audible voice.
For a moment Scotch was distracted by the weakness he saw in her. His little bird, he should never have left her out in the forest alone. "What happened to you?" he asked with concern.
"I don’t know." Her eyelids dropped for a second and then lifted again. "I don’t even know how I got here, or how you all know my name. I think I must have hit my head."
The words took several seconds to process. "You mean," he began, and stopped. "You don’t remember who I am?" he asked instead.
She shook her head. "Should I? All I know is my face hurts and something happened to my shoulder."
He stood up and walked to where she was leaning on Maple, forcing Thursy to release him. Coalise's brown eyes were racked with pain, but vacant when they looked at him. She truly didn’t remember.
He reached out for her, and Maple let her weight transfer to his arms. Coalise weighed almost nothing but her skin was warm. Maybe too warm, feverish.
Being careful of her bruised eye, he gently pushed the light brown hair off her face. A draw began between his skin and hers, like two magnets trying to come together, and without knowing why she sighed. She relaxed a little in his arms and his cupped his hand around the back of her neck.
Again, they fell.
He curled around her stunned body at the bottom of a deep hole, cradling her head in his shoulder. She stared at him as their minds opened up, memories flickering past like lightening bugs.
She was stunned to see herself through his eyes, and hear their interaction in the woods. Her memories of the events were gone – even Scotch couldn’t dig them up – but she saw herself through him and found again the feeling from that afternoon with come certainty.
And she recognized him, even without the memories.
I’m so sorry I left you, he told her. I tried to come back-
Something must have happened, I don’t know what.
We have to leave.
She agreed, but then balked. Oh, no, Scotch, I can’t ask you to leave the village forever. What about your parents?
But he brought up first her own memories of Thursy’s abrupt sentencing and then his own. I can’t live with them any more.
The thought made her miserable, made them both miserable, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and said, I’m going to take care of you. I’ll take care of you out there.
He felt better knowing that somebody was on his side, that he wouldn’t be left entirely alone in the baffling sunlit world. A rush of gratitude made him lean down and press his lips to hers – be careful with her human lips, her human bruises – as he said, Thank you.
When he opened his eyes again, they were standing in the basement. Coalise had resting against his chest, and Thursy was staring at him with an expression of utter despair.
And that was when he knew he had lost her, once and for all.