Part Six

Osprey had known Scotch was Thursy’s friend.

He hadn’t realized – and perhaps stupidly – that he was her boyfriend.

If the way she collapsed into his arms hadn’t said it all, then Scotch’s temperament when Osprey explained the situation would have.

"Idiots!" he raged. "How could they ever think that Thursy would kill anyone, let alone Kiria?"

"Scotch," Coalise said softly, "keep your voice down. We don’t need my mom coming up again."

"Sorry," he spat. ‘But you were there, you know how absurd the whole thing was. Tya and her, ‘I’d never feel safe again,’ and Galdwyn with that letter. It’s bad enough that Kiria died, did he have to read that to the whole pack? She was so private to begin with, it’s like they were jumping up and down on her grave."

Osprey watched him without speaking. He understood the boy’s anger. He could even sympathize. But underneath the fury, he thought Scotch might be concentrating on the injustices to keep from having to think of Thursy again.

Thursy had said Scotch left the pack to be with a human. Presumably, this waif who had seemed so inexplicably happy to see Thursy. He must have left almost immediately before the execution, yet he had kissed her without a second thought.

Osprey wondered what that meant.

"How did she escape?" Scotch asked him.

Osprey considered his answer. The story was Thursy’s to tell, but she was in no shape to relive the events, so the burden fell on him.

"She didn’t," he replied.

Scotch waited and then said, "Meaning…"

He was so wildly young, so lacking in patience.

"She was executed yesterday morning. She died."

Scotch looked at Coalise, then back at Osprey. His mouth was partially open. "So…in there…she’s a zombie?"

Zombie was almost as bad a bogeyman, although in a choice between being called a brain-eating monster and a nocturnal pedophiliac, Osprey would have chosen the former. Sometimes he wished there was a proper name for what he was. Sometimes he liked the punishment of being nothing.

"She’s not a zombie," he said calmly. "There’s no proper name for what she is. Her neck was broken and she died. Then, within a few seconds, she came alive again and began healing. When your pack saw that she wasn’t dead, they decapitated her, amputated her limbs, and burnt her heart. When she still continued moving, I was called."

For about three seconds no one moved. The shower sounded like rain in the next room. Then Scotch grabbed the trashcan next to Coalise’s desk and vomited into it.

Osprey could see that the fire had gone out of him by the time he wiped his mouth with a Kleenex. In its place was a deep sadness.

"How much of it did she feel?" he asked, sitting down next to Coalise on the bed.

"She stopped feeling pain after her neck was broken, but she was aware of what was going on for several hours. Obviously, it’s been very traumatic for her. I would have insisted that she remain with me in peace and quiet for at least several days before contacting you if she hadn’t insisted that it’s a matter of life and death importance."

"What is?"

"I’m not certain. It involves her framing."

The shower shut off and the room grew very quiet. "I wasn’t there with her," Scotch said. "I should have been there with her."

"You had no choice," Coalise told him.

"I could have stayed with her while you walked to the highway."

"I don’t think I would have made it alone. You practically carried me most of the way. And Maple wouldn’t let her go. You did the best you could."

"Just the same," he said. "I should have been with her."

Coalise didn’t argue any further, only placed her hand on top of his.

Osprey had a strange urge to simultaneously kill and embrace them. He saw them the same way he saw Zion and Alyanna, people he couldn’t hold, couldn’t touch no matter how much he wanted to. If he poured out his heart to them, they would never understand. He would always be different and frightening.

Thursy was beginning to see it, too. He could tell by the look on her face when she jerked away from Scotch, and he saw it again when she opened the bathroom door with her head down, not looking at anyone. She was slipping out of Scotch’s sphere and into Osprey’s.

Scotch stood up but didn’t touch her. His voice hushed easily, as if he had used the same words with her a hundred time. "Hey," he said, "s’okay."

Thursy nodded. She wouldn’t look at him or let him touch.

"Come sit down." Osprey lifted the desk chair and put it down next to her. Thursy slid into it. Her auburn hair had darkened to maroon with the water and mostly hid her face. She drew her knees up to her chest.

Scotch wavered before sitting down on the bed. Osprey returned to the armchair.

There were several seconds of silence, during which Osprey was more aware than ever of how much older he was than the others. They were still uncertain of themselves.

He said, "Go ahead, Thursy."

Her clear green eyes met his for a moment. Her voice was stronger than he had expected.

"What happened to Yared?" she asked.

"I don’t know exactly," Scotch said quickly. "Look, I have to start at the beginning and tell you everything, okay? Otherwise this won’t make sense."

"But Yared-"

"Is alive, and my parents will take care of him. He’s part of this, I’ll explain."

She nodded her acquiescence.

Scotch told a very odd story. Parts of it made absolutely no sense, which Osprey at first chalked up to his not knowing how the pack worked, but which Thursy then also questioned.

"But why did you tell her to go to the cave? Why didn’t you just tell me what was going on?"

Guilt flashed on Scotch face and Thursy went on.

"How did she end up in my basement, and why doesn’t she remember any of this? What was Yared doing wandering around in the woods, wailing? And who killed-"

She broke off. Her eyes were wet but coherent.

"I don’t know," Scotch admitted. "I hardly know anything more than you do. Who’s Maple? Why did she help Coalise? What is a lamia doing in the village to being with? It doesn’t make a lot of sense."

Thursy pushed the wet strands of hair off her face. "Maybe I did kill Kiria," she said. "Maybe I really did find that note and freak out and afterward I just couldn’t deal with the memory."

"No. That’s insane."

"It makes more sense than any other theory."

"Thursy, how many times have I had to break the neck on a rabbit because you couldn’t bring yourself to do it? You didn’t kill Kiria." He sighed. "We must be over-looking something."

Osprey turned to Thursy. "You said last night that you had been framed."

She shrugged. "The more I think about it, the more absurd it sounds. Galdwyn didn’t care that much about…"

She trailed off just as Scotch repeated, "Galdwyn? Wait a second. Maple told me that I had to knock Tish out so that Tish wouldn’t recognize her and tell her father. She said something like, ‘I have to work with her father tomorrow.’ He’s always wanted the pack to side with the Night World, he must have brought Maple into the village."

"What for?" Coalise asked.

"She injected me," Thursy said. "Before the execution, she injected me with a painkiller."

"And she gave me that water bottle full of something that’s making my shoulder heal faster," Coalise added.

"Yared was so out of it…Could Galdwyn have been manipulating all of this?"

"He could have told Maple to give Yared something so that he seemed crazy," Thursy said, twisting her fingers together as if snapping the pieces of a puzzle into place. "That takes Yared’s vote out. Framing me for Kiria’s murder would take my vote out. That leaves him, Tish, and Simone."

"Night World wins," Scotch finished. He shook his head slowly, marveling. "I never thought he had it in him. I mean, I never liked him, but…to kill Kiria just so that he could frame you is beyond evil."

"He wants control of the pack. Yared and I were in the way." Something like relief filled her eyes with fresh tears. "I really didn’t kill her."

"Of course not," as though he had known it all along. "You’re not capable of it."

"Everything has just been so…" She swallowed hard. "I don’t know, I can’t seem to get a grip."

Scotch started to stand up and she suddenly asked, "What is there between you the human?"

The human in question quickly averted her eyes. Osprey kept his own steady on Thursy's face, at the distrust that grew in her with every passing silent second.

"It doesn't have anything to do with you," Scotch told her finally.

"It doesn't?" she asked, with a touch of sarcasm.

"No, I didn't mean it like that. I meant that what happened didn't happen because—shoot, no, I meant that this wasn't planned or-"

"Scotch and I are soulmates," Coalise said, her voice quiet but clear. "When he handed me my keys back, our minds just sort of opened up to each other. I have all his memories now, all his knowledge, and he has mine. He told me to wait for him in the cave because we didn't know what was going on and he didn't want to hurt you. More than anything, Thursy, he doesn't want to hurt you. Neither do I."

Osprey could feel Thursy and Scotch slipping away from each other, as if they were sliding down opposite sides of a hill. He could see the expression draining out of Thursy's face as she retreated into her self and shut out any comfort Scotch might try to give her.

You just lost her forever, Osprey thought, and some part of him was glad. Thursy was his now, whether she knew it or not, his to protect and his to comfort. He wasn't being selfish or controlling, but he knew that Scotch would never be enough for her again.

"Is there anything else?" Osprey asked. All three looked at him, so he explained, "I promised Thursy that she would have the chance to warn you. She has, and now she needs to leave."

"To go where?" Scotch demanded.

"Somewhere people don't know her or what she is. Where she'll be safe."

Thursy shook her head slowly. "I'm not leaving."

Osprey closed his eyes for a moment to keep himself from taking over her mind and forcing her to leave with him. Elomi, he knew, had never forgiven him.

"I want to get Yared out of danger," she said. "Galdwyn was willing to have me killed, if Yared recovers he might do something similar to him."

Unfortunately, it was good logic.

And Osprey knew he would give in, no matter how he argued.

Because although he had never spoken a single word to Zion, only seen him in photographs and blurry, shaken camcorder tapes, he would have gone to the ends of the earth for him.

He knew what having a brother meant.