Vengeance Bound (6 page)

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Bleached Blonde looking at Puppy Boy like he should be something on the lunch menu. The only time her gaze shifts is when Mindi leans over to whisper into Niko’s ear. The blonde’s lips thin in irritation at their closeness. She sees me watching her, and without a word stands up and leaves. No one at the table notices, so I figure this must be a regular occurrence.

The bell rings, signaling the end of the lunch period. I hurriedly drain my chocolate milk, since the sugar rush is silencing Their unwanted advice. Puppy Boy offers to take my tray for me, and I accept. I wait for him near the door, since during our never-ending conversation we’ve discovered we have history together right after lunch. He has offered to show me where the classroom is, as though I could get lost in the small school. Perhaps Puppy Boy is going to be more trouble than he’s worth.

As I breeze out of the double doors of the cafeteria, Niko stares at me, his stormy gaze intent. I wonder what he sees, if he has somehow glimpsed the monster that exists just below the well-maintained surface. I crane my neck, and over my shoulder I see a smile spread across his face. The real thing, not the polite façade he showed at the lunch table. A thrill of excitement runs down my spine, and I wrap my arms around my middle.

Not good, not good at all.

SANCTUARY

I waste no time getting to my car after the final bell. Returning to high school has been more than I bargained for, and my head pounds from Their constant diatribes and the effort to restrain Their murderous nature. I am desperate for food and physical activity—two things that help me control Them. By the time I manage to get my car into gear, I can see Adam (I discovered Puppy Boy’s name when the teacher called on him during class) on the snow-covered lawn of the school, turning in a slow circle. He’s probably looking for me. Right now I don’t want to be found.

I’ve gotten pretty good at not being found.

I speed down the school’s long drive, barely making the light and turning onto the main road. Driving soothes me. The motions require no thought. I don’t have to pretend to like a certain type of music or follow current trends. I can drop the character I’ve created for myself and just be lovable, murderous me.

It’s a bigger relief than it should be. Especially considering how much I want to be around other people.

My mind wanders, and I think about the day They came to me. It seems like forever ago that I was trapped in a dark place, shivering and broken and waiting for death. They came to me then, in the moment when I’d lost all hope. They offered safety and revenge in exchange for my help. They saved me.

But some days it feels like I traded one kind of darkness for another.

A horn honking startles me from my reverie, and I turn onto the side street just as the left turn arrow changes from green to yellow. The person behind me follows too closely, and when I pull down my alley, a gray minivan speeds past, their acceleration an audible middle finger.

I am definitely making friends today.

I put the car in park and head inside. My stomach growls, reminding me that my last meal was all empty calories. I move into the kitchen and pull out several hard-boiled eggs and a cold grilled chicken breast from the fridge. It was supposed to be my lunch. Since it looks like I’ll be in lockdown every day at lunchtime, I make a mental note to pack something for tomorrow. I eat the food standing over the sink, since I don’t have any dishes. The yolks of the eggs I don’t eat; instead I feed them to my cat, Odysseus, who pads into the kitchen as soon as he hears the refrigerator open. Odie, as I call him, is ten years old. He’s the only remnant I have of my old life, a constant reminder of all that I lost.

It was pure luck I found him that night after taking care of Annie’s daddy. He was wandering through my old neighborhood, his collar bearing the address of one of the neighbors. They must’ve adopted him after Grandma died, but I got him back. Heartbreak took me to her boarded-up house, but finding Odie eased a little of that pain.

On my way down the hallway I catch my reflection in the mirror. The mirror came with the apartment. I thought about junking it, since as a rule I dislike mirrors. The face that smirks back at me is nothing more than a cleverly crafted lie, and I hate seeing it. But I loved the mirror’s wrought iron frame so much that I kept it. Now I stop and stare like I always do. Not because I’m vain, but because I’m watching, waiting for a sign that I have less time than I think. It was Alekto’s first lesson.

Your eyes are the windows to your soul. Use them to see what darkness lurks there.

The hungrier They are, the more They crave justice, the more visible They are within the irises of my eyes. Too much movement in the blue depths and I could lose my hold on Them. If I don’t give the Furies what They want, I risk Them trying to possess me completely.

Too little motion from Them? Well, that’s never been a problem.

I stare into my eyes, searching the blue irises. My eyes twitch left and right. Seconds pass and nothing happens. Part of me hopes nothing will.

What would I do if I were free of the Furies? Maybe I could go live with relatives. Someone would want me. Not my aunt and uncle. They never really forgave me for the part I played in their daughter’s death, an incident I was too young to remember. If they’d wanted me, I never would’ve ended up a ward of the state of Georgia.

Maybe I could travel the world. I visualize myself lying on a beach, the sand warm under my feet and the sun bright overhead. These mini daydreams make me hopeful.

But hope is deadly, because just as I’m about to turn away, I see it. A shadow flits across my left eye. It’s gone before I can track its progress. I wait, and a similar darkness appears in the blue of my right. I hold my breath, and just as I feared, They come swimming back, sharks in the blue pools of my irises, whispers of madness in my mind. The movement could be a trick of the light, but it isn’t. The shadows are Tisiphone and Megaera, waiting to be fed.

In that instant I hate Them.

There is too much movement. They are entirely too active. Alders wasn’t enough; the entire event was over too quickly to appease Them. I have to go hunting tonight. I can’t risk someone at West County High seeing the phantoms that live inside, not if I want a semblance of a normal life. I once trusted Dr. Goodhart to see my shadows. I thought he could help. Turns out, trusting him was a mistake. Not the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, but a mistake all the same.

I turn away from the mirror with a sigh. If I could cry, I would.

My bedroom is little more than a closet, the space barely big enough to fit a double bed and a beat-up dresser. Despite the small space, I have a closet that is almost as big as the room. That’s where I head now. It’s my secret sanctuary, that small square space. It’s big enough to accommodate my wall trunk, a special antique my grandmother bought me. It was once a magician’s trunk, the kind that opens to reveal not only a trunk portion but drawers as well, two small and one large. Stickers from the late nineteenth century decorate the outside, detailing its long history. We saw it in an antiques store a few weeks before my birthday, and I fell in love with it. It was the last thing she ever bought me.

The lid opens to reveal the wooden drawers inside. Nestled in those drawers are a dozen slinky tops and short skirts, outfits that would make a stripper blush. In the little drawer near the top are my fake IDs, more than a dozen different aliases, cousins to the driver’s license in my wallet. The other small drawer holds my newspaper articles, clippings of my prey since I left Saint Dymphna’s. I place the newest article on top of the stack. There are a couple hundred clippings, and I remember every single one of them. Every bit of justice I’ve ever handed down stains my soul.

I do an Internet search on Hank Meacham, and within minutes I find everything I need to know about the man. I close the laptop and stretch. There’s quite a bit of time before I can do any real work, so I might as well run a little.

I slither out of my school clothes and slip into tight running gear. In the bathroom I see that the bruises on my neck have already faded to a mustard yellow, and I’m glad that I probably won’t be stuck with turtlenecks all week. Speedy healing is a side effect of Their possession, and it has come in handy more than once.

I run down the stairs and out the main door, my shoes pounding rhythmically as I find my pace. A pair of boys wearing puffy jackets mark my progress with dark eyes. They don’t move, frozen to their spot like leery wild dogs. I grin and round the corner.

Let them try to start some trouble. We would welcome the entertainment.

ABSOLUTION

The world is a pit of blackness when I walk out of my house. There are few streetlights where I live, another plus. The local thugs have knocked them out, and the town is too poor to keep up with their replacement. The closest working light is halfway down the block, just far enough away that I can skulk out of my building unnoticed.

I don’t need the lights in order to see. My vision is just fine with very little illumination. It’s another one of the few benefits of letting Them in. They keep me healthy, and enhance my natural abilities enough so that I’m better than average. It’s not much, but it’s something.

I climb into my car and put an address into the GPS. It’s the location of a bar in the nearby town of Flintlock. Flintlock is a magnet for losers. It’s the closest town to the Pequea Valley Correctional Facility, a federal prison. The Pequea Valley Correctional Facility didn’t exist ten years ago. With populations on the rise at the other penitentiaries in the state, the government hired a private firm to build a brand-new prison. It’s too bad the corporate suits didn’t consult with their potential neighbors first, who were less than thrilled about the addition. As awful as West County is, Flintlock is actually worse, a veritable ghost town.

It takes me forty-five minutes to get to the bar, a classy place called Loose Lucy’s. A mud-flap-girl cutout outlined in pink neon sits on the roof, the name of the bar scrawled next to her in illuminated purple letters. The place looks like it was once a strip club, but even the dancers have left for greener pastures. Now it’s just a bar that advertises cheap beer and a wing special on Thursday nights. The cars in the parking lot are a mixture of rusted pickup trucks and beat-up four-door American family cars, working-class all the way. I park at the edge of the gravel road under a leafless oak. It’s darker in this corner of the lot, and I don’t want to draw any attention if I can help it.

I get out of the car and strut toward the bar. I’m dressed in all black, a shadow moving across the white snow. The air is frigid, and a stiff breeze cuts through the thin turtleneck sweater and tight jeans I wear. I’m not dressed for the weather, but I can tell from the way They rustle in the back of my mind, I’ll be warm shortly.

My plan is simple: Walk in, find Hank Meacham, get him alone, and hand down justice. I’m hoping Hank is a man of habit. Loose Lucy’s is where he was picked up on a parole violation a few weeks ago, according to a public records search. Like my grandma used to say, a leopard doesn’t change its spots.

I saunter into the bar, which is pretty dead. It’s after midnight on a Monday, and I’m the only female in the room. The Furies relay the thoughts of some of the patrons in rapid-fire snippets as I walk past, the descriptions ranging from foul to vomit-worthy. I ignore the play-by-play. The man I’m looking for is here, sitting at the end of the bar. Bald with a week’s worth of stubble on his face, Meacham only vaguely resembles the newspaper photo I found. But there’s something unmistakable about his eyes, which hold a glint of the malice I’ve come to recognize in killers. There is something about those who deal in human misery that leaves an indelible mark on them. I wonder if my own tendencies can be so easily seen.

I don’t think I really want to know the answer.

Meacham looks in my direction, tracking my progress as I stride to the bar. My heart flutters a little in my chest, and something writhes in my belly. Excitement or guilt, it makes no difference. This is exactly where I need to be. A monster hunting monsters.

I ignore Meacham and perch on a bar stool a couple of feet away. “Excuse me?” I call.

The bartender, a man who has eaten entirely too many buckets of fried chicken, waddles over. The tucked-in flannel shirt he wears takes some of the strain of his large belly, and the spaces between the buttons of his flannel gape to reveal his stained undershirt. His thinning hair is too long and greasy, and he pushes it out of his face with sausage fingers as he walks over. He looks me up and down, leering at me as he licks his lips. “Hey there, sugar. What can I get you?”

The look on his face is enough to send Them into overdrive. My leash on Them is loose, and They eagerly relate his thoughts.

Sweet little thing . . .

. . . such a tight sweater . . .

. . . just a few minutes in the back . . .

It’s so disgusting that my smile slips a little. I try to ignore the Furies’ howls for blood, hating how They have to relate the foul thoughts of the men we meet. Not every guy we meet is bad, but there’s nothing They like more than relating the innermost thoughts of those who are. It’s very tiring.

The man watches me with his beady eyes, and I force a wide smile. “My car broke down up the road a bit, and my cell phone’s dead. I was wondering if maybe you could call me a tow truck?” I blink and tilt my head at the end, just in case the rest of the act isn’t convincing enough. I have to look nonthreatening, even though all I want to do is punch him.

The bartender laughs and leans toward me. Lucky for me there are beer coolers on the other side of the counter. Otherwise he’d be in my personal space. My skin crawls, and I lean back slightly. He doesn’t seem to notice. “Honey, I don’t have to call you a tow truck. The only driver in town is right there.” He gestures toward the man at the end of the bar. “Hank. Hank! You got your truck? This sweet thing right here needs a tow.” His words are so close to what They related that I have to take a steadying breath.