Anathema (20 page)

Russell lunges at me, machete swinging towards my neck. My arms shoot up without me telling them to, blocking his swing with my own. The impact vibrates down my arm, flares pain in my wrists. His strength takes me off guard. I stumble back, leaping just in time to avoid tripping over a low hedge.

He swings again, and I block it with a vibrating clang. God, that hurts my wrists. He shoves forward, knocking me back. I almost stumble off the sloping side of the lawn, but I catch my balance at the last moment. I back away as he continues to advance, gripping his machete in his meaty left fist.

“Don’t run away so soon,” Russell taunts.

“I’m not running.”

He swings as I duck. The machete snaps through the air over my head, and I thrust mine forward. Shock explodes through me when the blade meets something solid. Russell gives a shriek and stumbles away from me. Blood blossoms in a dark line through his torn shirt. I gape at what I’ve done, astounded. The machete almost slips right out of my hands. Shock and revulsion surge through me. Hurting someone deliberately goes against my every instinct, even now, even with death staring in my face.

My hesitation costs me. There’s a flash of Russell’s hand encased in the cast. I dodge, but the impact slams my shoulder, hurling me to the ground. I sprawl across the damp grass. My machete clatters from my hand to the cement of the sidewalk a few feet below me. I sway as I find my feet, casting my gaze around for the weapon I dropped. Russell leaps down to the sidewalk and gives a laugh.

“Looking for this?” He has my machete trapped it under his foot, a demonic grin on his lips in the streetlight. “Not too late to surrender and die quickly.”

Terror galvanizes me. Conrad’s mom has flowerbed here, lined with bricks planted in the damp ground at a diagonal angle. I don’t think. I tear one up out of the ground, and hurl it at him. The brick slams him in the nose with a sickening thunk, and he stumbles back to the ground. I dive forward to seize my machete, knowing this was all a mistake and I have to get my weapon then get out of here. He rears up with his face smeared with blood and twisted with rage.

“… KILL YOU…”
And then he’s got hold of me, his large body diving into mine hard enough to knock the breath from me. I’m doubled over, crushed on the grass beneath him. His body is hot and heavy and laden with muscle. His hands compress around my throat and I claw blindly at his eyes, trying to scream, trying to escape. I’m only half aware of a sudden flood of light and the screech of tires from somewhere to the side, the slam of sneakers on pavement.

Then Russell’s weight disappears. He’s struggling against a chokehold, and now tumbling across the lawn. Conrad’s voice is angrier than I’ve ever heard it. “What are you
doing
?”

The next moments are confusion, a blur for me. I grab my machete, the only certain thing in the world, and cradle it close. My head is a steady, low throb in tempo with my heartbeat. Conrad has Russell on the ground and he drives a fist into him, another. Then more light, the porch light, snapping on and a door flying open.

“Stop this!” Mayor Alton screams. “Conrad, you get off him right now!”

Conrad tears to his feet, rage making him shake, and he hurls Russell away from him contemptuously. “You sick freak! What is wrong with you?”

“Conrad!” shouts the mayor. “Cool down!” She darts across the yard, seizing his arm. I watch it all, still stunned this has happened.

“You can’t get away this,” Russell vows, swaying to his feet, pointing a shaky finger at Conrad. “You interfered in a legit hunt just now, bro. You can become an anathema over this—”

Mayor Alton prowls towards him, and for the first time Russell cringes back, still clutching his nose. “Don’t you dare threaten my son.”

I stare at her, this icy, menacing woman with her quiet voice. She’s raised Conrad alone since he was three, after her husband died on a business trip to Tijuana. She rose to town mayor and clamped down on crime with an iron fist. As imposing as she is, though, she never showed this face to me before I became an anathema. I’m only half aware of Conrad gathering me to his chest, and he’s staring at his mother, too, like he’s stunned by her.

“I can press charges,” Russell says belligerently. “He broke the law. This is the same way
she
lost citizenship.” He jabs his finger in my direction.

“Only if you’d died because of his interference. You look very much alive to me.” She looks him up and down. “I assure you, Russell, pressing charges would be a grave mistake. If you take on my son, you will ignite a war between our families, and your parents will suffer dearly for it. Do you want that?”

Something about Mayor Alton’s soft voice chills Russell. He looks at her, pale, mopping at his bloody nose. “No, ma’am.”

And then suddenly, she’s the woman who used to give me quotes for the school newspaper. Who made dinner for Conrad and me while we watched TV. “Good. I know you two boys can be friends again soon.”

“But… but…” Russell sputters, then falls silent at something he sees on her face.

“Go home, Russell.”

He shoots me and Conrad a last impotent look, and then begins to stagger off down the street. Mayor Alton turns towards us. “Are you coming inside, Conrad?”

Conrad doesn’t ask for permission to bring me in. He just helps me to my feet. And then we’re moving inside the door that denied me admittance when I desperately needed it. Suddenly I begin to make sense of it. I peer over my shoulder before the door closes, seeing Conrad’s car still on, idling in the street.

He wasn’t the one home when I rang. He wasn’t the one gazing at me through the window of his room. It was Mayor Alton.

I’m left alone with her in the kitchen as Conrad goes outside to park his car in the garage. She boils herself tea. My gaze meet hers over the steam wafting up in the air. Her eyes are like blistering ice.

“Why do you hate me so much?” I demand, my voice hoarse.

“I don’t hate you, Kathryn.” She slaps down an empty mug. “You are absolutely beneath my hatred. Tea?”

I stare at her. I’d be safer drinking rat poison than something she prepared for me right now. “You’re trying to get me killed!”

She plops a tea bag into her own cup. “If all goes to plan, I’ll be the next Governor of this state. My entire reputation rests on my effectiveness when it comes to staunching crime. Have you even thought about what it will do to my public image if my own son is dating an anathema?

 
“That’s what this is about?” I say disbelievingly. “You want me dead to help your career?”

“‘Career’?” she echoes. “I’m not your mother, shuffling papers in an office, or your father, designing hot tubs. I do something vitally important. Right now, I keep this city running. That’s more than a mere career, Kathryn. If all goes to plan, I’ll one day take charge of the most populated state in the nation. From there, the sky is the limit. My plans aren’t just about me. They’re about the very future of this nation. If I have to get a hunting license myself, I will obtain it just to rid myself of you.”

Anger swells inside me like a hot red tide. “Get a hunting license then.” The words are like bullets firing from me. “Because there’s one great thing about being an anathema: I get to kill registered hunters. Even mayors who dream of being queen.”

“You don’t want to threaten me, little girl.”

“I think I do,” I say, my voice shaking. “I think I love threatening you.”

At that moment, Conrad trundles back in. Mayor Alton and I both straighten, looking casual. Awkward silence falls over the room.

“I parked my car,” Conrad says.

Silence greets this. Mayor Alton pours hot water over her tea bag. Then she snaps around and crosses the room to him. I think she’s going to hug him.

Instead she slaps him. The sound makes me flinch.

“What were you
thinking,
Conrad
?
People lose citizenship that way!” she shouts at him. “You don’t attack a hunter to protect an anathema!”

“He was trying to kill my girlfriend!” Conrad roars back at her.

Mayor Alton makes a disgusted noise. She takes her tea and whips away from us, her heels clacking their way across the floor.

It thaws something icy in my chest, hearing Conrad refer to me as his girlfriend without realizing it. He crosses over to me, and settles in the chair next to mine, rubbing my shoulder. His eyes are filled with love and concern. “He was really going to do it,” Conrad says, stunned. “He was really going to kill you.”

I stare at him incredulously. What does he think has been happening to me all this time? “It’s not like he’s the first.”

“Kat…” He gathers me close into his powerful arms, and the familiarity of it hearkens to a better time, makes me want to cry. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs against my hair. “I didn’t get it. I didn’t realize it was like this for you.”

“What did you think?” I cry, my chest feeling torn. After all this time, he understands. But I want to hit him
because
it took him so long to understand.

“I just didn’t realize it. It was stupid but it wasn’t… It wasn’t…”

“It wasn’t real to you,” I finish for him.

“Yeah.” His breath blows across my hair as he exhales. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand. You were acting so differently, but I didn’t really understand. I do now.”

“You hurt me, Conrad.”

His hands stroke my hair, over and over again. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get it before. I love you. I still love you. Please forgive me.”

I’m still hurt and angry over our breakup, but a part of me relishes this, the feeling of being vindicated, and being cared for. “So what about Siobhan?”

“She’s nothing to me. I was angry. I knew it would bother you. I’m sorry. She meant nothing. We didn’t… We didn’t do anything, I swear.” His voice grows tight. He keeps pressing kisses to my forehead. “You ran here for my help and I wasn’t here. I’m sorry.”

“Your mom was.”

“What?”

“Your mother. She was here.”

His lips freeze against my forehead. I raise my eyes to his, waiting to see how he’ll react.

He stares at me, still cupping my face, looking like a man being strangled.

“I rang the doorbell a bunch of times,” I say. “She heard me. She saw me. She didn’t do anything.”

Conrad and I sit there frozen like that. I am totally on edge, wondering how he’s going to react to this. Then Mayor Alton sweeps back into the room, saying, “I’ve called Russell’s parents, and they assure me he won’t be making an issue of this. You’re lucky this time. I hope—”

Conrad releases me suddenly and rises to his feet. “Mom, were you home?”

Mayor Alton halts in place, her lips a flat, thin line. A few locks of her auburn hair have slipped out of her bun. “Excuse me?”

Conrad stares at her like he’s never seen her before. “Did you just leave her out there to die?”

Her expression flickers. “It’s complicated.”

Conrad’s jaw drops. “It really was you, wasn’t it?” he breathes. “You were the one who added to her bounty. You want her dead.”

“We’ll talk about this. Now isn’t the right time.” Her warning gaze flits to me.

Conrad shakes his head. “I’ve been defending you this whole time. And this whole time, you’ve wanted her dead!” He moves over to me, and urges me up out of my chair. “We’re going.”

I rise mindlessly, amazed by the suddenness with which familiarity has come pouring back into my life. Conrad is in my corner again. He’s defending me again. I don’t know how I feel about this yet, but there is something so incredibly satisfying about the distress on Mayor Alton’s face. Her son is choosing me. He’s choosing
me.