Anathema (24 page)

It’s odd staying at school long after everyone else has trickled away for the night. The lights dim outside in the hallway. Alexander digs up some blankets to set up more beds in his hidden service corridor room. According to Alexander, the school staff has reduced to a handful of service people and a few after-school clubs on Thursday night. We all have to stay in here and stay quiet. Soon it will get emptier still.

I take out my phone to text my parents that I’m alive and well. Noelle sees me. Her eyes widen and she snatches my phone away. “None of that,” she whispers, and strips out the battery.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“Some of the better funded hunters can track you using these,” Noelle says. “Keep the battery out.”

“If you wait a few hours, the night monitor will get here, and he’s okay,” Alexander advises me. “You can sneak into the computer labs and shoot off an e-mail using an anonymizer to hide your location. I’ll show you how.”

We all fall silent as footsteps move through the hallway beyond us.

For a few minutes, it’s almost exciting to me like we’re young kids playing a game. Here we are, hidden away in a private space, hunted but comfortable for the moment. Alexander’s smuggled supplies from the school cafeteria over the years so we even had stuff to eat, stuff to drink. It’s like a picnic.

But soon the excitement fades. The events of the last few days catch up with me. Russell and the school guild’s attack… Was it just last night? I still wear the bruises around my neck, across my cheek bone. The makeup I used to hide it from my parents has long since rubbed off. Then the near murder by Liam and the Wasters, and now this. My eyelids grow heavy, and Alexander suggests I take the cot.

“Nothing else to do for a few hours.”

I fall asleep to the hum of the overhead lights.

I stir when a blanket is being tucked over me.

“She looks cold,” Alexander notes.

“Think I can risk a bathroom run yet?” Noelle asks.

“Wait about twenty minutes more. The night monitor, Rusty, is okay. He’s seen me. Sometimes I find things just lying out near my room. Like toothpaste. Clothes. Leftovers. He knows I’m living here. He’s been decent.”

Silence falls between them. I try to remember who Rusty was from the pool of school staff I’d profiled for the paper. I probably hadn’t interviewed him if he only worked nights. Now I wish I had.

“So this is your life. Have you thought about what you’ll do when you graduate?”

“It depends on you. I could go to Mexico tomorrow, Noelle. We both could.”

“That’s just trading one danger for another. I know all about surviving hunters. Cartels are another matter. There are other groups of anathemas out there. The Wasters are just one.”

“And in every single group, they’ll want something in return. I don’t want to smuggle drugs or firearms or kill on command like a good lackey. It would be the same problem from the Waste all over again.”

There’s a long silence. Then, “It doesn’t have to be like living at the Waste… Or living with our dad.”

“Noelle—”

“No. No, that’s what I think this is, Alexander. You have it imprinted somewhere inside your head that you have to live alone like this, as some lone wolf, just to avoid trusting the wrong people again. The Wasters had their problems, but you never gave them a chance. You went waiting for the minute they’d turn on you, so you saw treachery everywhere you looked. That’s why you turned on them.”

“So life at the Waste was a paradise, was it? Why did you leave?”

“No. It wasn’t a good situation. But it wasn’t as bad as you make it out to be, not then, at least. We can leave here and find some place if you’ll just open yourself up to the possibility people might have your back. You can learn to trust.”

There’s a silence. Then, “Even now,” Alexander says softly, “all these years later, I can’t remember seeing it coming. He went to our games. He took me to Taekwondo. Even after… Even after Mom died, he kept things in order. I thought I had a great dad and I didn’t even see it. All that time, what he was doing to you…”

“We have to move on. If we don’t, he wins.”

“I’ll never forgive him,” Alexander says. “I’m glad he’s dead. I wish I could have killed him for you.”

“No, you don’t. That’s what bothers you. You’re not doing me some wrong if you still… if you miss him. Sometimes… It’s messed up. Sometimes I do, too. Just, um, like when we were a normal family. And when he’d take us to get sundaes when Mom was sick.” Her voice hitches.

The silence is longer this time, far more tense.

“I’m glad you have a friend here, at least,” Noelle says after a while, her tone lighter. “Kat’s sweet. You’ve been protecting her. I think it’s good for you.”

“I’d protect you, too, if you’d let me.”

“You’re never going to get it through your head that I don’t need your help. I’m not a kid anymore. I’ve killed people. A lot of people.”

“Haven’t we all?”

“Not her.”

“No, not her.”

And with those words, I feel the weight of their gazes on me.

“Why wouldn’t you let her write the article?” Noelle asks him. “Don’t you understand what an amazing thing it would be if you ever got exonerated?”

 
“You’re dreaming.”

“Alexander, it’s happened to other people—”

“No. As long as you’re an anathema, I’ll be here with you.”

“Giving up your life doesn’t fix mine! It’s not absolution or penitence. The best thing you can do for me is save yourself!”

His voice grows as diamond hard as hers. “You’re not the only one who gets to make these decisions. Drop it.”

This time, the silence does not end.

Hours later, I sit alone in the school computer lab. Noelle is asleep. Alexander slept for a bit and then woke up before even I did. He set up an anonymizer on a computer for me before retreating to the gym. Apparently, he’s something of an insomniac. Most nights, he apparently takes advantage of the near-empty school to work out in the gym. I snuck a look at him while on a bathroom break, and glimpsed him bathed in sweat, brutalizing a punching bag like it had wronged him somehow.

I e-mail my parents to let them know I’m okay, though I can’t tell them where I am. They’d be astounded to find out I’m less than ten minutes away from them. The plan is for me to hide in the basement tomorrow, unseen by anyone.

I can’t resist checking to see what hunting guilds have come to town.

Big mistake.

My bounty is up to $83,000. My new notoriety has created a stir on the hunting forums. One link leads me to the leader of Death’s Disciples. It’s Trent ‘the Wolfman’ Savage’s Twitter feed. Some of the recent posts are relatively harmless.

TheWolfman @savagekiller2h

RT @bountymagazine Tuesday’s issue: Legendary hunter Wolfman Savage weighs in with Fantasy Hunting Guild advice. Who to trade, draft, & drop

TheWolfman @savagekiller5h

This: RT @Nike That anathema is yours. Air Savages: for the hunter willing to run, jump and charge a mile farther for American justice.

Others aren’t.

TheWolfman @savagekiller8h

Guess the # of times a HI-4 says please when begging 4 mercy. Best guess wins autographed copy of my bio CALL TO SAVAGERY. Reply w #savage

That last one chills me. I think I know the HI-4 he’s talking about. Frightened, I check his latest YouTube video. Sure enough, I find myself streaming a video with the grinning face from my nightmares.

“… message to you, Kathryn Grant: we’re coming.”
He flashes an ugly grin.
“I hope you’re worth the drive.”

Goosebumps prickle up my spine. He tore that one man’s heart right from his chest. I saw another clip of him on a TV game show where he drove a sledgehammer up through a woman’s jaw.

Death’s Disciples are a notorious guild. I’ve seen horrifying things about its members. They are rigorously screened for strong antisocial tendencies. The only people who make it into the guild are the twisted psychopaths who’d be condemned as serial killers in other societies. Some of them
are
actual serial killers from other countries. They immigrate to the United States just to join Wolfman Savage’s guild. Our country gives them a legal outlet for their need to kill. That’s one purpose of anathemas—to give the worst of society targets to destroy with impunity so they’ll leave law-abiding citizens in peace.

I am bathed in a cold sweat. This is my nightmare. I dreaded Wolfman Savage above all when I became an anathema. He was the very image of the terrifying sadistic hunter to me and now he knows my name. He knows my name. He’s coming to my town.

A hand reaches past me. I almost jump out of my skin, but Alexander doesn’t seem to notice. He’s freshly showered. He smells of soap and shampoo and safety. He takes the mouse and closes the window, making Wolfman Savage’s brutal grin disappear. “He’s just a hunter like any other.”

I clutch myself, unable to move from this spot. Horror rages inside me. “He’s going to do something terrible to me. He doesn’t just kill people, Alexander. He eats parts of them.”

He settles in the chair beside mine in the shadowy computer lab. For a moment, it’s like we’re in class together. Strands of his black hair are still wet. They cling to his forehead.

Alexander reaches out to brush my hair out of my eyes. Strange how something so simple sends a bolt of exhilaration through me. “Kathryn, I won’t let him get you.”

“I wish I had some way to repay you for everything you’ve done for me.” I draw a shaky breath. “I’ve been thinking ever since I heard about your leverage. Um, the jump drive. And if it comes down to it, I know Liam and the others might not back off. I understand if you just choose to protect Noelle, not me.”

His black brows sweep up against his bronzed skin. “What?”

“You only get to use it once. If Liam and the others come back for me, I won’t take it personally if—”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” His tone is unyielding, hard. “I won’t let them get you.”

“But you only have one sister.”

His warm fingers touch my chin, tilt my eyes up to his. His palm is rough with calluses, his eyes so blue in the light spilling from the nearby screen. “There’s only one of you.”

My pulse is pounding so hard, I’m sure he can feel it. His touch makes my skin tingle. I remember seeing him slamming that punching bag. Kicking it. There’s so much power in his body yet his touch on my skin is gentle like I am something delicate and infinitely priceless to him.

The pad of his thumb traces my cheek, tenderness in his gaze. “You really don’t belong in this life,” he says softly. His gaze feels like a delicate touch dancing over my skin. His lips are so close, his blue eyes framed by slanted black brows that lend a sharp intensity to his gaze. “You’re like some gentle dove and the rest of us are hawks. I hate to think of what’s going to happen to you.”

“I’m not weak.”

“I know that. I’ve seen how strong you are.” There’s frank admiration in his voice. His lips are full and soft, and his breath tickles lightly over my cheek. “You need to know you’ll never be alone in this, Kathryn.”