Tear You Apart (17 page)

“It’s time for Swans, party of twelve, to go home!” Elliot shouted. “Clean that shit up or I’ll feed your bird asses to my dogs!”

Beth stopped knitting long enough to type a message on her phone. Viv read it to Elliot. “She says they don’t have
a home. Also, she’s tired of sleeping in the woods.
Sadface
.”

“You can stay,” Elliot told Beth. “Although, the house is getting crowded.” His eyes shifted to Viv.

“Sorry,” Viv said.

Elliot headed to the kitchen to give the Teal brothers their last-call warning. Beth resumed knitting an itchy green sleeve. Viv watched a fighter on TV get punched in the face until blood gushed into his eyes, and wished she were at Jewel’s—even if Jewel didn’t know how to kill people. Finally, Jack got up, tossed his slushie cup on the table, and motioned for Viv and Henley to follow. “I’ll show you your room,” he said.

Viv checked out other rooms as they passed—she’d never been inside the farmhouse before. In the kitchen, Elliot stood with his arms crossed while the Teal brothers scrubbed regurgitated pond weed and booze off the floor. In Elliot’s bedroom, a dog with eyes as large as saucers stood guard on top of a padlocked footlocker.

When they reached Jack’s room, all three went inside. It was spare, whittled down to the essentials. There was a bed with a dark green bedspread, a hardwood floor worn down by decades of footsteps, a TV mounted on the wall, and a few shelves where Jack kept assorted treasures. Two windows faced the backyard.

“Don’t worry, I changed the sheets,” Jack said.

“I’m sure they needed it,” Viv said, because thanking him felt too weird.

Jack’s hand went to the knife at his belt. There was a leather pouch there, too—for magic beans, supposedly. “How old’s that Huntsman? Fifty?”

“Forty, fifty,” Henley estimated.

“Don’t worry about it, then. I’ve got you covered.”

Viv dumped her bag on the floor, and Jack circled around in front of her.

“If you want to stay here,” he said, “I’ve got a few rules. You’ll have to clean the house, get your animal friends to do the dishes, and bake some pies. Not apple—I’m not sadistic—but something all-American. Oh, and sing a song while you’re at it.”

“Sounds fun. Too bad this is only for one night.” It was dark enough in the room for Viv to be able to see out the window, past the transparent mask of her reflection. She watched as the Teal brothers trooped across the lawn: eleven boys in swim trunks, drunk off their asses.

“We won’t kick you out tomorrow if you need to stay longer,” Jack said. “But you can’t have my bed forever.”

“I think tonight will be enough.”

“Let’s see how this goes,” Henley said. Viv and Henley hadn’t really talked about where she would go after tonight. She wasn’t sure he should even be part of that decision.

“I’ll be on the couch,” Jack said. “Yell if you need something.” He pulled the door shut after himself, leaving Viv and Henley alone.

Viv sat down on the bed, still gazing out the window. Henley sat next to her and she let herself sink against him, watching their reflections as his arm went around her. His hand traced a nervous path over her hair.

“I have to think about what to do,” he said. “I know I used to tell you I would kill the Huntsman. That I would never let him hurt you. I promised you that. But if I killed him now, unprovoked … I don’t know if I could get away with it.
I’d have to hide the body. The evidence. I think I could do it, but …”

“Regina would use it against you. You’d end up in prison. I’ll hide somewhere.”

The laws in Beau Rivage favored curses. If you were fated to kill someone, you wouldn’t be prosecuted for the crime. But that was the extent of the amnesty.

“Do you think you’ll go back to the underworld?”

“To hide? No … but I’m taking Jewel to the club tomorrow night. She wants to see it.”

Henley was silent and Viv wondered if he was hoping for an invitation.

“I can’t bring you,” she said.

“Because I’m the Huntsman?”

“Because—”

Because I love you
.

“That, and everything else.”

In the window glass they looked hollow. Like ghosts. An unhappy couple who haunted each other, but couldn’t let go. Henley’s eyes were downcast, his mind occupied with thoughts of murder. Neither one of them smiled. Even during the good times, it felt like they were trying to hang on to something temporary before it slipped away. Always anticipating loss or betrayal.

Viv closed her eyes. She slid a hand across his chest, her fingers pushing at his shirt. “Do you want to stay with me?” She could feel his heart beating beneath her palm and her own beat a touch faster, anticipating something other than loss.

“I don’t know if I should, Viv.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“It’s not that.…”

“Then stay. We almost never get to stay the night together.”

She knelt up on the bed, ran her fingers lightly across his neck and jaw, and his head tipped back, his eyes closed, and he sighed and wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned her weight against him as if she could topple him, and kissed him, kissed the film of salt on his skin, the taste of summer, like so many summers before.

He lay back and pulled her down with him, the bed giving one righteous squeak, his eyes warm and dark and focused on hers. And suddenly she was aware of the limited time they had left—how many more moments like this would there be? And she felt like she needed to make the most of it, to give and take as much as they both had left.

She wanted to engrave her name on his heart, but she’d already done it; she wanted to press down harder, retrace all the lines. She wanted to be the one he loved the most, forever.

She pushed his T-shirt up; it snagged around his head for a second before he raised his shoulders so she could pull it off. And then she was unzipping her party dress, shedding it, the loss of the dress making her feel powerful, steady, like reverse armor. She lay against him, hot skin against skin, feeling the thrill of being near him, and also, the rightness of it. Sometimes they could be magic again. The curse ceased to exist, and there was just the two of them.

“Viv,” he said, “what happens tomorrow?”

She traced a fingertip down his side. “Tomorrow? I could be poisoned tomorrow. Killed by—”

“No.” He grabbed her hand and held it. She kissed his knuckle where their hands were joined.

“Let’s not think about tomorrow. We’re here. Together. We have to live for the moment.” Her voice was playful, trying to keep this from getting serious, because serious for them was so often dark, the first step to ruining a good thing. But maybe if she’d let some emotion—her need for closeness—into her voice, he wouldn’t have felt the need to say it. He would have understood.

“You never live for the moment,” he said. “You’ve been living for the future since the day I was cursed.”

“That’s not true. I do—sometimes. If I couldn’t do that, we wouldn’t be together at all.”

“So, are we together? What is this? You want me to stay. Does that mean…?”

“What?” she whispered.

“Does it mean you’ve decided—”

She lowered her head to kiss him, but he wouldn’t let her dodge the question. He caught her face in his hands.

“Do you know what you want, Viv?”

It hurt, the way he looked at her. This was her chance to make everything better. All she had to do was say
you
, and make him believe it.
I want
you—and seal it with a kiss.

She couldn’t.

She couldn’t even look at him. She let her gaze drift, focused on the curve of his shoulder, the seam of the bedspread, anything but the hope she was about to crush. His hands were warm against her cheeks, and she couldn’t take it—that tender, patient feeling—so she pulled away, sat up, straddling his waist. Just a few feet of distance, but it was everything.

“Henley … it doesn’t matter. I can’t make any promises.”

He rose up on his elbows. “Why? Why can’t you? I would promise you anything.”

“Yeah, and it would be a lie. Because you don’t
know
. You don’t know what you’ll do. The fairies have a pretty good idea—”

He lifted her off him, and got up quickly, anger rippling through him as he stood.

“That again.” He half turned toward the door, fists clenched, and then turned back, spreading his arms wide as if to gesture to everything, the entire mess. “What moment are we living in now? The one where I’m trying to protect you? The one where I love you? The one where I’ve never done a goddamn thing to make you think I would kill you?”

His voice got louder as he went on, and the dog across the hall started barking. Harsh, choppy barks, and Viv flinched with each one. Henley had never hit her, never hurt her, never broken anything she couldn’t buy at the store—but an instinctive fear reared up in her when someone that big and loud was angry with her.

“This should be fun when your friends show up,” she said, her voice calmer than her heart. “At least you know they’ll be on your side.”

Henley picked up his shirt and pulled it on. He didn’t bother to respond.

“You’re leaving?”

“I don’t need to be here talking in circles, having the same fights with you. I need to think about what to do next.”

“Henley—” She reached for him, but he eluded her grasp. “I don’t want you to go.”

“No, you want to be the one who leaves. That’s how it
works, right? You go whenever you’re ready. And to hell with what I’m ready for.”

“You’re making me feel like shit.”

“Welcome to my life. You make me feel like shit all the time.”

He slammed the door as he left and she hugged her knees to her chest and started crying, pressing her face against them so she wouldn’t be loud. “Screw you, then,” she said. But it didn’t make her feel better. The time they had left together—that precious, fading time—maybe he didn’t even want it anymore.

She changed into pajamas and then lay in bed with her back to the door, one tear after another sliding sideways down her cheek. She waited for the sound of Henley’s truck starting up, but there was only the drone of the TV, late-night commercials and action-movie explosions. Jack’s voice, Elliot’s voice, definitely not Beth’s. After a few minutes the bedroom door opened, and she listened to the heavy tread across the floor until she was sure Henley’s shadow was falling over her, but she didn’t open her eyes to see whether that shadow held a knife.

He laid his hand on her shoulder. Whispered, “Viv?”

She didn’t answer. The bed sank as he sat down behind her, and she had to resist rolling over and clinging to him to keep him there.

“I don’t want you to think I’m not going to help you. I will. I’ll do everything I can. Okay?”

She shrugged, smushed her face into the pillow, furtively drying it.

“I’m not staying. I just wanted you to know that.”

He stroked her hair back from her face. Let his fingertips linger on her cheek. Waiting for something? But she gave him nothing. She didn’t know what to give.

“ ’Night, Viv,” he said finally.

“Good night,” she said.

His steps were softer as he left. He closed the door, and she touched her face where he’d touched it, knowing she wouldn’t sleep for hours. Because he was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE DENEUVES’ KITCHEN smelled like citrus instead of blood. In the clean light of early morning, it was hard to believe a Huntsman had gutted a rabbit on that table as a demonstration of how to kill a princess. Someone had washed the blood from the blond wood surface, and now there was a centerpiece where the carcass had been: a bowl of red apples, the same decoration that had been there for years.

Regina, dressed in workout clothes, her hair up in a ponytail that made her look younger, was juicing oranges by hand. A pair of white butterflies flurried through the garden, like white petals caught by the wind.

Last night’s bloody scene was erased by the bright chirps of birds and the cool, misty air. Like the world had taken a deep breath, ready to begin again. Henley felt wide awake, tired but almost painfully alert. He hadn’t slept well … he didn’t think he would for a while. His window of opportunity was closing. He only had so much time to make this work,
to make sure everything happened exactly how he wanted it to.

“You stayed late last night.” Regina licked a dribble of juice off her finger. “Tying up loose ends?”

“I wanted to see where her head was at. If there was a chance for us.”

“And?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” His eyes went to a groove in the table, where the wood was still dark with blood. “I used to think that if I could get her to trust me again, things would change. We’d go back to the way we were before. Now I know that won’t happen. But I still need her to trust me.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t want this to be any uglier than it has to be. I don’t want to hurt her. I want it to be a shock—so she barely feels it. That’s why I brought her away from the house last night. I want her to feel safe with me. To trust me. I think it’ll be less traumatic for both of us if she does.”

“Well. No one wants you to be traumatized.”

Regina carried the pitcher of orange juice to the table and set it down as carefully as if it were a vase of flowers. He rarely saw her do anything domestic and wondered if it was for his benefit or if she was a different person without Viv in the house.