This Savage Song (12 page)

Kate enjoyed the sliver of time between classes, the five minutes Colton afforded its students to get from
A
to
B
. Being in class was exhausting: half the teachers treated her like she had a loaded gun, the other half like she had a crown. The walk was the only time she could really breathe, so she was more than a little annoyed when one of the girls from History looped an arm through hers on the way to Gym.

“Hi,” chirped the girl in a voice that was way too bright for ten
A.M.
“I'm Rachel.”

Kate's stride didn't falter, but she said nothing.

“I heard what you did to Charlotte Chapel.”

“I didn't do anything to Charlotte.”
Yet
.

“Hey, I think it's great,” she said cheerfully. “That bitch totally deserved a check.”

Kate sighed. “What do you want?”

The girl's smile went full wattage. “I just want to
help,” she said. “I know you're new here, and I thought you could use a friend.”

Kate raised a single pale brow. Being liked was a perk, not a necessity. She supposed she could take a different tactic, try to conform, go out for homecoming queen, establish a more traditional form of popularity, but it all seemed so . . . juvenile. She could still feel the blood beneath her nails. How could anyone care so much about which table they sat at when Malchai were ripping out throats in the red? Then again, that's why they lived in North City. That's what their parents were paying for. Ignorance. “You don't want to be my friend, Rachel.”

The girl's cheer settled into something colder, more calculating. “Look, Katie.”

“Kate.”

“Everyone needs an ally. You can go around acting invincible, but I'm willing to bet you'd rather be liked.”

“Is that so?” asked Kate dryly.

Rachel nodded solemnly. “We all know who your father is, but you don't have to be like him.” She took Kate by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes, as if she was about to say something vitally important. “You're
not
your father.”

Kate tensed imperceptibly at that, then managed to draw her mouth into a small, cruel smile. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course,” said Rachel.

Kate leaned in and brought her lips to the girl's ear. “I'm much worse.”

She pulled back, taking a moment to savor Rachel's expression before walking away.

The first week of Gym was supposed to be a segment on self-defense—Kate had several issues with Colton's interpretation. The first—and biggest—of which was that there were no weapons. Kate couldn't imagine someone stupid enough to wander the streets of V-City without at least a knife on them, but Colton insisted on a “safe” environment (she was starting to hate that word).

She could have skipped, but watching students try to defend themselves (poorly) against imaginary attackers was more interesting, so she sat on the stands with the rest of the class and pretended to pay attention.

“Who can tell me what S-I-N-G stands for?” asked one of the instructors.

“Sing?” offered a girl, chewing gum. A few people snickered. Kate hoped she was joking but feared she wasn't.

“Um, yes,” drawled the teacher, “but I meant, what do the letters
stand
for?”

Stomach. Instep. Nose. Groin
.

A brawny boy raised his hand. “Stomach, instep, nose, groin?”

“Very good!”

Kate wanted to point out that Corsai didn't have stomachs, insteps, noses,
or
groins, and if you got close enough to hit a Malchai, it would probably rip your throat out. But she kept the observations to herself, and focused on the
second
most frustrating thing about this alleged self-defense course, which was the fact that the teachers were doing it
wrong
.

The moves they demonstrated likely wouldn't stop a human, let alone a monster. Their form was off, as if they didn't really want to teach the Colton students how to fight. It was just a performance, all for show, something to make the children—or probably the parents—feel safer.

Five of Kate's six schools—St. Agnes excluded—had taught self-defense courses, since many of the students who boarded there were sons and daughters of influential people—territory ambassadors, big-business owners, some old money and others new—the kind of people whose kids make good targets. No one had ever had the guts to try and kidnap Kate, but over time she'd amassed an arsenal of defensive techniques—as well as a few offensive ones—which just made the current display of ineptitude even more annoying.

When one teacher demonstrated how to disarm an attacker, it was so slow and clumsy that Kate actually laughed. Not loudly, but the gym was basically an echo chamber, and the sound carried far enough for an instructor to hear.

“Is something funny?” he asked, scanning the students. He wouldn't have known she was responsible if everyone near her hadn't leaned away.

Kate sighed. “No,” she said, speaking up. “But your form's all wrong.”

“Well, then, missy,” he said, pointing at her. “Why don't you come down and give us a proper demonstration?”

A murmur ran through the class. The instructor clearly didn't know who she was. One of the other teachers shot him a look, but Kate only smiled and got to her feet.

Ten minutes later, Kate was sitting in the counselor's office. Not for laughing at the instructor, but for breaking his collarbone. She hadn't
tried
to hurt him. Not badly. It wasn't her fault he had poor stance and an inflated sense of ability.

“Miss Harker,” said the counselor, a round man named Dr. Landry, with glasses and a spreading bald spot. “Here at Colton we try to provide a
safe
learning
environment.” There was that word again. “We have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to violence.”

Kate choked back another laugh. Landry pursed his lips. She coughed, swallowed.

“It was a self-defense segment,” she said. “And he asked me to participate.”

“You were asked to demonstrate a defensive maneuver, and in so doing you
accidentally
fractured the instructor's collarbone?”

“That's correct.”

Landry sighed. “I've read your file, Miss Harker. This isn't an isolated incident.” Kate sat back, half expecting him to read the list of her offenses, the way they did in movies, but he didn't. Instead he took off his glasses and began to polish them. “Where do you think this aggression is coming from?” he asked.

Kate met his gaze. “Is that a joke?” But Landry didn't seem to be the joking type. If anything he seemed painfully sincere. He opened his drawer and slid a vial of small, white pills across the table. She didn't reach for them.

“What are those for?”

“Anxiety.”

Kate sat up straighter, making sure her shoulders were level, her face even. “I don't have anxiety,” she said stiffly.

Landry gave her a strangely weighted look. “Miss Harker, you've been rapping your fingers on your knees since the moment you sat down.” Kate pressed her hands flat on her thighs. “You're tense. Irritable. Defensive. Intentionally distancing.”

Kate offered a very cold smile. “I live in a world where shadows have teeth. It's not a particularly relaxing environment.”

“I know who your father is—”

“So does everyone.”

“—and I've read about your mother. About the accident.”

Her mother's face flashed in her mind, lit by the oncoming car, those wide hazel eyes, the screeching tires, the crunching metal—Kate dug her nails into her slacks, and resisted the urge to let him talk into her bad ear. “So?”

“So I know it must be hard. Suffering that kind of loss. The subsequent alienation. And now this: a new school, a fresh start, but also what I have to imagine is a great deal of stress.” He nodded to the pills. “You don't have to use them. But take them with you. They're less harmful than cigarettes, and you never know, they might actually help.”

Kate considered the vial. How many of the students were on these pills? How many of the citizens in North
City? Did the medicated calm keep them from fanning the flames of violence? Did it help them pretend the world was
safe
? Did it hold them together? Did it help them sleep?

Kate frowned but reached for the pills. She doubted anything would help, but if the gesture got the good Dr. Landry off her back and kept the incident off the school record (and her father's radar), it was worth it.

“Am I free to go?” she asked. Landry nodded, and she escaped out from under his gaze and into the empty hall.

Kate shook a white tablet into her palm. She looked down at the pill, hesitated.

Where are you?
she asked herself.

Away. Whole. Sane. Happy. A dozen different selves with a dozen different lives, but she wasn't living any of those. She had to be
here
. Had to be strong. And if Dr. Landry saw the fraying edges, then so would her father.

Kate swallowed the tablet dry.

She looked around the empty hall. Too late to go back to class. Too early to go anywhere else. Through the nearest set of doors, the bleachers stood, soaked invitingly in sun. She pocketed the pills and went to get some air.

August heard her coming.

People were made of pieces—looks and smells, sure, but also sounds. Everything about Emily Flynn was staccato. Everything about Henry was smooth. Leo's steps were as steady as a pulse. Ilsa's hair made the constant hush-hush of blankets.

And Kate? She sounded like painted nails tapping out a steady beat.

August was leaning back against the warm metal bleachers, chin tipped toward the sun, when she sat down in the row behind him. The steel bench thrummed from the sudden weight, and August decided that even if she hadn't made a sound, he'd still have guessed it was her. She had a way of taking up space. He could feel the soft pressure of her gaze, but he kept his eyes closed. A gentle breeze ran fingers through his hair, and he let himself smile, a small almost-natural thing. A shadow slid across
the red-white glow of sun, and his eyes drifted open and there she was, looking down at him. There was a softness to her features from this angle, a distant quality to her eyes, like clouds muddling a crisp blue sky.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” she said. And then, absently, “Where were you?”

He squinted. “What?”

But Kate was already shaking her head, edges sharpening. “Nothing.”

August sat up, twisting slowly around to look at her. “Tell me,” he said, regretting the words the moment they were out. He could see her gaze flatten, the answer rising to her lips. “Or don't,” he added quickly. “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.”

Kate blinked, her gaze focusing again. But then she said, “It's just a game I sometimes play. When I want to be somewhere else.”

“Like where?”

A small crease appeared between her brows. “I don't know. But you're telling that if you could be anywhere right now, you'd be here on the Colton bleachers?”

August smiled. “It's pretty nice.” He gestured to the field, the distant line of trees. “And of course, there's the view.”

She rolled her eyes. Up close, they were blue. Not
sky-bright, but dark, the same shade as her navy Colton polo. She had her hair twisted over one shoulder, and again he saw the teardrop scar in the corner of her eye, the silvery line that traced her face from scalp to jaw. He wondered how many people got close enough to notice. And then, before he could ask, she was leaning back, stretching her legs out on the bleachers.

“Shouldn't you be in class?” she asked.

“I have study hall,” he said, even though he obviously wasn't there, either. “What about you?”

“Gym,” she said. “But I got kicked out for
misconduct
.” August raised both brows, the way he'd seen Colin do when feigning surprise. “Did you know they teach self-defense here?” she went on. “It's a joke. I mean, S-I-N-G tactics, really? As far as I know, a kick to the groin isn't going to stop a Corsai from tearing you apart.”

“True,” he said, resting his elbows against the bench behind him. “But there are plenty of bad humans in the world, too.”
Like your father
. “So, did you get kicked out for lecturing the teacher?”

“Even better,” she said, running a hand through her sandy hair. “I got kicked out for breaking his collarbone.”

Something escaped August's throat, a soft, breathless laugh. The sound took him by surprise.

“According to the counselor,” continued Kate, “I have a violence problem.”

“Doesn't everyone?”

Neither one of them mentioned his map sketch or the monster she'd drawn across Verity, and soon an easy quiet settled over the bleachers, interrupted only by Kate's nails, which she rapped in a soft, constant way against the metal bench, and the distant sounds of students running on the track. It wasn't supposed to feel like this, thought August. He was sitting inches away from the daughter of a bloodthirsty tyrant, the heir to North City. He should feel disgusted, repulsed. At the very least, unnerved. But he didn't.

He wasn't sure
what
he felt. Frequency. Consonance. Two chords that went together.

Don't push her away
, said one voice, while another warned,
Don't get too close
. How was he supposed to do both?

“So, Freddie,” she said, dragging herself upright, “what brings you to Colton?”

“I was homeschooled,” he said, and then, struggling to find words that weren't a lie, “I guess my family thought . . . it was time for me to socialize.”

“Huh, and yet every time I've seen you, you've been alone.”

August shrugged. “I guess I'm not really a people person. What about you?”

Her eyes went wide in mock surprise. “Didn't you
hear? I burned down a school. Or did drugs. Or slept with a teacher. Or killed a kid. It really depends on who you ask.”

“Is any of it true?”

“I did burn down a school,” she said. “Well, part of a school. A chapel. But it was nothing personal. I just wanted to come home.”

August frowned. “You got out of V-City.” It was no small feat, with the border cities capped and the Waste in the way. “Why would you want to come back?”

Kate didn't answer right away. Which was strange—most of the time he couldn't
stop
people from talking—but she tipped her head back and looked up at the sky. It was a cloudless day, and for a second she seemed lost, as if she expected to see something up there, and didn't. “It's all I have left.” The words came out soft, like a confession, but she didn't seem to notice. Her gaze drifted back to earth. “Are those real?”

August looked down and realized that his sleeves had ridden up enough to reveal the lowest line of tallies. Four hundred and nineteen.

“Yes,” he said, the truth across his lips before he even thought to stop it.

“What do they stand for?”

This time August bit back the answer, and ran a thumb over the oldest marks around his wrist. “One . . .”
he said slowly, “for every day without a slip.”

Kate's dark eyes widened in genuine surprise. “You don't strike me as an addict.”

“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “I didn't strike you as a Freddie, either.”

She cracked a smile. “So what's your poison?”

He sighed dramatically, and let the truth tumble off his tongue. “Life.”

“Ah,” she said ruefully. “That'll kill you.”

“Not as fast as cigarettes.”

“Touché,” she said, “but—”

She was cut off by a scream. August tensed, and Kate's hand went straight for her backpack, but it was just some student on the field faux-tackling his girlfriend. She squealed again, beaming even as she fled.

August let out a low breath. He would never understand why people screamed for fun.

“You okay there?” asked Kate, and he realized he was gripping the bleachers, knuckles white. Gunfire crackled like static in the back of his head. He pried his fingers free.

“Yeah. Not a fan of loud noises.”

She pursed her lips, gave him a look that said
how cute
, then gestured to the case at his feet. “Violin?”

August looked down, nodded. He'd smuggled the instrument out of the compound this morning, slipping
out before Leo could stop him. His fingers were itching to play again. He'd gone to the music room only to discover that an ID card wasn't all you needed to use the practice space. He was halfway through the door when a girl cleared her throat behind him.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but the room's mine.”

August hadn't understood. “Yours?”

She pointed out a clipboard on the wall. It was a sign-up sheet. “My time,” she explained. August's heart sank. He held the door open and let her pass, then examined the list of times and names on the sheet. It was Wednesday, and the space was booked solid until Friday afternoon. August wasn't supposed to stay after school—Henry had been insistent, wanting him back across the Seam before the gates closed at dusk, even though he didn't
use
them to get home—but in a rare moment of defiance, August had signed himself up.

“I've always liked music,” said Kate, picking at the metal polish on her nails. August waited for her to go on, but the bell rang and she shook her head, settling her hair back over one eye. “Are you any good?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

“Will you play for me?”

August shook his head, and the look she gave him made it clear—she wasn't used to being told no.

“Performance anxiety?” she said blandly. “Come on.”

She was looking at him through the sweep of blond, waiting, and he couldn't exactly say that he played only for sinners. He swallowed, struggled to find a lie that skirted truth.

“Go on,” she insisted. “I promise not to—”

“Freddie!” shouted a voice, and August turned to see Colin waving him toward the cafeteria. He rose gratefully to his feet.

“I better go,” he said, taking up the case as casually as possible.

“I'll get you to play for me,” she called as he descended the metal steps. “One way or another.”

He didn't say anything, didn't dare look back as he jogged over to Colin, who was staring baldly. When August reached the sidewalk, the boy patted him down. “He lives!” he announced with feigned shock.

August waved him off, and Colin fell into step beside him. “But seriously, Freddie,” he said, shooting a glance back at the bleachers. At Kate. “Do you have a death wish? Because I'm pretty sure there are faster, less painful ways to go. . . .”