“We go in together.” Wu pried each finger from my skin as though not squeezing required great effort. “If anyone asks, we’ll tell them we ate dinner together.”
“I need a weapon.” Faster than he could react, I rallied my strength and slid out the open door. I lowered the tailgate, and a sense of relief cascaded through me when I palmed the shotgun. I grabbed a box of rounds and the cleaning kit before rejoining Wu. “Let’s skip dinner and say we hit the range.”
Wu growled his approval then joined me on the curb.
Call me paranoid, but Sariah’s hello, how are you? routine had set my skin itching at the start of the night, and it hadn’t stopped yet. The only way to scratch was to look in my aunt’s eyes and see if a monster looked back.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Trudeau house, with its cheery front door and immaculate landscaping, looked the same as always. I wanted to laugh off my unease, wanted to tell Wu it was all good, wanted to climb on my air mattress and damn the consequences. But Dad was in there. And this enemy of mine wore so many faces.
“I can go in alone,” Wu offered.
“We can’t risk tipping her off.” I shot down that idea. “You walk me to the door, I invite you to stay for coffee, and we go from there.” As far as plans go, mine was thinner than a sheet of paper. “Aunt Nancy can’t resist playing hostess. Isolating her shouldn’t be hard.”
Following coterie protocol, I shot them a group text outlining our plan and tacked on a plea that the guys check in with the rest of my family before catching up to us.
With that final detail handled, Wu and I hit the walkway, two robots going through the motions, and I let us in the house. I checked the kitchen as we passed, but it stood empty. A voiceover spilled from the living room, and light flickered in the hall as scenes onscreen changed. I crept forward, oxygen a solid block in my lungs, until I drank in the sight of Dad asleep on the couch. I kept inching closer until the steady rise and fall of his chest became apparent.
I glanced back at Wu, gratitude turning my knees to water, and started shaking my head.
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
Uncle Harold stood behind Wu with one hand clamped on his shoulder. I couldn’t get a clear read on the other, but the tension stringing Wu taut led me to believe a weapon had been jammed into his spine. Besides the utter stillness with which Wu held himself, he appeared otherwise unimpressed with his current situation. That made one of us.
A smile crinkled Uncle Harold’s eyes, but his gaze was… soulless. “Cat got your tongue, pumpkin?”
“Get out of him.” The demand cost every ounce of strength left in me. “Get out now.”
“You don’t want that,” what remained of my uncle tsked. “I’m all that’s keeping him alive.”
The pulsing organ in my chest shriveled to the size of a raisin. “What do you want?”
“For you to get your head in the game.” A slight movement on his end left Wu gasping. Blood had been drawn. Even with a human sense of smell, the iron-rich scent was one I recognized. “You can’t keep playing human.” The careful application of pressure sent Wu crashing to his knees, his head hanging loose on his neck. “We need you.”
Lacy ice fractals threatened to encase me, to numb my fingers where they gripped the shotgun I had all but forgotten and dull the wailing voice sobbing in my head. But those emotions were fuel to burn, and I had so much kindling. Unable to check the urge, I glanced back at Dad, who hadn’t blinked at the uproar. “What have you done?”
“Nothing permanent.” His shrug pressed the blade into Wu’s pale skin. “I figured you’d want this to go down without an audience.” His cackle distorted my uncle’s familiar laugh. “Humans, am I right? Can’t live with them, can’t – Actually I could live without them. Happily.”
The elephant stomping on my chest when I contemplated what nothing permanent meant to a creature like this made it hard to focus on the threat in front of me when all I wanted was to palm my cell and punch in the three digits guaranteed to bring help screaming up the drive, lights flashing. “Tell War —”
“We had a falling out.” He raised his hand and licked a smudge of Wu’s blood from his thumb. “If you want to play intermediary, knock yourself out. Maybe you’ll have better luck than Sariah.”
Sariah as peacekeeper —? Later. I couldn’t afford the distraction now. Not when I thought I had her motives pegged. “What happened between you two?”
“War is a killjoy, that’s what.” He tightened his grip on Wu’s shoulder when he began to slump forward and cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice had shot up an octave. “Don’t plant valerian on Conquest’s lawn. Don’t domesticate the ubaste. Don’t run around setting fires all willy-nilly. Don’t murder children.” His opinion of me dropped when I didn’t join in the stone-throwing. “You were much chiller before you figured out I’m a – what do you call them again? Skin suit?”
“You’re viscarre.” Meaning his refusal to leave Uncle Harold might mean that he was… No. Not going there. I couldn’t and still hold on. “How long have you been wearing my uncle?”
“Since the night War failed in binding you to her.”
“You handed my dad over to her.”
“I let her borrow him, yes.”
Borrow him, as though he were a toy to be passed between them.
“You know how much your dad loves watching Discovery Channel?” His bloodied fingers acted as gel while he styled Wu’s hair. “It’s like the only thing the man watches other than football, which at least has spandex to recommend it. Anyway, I had an epiphany a few days ago while he was watching a documentary on brood parasites.”
Brood parasites were birds who laid their eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving the unwitting parents to raise their young. Often, their victims’ own hatchlings got evicted in the process and died from starvation, exposure, or predation.
“Consider me your baby bird.” He tipped back his head and gaped his mouth open. “Chirp, chirp.”
“I have allergies to dander.” And homicidal maniacs.
“Look, I went through a lot of trouble shoving this guy out of his own nest, well, his own body, so you would bond with me.” He looked at me expectantly. “That’s what sisters do here, right?”
A shockwave blasted through me, shattering the comforting ice. “You’re Famine?”
“Hi-hi.” Famine blew me a kiss. “I’d invite you out for a girls’ night on the town, reminisce over some good old-fashioned raping and pillaging, but you’ve gone straight.”
Wu gurgled, a wet bubbling noise, as he slumped forward onto his palms.
“You didn’t want this back, did you?” He – no, she – kicked Wu in the side. “I liked your old one better. Where is the archduke, anyhow? Now he could take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’, am I right?” Wetting her lips, she appeared to like the idea and clamped down with dull, human teeth on the trapezius muscle running between Wu’s neck and shoulder. “Hmm. Tastes like chicken.” After planting a foot between his shoulder blades, she shoved him face-first to the floor. “This one is too lean, smells weird too.”
“What did you do to him?” There was no way Wu would have willingly played chew toy.
“I might have poisoned him a little. No worries. I’m immune. The worst that snack will do is give me indigestion.” Famine flashed the ornate blade in her hand, bloody teeth glistening. “Pretty sweet, right?”
Gone. There was nothing of Uncle Harold left in there, no spark of the man who’d helped raise me. She had burned him out, reduced him to a costume she wore.
Tears dampened my lashes, blurred my vision, made the room a hazy mess as I brought up the shotgun. But I didn’t need clear eyes to hit the target. Uncle Harold, what was left of him, was less than five feet away from me, and I couldn’t have missed if I tried.
I pulled the trigger.
An explosion of noise and light filled the living room.
The impact sent Famine stumbling against the far wall, where she gaped and clutched her gut, shock that I had raised a hand against her evident in her features. “War said you… wouldn’t hurt me.” Blood spilled from between her fingers. “She… told me… I was safe.”