I continued. “I coped with my situation the best way I could at the time, so I could survive it. Did I choose the best methods for dealing with my demons? Probably not.” I shrugged. “But it kept me alive long enough to start reading and learning about PTSD and living with such a fucked-up mental headspace. Maybe one day, I’ll have the time and money to find a therapist who isn’t squeamish.
“Just because I’ve been conditioned to accept and even excel in violent circumstances, doesn’t mean you have to. How you feel is how you feel, and there’s nothing wrong with any of it. If you want to learn to defend yourself for your own peace of mind, I’ll train with you every day. We can research different styles of self-defense, and I can teach you to shoot. If you never wanted to spar again and preferred to leave thefighting to me, that’s okay too. There’s no right or wrong way to go forward, as long as you’re being true to yourself.”
Lennon fidgeted with the wrapping on her knuckles. “But how did you do it? How did you turn your trauma into fuel for the fight instead of letting it consume you?”
I mulled over her question, noting that Cricket was no longer scrolling, though he still pretended to be engrossed in his phone instead of our conversation. “At first, it was necessity, I guess. In my darkest moments, sometimes I’d wish Roark would put me out of my misery and just kill me. I’d get so tired of the constant fear and struggle. But the moment I’d enter the arena…” I licked my dry lips, trying to put into words the primitive urge to live, towin, to prove that I deserved to be here when so many cruel people desired just the opposite. “I didn’t want to die for some sick bastard’s entertainment. I want to live on my own terms, and I can’t deny that the rush of proving my enemies wrong when they assume I’m an easy target is pretty freaking exquisite. But,” I add in, taking my bestie’s hand, “you’re not me.”
“Thank Christ,” my irritating brother-conscience muttered. “I don’t think the world is ready for double Indi trouble.”
“Shut it, conscience, or I’ll take you to the mats,” I say with a glare. Lennon chuckled a bit as Cricket held his hands up in surrender. “Just know, bloodthirsty or not, your place in the Wicked Sisterhood is reserved for life. And maybe even beyond! When we both die, you have to promise to become a ghost with me so we can do spooky shit and terrorize the nonbelievers for eternity.” Lennon laughed and pinky promised to an afterlife of Scooby-Doo-worthy ghostly shenanigans.
That was what best friends were for, after all: unwavering acceptance, irrevocable love, and a mutual desire to terrify unsuspecting townsfolk for amusement. We’d cackle like witches together for eternity, andthatwas definitely something worth fighting to keep.
The delicate aroma of vanilla bean and egg custard filled Lorna’s kitchen as we took a batch of mini tartlets out of the oven. Lorna was playingThe Great British Bake Offon the television in the living room, which we could see and hear from the kitchen. It was an odd vibe for the rustic suburban cowboy aesthetic she had going in her home, but somehow it worked.
“Don’t do it, darlin’,” Lorna admonished from the counter where she was mixing hot milk into more custard base. Her eyes never left the television screen, where a silver-haired baking competition judge was poking his judgy-pudgy finger into a loaf of bread, so there was no way she could see me trying to slip a sneaky tartlet into my apron pocket.
“Awwww,” I whined, “how do you even do that? Are you a witch? Do you have eyes in the back of your head?”
“Call it a mother’s intuition,” she replied with a toss of her dark hair. Her brown eyes, which I was told she shared with her daughter, weren’t quite as dull and lifeless as they’d been a few months ago. I wasn’t self-important enough to think I was the reason she’d been feeling better, but I hoped that our baking sessions had at least something to do with the improvement in Lorna’s mood.
The sound of the front door closing and the muffled noise of boots being shed in the entryway heralded Duke’s arrival. Family dinner night at the clubhouse was still every Friday, even if extended family couldn’t attend until the lockdown had been lifted. We didn’t want any civilians exposed to Roark’s cruelty. Lorna and I had taken to baking during the week, however, to ease the boredom of being stuck on the compound. Sometimes the other ole ladies joined in, and it was nice to get to knowthem a bit better. So Duke wasn’t surprised when he walked in to see me in his kitchen on a random Wednesday evening.
“Hey there, baby,” Duke said to Lorna, pulling her in for a kiss. His hands, weathered and littered with old scars, tattoos, and grease stains from working on his bike, gave Lorna a firm pat on her denim-clad ass. Lorna blushed and swatted him away from our tartlets.
“Wash your hands, you heathen,” she admonished, voice stern but smile genuine.
“Hi, Duke,” I said with a wave. “Lorna and I made little custard tarts! Not a soggy bottom in sight. I doubt even grumpy Paul Hollywood could find something to complain about.”
Duke snagged a tartlet behind Lorna’s back and popped it into his mouth, giving a rumbling growl of approval. “Y’all seen Priest today?” he asked, licking a crumb off his thumb. “Not since I woke up,” I said, blushing at the realization that I’d just admitted to my boyfriend’s parents that I’d spent the night in their son’s bed.
My blush intensified as my thoughts drifted to exactly what Priest and I got up to this morning before he left. I still felt the echoes of his hands roaming my body, his wicked tongue between my legs as I sat on his face, eyes burning like fire below me while he made me moan his name. And then he’d…Lorna cleared her throat, and I turned, face now burning, putting a mixing bowl into the sink and scrubbing it like my life depended on it. Duke chuckled a bit, but Lorna threw me a bone and changed the subject. “Priest said he was going into Reno today with Bear. He wanted to pick up a part Bones needed for the Bel Air restoration, and there was a new bakery he wanted to check out.” The blush that had been fading blossomed once again on my cheeks. I wasn’t sure exactly how much Lorna and Duke knew about Priest and me, or about the daily sweets he left for me, and Ireallydidn’t want to find out right now. I needed Priest to be here when we told his parents about our relationship, in case they were enraged, so I could use him as a human shield and flee. I’d yeethim toward danger like I was a quokka and he was my baby.
“Hmm, he should be back by now. When you see him, Indi, tell him to call Clover. I need an update onAstraea.”For the first time this afternoon, I looked at the clock for something other than timing tarts.Realizing how late it was, I finished tidying the kitchen and waved goodbye to Duke and Lorna, a plastic container of custard tartlets in hand so I could share with the Crows. My phone buzzed in the pocket of my sweatpants, and I checked to see if Priest had messaged me. A video of shirtless, built dudes with enormous black bat wings, sent courtesy of Lennon, snatched my attention, and Imayhave completed my walk back to the clubhouse a tad bit slower than usual so I could finish it.
Later that evening, joined on the clubhouse couch by Ratched on his rare night off, we sat streaming old episodes ofOtterly Adorable. Neither of us paid much attention to the cute otter families as they worked to open their yummy sea urchin dinners. Ratched checked his phone just as often as I did, worry for his brothers creasing his brow. The Crows had taken to always going out in pairs or more in town, just in case they found Roark…or he found them. This was the first time any Crow had gone MIA, and while I hoped they were simply running late, something in my gut told me it wouldn’t be that simple. Halfway through our second episode, my phone vibrated with an incoming message.
Growly Gus:Go somewhere private and let me know when you’re alone. I need to talk to you.
I squinted at my phone a bit, wondering what was going on. Maybe they got lost and didn’t want to admit to the other Crows that they needed help. Men could be sensitive about that kind of thing. But, then again, I knew they had GPS on their phones. So that probably wasn’t it. I went into the bathroom. Ratched, momentarily distracted by an otter’s attempt to escape a hunting sea lion, didn’t notice me texting Priest back as I closed the bathroom door.
Me:Okay, I’m alone. What’s up? If you’re lost, there’s no shame in asking your phone’s lady robot for directions. Sheila and I do it all the time.
A video call came through, and I immediately accepted it. The screen was blurry with movement and lights before the camera was righted, and my vision was immediately filled with soulless hazel eyes, jagged rings of rusty brown around ebony pupils dilated with excitement and pure sadism. I was like a mouse, caught in the terrorizing gaze of a viper, frozen in fear. Eventually, I noticed a tangle of metal in a gravel lot behind Roark. Two ruined bikes were strewn on the ground, and therewas an SUV that had obviously hit them. I saw black boots in the corner of the screen, lying on the rough lot, but not which Crow they belonged to.
“Oh,” he purred, “how I’ve missed that expression on your face.” Roark cracked his neck, the low popping sound causing nausea to swirl in my gut. “It’s superb, truly. Though, I’d be able to savor it much more completely if you were here with me. Soon, though,” he said with a devious smile. “I’ll be seeing you very soon, if you want the other Crow alive. I’m afraid you may be too late to save this one, though.” My stomach clenched in fear for whichever man, Priest or Bear, was lying in the lot. And Bob help whoever Roark currently had at his mercy.
“If you’re not here, alone, within the hour, I will slit your biker open from sternum to balls and make him watch while I set fire to his insides. I almost don’t know which outcome I prefer, honestly,” he said with vicious glee. “Either way, I’m in for a grand fuckin’ night.” The call ended abruptly, and the ghastly pale and shocked girl mirrored on my phone’s screen began to hyperventilate. I watched, entranced, as my small, rectangular mirror image lost her shit. Her eyes began to bulge as breathing became harder, the panic too much for her to wade through. Panic was a sticky little bitch, she clung and twisted around you, binding you in chaos. It felt kind of like what you’d get if you handed a sensory deprivation tank an Uno reverse. Instead of no sensory input, panic felt likeallof the sensory input, incredibly loud and all at once. Needless to say, I felt bad for shiny mirror me.
Then I remembered what I’d read about how to calm down when you were in a panic spiral. It was something about smells…or what you could hear…something like that. I told shiny me to focus on the sounds she could hear. Well, over the erratic beat of her own choppy breathing. That shit was loud. But we could also hear…Ratched. The murmur of his voice as he spoke to someone on his phone. Splashing. That would be…the otters. I could hear fuzzy sea puppies living their best oceanic lives. I focused on the otters and worked to calm my breathing. As my heart rate began to slow, I could hear a jingle playing from an ad that often appeared on our streaming service. I tried to hum the tune as I began to get tentative control over my inhalations.
I was so thankful as I hummed and then began to sing the familiar jingle, tears streaming down my face as I slowly rocked back and forth. Anxiety for Priest and Bear buzzed beneath my skin. According to the phone clutched in my hand, I’d only been spiraling for three minutes, but it felt like it’d been so much longer. A sharp knock on the door ended my weird quasi-trance as I tried to figure out what to do. “Um, Indigo, are you okay?” Ratched’s voice came through the door. “Only, you’re singing theO’Reilly Auto Partsjingle over and over again in a really weird voice, and it’s kind of freaking me out. Is this some girl thing? Do I need to get Lennon?”
It only took me a moment to open the door, my sweaty, tearstained face surprising Ratched, who took a step back. “No. Go get everyone. Roark has Priest and Bear. I have fifty…” I checked my phone, “sixminutes to get to Savage Delights before Roark kills whichever one he didn’t hit with his car. This is not a drill.” Ratched immediately sprang into action as I pulled up my contact list and dialed a number I’d never used before today.
“Dadya,” I said when the call connected, “Roark has the man I love, and I need your help.”
“Anything,dorogoya,” a deep voice rumbled across the line. “That bastard dies tonight. Tell me what we’re walking into, and we’ll work out a plan.”
