He said he’s never killed before, but there’s something practiced in the way he raises the gun to his shoulder and aims with one eye closed. A knife of doubt cuts through the shell around my heart. He knows I’m lying. Any second, he’s going to turn that gun on me.
But the shot rings out before I’m prepared, and in another second, the animal is down. There’s an echo in my ears because he was too close to me when he fired. I follow him, stamping through the brush.The bullet, I see as we approach, has gone straight through to the heart. There’s so much blood, and the buck’s eyes bulge with terror. I turn away and throw up into the dirt. At the sound of the splash, the animal jerks and writhes to life. His legs flail as if he’s trying to stand. His antlers carve at the air, inches from my thigh. Fear seizes my limbs.
Another shot. I cry out. The animal thunders down again. We wait in silence for at least ten seconds. Eleven. Twelve. Bitter bile sticks to the sides of my tongue.
He decides to take an antler and a jar full of blood with us. He uses a knife sheathed at his side, and I turn away, feeling the nausea bubbling up again. We leave the rest of the corpse behind. All evening, my mind is a torrent of thoughts and plans. My belly feels hard to the touch, like my internal organs are rejecting this new me.
We wait for hours just to give it enough time. I try, several times, to leave, making excuse after excuse—that I need to be with my dad, that I need to do homework. Because I need to leave before he realizes this isn’t actually how bloodspell works. But he tells me he needs me here, and the way he says it, with his eyes spearing me, prodding me, searching for the lie, it feels like I have no choice but to stay.
He rubs my back, and I try not to flinch. He tells me how excited he is to finally do something great with the magic, together, and I offer the appropriate sounds, but inside I am screaming.
He falls asleep easily, with one arm wrapped around me, as if he knows I will try to escape. All night I stare at the ceiling, trying to understand how I got here. I feel like I’m waking from a dream, only just blinking into the bizarreness of these last few months. I think of my friends. I think of the magic. I think of what I’ve done.
In the morning, he wakes abruptly. I tuck the book under my arm and lead him to the spell circle, feeling like a prisoner walking to her own execution. He sees no path as we walk, not really, because of the illusion spell. All he sees are aspen trees and thick underbrush. But itdoesn’t matter what he sees. At the spell circle, I speak an incantation, and we wait. And wait.
But nothing happens. And even though the sun hits me through the trees, I am suddenly freezing, all the way down to my bones.
“It didn’t work,” he says. Of course it didn’t work. I tell him to give it the day, and he agrees. He has to go to work, but before he leaves, he places his hands on my chest, just above my heart, as he’s done before. Only this time the pressure of his weight on my chest intensifies for a moment, and I’m afraid he’s pressing too hard. I’m backed up against an aspen tree. My lungs begin to struggle for air, and my vision starts to blur. I can feel my ribs begin to give slightly. Could they be about to crack? Fear grips me, and I try to breathe deeper, shake him off me, but I can do neither. Suddenly, he is pressing against me with what feels like all his weight. I can see the effort in his face, which is reddening. It feels as if my body will collapse under the pressure, and I start to panic. It’s like he’s taking his frustration out on my body, but I can’t do anything to stop it.
Then he lets go suddenly, and I double over, gasping for air.
He smiles then, kisses me on the forehead, and tells me, pointedly, that he will see me later and we will talk about what to do next.
I run all the way to school. For the whole day, I have an upset stomach. It’s only when I see Elena and Joey and Sophie in the lunchroom, sitting together without me, that everything I’ve done over these past few months cascades over me.
I need help, I realize, almost collapsing into tears. I am deeply ashamed, but still, I need help. It’s the only way out. And I feel so stupid because, actually, help is what I’ve needed all along. If only I had understood that from the beginning.
How did I not see it before? He wants this magic so badly, I know he’ll do whatever it takes. And once he realizes I lied, once he realizes what bloodspell really is, he will come for me.
47Sophie
Sophie bursts through the door and runs to her room. She plugs her phone into the wall and slides to the floor with her back against the bed. As she waits for the phone to power up, she pries open the journal. She finds the page where she left off and reads.
Immediately, she finds something that sends goose bumps shooting up and down her arms. But it’s not a mention of Tanner. It’s something else. A different name. She reads and reads until the surprise turns into realization and then back to confusion. Soon, tears are streaking down her face and dotting her T-shirt. Quinnwasin a relationship with someone that spring, and at some point, things tipped sideways. Quinn placed her trust in him, and in the end, he turned on her. Eventually, the entries become less sensical and more manic. Most are just a few sentences, some just a single incomplete thought.
She may not fully understand it, but as she closes the last page, Sophie has pieced together one devastating fact. Quinn was being hunted.
Her phone blinks to life, finally, and she shoots off a quick message.I need to talk to you, she types.Are you home?
“Soph?” In another minute, she hears her dad calling her from somewhere deep in the house, just as her phone vibrates with a response. She leaves it plugged in and runs out the door.
48Quinn
June 2011
The day of the fall
I find Joey by her locker.
We’re the only ones in the hall, and I’m breathless, growing more and more aware of the time.
“Can you talk?” I ask. I bring the tip of my thumb between my front teeth and bite down hard. This is neither the time nor place to say what I have to say, to ask of her what I have to ask of her, but I have no choice.
She is digging in her locker, her face hidden by the two-foot metal door. She takes down some magnets that hold up photographs, stuffs two old notebooks into her backpack. Then she pulls out a stack of unopened sticky notes and holds them out toward me. “Want these?” I take them, noticing that she’s avoiding my eyes. She’s not being cold exactly, just guarded.
Help me.The thought tsunamis to the front of my mind. Because I need her help. I need her steady, loyal logic. But Joey speaks before I can. “You broke up with River,” she says. She scuffs her shoe against the floor. The singular squeak fills the hallway.
I close my mouth, momentarily damming up my own words. Slowly, I nod.
