Defiance

CHAPTER SIX

In the long golden time of afternoon, my window rattled. Tiny stones, flung with more-than-human accuracy, popping and pinging against the glass because the screen was gone. Later in the summer I’d figure out something to do with the screen, but for now it was sitting in a disused classroom a couple floors up, and I didn’t mention it to Christophe or Benjamin.

Another sound, a soft exhalation, and a shadow in the window. I was up and waiting, sitting on the wide white-satin window seat. I jammed the switchblade with its silver-loaded flat into my back pocket and pulled the stamped-iron shutters aside. Late-spring sunshine flooded me, and I glanced back at the barred door. Benjamin was on guard duty out in the hall; it was his day.

I felt bad about it for a half-second. At most.

Nat’s blue eyes sparkled, her sleek hair glistening in the sunlight, her blue Converse sneakers balanced on the ledge outside my window. She didn’t wait, just fell backward out into space. She twisted, lithely, and landed in a pool of dappled shade, the gravel walk in the gardens silent under her feet. This postage-size garden was full of roses, and the apartments facing it were meant for svetocha . There were a couple baseball diamonds, a track and a polo field, and some other gardens inside the Schola’s protective wall; it was a microcosm that almost blocked out the hum of the city day-drowsing outside.

I was out the window in a flash, leaving it partly open as I fell, too. A moment’s worth of wind whipping my hair and a sudden nausea; the aspect boiled up and snapped over my skin like a rubber band. And I landed lightly as a cat too, braced and ready, my hands out just a little as if I expected a punch or needed to balance myself.

Christophe taught me that.

Nat was suddenly beside me, crowding me back against the wall. There were shrubs here, spiny and thorny things. “You’re too loud when you hit,” she whispered.

“Must be my fat ass,” I whispered back, peering up at my window. It looked just the same, only half open. Like I needed some daylight air or something.

She grinned, tugging on her cropped, faded denim jacket to straighten it, and I had to stop the laugh boiling up in my throat. Daytime Nat was a pretty humorous creature. It was at night that her serious side came out.

Because night was more dangerous, I guess. What with all the suckers around.

We slid soft and easy along the strip of shaded shrubbery, and Nat held up one slim pale hand when we reached the corner. The blue Lucite bangle on her wrist slid down her forearm, and I wondered again how she could look so impossibly finished all the time. Sometimes I even thought I should learn some of the girl stuff that looked so effortless when she did it.

Yeah. Then I woke up.

It wasn’t exactly dangerous to be out during the day . . . but the Council, every one of them, up to and including August, would have kittens and penguins and little baby narwhals, too, probably, if they knew what I was up to. Still, I figured I was safe enough with all the sunshine. And with wulfen.

Pretty much the only people who hadn’t tried to kill me were wulfen. I mean, unless you count Ash, and he’d been doing a pretty good job of not killing me since I shot him in the face with silver-grain bullets. Maybe that shot broke . . . Sergej’s . . . hold over him.

Maybe not.

I winced inwardly. Every time I thought about things I just found a new way to mess myself up. Sometimes you just can’t clap a lid on a thought fast enough. It gets there before you can tense up and sucker punches all the air out of you.

“Dru?” Nat, questioning. She glanced over her shoulder, her hand dropping. A brief flare of yellow slid through her irises, clearing instantly as she cocked her head. “It’s clear enough. Let’s go.”

Getting off the Schola grounds during the day is a weird game of move-and-freeze, creep-and-duck. Some older students and some of the teachers, not to mention groups of wulfen, patrol during the day. Nighttime, the patrols are timed down to the second and every inch is watched.

At least, theoretically. There had been nosferat attacks before. The last one had been about a week ago just after dusk, but it hadn’t gotten anywhere near me, for once. I’d just heard about it afterward, from Benjamin. Who Christophe had promptly shut up with a mild blue-eyed stare. Like I wasn’t supposed to know there’d been a hell of a tussle with two teams of suckers bouncing around the Prima’s halls.

I wondered what Christophe was doing right now. Sleeping? Maybe. If he found out I was out and around, we were likely to have another argument. I heaved an internal sigh at the thought.

There’s only so much of being locked up a girl can take, even if there are suckers looking to separate her from her liver.

During the day, if you know the patterns and have a wulfen’s sharp ears, you can slip around quite a bit on the Schola’s green, hushed grounds. And you can work close to the high ivy-veined wall on the east side, and with ten strong fingers interlaced you can toss a not-quite-bloomed svetocha to the top of said wall. As soon as I was up and precariously balanced, Nat sprang up lightly, and we both went over. She landed gracefully, I almost overbalanced, and her hand flashed out to catch my upper arm.

“Your fat ass,” she whispered, and this time I did laugh, catching it behind a cupped hand. I mimed mock-punching her, and she made a mock-terrified face, bugging her eyes. Then she pulled me down the slope. When we stepped out of the bushes and onto the sidewalk, I had to pick a couple leaves out of my braid and brush my shoulders off.

“Where we headed today?” I stuffed my hands in my hoodie pockets and looked down at my boots. She was always on me to wear something nice, but jeans, hoodie, and a black T-shirt were it today. I wasn’t looking forward to tonight, when I’d be exhausted and the tutors would be on me . . . but getting out and breathing some free air was worth it. “I mean, anyplace is nice. I liked FAO Schwarz, although we probably shouldn’t go back there until they’ve cleaned up. But please tell me we ain’t clothes shopping.”

“Surprise.” She grinned again, a wide white smile. Model-perfect, but it didn’t scare me the way Anna’s polished flawlessness had. Nat and I had gotten along almost immediately from the moment she’d waltzed into my bedroom behind Christophe, set down her big slouchy leather purse, and stuck out her hand, not waiting to be introduced. Nathalie Williams, Skyrunner clan. Don’t send me home, it’s boring as fuck-all there.

I’d burst out laughing, Christophe had looked mystified, and from that instant we were pretty much friends.

Nat’s usual speed was a brisk stride with her head up, avoiding eye contact like everyone in this city did, but with her jaw set and every line of her body proclaiming that you did not want to mess with her. My legs are longer, but I still had to hurry to keep up. It was kind of like trailing after Dad.

Another painful thought. Jesus.

“You’re quiet.” She produced a pair of big tortoiseshell movie-star sunglasses and slipped them on. No purse today, which meant we weren’t going shopping.

Thank God.

“Just . . . thinking.” It sounded unhelpful, even to me. I decided it was maybe safer to say a little more. Nothing I told her ended up coming out Christophe’s mouth. Or Shanks’s. “About my dad.”

“Yeah?” She sped up a little, and I could tell she was aiming for a subway entrance. For a moment my skin chilled. “Good or bad?”

“Both. You know how when you’re reminded of things, and you can’t shut it off quick enough?” Like, before it slips the knife in and twists? Like that.

“Like a bad breakup?” But she sobered, her mouth turning down. “Yeah. I know.”

“He was all I had.” I stared at the sidewalk, glancing up every once in a while to check out the street. Nat took care of steering us both.

“Bound to be rough, with your mom gone and all.”

I shrugged. “Yeah. I just didn’t think about it, though. There was Gran, and then there was Dad. I didn’t miss her. At least, not like he did. He missed her all the time. And now . . .”

“Sucks.” She waited to see if I was going to say any more, and I was just about to panic when she changed the subject. “I figured you’d need a distraction today, and the boys were game.”

“Shanks and the others?” I perked up a little. That was about all the self-disclosure I could handle for a day, and she wouldn’t make a huge deal about it. “Are we going for a run?”

“Kind of. Don’t ask, it’s a surprise.”

I gave an eyeroll, relaxing my clenched fists inside my pockets. Took a breath. “Jesus, fine. As long as we eat sometime afterward. I’m starving.”

“For once. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you hitting the anorexia button. Bad for you. You need those calories for blooming, kiddo.”

If I could just bloom and get it over with instead of hanging on the edge, that’d be nice. I snorted. “Me and my lard, right?”

“Skinny chick. I wish I had your problems.”

No, you don’t, Nat. But she was trying to help. And when you’re a girl, you do that—say that you envy something about your friend. Build them up. It’s like the insults boys trade, a kind of friend-currency. “I wish I had some of your hips, girl.” Still, I meant it. She was curved in all the right places, and those catlike eyes were just deadly.

In more ways than one.

She grinned, finger-combing her perfectly sleek hair back. “I’ll donate some of my hip then. You can have some tit, too.”

“A tit transplant?” We both cracked up at that, and when she slid her arm through mine and pulled me down the stairs to the subway station I could feel the butt of a gun under her jacket, solid and reassuring. Goose bumps rose up all over me, but they faded by the time Nat swiped her MetroCard twice and we slid on through.

The north end of Central Park near the Pool was green and shaded. The group of about a dozen boys lounging around, a few of them monkeying up in any tree near enough that was big enough to climb, looked just like any other gang of toughs. One or two of them had hoodies, but most of them were just in T-shirts and jeans or khakis, boots and sneakers; the only thing giving them away was the fluid grace of wulfen. They move like they’re shouldering through tall grass, different than djamphir’s eerie quickness. Sunlight coming through the leaves dappled them, and normal people’s eyes would just slide right over their essential difference.

People are goddamn geniuses at not seeing what they don’t want to see. It’s like the great human trait, along with fighting over abstract principles and craving junk food.

Shanks hauled himself up as soon as we got close. Next to him, shy blond Dibs slowly rose from his crouch, running a hand back through his golden hair. Alex and Gerry tipped us salutes and gave wide toothy grins. The others muttered greetings, or just nodded. The excitement was palpable, what Gran would’ve called the high fidgets, and it ran along my skin like electricity.

“Took you long enough.” Shanks jerked his head, flipping his emo-boy swoosh out of his dark eyes. I swear he has to buy his jeans in grasshopper size. Those legs are unreal. Plus his hands were a little big, and his feet, my God. He was like a puppy growing into its paws. A big, sarcastic puppy.

“You can just bite me,” Nat returned cheerfully, slipping her sunglasses off. “I’ll even mark the spot. Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Our very own Dibsie.” Shanks’s grin stretched, if that were possible. He sized Nat up, dark eyes running appreciatively down her. “Mark that spot, Skyrunner. I’ll set my teeth.”

She waved her fingers, pale-blue polish glittering. “You wish, fleabag. Dibs, man, congrats.”

Dibs was scarlet by now. He looked down at his feet, muttering something, and the other wulfen clustered around us. I knew most of them—Shanks’s loose collection of friends and buddies, familiar faces.

Most of them had been there last night. But they didn’t treat me any differently. Bobby T. gave me a thumbs-up, rolling his shoulders under his leather jacket; on Nat’s other side slim dark Pablo crouched in an acid-green Lucky Charms T-shirt, the change rippling just under his skin. Gerry hopped on his toes once, twice, his brunet curls bouncing. They were all excited.

“All right, rules!” Shanks didn’t have to raise his voice. Everyone just went still and listened. As wulfen went, he was pretty dom. Dominant, that is. Alpha.

Kinky, Graves said way back in my head. I shook it away, and Nat glanced at me.

Shanks just plowed straight ahead. A flash of orange went through his eyes, and his skin rippled a little, like little mice under the surface. “No cabs, no buses. Straight-up run. Midpoint’s Coney and home base is back here, but no lying in wait.” This was directed at Alex, who shrugged and grinned, his hair standing up in wild vital springing curls. “Jumping’s legal, so’s using the crowd. Changeform’s only legal if it’s sub rosa. Got it?”

Which basically meant it was a pretty regular daylight run, nobody could hang around home base or midpoint waiting to jump Dibs, and we had to avoid being so weird it would make a commotion. My heart leapt, pulse settling into a high gallop. A disbelieving smile cracked my face. “We’re playing rabbit?”

“Toldja it was a surprise.” Nat bumped me with her hip. At least she didn’t get all weird about touching me. Maybe it was okay for female wulfen, I dunno. Or maybe it was how I smelled that turned the boys off. Now that I was, um, fertile. And getting so close to blooming.

I almost hopped up and down like Gerry. I’d heard about chase-the-rabbit—one wulfen bolts and the others give a head start, then the hunt’s on. It teaches the pursuers cooperation and tracking, and teaches the rabbit how to slip free of pursuit.

Plus, it’s just plain fun. And this was the first time I’d ever been invited. They took me along on other runs, but playing rabbit meant I could keep up.

It meant I was part of the group. My heart just about swelled up like a balloon, and I looked down at my boot toes. I didn’t want anyone to see my big stupid grin.

“Prize?” Alex piped up. “Come on, can’t have rabbit without a prize!”

“Catch him before he gets back home and we’ll do a flyby for pizza.” Shanks tilted his head slightly. “Catch him before Coney, and we’ll get beer with it.”

I made a face. So did Nat. But the guys all rumbled their approval.

“How much time do I get?” Dibs was calming down, even though I could hear his pulse thundering, and little ripples raced through his skin. The Other was turning briefly inside him, making his eyes glow too. It’s the thing inside them wulfen can tap for the changeform, the thing that has a line right down into the heart of a hunting beast.

It didn’t scare me. I had so much else to be scared of nowadays that wulfen were looking pretty damn safe. Plus, I trusted them.

I trusted them all.

Shanks punched Dibs on the shoulder, but very lightly. “You’ve already wasted half of it, Dibsie. Get going.”

Dibs stood there for a few seconds. A slow, very sweet grin lit up his entire face, and I blinked. In that one second, shy, blushing Dibs looked . . . well, almost handsome.

Then he turned on his heel and was gone, skirting the edge of the pool and vanishing into leafshade and sunshine. His hair blazed for a moment, but then branches moved to hide that gleam.

Shanks glanced at me. The orange in his irises fought with the fluid leaf-shadows. “Keep up, Dru-girl.”

I snorted. “You haven’t lost me yet, Robert.” It was what Christophe called him, just like he called Dibs Samuel all the time.

It was Shanks’s turn to make a little dismissive noise. He folded down, crouching, dark head cocked and the emo swoosh hiding his eyes. Readiness ran through the rest of them like oil over the surface of a plate, tension gathering. Nat rolled her shoulders twice, glancing at me. The last couple runs she’d kept pace right beside me, and once she’d grabbed my hand just as I was getting ready to launch myself over a couple of elevated trains.

Don’t ask. Anyway.

Shanks threw his head back and howled. The rest of them joined in, a rising chorus of high thrillglass baying, their throats swelling and their eyes lambent. Even under late-spring sun, that cry filled my head with moonlight and plucked deep below the conscious surface. It teased and taunted and tweaked and pulled at that . . . thing.

The low, furry, clawed thing inside all of us that remembers the joy of night-hunting.

My chin was up, my mouth open, and a spear of silver ice wound through their harmony, a svetocha’s distinctive cry. It was uncomfortably like a sucker’s glassine hunting scream, but I was helpless to stop it, and they never said a word about it.

Nat yanked on my arm, and the world turned over. It rushed underneath me, my boots touching down every so often, and my heart leapt against my rib cage like it wanted to escape. Feathers brushed every inch of my skin, and I hurled myself forward in the middle of the shifting, leaping pack of wulfen.

They closed around me even on daylight runs, arms pumping and the change rippling over them like clear heavy water, fur not quite breaking free of the surface. We poured around the edge of the Pond and the whole green length of Central Park unreeled underneath us like a treadmill’s belt. As always, it was oddly silent, just the wind in my ears, stinging my eyes, all of them suddenly welded into one creature running just for the heart-exploding joy of it. If you’ve ever seen a cheetah going all-out, maybe you can guess what I mean.

Breath tearing in throat, I jumped and my right boot skimmed the top of a granite boulder, barely brushing the moss. My leg uncoiled, pushed me forward like a slingshot. The rest of them leapt, Evan catching a tree limb and jackknifing, launching himself into clear air. He landed with sweet natural authority and was neck-and-nose with Shanks for a few steps, but he fell back as the leggy boy veered and we burst out of the Park’s green into the concrete jungle.

We ran, flashing through hot gold sun and gray exhaust-scorch shadow, and for a little while I could pretend someone else was running with us. A boy in a long black canvas coat, his green eyes alight and the change never quite breaking through his skin—because loup-garou use the Other for mental dominance, not for the physical morphing.

We ran, and the ghost of Graves ran with us. If tears slicked my cheeks, I could pretend they were stung free by the wind. We hit the Brooklyn Battery toll tunnel and poured through in merry violation of several laws, relying on sheer outrageousness to keep people from really looking as we blurred single file on the skinny walkway next to honking traffic. Nat right behind me, matching me stride for stride, every once in a while sending up her own peculiar cry that trailed off on a soprano note like crystal just before shattering. Cars whizzing slowly behind us, the glare of a summer day gone as some of the boys even veered out into traffic, playing tag-me with the cars whose drivers would only catch a glimpse or a flash of bright eyes or tossing hair. Brakes squealed, but we were already free of the tunnel, lunging up into sunlight, and the touch flamed inside my head.

We broke south as soon as we hit the entrance, and Stuvy’s tangle flashed by in random bullets of impression—a dry cleaner’s, a boarded-up nightclub, a row of brownstones frowning as we tore down the street. My mother’s locket bobbed against my chest, a warm forgiving touch. The song of wind in my ears and the world unreeling under me shut away every nasty thought, every pain except the stitch threatening in my side and the sweet thrill of my heart working so fast it might explode with delight.

He almost made Coney Island. I almost had him, too, but he jagged right when we were half a block behind him, running all-out but not realizing he was boxed yet. Shanks leapt past me, clearing a bicycle rack and barely touching the street as he uncoiled, going airborne again. My breath came in high harsh rasps, my entire body sang, Gran’s owl gave a soft cry. The rest of them closed around me like a warm coat, and Shanks brought him down in Calvert Vaux Park with an ebullient whoop that was equal parts wulf and boy. They went rolling in dusty grass on the outskirts of an overgrown baseball diamond, a cloud of gold puffing up around them, and we all put on the brakes, skidding to a stop.

Beer for everyone, then. My sides heaved. Half of us bent over, gasping for breath. And when I looked around at all the faces, glowing with excitement and sweat and the poreless healthy shine of wulfen, it was a shock right below my breastbone when Graves’s green gaze didn’t meet mine. Nat flung her arm over my shoulders and Alex leaned against my other side, the prohibition against touching gone for a few brief seconds as everyone collapsed together in a heap.

But I wasn’t wulfen. I was still lonely.

Well, I’d had a half hour of not thinking about him. I guess it had to be enough.

The pizza parlor looked faintly familiar, even though I could swear I’d never been in there before. It was on the fringes of Augie’s old neighborhood, a dingy hole in the Brooklyn brick wall where the fat balding proprietor cracked bottles of Corona without demur for the boys. Nat and I stuck to club soda, because she didn’t like pop and neither of us liked beer.

Beer makes you, in her words, “muy, muy flatulent-o, kiddo.” And we would both crack up.

I leaned over the air hockey table, my fingers still greasy from the three slices of pepperoni-plus I’d bolted, and popped the puck back at her. The aspect was warm oil over my skin, my teeth tingled, and the bloodhunger was a rough spot at the back of my palate no matter how much club soda I washed it with. Nat was fierce when it came to air hockey, and she had a wulf’s speed and reflexes. With the aspect all unreliable, I had to jump to stay ahead of her, and she still beat my ass six times out of ten.

Those other four times, though, I killed her. And right now, I was on a winning streak.

She snapped the puck back at me, lips drawn back from her teeth and her blue crystal earrings bouncing. I was already there, the touch flaming inside my head, and the puck shot back, banked, and thwopped neatly into the goal right past her guard.

Nat snarled, and I grinned. It felt completely natural.

“Oh, you bitch.” Her eyes glowed, and I caught a glimpse of Shanks watching us from one of the booths. Evan jostled him and he jostled right back, still staring at Nat’s back.

Or, more precisely, a little lower than her back.

“You’re going down,” she continued. “Is someone looking at me?”

I’d say he’s trying to undress you visually, but that’s just me. “Totally. Or at least, looking at part of you.”

The puck spat back out, she popped it hard, leaning a little further over the table than was strictly necessary. With her jacket gone, creamy skin showed above in an indigo silk spaghetti-strap tank top, the shoulder holster looking just like a decoration. Muscle rippled decorously in her arms. “Great. He stares, but he won’t talk.”

“Are all wulf boys like that?” I slapped it back to her, the jolt going all the way up my arm. She leaned to the side, her hand flicking out, and the sound of puck meeting the mallet was the crack of a rifle shot.

She gave an eyeroll that could have won an award. “Wulf aside, svetocha, boys are stupid. Always were, always will be, world without end, amen.”

“So how do you get him to act interested? Or get a little closer?” Like I didn’t care about the answer. My heart cracked inside my chest, I shoved the feeling down and we spent about half a minute concentrating completely on the game. She finally slugged the puck past my defenses and straightened, grinning, as I let out a groan.

“Simple. He either steps up or he doesn’t get to play.” She shrugged. “What time is it?”

I twisted to check the clock over the front counter. “We’ve got plenty . . .” But my mother’s locket chilled against my chest, and I cocked my head. The touch thrilled through me, not scraping but tingling. Still . . . “Whoops. Trouble coming.”

She dropped her mallet with a clatter and scooped up her coat. “Back door. Right through there.”

Shanks was on his feet. The other wulfen scattered, and I hoped they’d paid for the beer. Nat and I were through the steaming-hot kitchen in a flash, bathed in the yeasty cheesy bubbling-tomato-and-oregano smell before she pushed me out through a door that gave onto an alley. A rusting Folgers can full of cat litter and cigarette butts propped the door a little open, and she was up the fire escape in a trice, pausing only to brace her legs and lean down, offering me one hand. I leapt and grabbed, she hauled me up, and we were on the roof in time to see a boy in a thin black V-neck sweater and jeans saunter down the sidewalk in front of the pizza place.

Christophe. Blond highlights slid through his hair, and if we were seeing him, it was probably because he wanted us to. Letting us know that he knew, keeping tabs on me.

Nat let out a soft breath.

My heart leapt up into my throat and did its best to strangle me. Nat shrugged into her jacket and tugged on my hand; I followed her without demur. The sun was sinking lower in the sky, and we’d be back at the Schola before dusk really got settled.

Even though I was glad to get out, I also couldn’t wait to go back to the only safety I had.

How was that for weird?