The Killing Season (8 page)

“Running is easy for me. It’s a hard to habit to break . . . but I have reasons to stay now. I
want
to stay now.”

One big reason being him and he knew it. “Ollie—” he started to warn.

“I know. We’re screwed up. But I still care for you. So promise me that you’ll be careful out there. No more coming back all banged up, okay?”

Luke hesitated for a long moment. So long that I wondered if anyone had ever told him they cared about him. I knew his father hadn’t, but surely Abigail had. Unless she’d been too drunk or high to ever say the words. “Okay,” he said quietly, “I promise.”

I managed to nod, my throat too thick for words. Luke’s hand was back on the door’s knob, ready to leave, when he said, “And, Ollie?”

“Yeah?” I whispered, turning my face into the shadows of my dimly lit room so he didn’t see my heart breaking for him.

He nodded toward my face, eyes settling on the scars there. “You’re still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

F I V E

Sunny

“W
hy are we here again?”

The next morning, Ollie and I stood in the hall off to the entry’s side. The hunters had already left for today’s hunt, and the staff busied themselves cleaning rooms up on the second floor. Even with the abandoned feeling of the base, Ollie checked the hallway for the millionth time and, without answering my question, sidled up to a closed door.

“You’re not doing what I think you’re doing, are you?” I tried again.

Ollie reached for the doorknob—doing exactly what I thought she was doing—and gave it a sharp twist. I jumped at the loud clank it made.

“Shit,” Ollie grumbled. I breathed out a sigh of relief; the door was locked.

“Is this Mr. Aultstriver’s office?” My voice cracked a little around the question.

“Yeah, I thought he might get careless today.”

I narrowed my eyes. “It sounds like you’re going to try again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow and each day after until I get in there.” For good measure, Ollie twisted the knob again and gave it a little jiggle. The rest of the base might have an antiquated feel to it, but the lock on Killian’s door was upgraded. We would either need a key or luck to get in, and I said a little prayer for neither. Killian was
not
someone I wanted to mess with.

“What do you think he has in there?”

Ollie stepped away from the door and I handed her thermos of coffee back to her. As she took a long sip, I scanned her face. The dark circles beneath her eyes had lessened overnight, as had the sad expression she’d worn since Fields. She looked rested. The mischievous spark had returned to her icy-blue eyes, and if she was willing to break into Killian Aultstriver’s office, I figured the old Ollie was back.

Our conversation yesterday had obviously eased the tension and sadness she carried, but it had broken my heart. Ollie, my best friend, had really thought I would turn my back on her and report her to Killian because of what she was. But she’d been wrong.

From the very first time I met her, so early in the morning in the university’s ward when Luke and Hatter brought her in, I knew there was something different about her. More than her beauty and sharp sarcasm. More than the way she regarded everyone with an ingrained wariness that could only spring from a lifetime of abuse. She was just different from the rest of us, and it was a relief to know she was part ’swang and not some hyper-evolved sort of super-woman the rest of us mere mortals would have to keep up with.

I would be lying to myself if I didn’t admit she scared me a little. I’d grown up learning to fear the night and the aswangs. But I wouldn’t let my fear of her get in the way of our friendship, and I flat-out refused to ever let her see it on my face. She deserved more than fear right now. She needed me, and I was prepared to be here for her.

After her long sip of coffee, Ollie answered my question, “I think he has a lot of useful information locked away in there.” Her eyes narrowed on the door again, and I fully expected her to try and kick it open. Luckily, she turned away with a sigh. “Maybe something between him and Dean?” She lowered her voice to a whisper so only I would hear. “I need to know how much Dean knows about me.”

We had no way of knowing what sort of tech Killian had rigged the base with, but we’d both agreed to err on the side of caution. If he watched the base or listened to conversations while he hunted, we didn’t want him hearing ours.

“Or what Dean has planned for you,” I added.

Ollie scowled at the door and crossed her arms. “Have you heard of Irena Volkova?”

My stomach twisted a little at the familiar last name. Ollie’s possible last name, if what Luke had written on his ominous note was to be believed. The name meant she might not be completely human. I swallowed and said quickly, “The last name obviously because Luke wrote it on the note you found, but not her particularly.”

“I confronted Luke about the note last night, and he told me she was a famous hunter who disappeared back in the ‘80s.”

I winced, imagining how well that conversation must have gone for them. “So many people disappear. He thinks she’s your . . .” I couldn’t finish the thought.

“No. He said after he found Olesya Volkova in a file Dean had on me, he started digging around, but the last Volkova was Irena. She never had kids. The lead went cold.”

“If Dean had a file on you, maybe Killian does too.” My eyes swept back to the door. So many secrets. So many lies.

Ollie’s nostrils flared. “I need in that room. Like, now.”

I knew that look in her eye. It was the “I’m going to go find a battering ram, you stay here and stand guard” look. “What if we go talk to Nyny first? We can check out the wolf’s bane and see if she has any information on Killian or if he ever leaves this room unlocked.”

“I don’t like her.”

“I’m sure she didn’t mean that dumb hunter comment,” I said, taking Ollie’s hand and practically towing her away from Killian’s office. “Besides, you should take it as a compliment. She would never have mistaken me for the dumb hunter type.”

Ollie fell into step with me and sipped on her coffee as we walked toward the stairs winding up the middle of the base. We kept our hands locked, our arms swinging back and forth in between us. “Why do you say that?” Ollie asked.

“Because I look like a nerd.” I pushed my glasses back up my nose while I mentally recalled all my imperfections keeping me from being Ollie-perfect. The list was easy to call to mind because it never left my mind: glasses, short legs, frizzy hair, chubby, plain. “But I’ve been thinking about getting contacts.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ollie shoot me a sideways glance. “What for?”

“No particular reason,” I said with a shrug. Although I had a very particular reason: Ollie didn’t wear glasses. I doubted she even had a list of things she hated about herself.

Well, aside from maybe being part aswang.

She bumped against my shoulder and said, “Your glasses are awesome. You’re, like, putting the sexy in nerdy.”

My heart sputtered. Was I sexy? But, no, that couldn’t be right. I cleared my throat. “Sexy isn’t in nerdy.”

“Exactly. That’s why you’re putting it there.”

We arrived at the stairs, and Ollie handed me her coffee before she jogged up them, careful of her injuries, then doubled back down to meet me as I walked more sedately up them. Back and forth she went, alternating between a slow jog and walk as she traversed the stairs. By the time we made it to the fourth floor, Ollie was sweating and breathing heavy, and I felt exhausted just from watching her.

“I have to get back in shape,” she said, bent over at the waist with her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

“Just be careful. You need to take it slow.”

Ollie looked up at me, a crooked grin on her mouth that did wonders to ease my heart. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

I took the last drink of her coffee. “So Luke has no time to train you while we’re up here?”

“No,” she growled and straightened up to stretch out her back. Pausing, she leveled a serious stare my way.

“Oh, no,” I said. “It’s not happening. Don’t even give me that look.”

“Please, Sunny? If we sparred together, we would both stay in shape. And you could help me take things slow so I don’t re-injure myself.”

I chewed on my lip and thought it over. I contemplated bruises and broken glasses, because Ollie was good; like,
really
good. Back at the university, even the more seasoned hunters had watched her train with Luke. She moved fast, her fists faster. But Hatter might see me training with her one day. I could find some tight pants that made my legs look longer and some of those cool fingerless gloves Ollie used sometimes. Maybe I could even get good enough to keep up with her. Maybe Hatter would see us one day and I would have Ollie pinned on the floor and she would tap out and I would win and Hatter would clap for me and then he would walk over and kiss me real long and thorough and then maybe he would offer to train me and then he would pin me to the floor and then we would . . .

“Sunny?”

Ollie snapped her fingers in my face, and I jumped back a little in surprise. I blinked at her. “What?”

“Your eyes kind of glazed over there for a minute.” The corner of her mouth hooked up into a lopsided, cheesy grin. “Were you thinking about Hatter’s ass again?”

The tips of my ears turned fiery hot. “Wh-what?” I sputtered. “Please. I have better things to think about than his . . .
booty
.”

“It is a pretty nice
booty
.” Ollie cupped her hands and flexed her fingers. “Real round and muscular, you know? Like you could hold on to it while he—”

“Okay!” I practically shouted, marching away from the fourth floor stairs while Ollie laughed behind me. “Let’s go look at poisonous flowers!”

“I know you’re trying to change . . .” Ollie’s voice faded to a stop at the same time I stopped walking. Together we both looked at the fourth floor for the first time since we’d arrived.

“Oh, wow,” I managed.

No walls or halls divided up the floor. It sprawled out around us, wide open, like a football field. Large steel beams held up the roof, which had drawn most of mine and Ollie’s attention.

There was no roof.

Just thousands of curved window panes. Where we stood, the glass ceiling was lower and closer to our heads, but right in the middle of the room, it was nearly two stories tall. When we’d first arrived at the base, the darkness had kept us from noticing the odd shape of the base’s roofline. Inside it though, a huge ball of fluorescent heat lamps sat on a track running across the length of the curving roof.

“It mimics the sun,” said a voice from behind us. Ollie and I spun around. Nyny stood behind us; we’d been too busy staring to hear her come up the stairs. “We mirror its path through the shape of the roof and the sun’s position during a normal day. Helps the plants grow.”

“Wow,” I repeated. Now that Nyny had arrived, Ollie crossed her arms and tried to look unimpressed.

“Come on. I’ll show you the inside.”

The roof consumed most of our attention, but when I looked around more, I noticed there were indeed walls on the fourth floor; it wasn’t as wide-open as I previously thought. The walls were just made of solid sheets of glass fused together at the steel beams. Nyny walked over to an airlock door between two thick beams and punched in a code. By the way Ollie casually watched Nyny’s fingers fly across the buttons, I knew she was memorizing it.

The door beeped, and Nyny pushed against it. Today, she wore baggy cargo shorts and a vintage blue tank top. She’d piled her lavender hair on top of her head in a slightly sideways ponytail. A whoosh of air released from the interior of the greenhouse, and, as we followed Nyny inside, a gust of wind blew down onto our heads.

I understood Nyny’s warmer weather clothing choices when we stepped inside and she sealed the door shut behind us.

Barrow, Alaska had its own little tropical paradise inside this greenhouse. It was hot and balmy, fans circulating above us that rustled our hair and made the moisture bead up on the back of my neck. Inside the glass room, the giant heat lamp ball above us truly felt like a sun, warming my skin until I began to sweat just standing there. I took a big, wet breath and laughed. It was heaven.

Nyny grinned at me. “Welcome to the most dangerous place in all of Alaska.”

At her words, a shiver worked up my spine. This was my kind of danger—the kind without snapping teeth. In front of us, numbering into the hundreds of thousands, were rows upon rows of flowering wolf’s bane. The bluish purple blossoms gave off a dizzying aroma.

“Seems a little overrated to be the most dangerous place,” Ollie commented.

Nyny turned to a workbench beside the door and handed me a pair of heavy-duty leather gloves before pulling on a pair herself. She nodded toward the flowers over her shoulder. “Go ahead and touch one then, hunter. Or if you’re feeling really bold, munch on some of the roots. See what happens.”

Before anyone said anything else, I gave Ollie my gloves and held out my hand for another pair, which Nyny gave me after letting out a low laugh. With Ollie bringing up the rear, Nyny led me down the center row of flowers.