The Warrior Read online

  Sloane Bevan is mine to take down. Not his. And just as I’m about to enlighten him, Emily pushes out and comes to sit in the empty chair next to me. “Rex.”

  I used to wish she was my sister, mostly because I have a crap mom, a crap dad, and a brother who’s fifteen years older than me and never here. Working on his master’s, working on his PhD, blah, blah, blah. Reality to Aaron: who cares? We’re rich. All that work is just a waste of time. But my big brother Aaron wants to earn his own money. How noble. And repulsive.

  Emily messes my hair. I elbow her away. I know people see her sweet kindergarten-teacher looks and think she’s some kind of angelic creature. She’s as dangerous as we all are. Maybe more because you don’t expect it out of a princess.

  “Just chill until we get what we need from her,” she says. “It won’t take long. You’ve waited fifteen years, what’s a few more days?”

  Charlie cracks his knuckles and for some reason it makes me want to stab my fork in his throat. I would if he wasn’t family. He’s twice my age and my body weight, but I’ve put down guys bigger than him. I imagine how much force it would take to fully sink the tines, how long it would take for him to bleed out once I ripped it free. I look around the table at the twenty or so faces all locked in on me. Some of them don’t even live here, probably drove down just to watch the Bevan blood run. And for the millionth time I wonder why they chose me. Why I’m the one they loaded all their hope on. Isn’t something like this better handled by a team?

  But no. They’re a bunch of superstitious dorks, and what was decided by our ancestors a thousand years ago is what we’re gonna continue to go on. Wait—why am I complaining? I ache for Sloane Bevan’s death. I’m the one who was chosen, who’s been working my whole life toward it. It’s my job—all mine—and if Charlie even looks at her before I do, I’ll go for more than popping his jugular with my fork. Then we’ll burn him and Sloane Bevan on the same pyre. With all the Bevans we’ll pile on after them, it will burn nonstop for a year.

  “Fine. I’ll stay off the second floor.” I’m such a solid liar, sometimes I surprise myself. “But only if you tell me what info you want out of her.”

  Emily surveys the crowd, gets a nod from my father and Jared. Then she leans toward me to stage a secret, never mind everyone here is already in on it. “We’re going to make her write down all her family’s magic. Everything they know that we don’t. As soon as we’re sure we have it all, you can kill her.”

  *

  I return to the training room after dinner because there’s no decent way to sit still when I know Sloane Bevan is contained within these walls. It’s my furlough; if I want to spend it on more training, that’s my business. All I want is to see what she looks like. Taunt her a little. Give her a small test, see what she can do. Too many Moores are swarming every inch of this house for me to get anywhere near her room. The people at the meeting were only a fraction of who’s here. If they’re as restless as I am, they hide it well—behind another excuse for a mad kickback in the ballroom upstairs. Full of old people. So, not so much ‘mad’ as ‘boring as fuck.’

  Which is why I’m downstairs alone, buried under the muted sounds of partying above me. I only flip one row of overhead lights on so the darkness creates a box around me. While I warm up in front of the mirrors, I imagine Sloane Bevan has escaped her room and wound up down here. She’s lurking in the shadow like the animal she is, waiting for an opportunity to spring. But she doesn’t know I know she’s out there, and when she makes her move, I’m on her faster than she can counter. I have no weapons so I pin her arms with my knees. Grasp her head. Start to twist. She’s clawing at me, the training-room lights reflected in her big prey eyes.

  Whoa—a human-shaped spot stained blacker than the dark behind me. I spin around, high on the adrenaline and the fantasy I’ve just created. But then I see the glint on the chain above it—it’s the stupid heavy bag. I’m such a dumbass. But hey, if the bag wants it, the bag’s gonna get it.

  It’s almost midnight when I’ve reached a modicum of chill, but I’ve got a gaping pit instead of a stomach, so I wipe down and head to the ballroom where I can eat at the bar. I’m hours past lights-out, but they’ve let me slide before on special occasions. The party’s dwindling but there’s still staff crawling around, so I tell the first one I see to hurry up and bring me some food. Then I settle at the bar and call the bartender to pour me a whiskey. He looks uncomfortable at having to tell Rex Moore ‘no’ long enough to grant me an ounce of pleasure, so I put him out of his misery and order ice water instead. With all the bodies and noise in the room, I disappear, a change I welcome during these get-togethers for how exotic it feels.

  Some old guy who’s probably related to me leans on the bar to order a drink before saying, “Take a shower, son. You stink.”

  “So do you, geezer.”

  After a delay he laughs, and I decide not to tell him to get out of my house. He’s probably some descendent of my great-granduncle who used to run this house, and then I’d have to answer to shit from every still living Moore tomorrow. It’d be a lot, but not as much as it should be. When Sloane Bevan’s rabid father went kill-crazy the year my brother was born, he shot so many holes in our family tree we had to forget the meaning of extended family. Second, third, and fourth cousins became cousins, and we had to pretend our family hadn’t been massacred.

  My great-granduncle and his son—the two and only Martin Moores—are legends in this family, but soon my name will be larger than theirs. I didn’t find Sloane Bevan, but I will kill her. And then I’m going after her psycho father. They say he’s indestructible, and I’m going to prove them wrong.

  I push my empty plate away and spin on the stool to take in the room behind me. That’s when I see my mother snuggled up to some creep on the couch by the windows. Some creep who’s not my father. The twenty pounds of food I just ate feels like it’s grown arms and fingers and learned how to climb. I reach for my water and catch sight of my father instead, leaning against the piano while chatting with my uncle. He glances quickly over at me like I called out to him.

  In that moment I consider looking away, going upstairs to bed to save him from having to command it. My climb up the stairs would take me past the second floor, so close to the thing that’s mine that they’re holding from me. So I redirect my gaze hard at my mother and that creep. My father turns his head toward them. Takes it in. Stands up. His mistake is his glance back at me, and what I read in his face is not that there’s a problem over there. There’s a problem sitting on my stool. A judgment he doesn’t want. A witness he’d rather snuff out than bother himself with the unsolvable crime that is my dear mother.

  The only thing to do is smirk. And it’s not the one I give Emily when she’s just lost a battle of insults against me—the pop-pop to the gut one. It’s the one that’s armed. The one that cuts people.

  He crosses the room so fast I brace for a blow, hoping he doesn’t notice. I stifle the urge to hop to the floor to better balance my weight. Then I go for my water again to show he’s no threat to me. He can go to hell.

  My father watches me raise the glass to my lips, and I see his next obvious move—I’m always a step ahead. He knocks the glass out of my hand. It crashes against the floor, the slap of water and crack of glass hushing the crowd like someone hit the mute button. I smile at him so he knows I allowed that to happen. He’s such a fucking asshole, and right now the whole room can see.

  “I’ve had enough of your mouth today.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  He grabs the front of my shirt and yanks me off the stool. Even though I allowed that too, it surprises me. He hasn’t touched me for a year and nine months. I’m jarred by vivid flashes of how these situations used to go down—when I was younger, smaller, less confident. Less dangerous. And what slips out is not my doing. “But you could call Trey Bevan. She’d love to snuggle with him.”


  Trey Bevan is a dirty word in this house, used sparingly to preserve its emphasis. And I have totally hit the mark.

  He slaps me with an open hand, like I’m a little kid. The instant heat on my cheek that collapses to pin-and-needle cold feels so good I suck in a breath to relish it. The blood inside my mouth is like candy—I really shouldn’t admit that. I stare at him and point to my other cheek. “But use a fist this time. Maybe then you’ll make father of the year.”

  His hand goes over his mouth, rubs down over his chin. Wait—what’s that … regret? That’s gonna ruin the game. I scramble for something worse, a remark so biting it could only lead to him shoving me against the bar so I’ll be forced to ‘defend myself.’ My mother rises behind him—attentive because of the drama, not to come to my aid. She never has.

  This game they play—worship me one day, smack me around the next—it’s a manipulation that might break a weaker mind. That’s probably their goal, but it will never succeed on a person who figured it out long ago. And when I’ve killed Sloane Bevan and her father, no Bevans will touch me. I’ll take over this house and reign as I was always meant to. Like Martin Moore but more powerful. I’ll be untouchable.

  My father mutters something I don’t hear and retreats to the doorway, avoiding my mother but not the crystal lamp on the end table. The second crash of breaking glass undoes the silence in the room like a flipped switch. It’s the Moore way—confrontations begin and end with objects being broken. Chatter fills the room again. For a stupid moment I think my mother might come talk to me because her normally tight face has gone soft near the eyes. Instead, she smooths her dress and goes back to the crowd by the windows, no doubt to her boyfriend of the week. When the bartender turns his back, I swipe a bottle of rum he was about to pour and head outside, sucking on my swelling lip.

  The sky is a black pitch humming with an unspent storm. Webs of lightning pulse above the woods in the distance. I check my watch against the light coming from the house. I’m really violating my schedule now but there’s no one out here to order me to bed. I descend the hill toward the lake while taking a sip from the bottle. The taste is syrupy and retch-worthy. It warms me from the tongue down. I check the label to make sure I’m drinking rum and not embalming fluid. After the third pull, I fling the bottle into the lake, watch it fly end over end and split the water. I sit on the bank while the clouds pull away, only the brightest stars now visible in a sky lit by a big round moon.

  If Aaron was here I could pop the cap on the bottle of words inside me. Release some pressure, get a little relief. Option two is to go inside right now and look for Emily, but she’d only try to console me, tell me it’s all in my mind, force me to let it go. I need someone to talk shit to. Someone like Aaron who knows how to properly vent. There’s just no one else.

  I’m going to pay for being out here this late if someone catches me, but the rum warming my stomach tells me not to care about my schedule. That it’s bogus and meant for breaking. I feel my great-granduncle’s old watch ticking against my wrist. Now that I’ve noticed it, tuning it out is nearly impossible. But there’s something else out here, something calmly battling for my attention. I’m at once aware of the unsteady beat of lake water lapping against the bank. And the breeze, sneaking in the neck of my shirt, slipping down my back. The drone of some new awareness tempting me to do something different for once. To make a choice someone hasn’t already decided for me.

  Sitting beside this lake does this to me every time. It’s calling to me in a language I don’t know. I recognize the sounds but not the words. Shapes of a memory, but no specifics. Like knowledge that’s been erased, or overwritten, leaving a residue just recognizable enough to drive me insane. There’s a ready peace to it, a stillness that’s such a contrast to my days of orders and training and the jarring on-and-off thanks to the pills in my pocket.

  I get up and walk west, toward the moon. The side lawn is wide open and lit by its fat white light so I stick by the house, well aware of how close I am to the room where they’ve locked Sloane Bevan. She’s directly above me, and if I cross the lawn toward the big oak, I could turn around and view her windows, check if I can see her. But the idea is cut short as the windows beside me illuminate. I hop silently up the steps of the side porch and flatten against the house. Voices sift through the open library windows.

  “It should be in the safe, Dillon.” My uncle Jared.

  “That’s the first place everyone would look,” my father replies. “It’s safer here. Even if someone decides to read this, they won’t see it back there.”

  I risk a glance. My father is replacing a book on the shelves on the far wall. I memorize its position—up three shelves, over two.

  I duck away just before my father turns around, saying, “Too many people have the code to that damn safe.”

  “Then we change the code,” says Jared.

  “And make everyone suspicious?”

  The room goes dark. Across the lawn, a roiling gray haze rises from the woods and advances toward the house. It’s a sinister looking shape in the moonlight, like a summoned demon stalking a target. I consider moving inside, but that might look like I’m afraid and there’s no way. That thing doesn’t know what I could do to it.

  As it nears I see the flap of a thousand little wings all moving in different directions while the swarm advances as one being. The first thing I think is bees—but no, these things are too big. It’s a swarm of something—not bats, not birds … moths? They reach the edge of the porch but instead of coming toward me, the whole formation bends up the side of the house above me.

  It’s weird but it doesn’t matter. What’s hidden in that bookshelf is more important right now. I head toward the front of the house, passing the train of parked cars snaking along the front circle drive and all the way down the driveway as far as I can see. Our house is full of this many people, and not one of them wants to hang out with me. I let myself in the front door. The foyer is dead except for the sound of the party coming from the east side of the house. The west side is dark and quiet. I slip through to the library, my eyes now adjusted so the moonlight pouring through the windows is enough to see which shelf I need. I pull the book out and slide my hand into its spot, finding a small object against the wall. It’s sunk into a nook behind the shelf so I have to pull up to extract it.

  In the dim light of the room it’s a small glass apothecary bottle, opaque with something corked inside it. I replace the book and take the bottle to the window for better light. And that opaque substance comes alive like that swarm of insects outside. Purple rolling into black then back to purple, a slow churn of magic held captive. This is the bottle my father scored from that black witch. This is the black magic primed to destroy all Bevans.

  If this bottle is uncorked, the magic will steal my chance. It will do my work and claim the destruction of the Bevans for itself, and whoever releases it will take all the credit and power that comes with it. I can’t trust my family to preserve what they’ve promised is mine, what I’ve trained my whole life for. It’s up to me to take it before someone else does.

  I sneak up to my room and change into my multi-pocketed military pants. The bottle of black magic goes in one pocket, wrapped in a cloth for protection. In the bathroom I study myself in the mirror to the tick on my great-granduncle’s watch. I smooth the shaggy hair that Emily messed at dinner. I’m not their tool anymore. Now I do things my way.

  A rummage of my drawers rewards me with an electric hair clipper I use to shave my hair army-short. Clumps fall into the sink like some kind of metamorphosis is taking place. The reflection that greets me when I straighten is a person I don’t know. A person no one knows. Someone once bound who’s just been freed. Things are about to change in this household, things no one saw coming.

  They raised me to be their soldier. Soon I will be their king.

  Chapter 3

  Sloane


  I can’t sleep in this room. It was Grandma’s room but it’s too far from the trees; it doesn’t breathe with them like my house in the mountains. The air is stagnant and still with a quiet I can feel in my core. It’s as empty and spacious as an old European tomb, like the one where Romeo and Juliet die in that final scene.

  A new awareness trickles toward me, filling in the pieces of an unused sense like a slow stream filling a pool. I know it’s not the same as normal human hearing because there’s a translation I must do, as I do to communicate with any animal. It gains intensity, so I get up from the bed to place my hand on the wall. They’re in the walls, seeking me out. Sent by my grandma, maybe, or I guess it’s possible they came to my aid on their own.

  One of them crawls from the vent in the floor and takes flight—a greater wax moth. No land animal has better hearing. People used to think that award went to the bats, but the greater wax moth has evolved to hear better than its own predator. I open my hand for it to land. Sticky legs tickle my palm as it settles in, closing its wings. It’s hard not to admire prey that overcame its predator by using its predator’s best weapon against it. I stroke its silky body and it opens its wings and flies toward the bed, landing on the floor to crawl under the bed skirt. I see my grandma signing, Where’s the best hiding place? Under the bed, inside the floor. Remember that, Sloane.

  I drop to my belly beside the bed and wiggle underneath, testing floor boards for movement as I push toward the middle of the bed. I find not one board but a whole section that slides away, revealing a collection of dusty jars containing ingredients for magic. If Grandma left this for me, she didn’t foresee I’d be banned from using it. Or is this her way of telling me I should ignore Dillon’s threat?

  It’s not something I can answer now with the little I know, but it can’t hurt to be prepared. Sifting through the jars, I can’t decide which ones would be most useful in my limited pocket space until the rosemary settles in my hand like it should be there. It has many uses to my family, but the one that springs to mind is its help in identifying an unknown threat. Since I still don’t really know what I’m supposed to do here, maybe the rosemary can point me in the right direction. Along with rosemary I take mint, for its ability to steady an unsettled mind.