Perigee - Chapter 25: Chapter 25

Tisper sat at the rim of a clawfoot bathtub, stationed in the center of a large bathroom with nothing but a curtain for comfort. Combing back through Sadie's hair with a soft-bristle brush, she minded every bit of matted blood, dipping the brush beneath water once in a while to rinse the bristles. Sadie sat there with her knees hugged to her chest, the water around her a coppery-brown.
It'd been quiet. A soft moment between them, while Tisper dipped a cup beneath water and rinsed the shampoo from Sadie's hair. Then suddenly Sadie asked, "Do you think it's real?"
Tisper watched a drop of water fall from Sadie's lashes. "Do I think what's real?"
"This," Sadie said, gesturing to herself. "All this witch stuff. Do you think it's real, or am I putting all of my eggs in one basket?"
"Pull the plug," said Tisper. "The water's getting filthy again."
Sadie did, and while the water drained away, Tisper added a fresh squirt of shampoo to her hair.
"Qamar heard you, didn't she? You communicated to her somehow, right? It has to be real. Jaylin heard you too. Whatever you were trying to tell him, he heard you and knew you were okay."
"I was trying to tell you guys to run."
"Well, it worked," said Tisper.
"Does it even really matter?" Sadie asked. The water was sucked down into the drain and once the last inch had drained, she set the plug back into place and started up the faucet again. Her purple toenails wiggled beneath the water. "Back there at the hotel, I was completely helpless. There was nothing I could do but sit there, frozen, with my eyes shut and my hands on my ears, trying to block out the gunshots. I didn't feel much like a witch. I didn't do anything to help anyone."
"Neither did I," Tisper said, lathering Sadie's hair between her fingers. "A lot of us could have done something, Sadie. But people still would have died."
"Yeah," Sadie whispered. "I guess."
"No guessing. Let this fill and rinse off," Tisper told her. "I think we've washed away the worst of it."
She stood and reached for the curtains to leave, but Sadie caught her by the hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Thank you, Tis. Thanks."
She stepped out after that, tossing a towel over the curtain rod to save Sadie the discomfort of a naked walk halfway across the enormous expanse of empty bathroom space. Then she stepped out of the heat and steam and took a deep, uncertain breath. The air still tasted of hot blood, but it wasn't from Sadie.
It was from the bath that had been given to Jaylin before her. He'd been brought in around midnight, slung over Leo's shoulder. Izzy and Yui ushered the brawny man to the bathroom, bundles of towels in their arms. They'd scrubbed Jaylin clean and he'd walked out on his own two feet, their gentle hands secure on his arms, might he tip over from the loss of blood. He'd been fed and treated with herbal capsules and some kind of liquid medicine, but Izzy didn't lead him up to the rooms where the others slept. She thought he'd rather be closer to Quentin, so she laid down a heap of blankets on the living-room floor and Jaylin had been sprawled out beneath them, sleeping ever since.
There weren't many wolves awake now, but the ones that were tiptoed tediously over him. Tisper wanted to talk to him—she hadn't had the chance since he'd been back. But the lines beneath his eyes were darker than usual—his hair tinted a shade of strawberry from the stain of blood.
Imani drifted in and out of Quentin's room, long black nightgown dragging the floor behind her. The evening news was playing—the Opulence Rose fire was declared arson, but all record of the wolves' stay there had been destroyed. There were more of them in this world than Tisper realized—including one or two who had to have some kind of in with the fire marshal. There was no way they'd gathered up all evidence of the Perigee celebration in such a short amount of time. Not without someone on the inside to cover for their asses.
She had planned to go up to the room she shared with Sadie, but Tisper curled up on the couch instead, watching Jaylin's body rise and fall, wondering if he was in that snowy world he'd told her about a dozen times before. Eventually, she fell asleep to the distant sound of Quentin's heartbeat, ticking through the monitor beside his bed.
When she woke, Jaylin was gone.
She launched up from the sofa and rushed to the bathroom first, to find nothing but a leaking faucet and the faint coppery stench still in the air. Then she hurried up the stairs, checking each bedroom—slowly peeking into the ones that belonged to wolves she didn't know. Then to Matt's—who had fallen asleep with one foot hanging off of his bed, his face stuffed in his pillows. Alex was nothing but a bundle beneath his quilt.
In the next room, Sadie slept tucked into the corner of her bed to avoid the breeze from the open window. Tisper shut the door softly behind her and moved on to the next. Easing the door open, she first found Leo in the darkness, snoring like a grizzly on the only decent bed in the room, while Bailey laid on the floor with not a blanket to his name—head rested on his folded arm. Then there was Felix, strung out on a cot much too small for him, hand splayed over his chest and blankets kicked down past his ankles.
Tisper had to tiptoe over Bailey to reach him, and when she did, she could see the horizontal crack along his nose—the bruise on his cheekbone from where he'd been bashed with the gun. It'd been nearly 24-hours and he still looked like he'd been beaten with a metal bat.
He had taken that hit for them. For her and for Jaylin. To keep them protected, he'd nearly gotten himself killed. She she hated the puffy, broken look of his face. She was fond of that face and Tisper would admit it to the world. There was no shame in it—Felix was a striking thing. A strong, straight nose and even lips, the lower bearing a crack still crusted with blood. She reached out to touch it and at the lightest graze, his eyes cracked open part way. Then fully.
"What the shit—"
She slapped a hand over his mouth to keep him from waking the others and whispered, "I'm sorry. I need your help, Jaylin's missing."
Felix sat up, hands wiping up his face—wincing when he realized the pain in his nose. "One night," he grumbled, shoving himself from his cot and dragging his way toward the door. "One night without shite in the air is all I ask."
Tisper followed him down the hall, his frame blocking her sight. He didn't walk, Felix Cummins. He pushed through space, hastened like a snake. Every step was careless and yet to see him coming could be a frightening thing. He made walking look like art—the dangerous kind, like juggling fire or swallowing swords.
"Check the rooms?" he asked as they hit the bottom of the stairs.
"Yeah."
"Bathroom?"
"Yes."
"Must've run off again." He took his jacket from the coat rack, checked his pocket for his keys, and swung open the door. But he went still there, in the doorway. Tisper had nearly bumped into him, so eager to seek Jaylin out in the night.
"Wait," Felix said. He turned and brushed past her, and again Tisper shadowed him as he reached for the handle to Quentin's room, gave it a lame push open. Then Felix stood there with his arms crossed. Tisper had to take a peak around his waist to get a view.
Quentin laid as still as he had before—a bit more color in him now, but that blackness around his wounds had grown. Tisper could see it, splintering out from beneath his bandages—veining out like tree branches or a crack in fine glass. The only thing that had changed beside his color was the position of his head—turned slightly to the left, where Jaylin curled beside him, arms tucked into himself to keep from touching anything vital, head only partway on the pillow.
Felix slouched a bit into the door frame. "There," he said in a whisper. "He's fine."
"How'd you know?" Tisper asked as Felix stepped back and drew the door shut softly behind him. "Did you smell him?"
"Lad smells like a butcher shop. The lich wreak—but there's nothing beyond blood for me as is." He scratched at the scruff on his face and moved toward the kitchen. Too many times now, Tisper found herself pacing after him. "Where else would'e be?" Felix asked, rounding the island.
He took the stale pot of coffee and dumped himself a cup, shoving into the microwave and hitting a random set of numbers. Tisper couldn't stand the sight of it. She wedged herself between Felix and the counter and yanked the drip forward to start a fresh pot.
"I've never seen someone so in love as Jaylin is." She could feel her makeup smudge beneath her lashes as she wiped the sleep from her eyes and dumped the old grounds into the trash. "I didn't think it was anything more than a crush at first. Quentin's hot, y'know. It was kinda inevitable. But now... Jay would do anything for him. I'm sure about that."
Felix popped open the microwave well before the timer was done and drew his mug out by the handle. "He isn't alone."
Before he could take a drink, Tisper ripped it from his hands and dumped it down the drain. She couldn't in good faith, watch someone drink microwaved coffee.
"The hell—"
"What do you mean he isn't alone?" she asked, setting the pot to brew and popping her hands on her hips. "Are you in love with Quentin too? Jesus Christ, who isn't in love with Quentin?"
Felix's eyes went narrow. "That's a fuckin' assumption, princess."
Tisper was particularly pinched at the comment. Dissatisfied, not only because she didn't wholly believe him—given that "straight" wasn't a particularly common thing in the realm of werewolves—but also because each time he called her princess, she was starting to hate it just a little bit less.
"Okay so you're not in love with him. But you love him," she said, swiping his empty mug just as he reached out for it. "I can tell."
The drops began to congregate at the bottom of the pot, and Felix's eyes stuck impatiently to the brew. "I'm fond of him and let's leave it at that."
"But don't you all love him?" Tisper asked. "Hormones or whatever."
Felix gave an aggravated sigh through his nose—one Tisper deflected with the twist of her heels.
"Milk and sugar?" she asked, flipping open the cupboards to her left.
"I drink it black," he protested, while she added in a few grains of salt and shake of cinnamon to the bottom of his empty mug.
"Men always say that," Tisper said, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "I'm starting to think you don't actually like it black, you just pretend you do because it's gritty and masculine and disgusting."
She turned to the fridge, but Felix reached over her easily and shut the door as soon as it opened.
"Or maybe I drink it black because I hate milk."
"Fine." The coffee had hardly steeped into the pot more than an inch, but she reached for it anyway, dumping just enough in the mug to fill it half way. "Now tell me why you're so indebted to him."
"Nah," said Felix. He plucked the mug from her hands and again he was moving like a cat, or a snake—or some weird cat-snake beast inbetween. His long legs carried him through the room twice as quickly as a normal person, and this time she found it hard to stay at his heels. He would be up the stairs in a few lunges, and she'd never hear his answer.
"My great-grandfather owned a billion dollar company," she said in a rush.
Felix stopped then, just at the foot of the stairs. He turned to her, as she expected he would. "What?"
"My family's rich," said Tisper. "Every single one of them but me."
And there it was—the curious lift in his brow. He wouldn't ask—no, it wasn't his business. Felix wasn't the kind of guy to concern himself with others, but Tisper had him at least a bit curious.
"When I turn twenty-five, I was to inherit two-million dollars. My great grandfather split his fortune evenly among us—each of us, two-million dollars." She shrugged her shoulders and added, "Except me."
"Why give that up?" Felix asked.
"I didn't give it up," Tisper said. "It was taken from me. See, the only person in the world more important to my great grandfather than his daughter was her daughter. My mother. In actuality, he left his entire inheritance to her, with the request to have two-million sent to each of his kin, and the rest put away for the great-great grandchildren that would follow after. It wasn't written in his will. It was written on a tablecloth from his favorite breakfast diner."
Felix moved a step closer now, studying her with those eyes—a smoky jade in the livingroom lights. The forest through a film of morning fog. "Why'd they take it from ye?"
"Because," Tisper shrugged. "I wasn't Steven. That was what my mother said. That money was to be left to Steven, and if I didn't 'want to be Steven', then I wasn't allowed a dime of it. But I'm not Steven."
Felix raised his chin, just slightly, but just enough that she could tell he didn't understand. She couldn't blame him; she could have lied, she could have taken the money, she could have been who she was later on, with two-million dollars under her belt. But she loved Tisper too much to waste a second on Steven. Tisper was worth so much more than two-million dollars. "My grandmother takes care of me," she explained. "She doesn't care much for material things, so she shares her fortune with me when I need a hand. She's the only reason I can forget about those two-million dollars. I'm indebted to her. So your debt to Quentin... is it bigger than two-million dollars?"
Felix still hadn't answered—there was a tense fidget in the muscle of his jaw, and his eyes were on an open window nearby. Not looking at anything particular—just considering.
"Fine," he said after a long silence. "But not here."
He took a drink of his coffee and turned around, and Tisper followed him out into the night.
They found a tree at the back of the house, large enough for Felix to carve a target in. Crooked, wobbly circle within crooked, wobbly circle. He ordered her inside to get her bow and arrows, and when Tisper returned, Felix was lounging back on a mossy, tree-side boulder—those bruises on his face much uglier beneath the moonlight.
"Shoot your arrows," he told her. "And don't say anything."
So Tisper brought her bow out in front of her and fired the first shot—only the moonlight to show her where her bow had landed. The second circle from the middle. She fired again.
She was loading another arrow, just about to release when Felix finally started to talk.
"You've seen the scars, aye?" he asked, an arrow spinning idly between his fingers. "Surely, you have."
Tisper stopped to look at him and Felix twirled his arrow toward the tree. "Look at the target, aye? Not me."
With a disgruntle grumble, Tisper turned her sights back on the tree, letting her arrow fly. She nocked another into place. "How did you get them? Wolves?"
"Pitbulls," Felix said.
Tisper wanted to look at him again, but she kept her head straight and crossed the lawn to collect her arrows.
"I don't know what my name is," he told her. "Chose Cummins because it seemed Scottish enough. Don't even know where I'm from—just that one day, I was prowling the streets in Glasgow. Prowling, as wolf. There were screams, aye? Screams about a wolf in Glasgow." This time, Tisper chanced a glance at him as she walked back to her firing line. He was staring at the arrow in his hands, brows narrowed. Trying to remember. "I couldn't turn," he said. "Tried a thousand times. Couldn't turn back to man. Next thing I know, there's this fuckin' arsehole with a capture noose. The kind they pluck up strays with. He got me around the neck, forced me into a cage in the back of his piece of shite Subaru. Stayed in that cage for two days, no food, no water. Next time I saw him, he was trading cash with a lad in a black jacket. Word hellhound on the shoulder in dirty white letters."
Tisper had been so enthralled, she'd gone slack, bow hung by her hip. "Hellhound?" she asked.
Felix pointed his arrow again. "Turn around. Practice," he ordered, and she blew her hair from her face with a huff and jerked her shoulders back to the target.
"He was an American," Felix said. "Ran a dog-fight ring in San Diego—some old, abandoned car shop, far enough from the city lights that it wouldn't catch eyes." There was a long, difficult pause. Then Felix said, "I love dogs. Love them—think I always have. Last thing I wanted to was—you know. Didn't want to hurt 'em. But when he realized I wouldn't fight the baits, he started to pit me against the real nasty ones. The big bullish things, all scratched up. All shark-jaw and eye-whites. At that point, it's fight or die." He was sitting there with his elbows on his knees, his knuckles cracking against the shaft of the arrow. "I was good. He kept this scoreboard in the kennel room—some chalkboard ranking system. I was there at the top—Banshee, he called me. Banshee, then Brick House. Cutthroat. Dredd. Then there was Ursa.
"God, I loved Ursa," he said. "Big, beautiful, blue brindle. He used her to breed, then sent her in as a bait dog once the pups were old enough. But she was brilliant. She fought to defend, not to kill—never made it any higher on the list, but I think about her all the time. Have ye' ever seen a blue brindle?"
Tisper knew he wasn't really asking, so she didn't really answer. She released her next arrow—it cut the air with a zip and struck just a bit closer to the bullseye than the one before.
"Never seen one so beautiful as Ursa," Felix said. "Not a bit of white on her. Blue as a stormy night. Eyes like lightning. All she ever wanted was to mother her pups—but they were weaned, sold off. She stopped putting up fights. Started to cower from the other pits. I could see the practice ring from my cage—watched the scars build on her. Eventually, he put her up against me. Said she was a waste of feed. I couldn't do it," he said. "I couldn't fight her. She sat there in the corner, still milk-heavy. All scarred up, but no fight. And I couldn't do it. Hellhound gave me a lashing like I'd never had before. The next day, he took her to the back and put a bullet through her."
Tisper shouldn't have looked. She should have minded her arrows, like he told her to. But she took a glance at Felix—just long enough to see him wipe something wet from his eyes with the back of his knuckles.
She turned back to the tree.
"Got hot in that garage, come summer," Felix said with a new breath. "Was nineteen at the time. Should've been out getting laid—having a beer with some lads. Spent nine months there in those kennels. Thought I was done for one day in the hell heat of July—all ye' could hear was the panting. Water came, but not often enough. Stunk like waste and death in the place, and Hellhound and his boys only popped by twice a week 'less there was a fight on the horizon. It was like death laying there—waiting for the day to end and rid us of the heat. Then, all of the sudden, here comes this kid. Sixteen years old—fresh out of puberty. He picked the locks on the door, broke off the deadbolt. It was like those dogs knew who he was. Not a bark—not a growl when he stepped foot in the place. Twelve hostile pits, and they all shrunk back in their cages like it was a mountain lion that'd come through the door.
"Wasn't a lion," Felix said. "Was Quen. All tight blue jeans and baggy t-shirts. This wide-eyed kid with no clue what he was doing, other than he was doing it. Don't know how he found me," Felix said. "But he popped open my cage, let me out into the open air, not a fear in the world for a beast like me. He didn't need to tell me who he was or why he was there. Can't really explain it, but I knew I'd follow him and things would be alright.
"He took me to meet Deva after that. She'd said it was a hex—I'd been hexed by a coven in Scotland. Must've done something to piss 'em off because they stuck me in that wolf form. She fixed it, made me right again. And when I was man, Quentin finally asked my name. Told him Banshee, because it was all I knew. 'Is that really your name?'" Felix said in the most Quentin voice he could manage. He parroted the cadence almost too well. "Told him I didn't know. He asked what I wanted to be called, and Felix was the first thing to come to mind. Like you said, it's mine. Felix Cummins. First thing I ever owned was my name."
Tisper fired her next arrow—this time a wayward one that struck just at the edge of the tree. She felt like sobbing, but Felix had entrusted her with this. Part of that meant she'd have to keep herself together. She heaved a breath and lowered her bow. "What happened to the dogs?"
"Quen called it in. They were pulled out, some rehabilitated. Some euthanized. I wanted to keep one for myself, but I had no place of my own. Just my name—that was all I had." He matched her eyes—his still wet with moonlight. "Ye' stopped shooting," he noted.
Tisper tucked her hair behind her ear and straightened out with a deep breath. "Sorry," she said, raising her arrow to eye-level. She was nearly ready to release, but she paused and lowered it again.
"I'm indebted to you too," she said—and this time she looked at him, whether he wanted her to or not. "You saved us back there. Jaylin and I both."
Felix shoved himself up onto his feet, twirling that arrow between his fingers while he crossed the sward. "Ye' have a weak left grip," he said. "Mind yer strength when you release with the right."
Tisper readjusted her fingers around the grip of her bow, brought her arrow back and released. It soared, split the wood within an inch of the bullseye. Close but no cigar. Felix held his arrow out in front of her and she tried again. This time, her arrow hit a bit too far to the left.
"How do you know so much about archery?" she asked, watching Felix move toward the tree, ripping the arrows from its marred bark.
"Dunno," he admitted. "Must've been a sport of mine."
This time, he didn't hand Tisper the arrows. He dropped them all to the ground by his feet save for one, and took the bow from Tisper's hands. He hardly took a stance, but the way he gripped the bow looked so natural. He drew back, released, and the arrow struck the bullseye. It wobbled there, in the dead center of the circle and Felix plucked another arrow from the ground.
"Here," he said, and he reached out blindly, catching Tisper by the wrist. He reeled her in, and Felix lifted his shirt up over his stomach—placed her hand on his strong middle. She nearly choked on her own breath, all of those smooth muscles shifting beneath her fingers. Warm, disciplined stone. "Feel it. And pay attention."
Then he raised the bow, propping his arrow in place and drawing back. She felt those muscles move, shifting and sliding beneath his skin as he gave a deep exhale and released. The arrow soared, and struck the bullseye so closely, it nearly knocked the first arrow from its place.
"The breathing?" she gasped. "Is it in the way you breath? You exhaled when you shot."
"Did I?" Felix pondered, giving the bow a gentle thrust back into her arms. "Probably coincidence."
It was a loss when her hand left his skin—all that heat gone to the cool night air. Again, she took her stance, drawing the arrow back. "Then what was I supposed to be feeling?" Tisper asked, testing the muscles in her stomach. "Does it have something to do with core strength?"
"Nah," said Felix.
"Then why did you just put my hand there?"
She felt him move closer—that heat burning at her back. He reached around her to adjust both hands—raising the one that held the bow not more than an inch, guiding the one that controlled the arrow, just a bit further back. Then, as casually as if he'd given her the time of day, Felix said, "So I could leave ye' to think about it all night."
Her bow jerked, her arrow fired crooked, missing the target tree by several feet. She gaped at the black of night, her arrow lost somewhere in the dark of the brush.
When she turned around, Felix was already headed toward the front of the house, his hands in his jacket pockets.