Lunatic Fringe (33 page)

The reassurance didn’t come. Lexie
rested her hand on Hank’s prickly, cooling cheek. Her shoulders
sagged.

“
Seriously, Archer. Leave.
Now.”

Archer’s tail fell and head slumped.
She hesitated for one more moment before skulking away.

Lexie turned her attention back to
Hank, pulling her cellphone from her pocket and dialing 911. Randy
stirred, and she touched his forehead, whispering, “It’s okay. Help
is coming.”

Chapter 18

Lexie and her father sat in silence in
the outpatient room of the hospital. Hank was dead, Randy was
resting, and the other man and his wife were receiving directions
from the doctor on how to tend to his concussion. Upon his arrival,
Mr. Clarion had quietly conversed with the newly-conscious men
while a nervous young nurse spooled stitches through Lexie’s arm.
The third hunter, unknown to Lexie, was George Koda, and he owned
the gas station down on River Road. His wife held his hand like she
was clutching a bird.

Lexie held onto her nausea in a similar
manner, shutting her esophagus and tightening the strings of her
belly, refusing to let her stomach win the skirmish. There was too
much yet to figure out. She feared the hunter’s interpretation of
the scene. Lexie’s nose tickled with the need to track Duane, to
find him before the cops did, or worse, before the werewolf
returned to finish the job. But she couldn’t just leave. Not while
her father was here.

He hadn’t said anything when he joined
her, and now he sat at her side, mourning in his singular fashion:
silent contemplation. Lexie didn’t mind. She approved of silence as
an expression of grief. Her father had perfected this posture,
retreating into himself like a sea anemone at the first sign of
emotional damage. She had never heard him raise his voice, even as
her mother walked out the door. Since then, both their lives were
an exercise in emotional restraint.

As a child, Lexie had done what any
child would: she tried to act a surrogate for her mother,
homemaking, providing company, taking care of him, trying to revive
the more convivial version of the father she had grown up knowing.
The one thing she couldn’t provide to him, however, was the one
thing that he needed, the love and appreciation of a partner, to
know that he was doing a good job as a man. But he wasn’t. He had
failed at being a husband, which made succeeding as a father
irrelevant.

Lexie had given up on the hope that by
being a good enough daughter--accompanying him on hunting trips,
fishing trips, camping trips, cooking, cleaning, getting good
grades--she could pull him out of the depths. Ten years of that
routine did little as far as she could see. That she couldn’t warm
him back to his former self, Lexie considered her own failure. So
together they sat in the hospital room, bearing witness to one
another’s sadness in the only way they knew how: uncomfortable
silence.

Finally, Ray’s anger sprang forth.
“What the hell were you doing out there?” His tone was one Lexie
knew well, low and steely, with an undercurrent of rage. Her dad
was a large man who learned early on to control his anger, lest he
terrify the smaller and weaker. This chilly anger was scarier to
Lexie than any screaming rage.

Lexie shrugged, the classic rebuttal of
guilty children everywhere.

“
Four boys were just torn
apart on that spot, and you’re wandering around playing Nancy
Drew.”

“
I wasn’t--”

“
You could have been
killed.”

“
I was fine until those
guys came along,” Lexie mumbled.

“
The fact you’re alive now
is a miracle.” Her dad’s voice wavered now, as the fear seeped
through the anger.

“
The only thing that hurt
me was Randy’s lousy fucking shot.”

He raised his eyebrows, his voice
growing colder. “He saved your life.”

“
That’s bullshit, Dad. He
shot me!”

“
Watch your language, young
lady.”

“
What other damage is there
on me? Claw marks? Bite marks?” She tugged at her clothing, showing
him her unmarked flesh. “Nothing except his goddamn bullet.” Again
a silence rolled through the room.

“
I don’t like what this
school is doing to you.”

Lexie rolled her eyes.

“
You never used to sass me
like this. I think this education is making you . . .” He trailed
off in frustration.

“
What, Dad? Uppity? Mouthy?
Bitchy?”

Ray raised his palms in defense.
“Alright, Lexie. Calm down. This isn’t like you.”

“
How would you know what
I’m like?”

“
We spent eighteen years
under the same roof. I know you better than you think I
do.”

Lexie wanted to defy him now by
revealing all her secrets. She’d be proven right, and he’d be
shamed with his ignorance. Instead, she bit the inside of her
cheek, resisting.

“
Listen, if there’s
something going on, I’d like to know, Lex.”

“
Nothing you can help me
with,” she said, throat tight with bitterness.

Ray groaned and scrubbed his face hard
enough to redden the skin. “You really are your mother’s
daughter.”

“
What’s that supposed to
mean?”

He shook his head, unwilling to engage
in the fight she craved.

“
You could’ve made her
stay.”

Ray snorted in something like a
laugh.

“
This is funny to you?”
Lexie snipped.

“
If you had really known
your mother, you would’ve known that no one could make her do
anything. Most of all, stay still.”

“
Well, I’ll never have that
chance now, will I?”

“
Why are you taking this
out on me? I didn’t want her to go either, Lex.”

“
It must’ve been your
fault,” she muttered. “If you were a real man . . .”

“
I would have, what? Locked
her in the house? Beat her into submission? What do you know about
being a real man?”

“
She would’ve--”

“
Listen kiddo,” he
interrupted. “You have no idea what kind of husband I was. She left
because she had a bug up her ass to run since I met her. It’s what
made me fall in love with her, and it’s what made her always keep
one foot out the door. Your ma and I settled down way too young. I
don’t regret it, but she always did. She wanted adventure, and I
wanted a home and a family. I wanted you. You seem to think that
I’m a lousy father, but I swear I’ve done the best I could. And I
think you and me have done an alright job of making it
work.”

“
You made me stay in town
for school.”

“
Is that what this is
about? You know I couldn’t afford anything else.”

“
I could’ve gotten a
scholarship somewhere else.”

“
Maybe. But then I’d never
see you again. I’m not like those Milton parents. I can’t fly
across the country for every play or game.”

“
So?”

“
Lexie, we’re all each
other has. That might not mean much to you now, but it’ll mean
something to you someday. People’ll come and go all your life, but
you’ve got me until the end.”

Ray’s face burned pink, with shame or
anger, Lexie could no longer tell. “Listen, your ma fucked up big
time because she said she would stay when she wanted to run. You’ve
got yourself opportunities that neither of us ever had. You can get
yourself an education, and you can do whatever you want in this
world. You’re smart, and you’re pretty, and you’re kind. I’m proud
of you every day.” His eye-contact disturbed Lexie in its strength,
which Lexie never knew her father to possess.

“
Don’t ruin everything by
dropping your guard with some wolf.”

Lexie soaked in the last of her
father’s words, her throat tight for another reason now. Ray
returned his gaze to the linoleum.

“
How did they come upon it,
anyway?” she asked.

“
Got a call on the tip
line. They picked up the trail in the south, not too far outside of
Wolf Creek.”

Lexie bit her tongue. It was impossible
the hunters could have tracked them this way. Archer and she had
come from the north, not even close to Wolf Creek. They must have
been tracking a different animal.

“
Are they sure it was the
same wolf?”

Ray sighed hard and long. “No, they
aren’t. I talked to George once he came to. They found fur on the
trail, different color than the one that attacked you. And yours
may have been a female. You didn’t happen to see its balls, did
you?”

Lexie pulled a face. “Seriously,
Dad?”

He ignored her adolescent disdain. “A
female hasn’t been spotted in a long time. If that’s what you were
attacked by--”

“
I wasn’t attacked, Dad,”
she muttered.

“
--It could mean a lot of
things,” he continued. “That they’re mating, and there are more of
‘em that we thought.” He rubbed his jaw, lips pursed. “Randy’s not
sure what he saw. Neither is George. Frankly, I hope they’re wrong,
‘cause otherwise, the problem is bigger than we thought. Either
way, stay away from the woods for now, would you,
kiddo?”

“
Fine, Dad,” Lexie said,
eager to let the subject rest. She extended her arm in a circle,
stretching the bandage and her muscles. “Any word on
Duane?”

He shook his head and his jaw
tightened. “His family’s out of town. No sign on campus or in Wolf
Creek. It doesn’t look . . .”

Another silence fell. It doesn’t look
good. Her father was losing himself in thought, a deep furrow
forming between his eyebrows.

Lexie knew her father wanted her to
spend the night at home, but he would never say so. Lexie was okay
with this.

“
I’m sorry about Hank,
Dad,” Lexie said as he stood to go, placing a half-hearted hand on
his arm. He flinched at her touch, but nodded before turning toward
the door. He gripped his plain wooden cane and eased himself
out.

Chalk it up as one more
failure for Dad
, Lexie thought, watching
him shuffle away. He couldn’t protect his daughter, couldn’t save
his friend, and couldn’t put an end to the killings.

He paused at the door, bracing himself
on the frame. “I love you, Lex.” The admission was sheepish and
stilted, as though he was afraid of what the words would
conjure.

“
Love you, too, Dad.” She
mumbled in a similarly forced way. She wished she had the words to
tell him that he was a good man, in some way he could hear and
understand her--words of absolution and calm--but Lexie didn’t know
what they sounded like. Instead, she watched her broken father walk
away to the cold comfort of yet another night on his
back.

Chapter 19

It was the quality of moonlight that
made Archer crazy. Eager like hunger, not desperate like thirst.
The first time she resisted a change during the waxing moon was
difficult. It didn’t bother her now, or no more than an itch, like
a rash. Or like a simple runny nose that irritates more than a
tickle but less than a persistent lust.

On full moon nights, Archer’s teeth
would ache as they shifted in her skull, and her fingertips would
throb against the splinters of claw that dug into her nail beds.
Growing pains like countless pubescent mornings, kneading her
muscles back into shape, stretching and popping joints, relearning
how to use her body as she walked the woods on two legs.

Her posture would worsen during those
days and nights. Her strong shoulders hunched, her neck curled
under like a swan. A stranger could mistake it for a contemplative
pose. For Archer, it was a simple act of will, mind over
matter.

It took strength and resolve to witness
the full moon and keep her human shroud tight and clasped. Each
cell within her resisted, tugging at its membrane, shifting and
shuddering in its monthly attempt at renewal and purge. Her cells
stretched against their bonds, reminding themselves of span,
pliancy, resistance and ease. Archer forced them to accept their
new container by force of will.

Archer would feel antsy. Then
irritable. On bad nights, imprisoned. She would pace, a tiger in a
flesh cage, not looking for a way out, but conjuring an
interruption, struggling to create something new and startling from
of a series of circular days.

Instead she chose blood. It always
startled her, the drops of blood between her legs. Each time, she
reacted to it as if it were coming from a wound. After a moment she
would realize, and then she would feel ashamed for the doubt. So
many women cherished this event, ritualized it. To Archer, it was a
punishment for refusing her true nature.

The moon was heavy tonight. Archer had
cleared her plate from the table, leaving it in the sink to deal
with another day. She felt restless, wanting Lexie naked on her
floor in front of the fireplace. She wanted to bury her face
between Lexie’s legs, to hold her up by the hips and feel her body
enveloped again. Sex would be the perfect way to ground some of the
frenetic energy that kept her from focusing on anything but the
girl who refused to vacate her brain.