“Forget it,” I say, as I watch Hugh’s grip loosen on Ribbit’s shirt. I’m settling that score with someone else, down in the basement. “Let him go, Hugh.”
Hugh gives me a long look, a fire behind his eyes I’ve never seen there before. I’ve known Hugh awhile, but it’s always been the teddy bear side of him I see. I’ve never had to stand my ground against him, because until tonight, Hugh and I have always been on the same page. Now I’m seeing something new, something I’d always heard was there but never witnessed. And if there’s something in Hugh Broward I’ve never seen, maybe there’s something in my cousin, too. But Ribbit is just hanging from his fist like a piece of meat, actually smiling, showing all his teeth and inviting Huge to knock them down his throat.
“Your dude-bro vouched for him,” I say, and Hugh lowers Ribbit until his feet are on the ground. “Happy?”
“No, I’m pretty fucking far from happy. I don’t trust you, douchebag.” He pushes Ribbit in the chest with one finger, and my cousin almost goes off the edge of the porch. “You’re sticking with me for the rest of the night, got it? I’m keeping an eye on you so that you can’t miraculously find the dog.”
Ribbit nods, understanding. Pitifully, he seems almost happy. He gets to make time with Hugh now, even if he is a prisoner.
I need to get back downstairs.
That’s when my phone rings.
Chapter 14
Cat
Something small, made smaller
inside my mouth.
A new best / last.
Gretchen / shadow
Chapter 15
Felicity
I’m shaking.
I don’t know if it’s anger, or if it’s because I’m cold, or because I’m sick. I ranted at Tress’s retreating back as she went up the stairs, and now I’m exhausted. My throat feels like it’s in bloody tatters. My whole body is quivering, nerves on high alert . . . or maybe it’s because I’ve got a fever, and my body is trying to shed heat.
Everything is wrong, and I’ve got small trails of blood running down both arms. The stream from my head seems to have stopped, but there’s a drying red trickle going down into my cleavage. I hear the basement door, and my head jerks up, the ridiculous jester cap swinging to the side, hanging by a hair pin.
“Hugh?” I call, my voice raspy and useless.
“Calm down . . . listen . . . listen . . .” It’s Tress, and she’s on the phone, clearly irritated. She comes back to her chair, and it creaks under her weight.
“It was definitely locked,” she says, crossing her legs. “No, I did not let the panther loose just to fuck with you.”
A long stream of profanity to match the one I’d been screaming at her earlier comes out of the phone, and she holds it away from her ear. “Cecil . . . ,” she sighs. “And did it kill you?”
Another extended answer comes—an angry one—but Tress only shakes her head. “What do you want me to do? Wander around calling, Here, kitty, kitty?”
Apparently her grandpa doesn’t have a better suggestion, because Tress hangs up on him, another incensed response cut off with the swipe of her thumb. Tress blows her hair out of her eyes and glances up at me.
“Panther’s loose,” she says by way of explanation. Like it’s not incredibly alarming. Like she’s not saying it to someone she’s chained to a wall and threatened to bury alive. My heart kicks up a beat just thinking about it.
Tress is still in her chair, her eyebrows drawn together, looking at her phone. She’s distracted, not thinking about me, or her parents. Maybe I can keep it that way.
“What do you even do when a panther is loose?” I ask. “That seems . . . hard.”
It’s a really stupid thing to say, but Tress nods in agreement.
“Yeah, well, we can hope he comes home, where there’s shelter and food but . . .” She glances at me, and we’re having a conversation. A totally fucked-up one, but we’re talking.
“Cecil hasn’t exactly been nice to that cat,” she says. “If it comes home, it won’t be for anything good.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, encouraging her. “So what do you do?”
She shrugs. “Not much you can do. Hope it doesn’t kill anybody, first off. And pray nobody spots it. People find out it got loose, and we’re done.”
“Right . . . ,” I say, trying to think of how I can spin this, turn the topic away from Cecil Allan losing his income and a wild animal killing people. But there’s really no way for me to keep this conversation positive.
“So yeah.” Tress stands, stuffing her phone into her jeans pocket. “Hope and pray, that’s pretty much it. Not much we can do, so I’m not going to worry about it.”
She picks out a brick, turning it in her hands. My pulse thrums; my belly turns to liquid.
“Tress . . .” I shake, my bells jingling. “Could you . . .” I’m wild, searching for something to say. Anything. “Could you get this hat out of my face?”
It’s ridiculous. And it works.
“Sure.” She comes over, gently disentangling pins from my hair. Her face is inches from mine, and I could headbutt her or bite her, but it wouldn’t buy me anything. She’d just be pissed, and I’d still be chained to a wall. I need to take a different route, try instead to remind her that we used to be friends. That once, we really loved each other.
“There you go,” she says, putting my cap back into place, pinning it neatly. The bobby pins slide across my scalp, tickling and bringing back a hundred memories of Tress braiding my hair or combing it out, me showing her how to put on mascara, and the one time we got into her mom’s dye and ruined their new bathroom tiling.
I’ve got tears in my eyes as she steps back, and Tress is upset, too, her brows drawn tightly together, her mouth a thin line as she inspects a few of my loose hairs that stuck to her fingers.
“Shit,” she says. “I forgot to put salve on Rue.”
“Rue?” I ask. “Who’s Rue?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Tress shakes the strands loose, then turns her back to me. She’s shaking. Not as much as I am, but it’s there, a small tremor running under her skin.
“Tress,” I whisper. “I don’t know what happened to your parents.”
She sighs, shoulders falling . . . and reaches for a brick.
“You’re going to want to be more careful about what you say, Felicity.”
I take a kick at her as she picks up the first brick, but she only backs out of the way, my second slipper flying off and over her shoulder.
“Quit,” she says, as calmly as she informed me about the loose panther.
“Or what?” I snap at her, all hints of a whisper gone from my voice. “You’ll hold me against my will? Brick me up in a wall because you’re a fucking insane person?”
“I can always knock you out again,” she tells me. “You’ll wake up in total darkness.”
Tress lets that sit a second, then continues. “At least if you’re awake you’ve got a chance in hell of talking me out of this.”