Chapter Five - Good Boys Don't Bite

Going to the lake is Benny’s idea instead of attending the early evening activity. Somewhere in between being awake and asleep, Rowdy allows herself to be talked into it, and then Jackie is there too, her dark eyes wide and hopeful. By the time they grab towels and head out to the trail, Rowdy’s stomach is hanging out somewhere lower than where her feet keep sliding in the wet mulch.

None of them talk on the way. Benny leads the way, her ponytail bouncing proudly in the last flicker of sunset. Jackie yawns every few seconds. Rowdy trails behind them both with her hands fisted in the ends of her towel and her head lolling as she tries to blink sleep from her eyes.

As they come around the final curve in the path, a sickeningly sweet scent shoots through her nose and eyes.

“What the fuck—” Benny’s words are half contorted as she shoves her hand up over her mouth and nose. There’s a rustling as Jackie presses her towel over the lower half of her face and makes a gagging sound.

“What is that?” Jackie asks as they slow to a stop just past the tree line where the water licks the rocks and the smell is somehow even stronger.

Even though Rowdy Dawes has been a vampire for twelve years, this is the first time she’s ever seen a dead human body.

At first, she can’t really tell that the lump of bloated stuff and what looks like matted, wine-stained yarn is a person. But then, she catches sight of a hand. The back of it is bruised badly, the fingers are all splayed out at odd, inappropriate angles. The sunlight catches the glimmer of pink glitter polish on the ripped and torn fingernails.

The yarn reoriented itself into thick hair the color of bluebell flowers.

Though the bloating obscures most of her, the mass slowly starts to make sense the longer Rowdy stares at it. The curve of the woman’s back echoes the round side of the moon.

Rowdy rubs her thumb against her own fingernails. The water kisses her ankles. Their first race to the middle of the lake without Leena felt wrong on the way through the woods; now Rowdy knows why.

“Rowdy,” Benny says her name as if it’s a secret. “Why is she wearing your shirt?”

“That’s not—” Rowdy starts to argue then freezes. Benny’s right, and the realization washes down over her like a bucket of ice. Her vintage cartoon shirt, cut short into a crop top two autumns before, is clearly not where she left it in the bottom of her bag on top of—

“Oh my fucking god.”

Benny and Jackie can’t catch her before her knees slam into the sand. The air thins and her stomach tightens so hard that she starts dry heaving.

“Her letters,” she chokes. Spit drips thickly down into the water over her chin. “It was on top of her letters.”

Benny’s scent melts a little further into the night, and she aches for the comfort of having her closer. At the same time, Rowdy understands. If it was reversed, she’d be furious too.

“You left them in your bag?”

Her nod turns the lake up over itself. Sharp, toothy guilt chews at her.

“What letters?” Jackie reminds them that she’s there too.

“Leena’s.”

Rowdy can’t tell if she speaks first or if it’s Benny. Their voices blend together but their shame is the exact same.

It’s over, Rowdy thinks. She failed her.

“Letters about what?”

“Oh my god, Jackie, I need you to use your brain, please. Leena wrote Rowdy and me letters all this past summer before she killed herself documenting everything Etienne did to her.”

Benny’s voice, usually even and quipping up at the ends like she can’t help but smile as she talks, shakes with rage.

Just before the burst of force jolts off of Benny’s body, Rowdy manages to yank Jackie down into the water with her. The invisible wave goes right over them, strong enough to force Rowdy’s hair back and her shirt to ripple over her back.

“Benedetta, breathe.” Rowdy forces herself up, glad for the distraction.

“Fuck you, Rowdy. You were supposed to protect them and they’re probably gone now.”

“I was supposed to protect her too, and look at how good I was at that.”

Another push of force radiates off of Benny but it’s not even half as strong as the first. Rowdy hangs her head and lets it roll through her chest. If Benny loses control and actually hurts her, she won’t hold it against her. A sick part of her giggles at the thought of having a physical release for all of the shame and guilt pressurizing itself inside of her.

The next thing that hits her is Benny, then her lanky arms slamming around Rowdy’s back.

“You tried. Neither of us would have been able to stop her, babe.”

For the first time since Leena’s dame notified Dawes Sr. about finding Leena’s body, Rowdy lets herself fall apart. Benny’s the only thing keeping her standing until Jackie ducks under the cage of their elbows and sets her forehead against the two of them.

A sickening lurch churns in Rowdy’s stomach as the wind changes direction.

“We gotta start screaming or something,” she says with a gulp. “A dead girl’s in my shirt.”

“Dead human girl,” Benny adds miserably.

They slowly untangle from one another and turn back toward the body in the water. It hasn’t really moved, though a chunk of her hair floats just a ways off now.

“Who d’you think she is?” Jackie asks.

“God only knows,” Rowdy replies automatically. She can feel her eyes glazing over and her emotions taking a healthy step back from the surface of her mind. Something about the smell that’s woven into the rot is familiar, but she can’t place it.

The conversation dies as they look at the corpse. Her cause of death seems almost too obvious; there’s a deeply purple wound on the side of her neck marred further by two perfect rows of teeth marks. A messy, fresh-blood-style kill.

Rowdy’s the first to turn away. “I can go get a Tender or somebody.”

“Frankie will just get Et, anyway. We’re better off screaming—” Benny stops short.

They don’t need to scream. Rowdy goes completely still as multiple footsteps glide closer from up the path. Her breath freezes. Every inch of her skin starts to vibrate as her body tries to decide whether or not to run.

“Too late,” she whispers.

At once, Benny grabs onto her. “Don’t look,” she says too loud. “Jackie, get away from it, come here.”

Benny’s all old lady authority as she forces both of them into her arms, their faces crushed together on either side of her neck.

“Help!” Benny shouts. “Help us! Somebody’s hurt!”

The noise finally reaches the shore, and then a girl screams. Rowdy’s mind immediately forces itself into the space that the last night of camp the year before occupies.

Leena was crying, her body torn from his teeth and Rowdy couldn’t bear to think what else. Etienne had her in his office for hours before letting her go back to Locke House, back to where Rowdy and Benny held her between their laps and cleaned her up before the rest of the house came back from the final mixer of the season.

By the end of their work, Leena was barely awake. Her head rested in Benny’s hands while Rowdy set her shaky legs over her thigh. She wore a combination of their clothes. The outfit she’d been wearing before got tossed up on Rowdy’s bunk so she didn’t have to see it anymore. It would be another thing Rowdy washed out in the lake once Leena was tucked in.

“He likes when I get hot,” she whispered, feverish and weak.

“Shh,” Benny cooed to her as she stroked Leena’s hair off of her forehead.

The steady rush of her whispered comfort twisted as the wind picks up on the shore of the lake. There’s crying and voices, but Rowdy can’t hear them properly. Leena’s voice echoes in her head on a loop, telling her that Etienne likes when she gets hot, showers her with praise when she stays still and doesn’t fight him, and tells her she’s a good boy when she doesn’t try to bite him back.

Rowdy’s eyes glaze over, and she sinks further into Benny’s embrace.

“Easy,” Benny tells her. “Here comes Et.”