Chapter One - Good Boys Don't Bite

As her sire speeds off in a cloud of fine, brown dust, Rowdy can’t help but feel a pang of loss. Not that Dawes Sr. is ever good company, but he’s home. At least, Rowdy can’t shake the forced bond that makes her feel like he is.

Just like that, Harcourt Autumn steals her away from the city, caging her and the others for the month of October. Bitterness almost consumes her. Just as it starts to pull her under, the whooping cry of greeting that she’s grown to expect every year yanks her right back out of the spiral.

“O’ Captain, my captain!”

“Our fearful trip is . . . not yet done.” Her answer turns to powdery ash in her throat.

Rowdy holds her fist out, and Benny is quick to connect their knuckles just a little too hard. Grinning with all their teeth, the girls slide their hands together in a complicated handshake.

Taller than Rowdy by several inches, Benny’s bark-colored ponytail whips around her shoulder and whacks Rowdy’s neck as they finish their customary greeting.

“Old man Dawes didn’t stay to say anything to Etienne, did he?” Benny prompts. Her olive eyes search Rowdy’s face for the answer, a habit that normally would have made Rowdy huff out a sigh and roll her shoulders. Instead, her words take precedent over the action, and Rowdy goes cold as she gulps. The memory of Leena’s last letter swims up and bobs in the back in her throat.

“Nah, guess not.”

“Did you get anything to drink—”

Another car pulls up, the frame creaking as it slows to a stop just in front of them. Rowdy can tell right away as the girl gets out of the backseat that she’s their age, but not their age.

“Be safe!” the driver calls over their shoulder. A guy obviously a little older than them, but still not older.

Curly, dark hair, a narrow jaw, and wide, green eyes are all Rowdy sees as she takes in the newcomer.

“Bye, Kel.” The fresh blood has a smoky voice too. She straightens as she taps the door shut, then glances over to Rowdy and Benny with a quick, nervous sort of roll of her eyes. A small firework explodes behind Rowdy’s ribs as their eyes meet and then part just as quickly.

Leather and sweet tobacco linger in the fresh air as the stranger goes immediately for the office. Under the bright light of the first full moon of the month, Rowdy knows if this was any other autumn, she’d fall in love a little bit.

“You know her or something?” Benny asks.

Rowdy watches the new girl disappear inside, a shiver running through her as the office door swings shut.

“No, but I don’t have time for whatever that was.”

Another memory of Leena flits through her stomach, butterflies on fire, and she shakes herself. New faces could be a welcome distraction, but she holds herself back from feeling any excitement. Leena deserves better, and she knows it.

Benny sighs, her lanky body shuddering as she angles toward the main path into camp. “Guess we should go talk somewhere private, right?”

Rowdy nods and hikes her army duffle up higher over her shoulder. She and Benny begin their walk of shame between the clusters of the other under-thirteeners.

There’s no usual call of greeting from the others.

The news about Leena must have spread pretty quick, Rowdy thinks.

It’s like she and Benny are half invisible because she still sees the recognition flicker in expressions as their combined scent alerts the others. It’s incomplete this year, though—a rained-on meadow without any of the flowers.

Leena’s absence continues to creep as they close in on Locke House. The front door is thrown open and the wide porch is already lined with camping chairs piled high with towels, blankets, and extra pairs of shoes. How many times had Leena run ahead and shoved three chairs together so they could claim their territory? Rowdy twitches her head to force the memory out, sending a few locks of her hair flying in the process. The buzzed part of her scalp itches as the breeze picks up, though it’s quick to prickle from the chill.

As they climb the front steps, Benny catches Rowdy by the hand and tugs her along with more vigor. She didn’t even notice she slowed, her eyes locked on the chairs and towels, still searching for the ungodly bright yellow that always marked Leena’s things despite Rowdy’s best attempts to stop. The color yellow was her sun without the burn, she always said. Now that Rowdy’s eyes feel like they’re in danger of catching, she debates whether the burn really was absent or if Leena was just always stronger.

“Worried I won’t make it in?” she asks, her voice catching on the sharp edges building up in her throat.

“Your stuff just looks extra heavy. I’m helping.”

“Right.”

Both of them stop short at the door though. Benny stops tugging, and it’s like neither of their feet can cross the threshold without Leena skipping in ahead of them first.

Inside, all the usual front and middle bunks are already occupied save for the three in the corner. Somebody’s already put up the UV-blocking curtains with thumbtacks.

With a sigh, Benny drops her hand and leaves her there as she goes to their bunks. She’s already unpacked, and she gestures with her shoulder toward the bunk above hers.

“Come on, Rowdy.”

A few heads lift as she finally crosses the threshold. Justice and Muse lean down from the top bunk opposite hers and Benny’s. Their identical sheets of fine, cornsilk hair rushes like water over their bare shoulders. Four milky, periwinkle eyes pin themselves to Rowdy and she suppresses a shudder.

“You came back,” Muse says.

“Everybody was saying you wouldn’t,” Justice adds.

Rowdy tosses her bag and starts to unpack. She doesn’t bother answering the twins until her books are tidy on the shelf and her bed is made up. The familiar smell of home quickly airs out as the pine cabin wipes it away.

“None of us have any other choice, do we?” She fixes them with a hard look and gets a little taller as Benny stands up next to her.

“How was your train ride down?” Benny asks. “Heard you two might get pulled out early for an investigation by the Guard.”

Justice and Muse close their mouths so quickly the sharp clack of their teeth is audible. The two of them share a look then say something about going to the mess haul for a drink. There are a few playful hisses from the other girls as the two of them dart outside, but Rowdy doesn’t let her guard down until their shiny blonde heads disappear into the trees.

“What’d they do to piss of the Guard?” Rowdy asks.

Benny makes a flippant noise in her throat as she drops a thickly rolled pair of socks. “Stupid kid stuff. You’d think they were one and not eight.”

“They didn’t go after somebody on the train, did they?”

“Bingo.”

Rowdy starts to ask Benny for more of the story when leather and sweet tobacco flood the cabin.

The fresh blood stands half in and half out, eyes still aglow from the big change and cheeks still pink. A sickening thought warps its way through Rowdy’s head but she pushes it off.

We don’t bite new turns, she chastises herself.

“Hey,” Benny calls as she lifts her hand.

“Don’t—”

“Only free bunk is back here.”

Rowdy hisses out her frustration under her breath and turns so she doesn’t have to look at the new girl again, especially not as she crosses the wide cabin and drops her bag onto Leena’s bunk. Even the sound of her skirt swishing is enough to set Rowdy’s teeth on edge.

“Don’t mind Rowdy, she’s always a little hissy on the first night.”

The new girl hums but doesn’t say anything. Rowdy glances out of the corner of her eye and finds green waiting for her.

“S’it all right if I bunk here?”

“Do whatever you want. Free country.”

There’s a hint of a smile on the girl’s face but it doesn’t ease Rowdy’s urge to snarl and bark that she should sleep on the floor instead of in Leena’s bed. Even if the line she’s crossing is invisible to her, Rowdy can’t help but feel like she should somehow already know, like somebody had to have told her before she even got to Camp Harcourt.

“If you’re hungry, queen, just go eat. That Etienne guy said that the blood’s—”Rowdy lets the snarl free, the release of it vibrating through her teeth as the cool air hits the inside of her mouth.

There’s a hard pressure in the middle of her arm, and it takes her almost a full second to recognize Benny’s hand.

“Chill out,” Benny says.

The new girl is flat against the bed post when Rowdy calms down enough to look at her again. Her whole face is pulled taut and still. The sound of her rubbing her tongue against the roof of her mouth gives Rowdy sudden pause.

“What’re you doing?”

The new girl only stares, the tension radiating out of her.

“With your mouth.”

Rowdy and Benny catch each other’s eyes but it’s not quite relaxed enough for them to make any kind of innuendos yet.

“O-Oh. I think I can . . . sort of . . .”

“What?”

“It sounds really stupid.”

Something lighter twists in Rowdy’s stomach. There are no delicate, butterfly wings set ablaze that turn her guts to lava this time. The girl’s fingers find a strand of hair that’s come loose from the disaster of her braid and start tugging.

“Try me.”

The new girl hesitates. She looks between Rowdy and Benny and then glances even more nervously out at the rest of the under-thirteeners in the cabin.

“We’re all either about to or are fully aging out in here, so we’ve seen some shit. You won’t take anyone by surprise,” Benny says with a wise sort of nod that makes Rowdy want to reach over and pinch her waist.

“I think I can taste emotions sometimes.”

Somebody across the room snorts, but Rowdy ignores them. “Why would that sound stupid?”

“Keller said vamps don’t get abilities if they don’t come from old bloodlines, especially not this early into the turn.”

Rowdy narrows her eyes and looks over the new girl a little more thoroughly. She flicks the switch in her mind on, and the girl’s mental fortress crumbles apart.

Rowdy’s mind floods. So many intentions flow through her and none of them her own. Friendship, connection, the dark sting of thirst. She’s glad for Benny’s grounding touch because the enthusiastic rush of the desires goes right to her knees.

“Well, Keller is wrong. All of us end up with shit we gotta sort through.”

Rowdy’s jaw aches as the thirst starts to pile on top of her own. The color in the new girl’s cheeks shines brighter than it did before. Stomach curling with delight, Rowdy breathes in the sweetness of humanity that still clings to her.

“You callin’ my brother a liar?”

“Misinformed.”

Just as the urge starts to peak, Rowdy shut her eyes and forces the switch off again. She breathes through the intense ripping sensation it causes to shut down. But as her brain goes dark again, the relief is instant.

“Your brother is your sire, then?” she tries again. Benny must decide she’s stable enough because her hand disappears.

“Uh, yeah. Kel just got turned two years ago.”

Rowdy sucks on her teeth as her eyebrow creeps up. “And he’s not here because?”

“The one who turned him got, uh . . . What do you call it?”

“Blitzed?” Benny adds helpfully.

The new girl snaps her fingers. “Yeah, I guess that. Keller got called up to go to the big event in his place. Head of household stuff and all that.”

Rowdy narrows her eyes as another, lighter wave of discomfort tugs at her mind. She considers dropping it, but her mouth keeps going as if it’s got its own agenda.

“He doesn’t care about turning laws, then?”

Benny starts to argue but Rowdy purses her lips. The new girl keeps looking between them, her eyes skipping over the small gap. Rowdy pictures Leena, her round eyes crinkled in the corners the way they always did when she laughed. For the first few years of camp, it hadn’t taken much to send her into a snorting fit of laughter. Locke House is too quiet without her.

“Siblings can’t change each other?”

Rowdy shakes her head, too exhausted from feeling every want in the cabin to explain further. “Don’t worry about it. Nobody enforces anything anymore.”

The bitterness must resonate because the new girl suddenly straightens up and holds her hand out.

“I’m Jacqueline Luck. Just Jackie is good though.”

“Rowdy. This is Benny.” And Leena’s here somewhere too, but don’t try to look for her.

Jackie nods and slowly draws her hand back when Rowdy doesn’t move to shake it. “It’s really okay if I bunk here? I can tell Et—”

“Don’t say that name in here,” Rowdy chews the words out and stares Jackie down until she looks away first.

“Uh, all right. I guess I don’t really know what’s cool and what isn’t yet.”

“Ignore her,” Benny says more forcefully. “We’re all just a little grumpy from traveling.”

“Right.”

Rowdy twitches and then reaches for her bag again. “Truce. I have weed, and we should go somewhere else for a while. Before the welcome ceremony.” She keeps her voice low enough that only Benny and Jackie can hear her over the night bugs outside and the racket starting up as more of the usuals arrive. There are hooting welcomes and squealing girls and it gives them the perfect cover.

“Oh, fuck yeah.” Benny claps her hands together hard enough that Jackie jumps. “That’s what I’m talking about, Dawes, you were holding out on me!”

“Yeah, well . . .” She doesn’t know how to say out loud that Leena would have slapped her silly if she knew. Then again, Leena probably wouldn’t hold it against her too harshly all things considered. A little flame of anger starts to burn in her belly, but she snuffs it.

What she did wasn’t entirely her fault, she tells herself. Any one of them would have done the same.

The three of them creep around the side of Locke House toward Curie Cabin to the east. Just beyond where the warm light stops, they put themselves on a narrow dirt path that winds between reaching ferns and sweeping pines. They stomp across pads of pine needles until they reach the boathouse.

“Nobody comes in here first night,” Rowdy says as she pushes the door open. The smell of lake water and plastic coat the inside of her nose, and she breathes it down as far as her body will take it.

They huddle in close between two rows of kayaks on the furthest side of the W-shaped room. Water laps heartily against the support beams, a sound that usually makes Rowdy giddy with the anticipation. All she can feel as her knee bumps Benny’s is Leena’s incredibly loud absence. Jackie doesn’t fill any of the grooves Leena did, and the realization makes Rowdy’s throat try to close itself up.

“What is that?” Jackie asks as her head whips up from the dime bag she’s holding as Benny inspects.

“What’s what?” Rowdy tries to be casual, but she knows she won’t be able to talk her way out of eventually admitting everything to Jackie, not when she seems to not have any control of her sense of taste.

There’s a moment of strange tension before it eases again as Benny flicks a lighter and starts smoking. Rowdy hadn’t even realized she’d rolled the joint in the first place.

“Holy shit, Dawes, where did you find this stuff?” she asks as smoke billows out from between her cherry lips. Rowdy imagines it curling around an invisible face, making their missing piece visible again.

“I don’t know where the old man gets it,” she admits. “It’s not like he’ll even notice it’s gone though.”

Benny passes the joint over and Rowdy pulls in a breath, lingers in the burn, then lets it out. She passes to Jackie and watches, eyes narrowed again.

To her surprise, Jackie takes a decently sized hit and then passes back to Benny, as if this isn’t the first time they’ve all done this together. They keep going around and around in silence, Jackie’s question unanswered because Rowdy wants to gauge how much discomfort she can take before she tries to dig again. When no digging comes, Rowdy gives in.

“It’s Leena,” Rowdy says after they’re through the first joint and are flipping curiously through the magazines she stole out of her sire’s home office.

Benny’s knee knocks hard into hers, but it doesn’t hurt. Her body is humming from the joint, and it hums louder when she says Leena’s name out loud. It almost feels like she’s there again, just out of sight. She closes her eyes and can almost smell her: peony and white musk. A perfume she picked out on a trip to Paris with— Rowdy’s high sours at the thought of one of the many trips Leena had been forced to go on.

“The sadness?” Jackie asks. She doesn’t look up from the magazine in her lap. A topless model with long, red hair flowing down her back stares back at the three of them from the back of a motorcycle, her lips pouted and slightly open.

Rowdy’s own mouth twitches. “Yup.”

“She’s a good friend of ours,” Benny says quietly. “Or was. Was a good friend of ours.”

“She still is,” Rowdy’s voice gets small. She feels herself get small too.

“What happened to her?”

Rowdy shakes her head. She leans back against a kayak and folds her arms tight over her chest. A tear makes a run for it down her cheek.

“Does it matter? She’s gone, we’re here. That’s it.” She’s grateful that she maintains control of her voice even if her eyes have decided to be feral.

“But you’re getting angry.”

Rowdy rolls her eyes. “There are worse things to be than angry.”

“Like?” Jackie presses.

“Drop it,” Benny says quietly. She bumps her shoulder into Rowdy’s and then nods toward Jackie when she meets her eyes. “We’re all going to be late for the welcome.”

The world spins a little faster, and then Benny’s pushing herself up to her feet and brushing dirt off her ass. Her light blue Sofie shorts remain speckled with dirt even after all her patting and swiping.

She holds out her hand, and Rowdy takes it without arguing. She gets up too, makes an effort to brush herself off, and then she offers her hand to Jackie.

“You don’t know me too well yet, so I’m gonna apologize just this one time, all right?”

“Uh, okay?”

“I’m very sorry I’m about to get belligerently high so I can sit through what’s about to happen without killing anybody.”

Neither Benny nor Jackie make any fuss as Rowdy smokes until she can barely keep her eyes open.