Chapter Ten - Good Boys Don't Bite

The tremble of the change hadn’t yet left seventeen-year-old Rowdy Dawes’s fingers when Dawes Sr. left her in a cloud of dust at the front gates of Camp Harcourt for the first time. Profoundly alone, Rowdy hitched her duffle bag higher over her shoulder and started the meandering walk down the main road in the direction Dawes Sr. had jabbed his thumb. Rowdy assumed if she walked far enough, a camp would spring up from between the trees and she’d be where she was supposed to be.

Breath spilled from between her open lips at the scent of something small and full of blood. Her bag didn’t have a chance to hit the ground before she caught the strap again, the neck of a dead rabbit dangling from her mouth as she wobbled to stay upright. On she walked.

“Hey— oh, fuck. That’s a bunny.”

Rowdy lurched sideways, a startled hiss forcing her to drop her first meal in so many nights. A girl probably about her own age stepped out from between two large ferns.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said. Her face, thin and pointed, seemed to be made up entirely by her round blue eyes. The same color as a summer sky. Rowdy could almost taste that color.

“You scared the shit out of me.”

“Technically, I scared the bunny out of you.”

Rowdy looked down at the drained thing and felt her cheeks burn. “Gross.”

“Not gross. But you’re gonna be thirsty again in an hour, so you should go straight to the mess hall and get a mug.”

“I don’t know what any of those words mean.”

Rowdy looked the girl over again, irked by the grotesquely yellow dress she wore.

“Yeah, you know. To get a drink? There are mugs and everything.” Her confusion sent an agitated shiver down Rowdy’s spine. The girl paused, then started again, “So, a mug is—”

“I’m not stupid, I know what a mug is. Why would I need a mug to feed?”

At once, the girl lit up. “Oh, your sire must have left it out as a surprise or something! We don’t use our teeth here. It helps, like, make it easier to not feel so bitey.”

The tight knot in Rowdy’s chest eased some. Not that she would admit it to a stranger, but the biting only happened when she went too long without feeding. Donor bags and their lack of effort always tasted safer than fresh.

Not having it in her to tell the girl the truth, she instead forced herself to be a person and not a feral animal. “I’m Rowdy,” she said as she stuck her hand out.

“I’m Leena-Belle, but everyone just calls me Leena. This is my second year, so if you need anything just let me know, okay? We can be friends, if you want.”

Her palm was oddly rough; callouses on the tips of each of her fingers scratched at the back of Rowdy’s hand. It didn’t hurt, necessarily, but she felt them long after Leena let go.

“I should probably have a friend, yeah.”

“Well, don’t get too excited. You’ll give me a big head or something.” Her laugh was deeper than she’d thought it would be, but it was nice too. Sort of like the callouses on her fingers.

“Sorry, I’m sort of dying of thirst, I think.”

“Still? Wait, when were you changed?” The girl stepped closer and Rowdy’s nose felt like it turned on for the first time. Leena smelled like she’d just slammed face first into a freshly watered bouquet of flowers.

“Uh . . .” Her mind swirled as she breathed her in. Dawes Sr. only ever smelled like dust and liquor coated metal.

Leena seemed to realize her overwhelm because she took a big step back. “I’m sorry, I’ve been told my smell is a lot.”

“Don’t say sorry. I’m just not used to being around anyone else.”

Her smile turned sad. “Yeah, most of us are that way before we start coming here. For the record, you smell really nice. Like... grass, I think. A field.”

“I smell like a field?”

“In a good way though. It’s fresh.”

She was so odd that Rowdy couldn’t help but like her a little bit. “Do you want to show me where to get that mug?”

All the prickling in her mood left her when Leena smiled. The corners of her eyes wrinkled and a single dimple in the left side of her face sunk in and then stayed for the remainder of their walk.

“—but that wasn’t until my older sibling stopped coming here. So really, it’s just been me this whole time. Some people are so lucky they get to come and their siblings are still here so they don’t have to make new friends by themselves, you know?”

She stopped short just as the camp sprang to life out from between the trees the exact way Rowdy had pictured it.

“Welcome to Harcourt Autumn,” Leena said. At the time, Rowdy had heard the tone in her voice and read it as nostalgia, a sadness that also held so much love that she couldn’t fathom her talking about a place and not a person. Later, years later, when she got to know Leena and so many stories had been traded back and forth, she knew that tone was the melancholy of a girl who wanted to run from the one place she absolutely could not run from.

“Thanks.”

Leena pointed out all the buildings to her while standing on her tiptoes. Small groups of others were forming outside of the two bunk houses, but Leena said they’d meet people later and that right now, her thirst was the most important thing for them to tackle.

“I like sitting in the boathouse between activities,” Leena said as they walked toward the mess hall. “It’s quiet there, and . . .I don’t know. I think everyone needs somewhere quiet where they can sit on their own and think about things.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t talk all that much, do you?”

“Nah.”

She gave her another smile, somehow warmer than the last. “If I’m getting annoying, you can tell me to shut up. It won’t hurt my feelings.”

“I like it,” Rowdy assured her. “And I’d never tell you to shut up.”

In the mess hall, Leena showed her where the mugs were and how to scoop from the big pot of “Welcome Juice,” as she called it.

“It’s really not bad,” Leena insisted. “But it’s usually deer or cougar or bear, depending on what the Tenders can find. You’ll meet them when you meet the director.”

“I have to meet the director?” Rowdy asked as soon as she’d gulped down her entire mug. The immediate shiver was violent as it shook itself through her shoulders, but the feeling of finally being full soothed it away.

“Oh, yeah. Ettie likes to meet all the first timers before the welcome ceremony.” Her words clipped themselves off at the end, like she was reading off a script. First-year-Rowdy didn’t think anything of it.

“Ettie?”

“Etienne du Bois. He’s who started this program, probably fifty years ago now. You know, give us babies a place to stay so no more sires or dams could be held accountable if one of us got loose at Conference and hurt a human. Or, a lot of humans.”

“Oh.”

“Wow, you really don’t know a lot yet, do you?”

Rowdy’s anger weakly tried to flare but with such a full belly, she couldn’t really commit to the feeling.

“I guess not.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you everything you need to know.”

Rowdy nodded, eyeing the single drop left in the otherwise empty mug even though her stomach protested at the idea of having more.

Rowdy was about to thank her when Leena’s head jerked up and she stood from the table.

“I was just talking about you,” Leena said, big eyes pinned over her shoulder.

Rowdy turned, and the most beautiful person she’d ever seen stepped— no, floated— into the mess hall. Looking supremely out of place, the person had impossibly white hair and skin so fair it glowed. He wore a golden linen suit, effectively justifying his place in the oil painting of Roman angels that Rowdy’s brain immediately conjured at the sight of him.

“Ah, you must be Rowdy Dawes.”

Rowdy held her hand out and did her best not to fall over herself as she scrambled to her feet. “I am, sir.”

“Etienne du Bois. I trust dearest Leena has introduced you well to camp?” He took Rowdy’s hand. The moment they touched, Rowdy had to strongest urge to kiss the back of Etienne’s hand. Confusion and discomfort made her let go just a second too soon.

“Y-Yeah. Yes. She’s been really helpful.”

“Leena is a good friend to have. She is very smart, and you’re lucky to have found her so early on,” Etienne said, kindness written all over his face. Still, Rowdy couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just done something wrong.

She took Leena’s silence to be embarrassment, but when Etienne left after wishing Rowdy a good first night, she still stayed silent.

“What’s up?” Rowdy asked.

She shook her head and gestured toward the doors. “I should introduce you to everyone in Locke house.”

Everyone from Locke house enraptured Rowdy. They’d all been waiting outside, the news of a brand-new person joining their house apparently enough for a formal welcome.

Without the stab of thirst, she could focus on each of them as Leena introduced her. She made some fuss about one of them not being present, a Tender named Frank, but nobody seemed to know where he was at. But even first-year-Rowdy caught the knowing glint in Leena’s eye.

“Whatever. You’ll meet him later, I guess. Let’s get your bunk figured out.” She led Rowdy up onto the porch, which was packed with camping chairs, towels, and a slew of shoes, and straight through the front door.

Rowdy tried to be subtle as she marveled at the open room. Bunks lined the walls, six on each side. The bottom bunks had bed side tables while the tops seemed to share a single shelf that ran the length of the room. In the middle, a red woven rug muffled the awkward sound of her stumbling. A couple of the others came in after them, but it felt like she and Leena were swallowed into their own world as they went to the back.

“Sorry, but new people usually have to sleep back here.”

“Sleep?” Rowdy went past her and tossed her bag up onto the only top bunk in the back that wasn’t already made up.

“Yeah. During the day.”

“Why do you all sleep?”

Leena shrugged. “It’s nice to let the day pass quicker.”

“Oh. All right.”

“Do you like to swim?”

Leena wasn’t looking at her when she asked, but Rowdy nodded anyway and breathed out an agreeable noise.

“I’ll show you the boat house if you want.”

“Thought that was your quiet spot to think about things.”

Leena nodded, then shrugged again. “We can share it.”

It struck Rowdy at that point how different she’d been before they’d seen Etienne. Somewhere in her chest, she felt like she wanted to disappear just thinking about it.

“Are you all right?” Rowdy asked, rubbing her palm against the spot on her chest that ached.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Just, like, unpack and stuff and then we can go.”

Rowdy finished getting mostly unpacked quickly, which involved tossing a thin blanket out over the plastic-covered mattress and then hanging her bag, clothes still inside, from the corner post of the bunk.

“You don’t have to rush on my account. There’s still five hours of moonlight.”

“I’ll do the rest later. Show me the boats.”

“You should actually make your bed all the way.” Leena trapped the knuckle of her index finger between her teeth as her gaze unfocused. Another pit opened in Rowdy’s stomach, and the same urge to disappear stabbed right through her.

“I did make my bed.”

“We’ll stop at Curie house on the way back from the lake then. You need a pillow.”

Rowdy watched Leena chew on her finger before the feeling became too strong to keep ignoring. Lightly, she swiped at her wrist. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Leena finally looked up, eyes glassy.

“I don’t know, whatever you’re doing. It’s freaking me out.”

“Freaking you out how?”

Rowdy huffed out a sigh and started toward the door. When Leena didn’t immediately join, Rowdy gestured behind her.

“Come on.”

“What am I doing that’s freaking you out?” she asked, still in the same spot when Rowdy looked back. The further she got from Leena, the less she felt like she needed to dig a hole and bury herself in it.

“Go back to your own cabin, Leena-Belle,” a boy named Devon said from the top bunk in the first row. “Unless you want somebody to tell Etienne that you’re ignoring your bunk assignment.”

That made her move. Leena was so quick she blurred, and then she was down the porch steps and half-way out of sight.

Rowdy’s chest emptied. She glanced up at Devon and then back at Leena. “Is she always like that?”

“Leena-Belle? I mean, this is the most I’ve seen her since her first year.”

“Why?”

Devon shrugged, lounging back into his bunk and crossing his ankles. He let out a low sigh and then shook his head. “Not really my thing to go around spreadin’, but I’d be careful around the camp staff. You bein’ as pretty as you are.”

Rowdy’s entire face went hot as her nose wrinkled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, Rowdy,” Leena called as the door swung and creaked. “We’re burning moonlight!”