Chapter Three - Good Boys Don't Bite

The first week of camp passes in a hazy blur as Rowdy tries to keep herself contained by smoking. Every other hour, she finds herself in the boathouse with Benny or Jackie, sometimes both of them if they can all slip away without being noticed.

“This isn’t fair,” Rowdy whispers. It’s the fourth time Jackie’s sat with her and watched her cry, but she’s found crying in front of Jackie doesn’t feel that much different from being bitchy or angry in front of her.

There was only warmth and understanding when the crying happened the first time, shortly after the welcome lecture, and since then, Rowdy hasn’t stopped herself from letting it out. Jackie doesn’t seem capable of making a big deal out of anything, and for now, Rowdy appreciates that about her.

Jackie seems to consider her comment about fairness for so long that Rowdy almost pushes the switch just to have a clearer understanding of what she’s trying to get out of the conversation. Luckily, Jackie must taste her growing agitation because she rolls her shoulders and sits up a little bit straighter.

“Can you tell me yet? The reason you’re complaining about fairness?”

After another hit, Rowdy steels herself and nods. “You’d find out anyway. Practically everyone here already suspects, but they just . . .”

“I can’t finish your sentences for you if you keep holding out on me.”

Her spike of frustration makes Jackie move her shoulders again and, cruelly, Rowdy doesn’t relent right away. She forces the emotion to extend far past when it needs to.

“Leena killed herself four months ago.” Saying it out loud does something dark to her, and Rowdy starts to drum her fingers against the soft wood floor. If she wanted to, she could let her fingers dig in and break through without any effort at all. It would feel good, she thinks, to break something that doesn’t deserve to be broken.

“That sucks,” Jackie offers.

“She did it as an escape.”

All she can hear is the water lapping a few feet below them. With each beat of it against the boathouse, she swears she can smell Leena again, as if she’s close enough to touch. Rowdy pictures her drawing chalk-flowers and stars on the plastic bodies of the kayaks. Her eyes close and she hears the steady tap-slide of it.

“A lot of people see it like that, I think.”

Rowdy’s already shaking her head before Jackie can finish her sentence.

“No, not like that. It was her only way away from him.”

“I don’t—”

“Nobody expects you to get it yet because you’re still fresh, but you see how we all are to one another. The canned politeness, the quiet tension when we’re all drinking in the mess hall.”

She cracks an eye and catches Jackie’s nod. The sound of chalk on plastic and wood slips away.

“This world you’re part of now runs on our relationships with one another. If one of us goes off the rails, we all answer for it. That’s why nobody’s willing to talk about what’s happening out loud. If we acknowledge it, then everyone has consequences. And the Dubois family is one of our oldest. There’s power in that, you know?”

There’s a splash somewhere out on the lake, and Rowdy is up on her feet before she can fully think to move. The panicky overwhelm creeps fast through her, and she knows she needs to get out before she says too much or somebody overhears.

“Some other time.”

“You seriously won’t tell me?” Jackie gets between her and the door. “Look, I’m really sorry your friend is dead, but I can’t keep getting left out of the conversation. And, listen, I can guess what happened, but if you really want to be friends, then at some point, you’re gonna have to trust me with the truth here.”

Another wave of peony and white musk hits her, and Rowdy nods into the memory of it. Her chin wobbles. Everything in her shrinks.

She feels the scrape of chalk in her palm, and the heavy thump of a braid reaching down her back, one much too long to belong to her. The smell of Leena’s perfume is so strong, it’s like she’s inside Rowdy’s skin. There’s heat in her belly, skin under her skin, and Rowdy feels her there, just as physically present as Jackie.

She knows it’s not real, but the hope that fills her is so sickening in its relief that she lets herself believe.

Leena tries to use her mouth but Rowdy holds fast. It feels wrong to let Leena’s memory relive this part. Rowdy’s hand finds her shoulder and Rowdy rubs the muscle there, the same way she used to soothe Leena after long nights in Etienne’s office. Rowdy won’t stop keeping Leena safe, even if it means having to say what happened when even the breath she takes to begin to speak is seasick green.

“He took a special interest in her. Something about her being trans was . . .”

Jackie staggers, and Rowdy doesn’t need to taste emotions to know what’s forcing her backward so hard.

“Who did?” Jackie’s voice shakes.

“I think you already know.”

Confirmation can be worse than being blindsided, Rowdy decides.

Something, Leena, presses against her lungs. She bangs against Rowdy’s ribs, a monster stuck in a cage not built for her.

The inadequacy weighs down on Rowdy as Jackie’s face contorts. Inside her, Leena rages.

Miserable and unable to force Leena to stay contained, Rowdy pictures her bursting out of her chest and onto the floor, ribs flaying open like double doors. An entrance only Leena would ever appreciate. Leena stands next to Jackie, dripping with whatever bits of Rowdy she decided to take with her on her way out. She’s shorter than Jackie by four inches, her round eyes crinkled at the corners despite the gore. With her usual practiced ease, Leena reaches up and brushes something particularly stringy from her forehead.

The space she previously took up aches without her there, but Rowdy can’t bring herself to force her back in. Having her out is right, she thinks. Though offering her freedom still feels like a privilege come too late.

Rowdy realizes this is madness, this imagining of Leena in the room, living inside her, letting her out. Her mind twirls around in a circle justifying it.

This is grief, she tells herself. It’s okay to pretend if I know it’s just grief.

“But . . . if you mean . . . he’s the—” Jackie gags, and her voice cuts.

“Yeah. Do you see my dilemma now?” Rowdy takes her voice back. She watches the space beside Jackie as Leena disappears one color at a time.

Fresh tears take her place, cool and pinkish as they follow the tracks of the earlier batch.

Jackie covers her mouth and leans heavily into the nearest kayak with a plasticky fwump. Watching in real time as the horror takes over another person wasn’t what Rowdy expected; there isn’t a sick twist of victory or the heady camaraderie she felt when Leena told Benny. Now, there isn’t anybody to rally around or protect. No letters to collect or bruises to take pictures of on her crappy flip phone.

Rowdy gives Jackie as long as she needs before Jackie lets her hand fall and composes herself. “You’re sure though? There’s no question whether this is real or not?”

The strangest urge to laugh builds in her throat, but Rowdy suppresses it. Her split open chest fills with noxious offense, and despite still being almost strangers, she has a solid feeling that Jackie didn’t mean her words how they sounded.

“I’m sure. Do you really think Leena would have killed herself if she wasn’t?”

“You’re sure because she was sure,” Jackie says to herself as if Rowdy won’t be able to hear her. Suddenly agitated, Jackie rakes her narrow hands back through her curls until the top-most spirals dance around the crown of her head, lighter than the soft air that comes in off the water between the floorboards. “Okay, sure, let’s say it’s true. You said everybody already suspects it, so why hasn’t somebody done something?”

Against her better judgement, Rowdy sucks her tongue against her teeth and rolls her eyes. It wasn’t like she’d ever been accused of keeping her anger under control. “This isn’t the regular world anymore, Jackie. You can’t just call the fucking cops and have his computer searched or whatever.”

“I’m not stupid, Rowdy, I’m saying that if so many people know about it then why—”

“Because if he gets called out then everyone else he’s done this to has to relive it and come forward too, or risk having to live with the knowledge that not saying anything meant it never got addressed seriously. Which do you think feels like the safer option here?”

Rowdy’s words hang in the space between them where Leena should be. Where all the other victims and survivors silently live despite most having aged out of camp and being totally unaware of the invisible network that connects them all together. Rowdy can’t bear to wonder how many of them are still here, right now, unaware.

Jackie’s expression goes slack. “How many?”

“Isn’t knowing about one more than enough? Too many to even begin to count.” Rowdy fights off another wave of fresh tears. She wants to run away, to rampage across camp and destroy whatever gets in her way. A coil in her muscles starts to pull tight as if her body’s already given its permission, but then everything goes cold when Jackie asks:

“. . .You?”

For a second, Rowdy considers it. If it had been her instead of Leena, would things be different? Her stomach tangles itself into a mess, and she swallows hard.

“Would that change anything?”

“Well, yeah, I think it would a little bit.”

Rowdy wrinkles her nose. “So, you’d only care if it was happening right where you could see all the gory details?”

A rush of air fills the boathouse from under the floorboards. Something sweeter carries in too, but Rowdy’s mind is cycling too hard between the past and present to catch it.

Jackie hangs her head, a pretty picture of utter defeat. “No, I guess not.”

“Others have tried bringing this up in the past. Leena isn’t even the only one who’s ever . . .” She can’t bring herself to say it out loud. Not when Leena feels so alive still.

“I understand.” Jackie nods. “But what are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. Leena wanted to try to talk to people to get them to rally together. I guess we—”

Loud, clumsy footsteps up the main path make both of them jump. Jackie starts looking for somewhere to run, but Rowdy catches her hand and pulls her back.

“Shh, over here.”

She pulls her toward the back corner of the small room, and together, they squeeze between the last row of kayaks and the wall. From the corner of her eye, she sees a hand drawn flower on the wooden support for the boat rack and tries to squint away the burn in her eyes.

Leena will never really die, she thinks. The pain rips at the edges of her open wound. From clotting to bleeding again.

There’s giggling outside, and then inside as the door swings open. Immediately, the air tastes like hazy lavender. Rowdy’s hand tightens on Jackie’s wrist; she can’t tell if it’s to keep herself grounded or to stop Jackie from going for a fresh, easy meal.

“—so pretty,” somebody whispers.

Rowdy winces as the wet smack of lips echoes in time with the slosh of the lake.

“Are you sure nobody will see us?” a girl asks. Her voice, sweet and sandy, sounds like music. Her blood is humming. Without thinking, Rowdy reaches through the tight space and presses her free hand over Jackie’s mouth and nose, eyes locked on hers and finding only wide, terrified shock.

Under her fingers, Jackie tenses up. Her hip pushes sideways into Rowdy’s along with half of her weight. Her first breath through Rowdy’s fingers makes her shoulders drop and body sag. Heat that feels like a future invitation flashes across Rowdy’s skin, but she shoves it aside.

I’m supposed to be helping, she thinks tersely.

“Nobody’s ever in here,” the other, deeper voice whispers, a reminder of the task at hand.

“I don’t know, Frankie, it smells like weed—”

Rowdy rolls her eyes as the human gasps at something Frankie’s done and then moans into a kiss. Her mind flashes with images and feelings from her last almost-relationship, none of which do anything to assist.

Frankie answers with a more-animal-than-human sounding grunt, and then the girl he’s with is giggling again.

Jackie’s warm breath comes out faster across the back of Rowdy’s hand. From beneath her lips, Rowdy can feel fangs start to press more insistently, begging to be let out.

Rowdy squeezes, pulling Jackie’s eyes back to hers from where they fled.

It’s okay if you need to bite me, she mouths, using the noises coming from near the door as cover.

“My coach is gonna notice I’m not in my bunk this late.”

“I’ll run you back up the road before anyone notices.”

A new scent turns the air bright and tangy as the rough sound of a zipper sliding open fills the room. There’s no time to brace herself before Jackie bites down into Rowdy’s palm.

The sounds across the room echo. Their ruckus is exactly the same as what Rowdy keeps firmly stuck behind her own teeth. Jackie’s weight falls more heavily into her, weight Rowdy’s more than willing to catch and cling to. The shiver that goes up her spine takes her away from camp. The ache in her chest dulls as her imagined wound clots, scabs, and heals with every sweep of Jackie’s tongue over her skin.

A mostly dormant instincts ignites, and Rowdy is glad for her ample experience. It’s difficult, but not impossible, to ignore the urge to pin Jackie back to the wall and taste every part of her that she allows to be tasted. Even less difficult to remember it’s just the bite, and not real emotional connection, trying to force things along.

As soon as they’re alone again, Jackie shoves her hand away and shuffles back out to the aisle, muttering apologies over and over. Rowdy follows more slowly. Her palm is still warm, and her wrist, elbow, and shoulder numbed with lingering pleasure. The usual place of stillness in her chest shivers with the ghost of life.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Rowdy assures her. “Better me than Frankie’s girlfriend.”

“The Tender has a human girlfriend?”

“Guess so.”

“Why?” The disgust in Jackie’s voice is comical, and Rowdy doesn’t keep herself from snorting out an airy laugh from her nose.

She shrugs and tries to force the intrusive sound of kissing out of her head. She can’t even properly remember the last time she kissed anybody, let alone kissed a human. The thought makes her teeth ache.

“Some guys like the rush of it, I guess.”

“Is that even legal?”

“As long as nobody dies, anything’s legal.”

There’s a rush of wind against the reeds outside that sends Jackie lunging for the hiding spot again but Rowdy only shakes her head.

“It’s just Benny this time.”

“How can you tell?”

Rowdy nods toward the door and then Benny’s inside too, a towel over her shoulders and a pair of sunglasses on. She brings in another wave of clean air with her.

“What’s up, gay boys? Whoa, smells wild in here. What did you two get up to without me?” She wiggles her eyebrows as she glances between the two of them.

“Fuck you, Benny.” Rowdy tucks her hands into her pockets and hides her wince by tweaking her nose and then sniffing.

“I wish you would. Are we smokin’ or what?”

“I told Jackie everything.”

At once, Benny goes ashen. “Oh. I thought we were gonna wait until the second week.”

“Shit happens.”

Benny’s expression shifts but then goes blank. Her eyes dart down to Rowdy’s front pocket, but she shakes her head.

“Well, I came to round you two up for lunch. You know, since we also missed breakfast.”

Rowdy immediately curses herself; the extra forty minutes of twilight meditation had its own consequences. It wasn’t entirely her fault that there was no better way to lose track of time than to stare up at the ceiling and pretend to not be a person with thoughts and feelings and problems.

“It’s not my fault you two sleep like the dead.” Jackie’s quip numbs the prickling in Rowdy’s throat.

“You are allowed to go places without us, you know,” Benny shoots back.

“It’s you two who can’t go anywhere without me, actually. Last I checked, you’re the ones who’ve waited for me after literally everything.”

Rowdy feels her face try to heat. “It’s a habit.”

The air in the boathouse thickens. Prey-eyed, Jackie’s hair shifts against the back of her leather jacket as she glances between the two of them.

“I— I didn’t mean to—”

“I told you not to mind Rowdy when she’s being hissy.” Benny’s tone doesn’t quite reach its usual playful manner. Her voice remains an empty pang, one that resonates so deeply in Rowdy’s chest that she swears it’s a physical thing banging around inside her.

Her cheeks trying valiantly to burn, Rowdy shoves between the two of them and heads for the door. As she steps out into the waning moonlight, she barks at them to hurry up.

The walk to the mess hall is a quick one, though Rowdy does catch footprints leading around the opposite side of the lake on their way back up to the main camp.

“Did you see anybody on your way in?” she asks.

“Just one of those women from the cheer camp up the road. I figured she was meeting somebody over here,” Benny says conversationally. “You know how humans are.”

“Cheer camp?” Jackie echoes.

“Cheerleading—”

“I know what cheerleading is, Benny, thanks.”

Rowdy hums as she tracks the moon as they climb through the woods. It peaks and hides from her with every other step, the treetops biting chunks from it so she can never see the entire thing at once.

“She smelled good,” Rowdy says. “Like lavender and . . . what’s that other one humans like?”

“The ultimate human smell. Vanilla.” Benny’s voice goes soft and dreamy as she sighs.

“Mhm. Lavender and vanilla. Frank’s fucking her.”

Benny clucks her tongue against her teeth and starts stretching her arms over her head, a motion Rowdy knows is her way of getting the stress out. “Oh yeah?”

“Yep. She calls him Frankie.”

“Gross.”

The trio of footsteps fades, and Rowdy turns to find Jackie several paces behind them, her head turned toward the moon.

“We should do what Leena wanted,” she whispers. The pines and ferns carry her words along the path to Rowdy on her breath.

“Excuse me?” Benny snorts. “I will not be walking out into the sun, but if you two want—”

“Not that.” Jackie’s hiss is loud enough to echo.

“Oh, so we’re not gonna walk into the sun?”

Jackie talks over her. “We should try to talk to people about what’s going on. Maybe she was right, you know? Maybe we could get everyone to . . . I don’t know.” Her fingers wrap around her elbows as she crosses her arms.

An uncomfortable warmth flashes through Rowdy’s stomach as she considers. “I’m not good at talking to people.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to learn quick.”

Rowdy gestures for her to catch up with them. “All right, but if I get too much attention, I’m blaming you.”

They reach the mess hall just as Frank the Tender appears, windblown and pink cheeked. Rowdy immediately bristles.

“Good run around the lake, Frank?” Rowdy asks, lifting an eyebrow as the older guy scoffs at her.

“Mind your fuckin’ business, Dawes.” The nervous edge in his voice makes Rowdy’s shoulders hitch up higher. Even a few feet apart, Rowdy can smell human blood on his breath.

Benny’s quick to shoo Rowdy and Jackie ahead of her. “Everyone’s hungry, Frankie, it’s fine. No judgment here.”

“What did you just call me?”

They scamper as the obvious evidence of crime on Frank’s face deepens.

The hall is already half full, but Rowdy’s quick to find three seats open next to Justice and Muse. The twins don’t even look up as they say in unison, “We saved you a seat.”

“Thanks.”

“How was the lake?” Justice asks.

“Cozy in the boathouse?” Muse adds.

Rowdy waves them off as she and the others sit and wait to be called up to the kitchen. She meets Jackie’s eyes across the table and nods toward the front of the room where Frank and Tami Newton, the other Tender, are watching one of Curie tables like a frenzy might break out.

“You met both of them already, right?”

“Yeah, on my first night. Why?”

Rowdy leans in closer and barely makes enough sound for Jackie to hear her over the din. “They’re close with you-know-who. Trust them as much as you’d trust your old teeth.”

“Got it.”

As they start to part, Rowdy feels attention on them. After meeting Jackie’s eyes seriously, Rowdy softens and brushes some imaginary fuzz from here face. “Such a baby coming to lunch with your face messy.”

It seems like every bit of blood that’s left in Jackie rushes to her cheeks, and Rowdy bites back a grin.

Still got it.

“Oh, uh, yeah, thanks.”

“Enough flirting,” Benny barks. It’s good timing because Frankie flies by the table and smacks his hand on the edge, signaling them to go cup up.

On the way to the kitchen, they grab from the collection of mismatched, chipped mugs. Rowdy holds her hand out automatically to keep the swinging double doors from hitting her or Benny as they walk in together with Jackie just ahead of them.They line up behind the big, black line in the tile that runs horizontal across the commercial kitchen floor. The appliances around the perimeter of the room are a mass of silver nothings to Rowdy, not interesting enough to inspect beyond the original glance she gave them her first year. Beyond the line is much more so: a lazily steaming vat of mouthwatering lunch. About fifty gallons, all for them. She wonders greedily if there will be leftovers this run.

One at a time, they hold their breath as they approach the vat, ladle out a mugful, and then dart back out to the hall before letting their air out.

The release of tension as she lets her muscles go makes Rowdy’s head rush. The world is all stinging air as she lounges over the line, fills up, and then arrives back at the table. Her hair flutters and settles against her shoulders just as she goes in for her first sip.

“If they’d just promote another Tender, we wouldn’t have to hold our breath,” Benny laments as she slumps down on Rowdy’s other side. Their arms knock together and Rowdy has to stop short, blood sloshing dangerously close to the edge of her mug as she adjusts to keep it from spilling over.

Deer. The earthiness a pretty solid giveaway. Then again, it could be elk, but she isn’t sure she really cares. Animal blood only needs to be tolerable for the month of October.

She decides now is as good a time as any and takes a long gulp before she leans backward into the valley between her seat and the table behind her. A couple of girls from Curie Cabin put a gap between them for her to stick her head into.

“Hey.”

“Hi, Rowdy,” Denise Courting says curtly. “What’s up?”

“You all heard about Leena?”

Denise sniffs and clears her throat. “Obviously.”

“The real reason, though?”

A mug slams down and the gap closes. Rowdy barely leans back in time to not get her head squished between shoulders and upper arms as the ranks snap back closed.

She shakes off the failure with a roll of her shoulders and sets her sights on the table on Benny’s other side, but the people there are already looking at her, expressions closed and shrewd as they make a big show of turning their backs on her.

The table she looks at next is occupied by the guys from Locke House who haven’t so much as said hello to her this year, don’t even look up.

Her stomach turns to ice as she slumps to face forward again just as the twins take their seat in front of her.

“Don’t sweat it,” Benny whispers as she pushes Rowdy’s mug back toward her. “People will come around. I did.”

“Sweet but not helpful,” Rowdy whispers back. She pushes the mug away once Benny’s hand moves out of her way and shudders. The thought of taking anything more in sends her gagging.

With one empty seat left at their table, Rowdy cranes her neck to look for Jackie. The second Rowdy spots her reemerging from the kitchen, her body relaxes some. Jackie’s delicate walking is charming, eyes locked on her mug as she balances every step.

“She’s like a baby deer,” Benny snickers.

There’s a soft crack as Rowdy’s knee connects with Benny’s under the table. “Be nice.”

“What? I’m not being a bitch, I’m just saying. She’s cute. And I know you know she’s cute. Because she’s literally your type.”

The twins swivel their big, milky eyes around and Rowdy scowls.

“My only type is A-negative. Maybe if this place actually cared about any of us, they’d hunt better donors,” Rowdy grumbles, eyes locked on the careful path Jackie takes back to their table.

“I don’t know,” Jackie says as she sits and then sips with a shiver. “I kind of wish I could just have a cheeseburger.”

Their entire table groans.

“Honey, don’t bring up burgers right now,” Benny says.

“Seriously, that’s fucked up.” Rowdy shudders toward her neglected cup and tries not to gag again at the thought of picking it up. She pretends it’s a bacon cheeseburger with extra pickles and ketchup, attention firmly tacked to Jackie instead.

“Sorry, I’m just saying.”

“You’re allowed one cardinal sin per day during your first year,” Benny reassures her. “But seriously. No regular food talk when we’re stuck with deer.”

“Could be elk,” Rowdy adds as she reaches up to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand.

Justice and Muse snort at the same time. A darkness twists deep in Rowdy’s belly as she glances up at them.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Justice says.

“Just not exactly fresh or human, is it?” Muse adds.

“Not that we’ve ever—”

“We wouldn’t exactly know—”

The way they both break off makes Rowdy wrinkle her nose. “You two are something else.”

“You don’t sound very convincing when you say it like that,” Jackie adds.

The twins look at each other, their thin sheets of silvery hair floating around their heads as if moving through water. They make a face, brows furrowed and mouths set, before turning their cloudy, pale eyes onto Jackie.

“Do you feel lucky, Jackie Luck?” they ask in unison.

She puffs her chest up and glares back. “Luckier than two girls who taste like they’re so pleased they’re getting away with something they really shouldn’t.”

The twins give her a strained, mirror smile and tilt their heads. “Bad luck follows Rowdy everywhere, you know?”

“Will you two fuck off?” Rowdy flicks her empty mug at them. The darkness in her stomach starts creeping though, and she gestures back toward the door. “Come on, these two will probably try to eat us if we stay too much longer.”

The twins lift their fingers and waggle them side to side. Together, they say, “You’re too bitter for us, Rowdy.”

“Besides,” Rowdy continues. “Everyone in here is a fucking coward. We’re not gonna make any headway trying to get them to talk about Leena like this. We need a better plan.”

Jackie hums as she sips. “You’re being too sensitive. It’s just too public in here.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“I’m saying that we should go schmoke some more schweed and then skip socials to lay out on the dock,” Benny mutters into her mug.

“Ignore her,” Jackie says with a bright, stained smile. “We can do this. We just need to be tactful.”