Chapter Two - Good Boys Don't Bite

Rowdy’s head pounds as Etienne Dubois raises his hands over his head at the front of the mess hall. All around her, the rest of the under-thirteens raise their hands too. There’s a faded flicker of anger in her chest, but it tamps itself down quickly.

She’s grateful for the herbaceous haze wrapped around her brain; without it, she knows she’d be at best seething under her breath, and at worst . . .her mind conjures a particularly bloody, shapeless image of what she’d turn Etienne into if she had the chance.

Instead, she settles into a grim smile and stares out over the top of his white head.

“Happy autumn, campers!” Etienne calls. The way his accent turns his words into whirlpools makes Rowdy almost laugh.

“Happy autumn, Camp Master!” the crowd calls back.

Rowdy remembers the first time she came to camp. Dawes Senior dropped her off, only mostly through the change and fully starving. On her way down the long driveway, she met Leena. Older than her by a few years, Leena was shorter by almost a foot and wore such a bright yellow dress, it was impossible to look directly at her. She taught Rowdy everything about camp that first night, and even though Rowdy’s head pounded with a very human headache afterward, she felt like she finally found somewhere she belonged.

Their first year at camp together was all dappled moonlight and late-night swims. The second year, Benny arrived with a soccer ball in one hand and a single pillow in the other. Her backpack—a teal, floral sort of sack held together with glitter duct tape and safety pins, had enough underwear and Sofie shorts to clothe an army.

“Let’s make it an excellent autumn!” Etienne’s nasally voice yanks her back to the present, and Rowdy hums.

The rest of them stomp and clap, and Rowdy feels like a butte jutting out of a king tide. She knows Benny’s only playing along to not draw attention to herself. Jackie’s looking around puzzled, but she’s got a hesitant smile on her face. Rowdy focuses on how dry her eyes are as she blinks through the fog.

She’s able to make it through the opening speech about the history of camp and why it’s important that they all chose to attend. In the haze, Rowdy decides she’s very happy this is the last year she’ll have to hear it. The farce of it, the pomp and circumstance, turns her stomach over with a lazy wave. She only has four weeks to do what needs to be done.

As it winds down, she starts patting herself on the back for getting through it without doing anything prematurely stupid.

“Before we end tonight,” Etienne says, silver eyes sweeping over the group. “We are missing somebody very dear to us this year.”

The high leaves Rowdy in the time it takes for her gaze to pin to Etienne. Her proverbial patting ends as quickly as it started.

There’s a murmur through the group.

Somebody sniffs. It’s Benny, but Rowdy can’t take her eyes off of Etienne. Whatever hunting instincts they’ve tried to work out of her for the last twelve years activate. Her fangs press insistently into the inside of her bottom lip. Air moves a little more freely against the back of her neck as the buzzed hairs there lift up and off her skin. The button in her head begs to be pressed.

A group of girls just in front of Rowdy all shift their perfect, shiny ponytails as they lean into one another. There’s a sweeping burn in the back of Rowdy’s throat as they embrace and it only gets stronger as one of them, Jen Rose, reaches back and pats her tiny hand against Rowdy’s knee before retreating, sucked back into the mass of bodies. Though it only lasts for half a second, Rowdy finds she can’t deny herself the warmth she feels toward those girls before her anger reignites even hotter.

Etienne waits until the tension is so dense it feels physical before speaking again. The entire time, Rowdy keeps brewing.

“Leena-Belle Broussard—our friend, sister, and a young person I saw supreme potential in—is unfortunately no longer with us. I know many of you are already aware of this, but I feel very strongly that we should think of Leena as often as we can this year and celebrate her sweet memory at every opportunity.”

Fingers gripping so hard they shake, Rowdy squeezes her hands into fists atop her knees. Her knuckles turn blinding white, and she sees red.

“Stay cool,” Benny breathes.

When Rowdy doesn’t respond or relax, Benny’s hand brushes over hers. She barely feels it.

I should have smoked more, the last of her humanity laments.

“Leena-Belle had a truly good, beautiful heart and—”

Images flood Rowdy’s mind, conjured from all the letters Leena had written her during their months between camp. She can feel the hands Leena described all over her; in her hair, across the tops of her shoulders, one wrapped around her hip. A disgusted heat turns her stomach over.

The pressure that’s been building since Etienne started speaking finally pops. Rowdy’s mouth moves like a riptide, the beast within her taking complete control.

“You shouldn’t be allowed to say her name.”

Etienne’s face becomes a mask. A small, too-sharp smile brightens his expression as he stares across the tops of everyone’s heads unblinkingly at Rowdy. The anger boils over, and Rowdy slams down on the switch inside her head the way it’s begging her to, and then it’s a torrent of wants from everyone.

Somebody wants her to be careful. Another wants to smack her if it means she’ll be quiet. Jackie is desperate for something to drink. Benny wants her to not do this so soon.

Rowdy twists her head hard and focuses solely on Etienne. Everyone else is forced out of her head as her eyes narrow, and her mind snaps around the shape of his casual posture. At once, the light dims and the noise eases.

All Etienne wants is to look understanding.

“Rowdy?” He twists her name into something unnatural.

“You don’t get to say her name.” Rowdy slowly stands. This isn’t how she planned this, but it’s already started now. All the evidence is back in her bag in Locke House. She wonders if she can run there and get back before Etienne calls in The Guard.

She twitches hard and tries to refocus, but her own desire starts to melt. Maybe I should shut up. Maybe I should sit down and be quiet and stop trying to tell everyone.

The words are less whispered-want and more screaming-demand. Her neck tightens as her head twists again, escape impossible but the pain of it is enough motivation to try. As she jerks her head the other way, she catches motion out of the corner of her eye.

Jen flicks her hair. A bruise colors the junction between her neck and shoulder berry red, and there are two perfect crescent rows of teeth marks dented into her skin. But then Rowdy blinks and it’s gone. Jen’s skin is only its usual cool copper.

Another image sets itself alight in her mind. Leena, her shirt torn open and exposing the same marks, painfully real and not imaginary ghosts, all over her chest. Sickness swells in her throat and Rowdy shake her head hard to rid herself of the vision.

But the shadowy image burns itself into her eyelids and she looks on, horrified, as Etienne gently pushes his hands into the front pockets of his trousers at the front of the mess hall. The two things are stacked on top of each other: Leena crying with her hands shaking as she tries to hold her shirt closed, and Etienne smiling like Rowdy’s a charmingly naughty child.

“It is all right, everyone. Rowdy is upset. This is fair, she was very close to Leena. We must all be understanding of her outburst.”

A stab of new intention stuns her. Somebody on her right is all but screaming inside her head. They want her to sit down. Apologize. Use the easy excuse from Etienne as an out.

She lets the intention pull her, and then Jackie’s there. An arm slides over her shoulders and she’s guided gently back to her seat. Everything is sweet tobacco and leather as her nose finds the chilly lapel of Jackie’s jacket.

“See? All is well thanks to new friends. We do all miss our Leena, of course, so please be gentle toward one another this autumn. And please know my door is always open.”