Chapter 30

She would never know how she managed to make it back home that night without her parents ever finding out. Even considering the drive—which took her over half an hour each way—Aleda got home no more than an hour and a half after she left. She had spent more time on the road than on the hunt.

After clearing out that strip mall, they had driven back to Talia’s apartment. Ryan hadn’t said another word to her that night, and Aleda still wasn’t sure how mad he was that she had taken his kill. After that, she simply drove home to her empty house.

The light on the answering machine was blinking when she got back. She left it alone for a minute to put the backpack and all its contents back in the basement. Who would have called their house? Not her parents, surely—neither one of them had a cell phone. They might have called from a payphone, though, and Aleda would be stuck having to explain why she hadn’t answered the phone when she should have been home studying.

She punched the playback button with a certain amount of trepidation.

“Hey, Leda. It’s Nate. Just wondering where you are… I came by at 7 o’clock like I said, but nobody answered the door. I hope you’re alright. Just… um…. Call me back when you get in, okay? Bye.”

S**t, s**t, and triple s**t.

She had completely forgotten that they were going to go out that night. There was some new action flick that Nate wanted to see, and of course she’d agreed to go see it with him. She looked up at the clock. It was already after eight, and the movie was going to start at eight-twenty. There was no way she’d be able to get there in time, least of all without being able to take the car. She had made it back home once without her parents’ knowledge, but there was no way the movie would be over before they got back.

Mabye she could fake some kind of illness.

How did somebody fake an illness?

She had seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off once, but everything in that was way too elaborate and that guy had relied way too much on luck in the end. Anyway, she’d never been sick, so her parents would probably be even less likely to believe that excuse than anything else she could come up with. Not to mention Mom would just try to heal her as soon as Aleda gave her the story and flush that pretext down the toilet.

So, no deathly illnesses…

Ah-hah! Homework!

She would just say she had gotten too much homework for the weekend! It still wasn’t terribly likely—that she would care enough about homework to stand up Nate for the movies, that is—but it was better than trying to pretend she was sick. And she hadn’t answered the phone because… Because she was in the shower? At seven o’clock on a Friday night? Well, why not. She erased the message and picked the phone up. If she didn’t call Nate back soon, he would get really worried. He, at least, had a cell phone.

She got his voice mail immediately. He must have gone ahead to the movies and turned his phone off. Feeling a little bit relieved that she wouldn’t have to talk directly to him when she gave him her story, she left a quick message about the shower and the homework and hung up.

There was only one fatal flaw to her diabolical scheme: now she had to do her homework.

She really did have quite a lot. She just hadn’t been planning to do much of it.

 

 

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Aleda woke up early the next morning to an unfamiliar knocking. She ignored it for a few seconds.

Yes, it was Saturday, and knocking at the door usually went along with Saturday mornings, but the sound of Talia’s cheerful announcement was just as identifiably hers as the sound of her car a mile down the road.

This knocking was practically petulant.

…Aleda fell out of bed and stumbled down the stairs, arriving breathless at the door.

She opened it to find Ryan standing a few feet away, his hands in his pockets and looking as if he were about to walk back off the porch. Talia, and her car, were nowhere to be seen.

“Ryan?”

He looked startled.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, bewildered.

“Geez,” he muttered, “Déjà vu.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Talia couldn’t make it. She had to work a double shift at the Old Navy.”

“So you’re here, instead?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Wow,” she said, impressed. “I didn’t think you’d be back.”

He grimaced and brushed past her into the house. “Don’t make a fuss.”

She chased after him as he made his way directly to the basement. “Hey, wait up!” she called after him, to no avail. He was already down the stairs. By the time she caught up with him he had already fetched the training claws from the corner where she had dropped them earlier that week. She accepted one of the sets without a word and pulled the straps into place.

“Should I even ask if I can go change into regular clothes?” she asked crossly. She was still wearing pajama pants and a T-shirt. His eyes swept over her, and she felt the heat of a blush creeping into her face. He shook his head.

“No,” he said. Jerk. “You’ll be able to move better in that. Here, give me your other hand.”

…Oh. She held out her hand for him to strap her into the second set of wooden claws. To his credit he was perfectly gentle with her hand, despite how annoyed he obviously was with her. When he was done he stepped back and allowed her to get used to the weight again.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Now you attack me, same as always,” he replied. “Do you think you can handle it this time, or am I going to have to get you angry again?”

“You’ve already had such a good start, why stop now?” she shot back.

“What?” he demanded. “What could I have possibly done to piss you off already!?”

“I could ask you the same thing!”

They stared at each other for several seconds with matching expressions of exasperation, chests heaving as they did their best to follow that old advice of taking a deep breath and counting to ten.

Ryan’s face twitched, then broke out into most of a grin and started laughing. Aleda frowned at him.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“Look at us,” he said between chuckles. “We’re so used to fighting now we don’t even need a reason!”

Her frown vanished, leaving an amused look of realization. He was completely right—neither of them had actually done anything to annoy the other, aside from simply existing in the same room. She cracked a smile as well. “We don’t exactly get on that well, do we?”

“Not lately,” Ryan agreed with a smirk.

“I thought you were annoyed with me when you came in,” she said.

He looked at her in bafflement. “Why would I be annoyed with you?”

“Well, you usually are,” she pointed out.

“…Fair enough,” he admitted. “Not today, though.”

“So, you were just being your usual pleasant self?”

“I was not…!” He stopped himself, and tried again. “I was preoccupied.”

“…Because of me?”

“No! Just… preoccupied. Can we drop this?”

“And here we go again,” Aleda muttered.

“Look,” he growled. “I’m here to train you, so let’s train you already.”

“Okay! Okay!” Aleda put up her hands in a gesture of surrender—an interesting image with five-inch claws on each of her fingers. “Are we doing the dummy thing again?”

He considered, then shook his head. “Frankly, I think we’re past that. We’ll do defense today.”

“…If we’re doing defense, do I still need to wear these claws?”

“Yes.”

Damn it. Aleda sighed. Not that she was complaining, but they were kind of heavy. And they got itchy after a while.

 

 

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Ryan ran her through several different techniques that morning. Most of the things he showed her forced her to bend in ways that she had not even thought possible, and balance turned out to be just as important as dexterity. He didn’t even let her practice each move more than a few times before making her do it with him coming at her. Half of the time she ended up falling hard to the ground feeling extraordinarily embarrassed, and every time she did he lifted her back up and made her try it again. After two hours of exertion Aleda was exhausted, sore, and sweating heavily.

“Enough!” she cried, collapsing to the ground yet again. She waved away Ryan’s offered arm and sat on the lovely cool concrete for a few minutes, trying to regain her breath.

“Question,” she managed to pant after a few seconds. “Why is it harder to dodge you than kill you?”

“You haven’t actually killed me yet,” Ryan pointed out helpfully.

“Yes, I– …Oh, you know what I mean.”

“But you are getting pretty good at dodging,” he continued.

Aleda was slightly taken aback. That might have been the first time she had heard a straightforward compliment out of his mouth. “Er… thank you.”

Ryan joined her on the concrete. “Most of hunting is trying not to die,” he confided. He leaned back on his hands. “The kill is just the cherry on the top. Besides, if you take too long killing a demon it tends to heal back up. Better to kill it quick. If you don’t kill it the first time, you’ll get another chance. You can’t really say the same for the other way around.”

“Last Sunday, I–”

“You got lucky,” he interrupted.

“I did kill it,” Aleda reminded him.

“And it might have killed you. You got lucky.”

Aleda was getting irritated. “So, what? You’re saying I killed two demons and it was just luck!?”

“I didn’t say that. You’re lucky you’re still alive. You should have waited until I taught you how to defend yourself.”

“Yeah, well, I had planned to be attacked next weekend, but you know how those demons like to screw up plans,” she sneered.

“Walking alone in the woods at night has that effect,” he retorted. “You of all people should know full well how dangerous that is.”

“Yeah, well, you can stop worrying,” Aleda muttered.

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got a lot more training to do before I can stop worrying.”

“…Not what I meant.”

He kept looking at her, both eyebrows raised. He waited expectantly for a little elaboration. Aleda sighed.

“I’m not going to answer, anyway,” she finally confessed.

Her announcement was met with complete silence. She sneaked a glance over at Ryan to try to gauge his reaction but his face was an unreadable mask. Only burning eyes, staring fixedly at the opposite wall, belied his lack of expression. His jaw worked, and she could tell he was trying to work out what to say. Aleda fidgeted uncomfortably. He abruptly stood and walked towards the stairs.

“Wait!” Aleda called after him. She scrambled up from the floor to catch him. He didn’t stop until she caught his arm, and then he turned to regard her coldly. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“Home,” he growled through clenched teeth.

“…But… What about my training?” she asked plaintively.

“Training for what, exactly?” he ground out. “Not being a hunter?”

“Talia said–”

“Talia knows about this!?”

Aleda dropped her gaze to the floor, releasing his arm and hugging her own arms to her chest. “We had a deal,” she whispered. “If I let her train me until May… she would tell my parents for me.”

Ryan raised his hands to his head, looking as though he wanted to claw his eyes out. Instead, he pressed his fingers into his temples and took a deep breath.

“Let me get this straight.” His fingers rubbed circles in his forehead. “You haven’t wanted to be a hunter for the entire time we’ve been training you!?” he demanded. She nodded. Her eyes were still fixed on the floor. “Why?”

“Not every hunterborn has to be a hunter,” she said petulantly.

“That’s not a reason!” He paused, and his voice softened. “What are you afraid of?”

Aleda raised her eyes sharply to meet his own, his last question sending a surprised jolt through her stomach. “I don’t know!” she answered reflexively. “Dying before I’m forty, mostly!”

His eyes searched hers, all trace of anger gone. “No… That’s not it.”

She snorted. “Oh, I’m plenty afraid of dying, thank you very much!”

“Maybe,” he consented. “But that’s not why you’re doing this anymore.”

“Then, please! Enlighten me on my own thoughts!”

He looked at her in silence for a few moments. It hardly seemed fair—for as much as he could allegedly read her mind, she couldn’t even begin to know what he was thinking at that moment.

“Your parents found the sucker nest.”

Apparently they were finished with their previous conversation.

“Oh, really?” Aleda said airily. “That’s good.”

“Talia, Mike, and I are going with them tonight to clear it.”

“That’s nice.”

“You should come.”

“That’s—What!? I- I can’t!”

A wry smile flickered across his face. “I’m guessing your father already forbid you from going near there?”

Aleda rolled her eyes. “Of course he did. I’m still a child, after all.”

“Follow us to the nest.” Her eyebrows rose. “And bring that crossbow. You might need it.”