Page 73 of Starve
“You won’t like me for what I do, but it doesn’t matter as long as I can save you. You’re going to leave Whippoorwill Gap on your own, or I’ll make you. It won’t be difficult, given your history and what happened at Bluebone Ridge. Call me back,Fern. Help me help you. We’ll figure this out together so you can be happy. Really, truly happy.”
The message stops, but I don’t pick up my phone. I should feel enraged, terrified, or at the very least frustrated. Instead ,I’m just…disappointed. A little empty, maybe, as I run the zipper of my hoodie through my fingers.
I’m not her sister.
I’m not my mother’s fragile daughter.
And if Cairo can’t come to me, I’d much rather be with him than here, even if that puts me in danger for being human.
Chapter 29
In hindsight,I don’t know if bringing Moro and leaving my phone was the right call, but I’m not sure what other choice there was to make. My phone won’t help me up here, and Moro will. Even her emotional support is a lot more than nothing, and she probably wouldn’t have let me leave her home again.
“Please don’t get killed,” I whisper to my dog, parking in the empty lot of Bluebone Ridge. The caution tape on the gates is shredded and mostly gone now, and the place is really starting to look abandoned with weeds and debris from the woods around.
I’d been hoping for the whole drive up here that Cairo would justbehere, sitting on the steps pensively and staring up at the moon. But he isn’t. If there’s anyone here, I can’t see or hear, or otherwise sense them.
The entire place just feels…empty. For the first time in forever, it feels like Bluebone Ridge has been abandoned by any and every living thing in a ten mile radius, though I know that can’t be right.
A sense of dread settles over me as I walk up the stairs, but I don’t bother going inside. This is starting to feel stupid of me, since I have no idea where to look or where Cairo might be. Unfortunately, my Bat Signal is broken, and I’m not sure how tofix it in a timely manner. Usually, Cairo justfindsme whenever he wants, or whenever I need him to. Moro isn’t helping much, since she’s just sniffing around the stairs with mild interest and her fur raised like this place is just as appealing to her as it is to me.
“Maybe we fucked up,” I breathe, sitting down hard on the stairs. I want to cry, thanks to my mom and Dr. Radley. I need Cairo to help me figure out what to do, even though he’s not really any help with human matters.
Sometimes, I wish I didn’t have to deal with my more human problems at all. Tonight, they can’t be on my mind. Not when Cairo has been gone for closer to twenty hours than the twelve he promised.
Because he hadpromised.
Moro comes close to nudge my face, sniffing my hair like it might be holding some secret. But when she sneezes and walks away, all I can do is watch her go. Too bad she’s not trained as a search and rescue dog, I think to myself. Maybe then I could give some kind of cue for her to find his scent and run with it.
Not that I have his scent just lying around on a hairbrush or toothbrush. Even though he stayed with me, Cairo’s home was neverwithme, I realize. Not even for the past couple of weeks. His home is here, in the mountains.
Maybe this will never work after all,my brain whispers to me, only darkening my mood further. I can’t see how I could ever introduce him to my mom, though my few online friends would probably accept him way better than her, even if I told them what he is. He can’t exactly fit into normal society, since when he’s starving he’s very clearly not human.
And I can’t live up here with him.
My stomach twists around the thought, and all of those hopeful butterflies that took flight in me only yesterday allwither and die, falling to their graves somewhere near my ribs that squeeze painfully around my insides.
The sound of dragging makes me look up, as does Moro’s sudden interest in the courtyard on the other side of the stairs. “Cairo?” I ask, when Moro wags her tail instead of growling.
But the shape that appears around the stairs dragging a body isn’t Cairo, and my heart clenches painfully in my chest.
“You look disappointed,” Agatha observes, dropping the body like it’s merely an inconvenience that weighs as much as a sheet.“Sorry I’m not who you’re looking for.”Her voice comes out as Cairo’s instead of hers, and it sends an unpleasant shiver up my spine to hear it come from her lips.
“Please don’t do that,” I breathe, trying to sound polite and not like I’m making a demand, but rather a plea. “Do you know where he is? Or, I guess, what’s taking him so long? I’m not trying to be overbearing,” I add, my words coming out fast as I try to explain. “It’s just that it’s been a lot longer than twelve hours, and my day was kind of shit, and?—”
Moro growls suddenly, her fur standing on end. While she wasn’t willing to walk straight up to Agatha, this new reaction has me stunned and staring, even as she whirls away from the female cursed and looks back up at me, then past me.
Agatha is faster than Moro, and faster than I’ve ever seen Cairo move. One moment she’s in front of me and the next she’s behind me, having moved more quickly than I can see. I stumble to my feet, nearly falling down the stairs and turn to see her slam a male, naked cursed back into the doorframe, though he doesn’t have the good sense to submit to her while she holds him there.
“That’s not very nice. And you should watch what you say to me, sweetheart,” Agatha observes, unimpressed. The man tears at pieces of the doorframe, sending debris raining down the steps, but he doesn’t listen to her warning. His eyes are on me and he hisses, showing off his fangs, before Agatha rapidlyplunges her free hand into his chest, pulling a gasp from my throat and a choked-off gargle from his lips.
Blood leaks from his mouth as he looks at her, but Agatha’s hand is still inside of the bleeding cavity of his upper body. “You’ll find I’m too old to put up with bad manners. And I’m not interested in second chances.” While he watches and as a soft, desperate sound coming from between his teeth, Agatha yanks her hand outward in one smooth, quick motion, revealing her fingers wrapped around a mass of red and black.
It takes too long for me to realize she’s holding the man’sheart,and everything it was once attached to. He gurgles, blood bubbling to his lips, and both the man and I stare at the messy, gory thing she holds before she crushes it easily between her fingers, sending blood and tissue raining to the ground below. He falls a second later, and Agatha smears her hand on her dress, the fabric dark enough to not show the blood, not that she seems to mind.
“What was he doing?” I gasp, my eyes on the dead man. Dressed only in old, rotted pants, he’s not one that I would consider to be like Cairo or Agatha herself. But my hands tremble, and I don’t know whether to congratulate her or puke at the sight of what once was a living thing. “Why did you do that?”
Agatha sighs and walks toward me, stopping one stair up and reaching out to trail her still bloody fingers through my hair. “You are so young not to see what’s happening here,” she observes, and I can’t even be offended. “I can’t remember what that’s like. He was going to kill you, little bird.”
