Page 53 of The Hunting Moon
This venom really might reach her heart.
The Friday estate rises before them, backlit by stars, as Jay hauls Winnie onto the training grounds. His gait has weakened, and he isn’t jogging anymore. He must have carried her almost two miles. His arms have to be wrecked, not to mention his back muscles and thighs. Winnie is not a small human, and for all his height, Jay is not a huge one.
“Winnie,” Jay replies, “I can take you to the hospital, but then there will be questions. A lot of questions.” He pauses to suck in breath. Ahead, the Friday estate swims closer, looking more like a fairy’s castle than a haunted house. The burned tower is invisible from here, and the chipping paint glows pure and fresh. The overgrown hedges blend together into seemingly tamed rows, and all the ancient windows glisten and gleam as if magic happens within.
Winnie can almost imagine how beautiful this place was before it fell into disrepair.
“Or,” Jay continues, “I can treat you here. You have to trust me, though.”
Winnie digs her head into his neck, nodding. Her eyes loll shut. Her glasses press against her face. “Yes,” she murmurs. “I… trust you.” Jay might have hurt her and he might have too many secrets inside for her to ever draw free, but at his core, Jay will always be a Friday.
Integrity in all. Honesty to the end.
Jay carries Winnie through a back door on the estate and into a subterranean area not so different from the Wednesday clan’s Armory. Except that where the Armory also includes all the training facilities, this area is only a locker room and an old pool that hasn’t been updated since it was built in the 1920s. Right now, the pool sits empty and drained.
It looks a lot like the granite pit in the forest. Smoother, yes, and brighter… but just as stale. Just as forgotten. And perhaps too, just as filled with nightmares.
Jays steps grow shorter and more shambling by the second. Or maybe that’s Winnie’s grasp on reality. The world is spinning, and her lungs are aching in much the same way her calf first was.
Once past the pool, Jay carries Winnie into a short hall, and at the first door on the left, he shoves them both inside. He kicks the door shut behind him, briefly blanketing them in total darkness before he shifts Winnie in his arms and flips a switch with one hand. Two bulbs of three wink on in an overhead light.
Winnie’s vision wavers, but she takes in dark paneled walls and darker floors. A dinged-up but sturdy desk, a lone chair askew, its cane seat sagging.
Jay carries Winnie to a couch on the right. It is the only new piece of furniture in the room, its cushions a simple gray cotton trimmed with white—and a weirdly homey touch to a windowless room that is otherwise all haggard functionality.
Jay eases Winnie down with muscles that shake from exhaustion. Shefeels cold and bare as soon as he releases her. Pain courses through her anew, forcing her to close her eyes and once more grind her teeth against it. Jay moves quickly around the small space, gathering things Winnie can’t see because her glasses slid off her nose when he deposited her, and everything is a poorly lit blur.
Soon, Jay returns, kneeling before her and lifting her head upright. “Hey, Win.” He leans in close so she can see him.
His eyes are lambent gray.
“I need you to drink this, okay?” He holds a small vial with the cap already removed. “Just one sip. No more. Can you do that? Or should I get a dropper—we must have one here…” He turns his head as if to find one, but Winnie stops him with a hand.
“I can do it.” Shecando it, because she does not want to suffer the indignity of drinking some unknown liquid from an dropper as if she is fledgling harpy eating regurgitated human feet. “What is it?”
“Drink it first,” Jay murmurs, and his thumb lightly traces her cheek. “Then I’ll explain.”
“You better not be poisoning me.” Winnie tries for a pained smile. “I’m already… messed up enough as it is.” With Jay still holding the vial, Winnie guides his grip to her mouth until her lips hit the glass. She smells nothing, tastes nothing…
Then the liquid hits her tongue, cool and thick and strangely sweet.
One sip, she takes only one sip, then Jay withdraws the vial and she quickly swallows. The liquid slides down her throat, instantly easing a rasp she hadn’t noticed was there. Her esophagus, her chest, her stomach—she feels the liquid reach each part of her, and the cooling sensation spreads and soothes. It is amazing; like eating your favorite ice cream on a boiling hot day, if the ice cream could also erase every ache and agony inside your body.
And inside your brain.
Her thoughts calm, one by one. Each Compendium entry, each memory of Dad that won’t stay locked away, and each fear—over Mom catching her, over dying from a stupid injury she should never have gotten, over Tuesdays realizing she has communicated with her dad and arresting her family, over the Whisperer finally catching up to her and ripping her to shreds so she is one more offering for the spirit at the bottom of the Big Lake…
It all drifts away. Even that obnoxious voice that says,Clusterfuck: see Winnie Wednesdaydisappears, and all that is left is Jay’s face, urgent and near, and his hand against her cheek.
“Melusine blood,” she murmurs softly. Her eyes drift shut. A song like Jenna used to sing winds into her brain, beautiful and haunting and so familiar. She heard that song under the waterfall. Impossible, she knows, to have heard it there… and yet she did. It’s the only thing she really remembers from those crushing waves, and she wonders if maybe she has been here before. As if this has happened to her before, and now all that’s missing…
Then there it is: Jay’s arms wrap around her to keep her warm.
Winnie falls asleep.
HEMLOCK FALLS TESTING PORTAL
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10
