Page 3 of The Reveal
“I would never say something like that to my own daughter.” She huffs at me. “I raised you better than to tell such lies, Lilianne.”
I lean over and kiss her on her soft, wrinkly cheek. I stack her books and those battered, spooky old cards on the table beside her. I don’t tell her I’m not my mother.
“Besides,” Gran says in that dark, knowing way she does sometimes, “you never had the gift. It would be cruel to taunt you.”
Sometimes my grandmother creeps me out more than the monsters roaming the valley—and the world—but I try not to let that get to me. Just like I try not to think about all that weird shit she had in her craft room. Knobby old roots and alarming figurines that looked a little too much like the shapes and symbols on her cards, no thank you.
“It’s light out,” I mutter. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Blow the horn if you need help.”
I give her the usual song and dance as I place the air horn on the table, within reach. I don’t know if she’ll remember to blow it. I don’t know if the neighbors will come running the way they claimed they would. I don’t even know if the Petersons made it through the night last night, or over the past week, because I haven’t actually seen them in a while.
But when everything is uncertain, it’s like nothing is. I act like what I want to be true is a fact. Because what else can you do?
Then I slip outside, making sure all the bolts and gates are shut tight behind me. I keep my weapons primed and ready as I head for my truck, scanning the yard for any incoming threats. I also look at the three cottages tucked into the edges of the woods, all of them “rustic,” certainly, but a lot nicer than they used to be. Not something that can be said about much else these days.
I don’t exactly hold my breath, but I don’t really exhale fully until I’m in the driver’s seat, the engine’s running, and everything’s locked. Better yet, until nothing blocks my exit out of our drive and onto the road that leads into town.
I used to love this drive. It winds through the woods, cutting its way down a neighborhood tucked into a hillside, into the main part of Jacksonville. Jacksonville itself is a perfectly preserved Western townthat looks like Old West cowboys should come swaggering out through the doors of the old saloon, though these days, if they did, you’d have to accept that they were vampires. Growing up, it was filled with cute boutiques, festivals, restaurants, and a trolley that took tourists into the Applegate Valley wine country outside town.
But now the Applegate is overrun with monsters. Vampires feasted on the big megachurch out that way, gobbling up most of the parishioners one bloody Sunday. No one knows what happened to the wineries. I’ve heard rumors that there are human settlements way out by the lakes, where the California border lies and the gulches are easier to defend, but no one knows that for sure.
Jacksonville fared better. It was designated the only human-safe space in the valley about eighteen months ago by the powers that be in this valley, most of them monsters. Supposedly, we can walk around free of fear and don’t have to worry about getting eaten. Or being dragged off to be someone’s plaything in sick games I’d rather not think about too closely.
At first, no one believed we could ever be safe. Then we all got a little too comfortable with it. Every now and then, there’s a monster who forgets the rules, and we all get vigilant again for a few days. The truth is, life is much shorter and more brutal than it used to be. We always come back out in the open.
This morning there are already people walking around, basking in the illusion of all that safety.
I slow the truck when I hit the main street, because I see Samuel Ruiz on the corner. Samuel is a few years older than me. He was a football player in high school and went on to play for the Ducks, which people cared about back then. Now he’s basically the mayor and the entire city council of Jacksonville.
“Nice to see you out and about, Winter,” he says into my window when I roll to a stop beside him. His voice is low andperfect, and his eyes are still green. Still so ridiculouslygreen.
That’s his way of saying,Nice you’re not dead.And maybe more than that, I like to think. Maybe he’s also sayinghe’s gladI’m not dead.
“I’m going to do a few hours at the coffee hut,” I say, stupidly, because I’m sure he knows where I’m going. There aren’t that many people. We know each other’s routines because knowing them means we also notice when you get dead.
He still has that same football body, I can’t help but note. I’m not dead, not yet. And neither is he. He looks at me in that piercing way he has, then shifts that gaze to sweep for monsters and nod hello to other humans. Like a normal person would.
Like I should, but I don’t.
“Jenny tells me you’re taking in renters,” he says, and then all thatgreenis on me again. “Be careful. You don’t want to wake up with a monster under your roof.”
“Will the monster pay the rent money on time?” I ask, and he actually laughs, and I don’t think about much else all morning.
Not even when a pair of hungry-looking vampires take advantage of the smoke that’s filled the valley over the course of the morning, turning everything a choking gray. They don’t have to worry about bursting into flame in the sunshine when the smoke strangles it, so they come at the window of the coffee stand and only back off when I turn the holy water squirt gun on them—the best thing ever found in the ruins of the local church by one of my coworkers, and left here to keep the vampires in line.
I watch them run and jump into a very nice Escalade they likely took after feeding on the poor driver—whoever he was—then peel out.
Then I think about Samuel some more. And more specifically, that day in the first year after the Reveal when Jacksonville’s remaining humans actually crept out and met up for the first time. He’d organized that. He’d been the one to get everyone thinking about community again, instead of just hiding away by themselves. Then later he’d walked me home, up the hill to say hello to Gran, and he stayed.
I remember his mouth on mine in the dark of the crowded living room, piled high with crap and fortifications. I remember his body pressing me down, and how I’d wound myself around him like I was clinging to him for life.
It had been a dark, hot rush, and sometimes I think I dreamed it.
I hate dreams—they’re why I prefer nightmares. Nightmares let you know where you are, that being some or other version of hell, and usually come in with a killer headache to make sure you’re paying attention. Dreams pretend you could be somewhere else.
I especially hate dreams that were never talked about and never happened again, though I still catch him looking sometimes. Like today.
I tell myself he was definitely lookingtoday.
