Beta (11 page)

When she peeled the hair away from the back of Vidya’s neck, she found a tattoo—the seal of the United States Marines.

“Did you serve with Stark?” Deirdre asked, rubbing a smear of blood off of the tattoo.

At this point, she wasn’t surprised that Vidya didn’t respond.

The woman’s back was a mess of vertical scars that ran from her shoulder blades down to the small of her back. The lines were a few shades darker than the rest of her skin, but not bumpy.

“Where did you get these?” Deirdre asked, tracing a finger along the scar. When Vidya didn’t respond, she kept speaking. “They’re kind of cool. I have a birthmark that covers the same part of my back. It’s white, though. Almost as white as Niamh is underneath all the freckles.”

Still, Vidya was silent.

It took three bars of soap and all the hot water to get her clean. The woman didn’t move the whole time. She simply stood under the spray, immobile as a mannequin.

The skin underneath the filth was a pretty coppery color, unblemished despite all the neglect she’d sustained in the detention center. The amount of damage that shifters could absorb never stopped amazing Deirdre.

Once she was done, Deirdre scrubbed herself quickly. The water was much too cold for her to do a thorough job of it. She’d never bathed so quickly before.

She shut off the showers and shivered.

“There,” Deirdre said. “All better.”

She offered a spare towel to Vidya. To her surprise, the woman actually took it.

They dried off just as quickly. There were impatient voices in the hallway outside. Not hostile voices—which meant not Jacek—but people who would nonetheless make Deirdre miserable if she held up the showers for long.

“Thank you,” Vidya finally said. Her voice cracked. It was like she hadn’t spoken in years.

Deirdre was so surprised to hear her talk that her arms froze for a moment. But then she went back to toweling. “Thank
you
for the backup.”

Vidya glared down at her own body, arms limp at her sides. “I wasn’t always like this. I used to be…more.”

There was such pain in her voice. Such grief for all the things that she had lost.

Deirdre didn’t know her story, but she hated the sound of such despair.

“It’ll get better,” Deirdre said. “Eventually, it will.”

It didn’t look like Vidya agreed. But she managed a small, tentative smile.

That night, Deirdre turned on the news to watch Rylie’s latest speech. More specifically, she turned it on to watch the background for seelie bodyguards.

They kept the camera so close to Rylie that it was impossible to see anyone else. If the werewolf Alpha was grieving Gage’s loss, then she didn’t show signs of that, either. Rylie was composed and smiling and calm, as always.

She looked so relaxed mere weeks after Deirdre had unloaded a magazine into Gage’s skull. Black hatred bloomed within Deirdre’s heart.

“I have no intent of allowing terrorists to harm anyone,” Rylie said. She looked at the camera as she spoke, as though addressing Deirdre directly. “We’ve worked hard to support the growth of gaean businesses, gaean education, and gaean families.”
 

“Yeah, as long as we toe the line and stay under your heels,” Niamh said to the television. “Look at her. It’s disgusting that she’d wear designer clothes when most of us are living like
this
.” She gestured toward the kitchen at large with a wide-toothed comb.

Rylie went on, oblivious to the criticism. “Beginning immediately, all state-run schools will be guarded by members of an OPA police force to ensure the safety of our precious children.”

“And to brainwash them from an early age!” Niamh said.

“I don’t think Rylie has those particular powers.” Deirdre didn’t want Niamh getting too worked up while she messed with Deirdre’s hair. In the absence of the right supplies to perform a fresh perm, they were ironing her hair straight instead.

“Controlling early education is the same thing as brainwashing, isn’t it?” Colette asked. The feline shifter was working on combing the last of the knots out of Vidya’s hair while they sat at the kitchen table. “It’s indoctrination.”

Deirdre rolled her eyes. “All of us grew up in the shifter school system, and you see how well we’re indoctrinated. You know, seeing as how we’re hanging out with Everton Stark.”

The TV had cut from Rylie’s speech to a pair of anchors discussing it. They were throwing around phrases like “waste of tax dollars.”

The humans on screen didn’t say it outright, but what they really meant was that they didn’t want their money going toward protecting second-class citizens like shifters. Even if they were children.

Silver-suckers.

Reuben’s slur was still rattling around in Deirdre’s head. It was a painfully effective reminder of what the common person thought of people like them.

It wasn’t like anybody had asked to lose their humanity in Genesis. Nobody had chosen to live these lives.

And yet it still made them lesser beings.

“I’m sick of hearing people talk about us like we’re trash,” Deirdre said. “Turn off the TV. They don’t deserve our ratings.”

Colette didn’t turn it off, but she muted it.

Heat radiated beside Deirdre’s ear as Niamh moved the iron. The oils slicking her hair sizzled softly. “They won’t have jobs once Stark takes over,” Niamh said. “Once shifters are dominant, we’ll get rid of every last one of those mouth-breathing mundanes.”

“It’s not just the mundanes. Rylie Gresham is perpetuating these classist ideas. I don’t get why more gaeans aren’t rising up to stand with us,” Colette said. “There might not be more shifters than humans, but we’re stronger. If we all just stopped obeying their stupid laws, then who would stop us? Even the OPA doesn’t have that many bullets.”

“We’d lose a lot of people in a fight like that,” Deirdre said.

“It’d be worth it,” Niamh said. “It’d be worth every life.”

Deirdre turned to look at her friend. The shift in angle made hot hair fall against her cheek. “Even yours? Or mine?”

“Isn’t that why we’re here? To give up our lives?” Niamh asked. “Don’t move, honey. I’m not done with your hair yet.”

Deirdre relaxed and let Niamh work on her.

Of the four women, only Vidya was silent. She hadn’t spoken again since that one moment in the bathroom. She was now wearing a spare t-shirt and pair of pajama pants that belonged to Colette, and her hair was shiny. Externally, she looked so much better.

But there was still a shadow in her eyes. There were problems inside of her that a shower and makeover couldn’t fix.

It reminded Deirdre a lot of how haunted Gage used to look.

“This is such crap,” Niamh said, gesturing at the silent news channel with the iron. “I spent hours producing that video for Stark and nobody is covering it.”

“Maybe nobody’s seen it yet,” Deirdre said.

“That’s not what the website traffic reports say. Our views are in the mid-six figures. You’d think that a few of those viewers must have contacts at national news networks.” Niamh’s gestures grew bigger as she started getting impassioned again. “But even that number bothers me, too. Hundreds of thousands of views? His last videos have gotten millions!” She shook the iron in frustration. Deirdre leaned away to keep from getting burned.

“The last videos were also on YouTube,” Deirdre said. “You’re hosting this new video on a private server, and the domain name got seized, so people have to type in the IP address to find it. That’s inconvenient. And it means that it’s a whole different traffic game. You can’t expect millions of views.”

Colette tapped her chin thoughtfully. “We have to get the word out somehow. Go viral.”

“I’m open to ideas,” Niamh said.

Jacek sauntered into the kitchen. “Well, well, well. Isn’t this cute?” He was wearing two underarm holsters and swinging a pair of noise-canceling headphones in one hand. He must have been at the shooting range in the asylum’s basement. “Looks like you little girls are having a pajama party.”

“Jealous we didn’t invite you?” Niamh asked sweetly. “I could curl your pretty, pretty hair if you want.”

He sneered. “I’ve got better things to do.” He stopped in front of Deirdre’s barstool. He smiled at her from just inches away, hands on his narrow hips, the guns glinting in the dim light of the kitchen. “Hey there, Beta.”

She clenched her jaw and returned his glare silently.

Deirdre’s gun was at the small of her back. Her draw would be slower than his if it came down to that.

But Jacek was still looking at her, expectant, as though waiting for her to say something. Like she’d just barf up a confession if he stared hard enough.

She wasn’t going to talk first.

“Stop being so creepy,” Niamh said, elbowing Jacek aside. She set the iron on the counter beside Deirdre. “I think I’m done with your hair, Dee. If you want to go work on something else, I’ll wrap it up with Vidya and Colette.”

Niamh was being nice—giving Deirdre an out. A way to leave the kitchen without looking like she was retreating.

She didn’t take it.

Jacek’s eyes were shards of golden glass, and they threatened to cut Deirdre.

Slowly, she stood. She tried not to feel too smug when Jacek jerked back a step. She didn’t yield to him, didn’t give him any space, didn’t let him feel comfortable. She stood tall and looked him in the eye, arms loose at her sides. Ready to go for her gun if she needed it.

He broke first.

“I was just talking with Stark,” Jacek said. “He wants to see you.”

“What for?” Deirdre asked.

“What do you think?”

It obviously wasn’t meant to be a rhetorical question. His words hung in the air, waiting for her answer.

Jacek knew. He must have been the viper that had been spying on Deirdre and Brianna.

But he hadn’t told Stark. If he had, then the Alpha would have already killed Deirdre. He hadn’t wasted time killing Gage, and he would be even harsher with his Beta.

Which meant that Jacek was bluffing.

She took in a deep breath, let it out slowly.

And she smiled.

“Thanks for telling me,” Deirdre said. Her eyes flicked to the iron on the counter beside her. It was still so hot that the oils from her hair were steaming slightly on its surface.

She tried to edge around Jacek to leave the kitchen.

He stepped to the left to block her.

Deirdre’s hand was on the iron’s handle instantly. She whipped it across his face, cracking the business end against his cheekbone.

He leaped back with a cry of pain.

She didn’t give him room to escape. The heat of the iron clutched in her fist seemed to flood her bones with righteous fire. Deirdre swung again, connecting with his jaw hard enough that bone snapped, and he tumbled back against the range that Niamh had been using to heat the iron.

Jacek’s reflexes were good. He managed to keep from planting his hands on the heated burners.

Deirdre shoved the back of his head and smashed his cheek into the scalding metal.

He screamed, trying to push back against her. But her sudden fury had given her new strength. She pinned him down and leaned to his ear as he kept shouting. “If you talk,” she whispered, “I will brand your innards with silver. I will etch my initials onto your entrails. And then I’ll skin you for a souvenir.”

Finally, Deirdre released him.

He ripped away from the burners. Skin peeled off of his face, exposing blistered meat underneath. He rushed to the sink, turned on the water, and shoved his head underneath.

The women were staring at Deirdre. Vidya’s eyes were bright.

Deirdre ignored them.

“Remember who’s Beta, Jacek,” she said loudly enough for everyone to hear her. “And don’t ever forget that Stark picked me instead of you for a reason.”

He stood, water drizzling from his hair onto the floor. He’d already healed half of the burn. His shoulders heaved as he panted, face soaked, eyes wild. “What I’m going to do to you will so much worse than anything you can threaten,” Jacek said. “You won’t even see it coming.”

Deirdre tossed the iron onto the counter.

It wasn’t exactly a confession from Jacek that he’d been following her. But it was enough.

He probably didn’t understand what she had been doing when she was in that basement, or whom she was seeing, or why Deirdre would do it. That was the only thing saving her at the moment, surely.

She should run. She should run and never stop.

“See you around,” Deirdre said.

She was shaking as she walked out of the kitchen. She was halfway tempted to break the locks off the front doors and leave, just as she’d been tempted to walk past No Capes earlier that day. But Deirdre went upstairs to Stark’s bedroom.

Deirdre didn’t deserve to leave.

She was becoming as bad as Stark.

Stark was sitting in the chair in the corner when Deirdre entered. He didn’t get up to greet her. He never did.

That damn wooden box was on the table beside him. Inside, there would be multiple cubes of lethe—a drug that delivered a high to shifters like no other drug could. He always had that box waiting for her. Ever since she joined his pack, he had supplied her with lethe every couple of days.