Tear You Apart (6 page)

“Impossible?”

Mira nodded. “But, I don’t think they were disappointed or anything. Which I worried about.”

“We told her not to worry,” Elsa said. “Why would they be disappointed?
They
were worried about disappointing
her
.”

“You’re very lovable for two weeks,” Bliss said. “That’s your limit, though. I don’t know how we put up with you for sixteen years.”

“
Anyway
,” Mira said. “They’re going to move here. So I’ll
get to see them more, and see what they’re like when they’re not taking me around sightseeing. Um—do you want to eat that here, or bring it to my room?”

“Room,” Viv said. Freddie stayed behind to finish cleaning up.

They found Blue on Mira’s bed, shaping a stuffed unicorn’s mane into a mohawk. “Can you kick him out for a minute?” Viv asked.

Blue put on an appalled expression. “You want me to exile this innocent unicorn?”

“Um, sure,” Mira said. “Blue … go help Freddie with the dishes.”

“Freddie’s doing the dishes?” Blue sighed and got up. “Of course he’s doing the dishes.”

“Thank you,” Mira said, kissing his cheek and shutting the door behind him.

After another moment, Mira said, “So … I’m guessing you need to talk about something serious.”

“It’s kind of personal.”

“Okay.”

They sat down: Mira on the bed, Viv on a red beanbag on the floor. Mira was the only person Viv knew who had experience with this particular problem, but it wasn’t going to be easy to talk about.

Finally, Viv said, “Are there warning signs when a guy wants to kill you? Like, when he’s definitely decided to do it?”

Mira froze, lips parted. Then she lowered her eyes and started playing with the charm bracelet on her wrist. Each of the charms was a märchen mark symbol: the Sleeping Beauty spinning wheel, an apple, a heart, the Beast’s rose, Rapunzel’s
braid. “Um. I don’t know if this would really be helpful, in your case. Because the circumstances were so different. But … yeah. There’s definitely a change.”

“I hate to even ask you about this. I don’t want to stir up any …”

“It’s okay.”

“But I don’t know who else to ask.”

Mira had been through a lot since she’d come to Beau Rivage at the beginning of summer. She’d gone from not knowing about curses to learning she was a princess, getting tangled up romantically with Blue’s brother, Felix, falling into an enchanted sleep, and waking up, all in about a week. After a brief, sketchy courtship, Felix had tried to kill Mira and almost succeeded. It wasn’t over between the two of them. Either Felix would finish what he’d started or someone would kill him. Felix was a villain, destined to be slain by a hero, but there was no telling when that would happen. It did explain, though, why Freddie was so gung ho about decapitating the guy.

“He’d get frustrated sometimes. Mad at me,” Mira said. “But usually he was really nice. Accommodating. Like, the way he’d treat a VIP guest, except … you know. And then, when I went into that room—triggered the murder part of the curse—he … was so angry. Like it was all my fault. Because if I hadn’t opened that door, he could have gone on pretending. I never would have known who he really was or what he’d done. At that point, I wasn’t Mira to him, I was just another girl who prevented him from being happy.”

Viv had never really talked to Mira about that day. She felt a little guilty for bringing it up, but it was too late to take it back.

“And he … changed. His whole demeanor. He was very—hard? Like, resolved. He was going to kill me, and there was no talking him out of it. You could see it. Like he’d turned a key, and locked us both into that fate.”

Mira glanced up, her fingers poised on the heart charm on her bracelet. “Did something happen? Did Henley—do you really think he’ll do it?”

“I don’t know.” Viv told her what had happened at Seven Oaks. “Sometimes I just want it to be over. Sometimes—I feel like the waiting is the worst part. But I’m not looking forward to the ending.”

“I could talk to him. See if he’ll …”

“Confess? That’s not going to happen. He might not even believe he’ll do it. That doesn’t mean he won’t.”

Viv’s gaze drifted to Mira’s bookshelves. They were packed with skinny playbooks, novels, DVD cases. Old movies like
Casablanca
and
Now, Voyager
. “I used to watch movies with Regina when I was little. We’d make popcorn and curl up on the couch. It was one of my favorite things we did together because it was just us, and she’d always find a movie I liked. Have you ever seen
The Yearling
?”

“Maybe, a long time ago,” Mira said. “It’s about a deer, right?”

“Yeah. This boy adopts a young deer. Brings it home, befriends it, takes care of it. It’s a really cute movie, at first. The boy even lets the deer sleep in his bed. And there’s this scene where the deer sticks his whole head into a pail of milk. Really adorable animal antics. Which I loved. But then the deer gets older and starts causing trouble on the family farm. Destroying crops, messing with their livelihood. They can’t control him.
So, one day the dad orders the boy to take the deer into the woods and shoot it.

“I cried so hard. I don’t know if I’d ever sobbed like that at a movie. And Regina was stroking my hair, and I was wiping my face on her shirt … and then she told me that when a wild thing makes trouble, you have to turn it loose. You have to kill it so it never comes back. She told me I was like the little deer. She said,
One day I’ll send you into the forest, and send a man after you to make sure you don’t come back
. She told me I should like the movie. It was my story.”

“God, Viv …”

“Before that, I had no idea she felt that way. I thought she loved me as much as she always had. As much as she’d pretended to? I don’t know. And even after she said that, I didn’t know what to think. The two of us were a family. My dad was so shitty to her after the first year of their marriage—he was such a bastard, a bad father and a worse husband, leaving her to be my only parent, basically. I didn’t really mind that he was almost never home—I was glad, because I had Regina all to myself.

“I used to tell the mirror to shut up when it was mean to her. It was like a game to me back then. I didn’t understand why it would hurt her, just like I didn’t understand why she’d get so upset when my dad didn’t come home. I told her—I remember once, I had gone to her room to try to make her feel better. She was lying in the dark, her hair over her face, just … shaking, and I put my hand on her shoulder and told her she was still my favorite. No matter who my dad liked better, she was
my
favorite. I was so stupid; I can’t believe I said that. And then she started crying and she said,
I love him
. And I told her,
Then don’t
. As if it was that easy.

“I don’t want to be blindsided again. When—
if
—Henley decides to do it … I want to know it’s coming. He’s pissed at me a lot. But I don’t know how to tell if he hates me. I wish I knew. I wish it could just … be over, so we didn’t have to feel this way anymore.…”

Viv wiped her eyes, looked around for a mirror. She didn’t want Blue and Freddie to see her like this. “Are my eyes as red as blood?”

“They’re barely even pink,” Mira said.

Viv hung out there until Mira’s godmothers said the boys had to go home. Mira invited her to spend the night, but Viv didn’t want to leave her animals unattended. So Blue and Freddie drove her home. By the time they dropped her off around midnight, her anxiety had mostly leveled out, and it stayed that way until she went to put her key in the front door and noticed it was already unlocked.

CHAPTER SIX

VIV OPENED THE DOOR as quietly as she could and crept inside the house. She left her shoes on the mat so they wouldn’t make noise. Set her purse down on top of them.

The air in the hall smelled like a sweaty animal.

She could hear voices coming from Regina’s office—the room where her stepmother kept her yoga gear, her computer, the handwritten recipe books she’d gotten from witches:
Five Delicious Ways to Braise a Heart
.

“It was amazing,” Regina said. “The violence that boy is capable of. He’s come a long way from being her pet.”

“It’s about time.” A man’s voice. Worn, scratchy.

“You think I waited too long.”

“Not saying that. Some like the game. The chase. Me, I prided myself on being efficient. No queen should have to live like this as long as you have.”

“That’s sweet—I think. But we’re not all born ready to kill someone. It certainly wasn’t my life plan.”

“Just your destiny.”

“Some of us need time to warm up to our destinies. But, like I said, I think the boy’s ready. If you can call him a boy anymore.”

“He’s a boy, all right. But he’ll man up fast once he feels a knife in his hand.” The man’s low, dry laugh creaked like old leather. “He can have this one. Cuts through anything.”

Viv heard the scrape of one blade against another. Her breaths came harder and she skidded back, her bare feet sticking to the floor.

And then a voice crawled out of the wall behind her.

“Gorgeous. Sheer perfection.”

The voices in Regina’s office went silent. One heavy boot heel cracked down on the wood—and Viv ran.

Down the hall, through the kitchen. She flung open the back door and kept running. She tore through the moonlit yard, past the well, and as she ran through the ring of fruit trees it seemed like every sleeping songbird woke. They took off into the air, the mad beating of their wings pointing her out like a spotlight.

She swung her arm and hissed at them to go away, but they couldn’t understand her, just kept flapping after her.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

Breathless, she stumbled through the forest, stones gouging her feet, branches grabbing her dress. The trees had scattered the birds, but the leafy canopy blocked out the moonlight and made it impossible to see. Viv was only making it through because she knew these woods so well. She’d played pretend games here with Henley. She’d spent hours just roaming the trails.

Henley lived on the other side of the forest. Could she get there? He wouldn’t want to see her tonight, but …

Her lungs were burning. A deer crashed after her, then seemed to sense her distress and leapt away. She could hear the animals going this way and that, drawn to her but nervous, and the rustling and the footsteps wound her up so tight she might have screamed if she’d had the breath for it. She didn’t know how close the man was. She didn’t know if she was hearing his footsteps or hers, his breathing or hers, his—

A gloved hand closed around her arm and jerked her off her feet.

She hit the ground and he flipped her onto her back, pinned her leg with his knee so she couldn’t get away. He gripped her jaw with one hand and held the knife with the other. There was just enough moonlight for Viv to see the curve of the blade, and the deep lines age had carved into his face.

“Well, well,” he said. “The little rabbit can run.”

His knee was hurting her leg and she blinked hard, hoping tears would slip out so he’d pity her. But her eyes stayed dry. She was gasping, choking on the smell of him.

“Uh-uh, don’t try that trick on me.” His thumb pressed the corner of her eye, crushing an imaginary tear. “I’ve been hunting girls like you since before you were born. Some Huntsmen get swayed by a princess’s crying.… I’m not one of them.”

“You’re a Huntsman?”

“Sure am. Maybe you want to offer me something to save you. I hear you’ve been giving plenty to the other Huntsman.”

The fact that he would say that—not just say it but imply that she was whoring herself out to keep Henley from killing
her—made her stop caring about earning his pity. She told him where he could stick that knife.

He smacked her full in the face. The leather stung—and the blade would feel worse. But she wouldn’t let him talk to her like that.

“You’re lucky I’m retired,” he said. “Otherwise you’d be in pieces.”

“Retired?” She pressed her tongue to the inside of her lip. There was a blood-flavored, tooth-shaped gouge there.

The old Huntsman got up. Her leg was numb where he’d been kneeling on it. She quickly pulled it under her so he couldn’t trap her again.

“I’m out of the princess-killing business. I’m here as a consultant. In case Boyfriend doesn’t have the proper equipment. The blade—or the balls—to do the job.” He laughed and Viv stared daggers at him. He didn’t know anything about Henley if he thought Henley was afraid.

“I’m here to make sure he gets it right the first time. And that he doesn’t bring back some animal heart in place of yours. I’ve known your stepmom since she was your age. Back when she thought that apple mark meant she was a princess. She tracked me down and did me a very nice favor so I’d spare her. Of course, she didn’t need saving. She had a different fate.

“But I do repay my debts. So you bargain with whatever you got,” he said, looking her up and down, “but don’t count on it working. Your stepmom’s going to have the happy ending she deserves.”

The Huntsman didn’t bother to sheathe his knife. As he strolled back toward the house, he ran his blade along the outstretched tree branches like a child might run a stick along a
fence. Viv stayed huddled on the ground, the feeling returning to her leg in slow pulses, the tears coming more slowly. The smell of the Huntsman’s sweat was heavy in her lungs, and she doubled over and breathed in the scent of earth until she felt less like throwing up, less like death had come and laughed in her face.