Page 33 of Bird on a Blade

But Jaxon just shrugs. “I fucking hated my first revival,” he says. “And I had it easier than most.”

Up at the front of the church, Ambrose chuckles darkly. “Oh, you’re willing to admit it was easier for you now?”

Jaxon rolls his eyes; I’ve heard this argument a dozen times already. Ambrose has a habit of adopting younger Hunters. Keeping an eye on them. He did it for Jaxon, and then both of them did it for me.

“Y’all want something to eat?” I say. That was a lesson from Mama, too, something leftover from growing up in east Texas. Something I rarely need to utilize.

It turns out they do want something to eat; they flew into Raleigh-Durham and then rented a car to drive up into the mountains proper. Hadn’t stopped to eat for whatever reason. I fix them the same venison sandwiches I had for lunch, and we all sit down at the little folding card table I have set up in the kitchen while they eat and I drink another beer.

The conversation flows easy, the way it always does with them. They tell me about their work: Jaxon down in the Louisiana swamp, and Ambrose out in west Texas, stomping around in the blood-soaked dust. There’s a new Hunter, he tells us, somewhere on the Texas coastline, although he hasn’t reached out to them yet. Jaxon’s been courting the media, posing his scenes with alligator skulls and palm fronds and other artsy shit and leaving them for some innocent bystander to find. Ambrose tells him how fucking stupid that is, and they bicker about it and I lean back in my chair and listen and it’s like old times, right after Mama left but when I was still finding my footing. Before Edie and the murders at the camp, of course. Long before.

Eventually, though, they start asking about me. About the murders themselves, at first, with Ambrose grilling me like he’s a schoolteacher and I just failed a test. “How the hell did you get shot in the head?” he demands. “Why didn’t you have your eye on the door?”

I’m cagey. “Better than getting arrested.” Which is true; the last thing one of us wants is to get stuck in jail, where dyingmeans getting dragged to a mortuary and pumped full of chemicals. Still, Ambrose frowns.

“You should have known better,” he says. “I saw the one who shot you. He looked like a fucking infant. I know you’re young, but?—”

“You were distracted.” Jaxon gives me his Cheshire cat grin. “Weren’t you, Sawyer?”

Now, how the hell could he know that?

“No,” I say, too quickly. Too defensively. Both of them smell the lie and pounce on it like the predators they are.

“Shit, that makes sense.” Ambrose leans forward, dark and imposing in his long black coat. “What was it? One of ‘em boys give you hell?”

“The big one,” Jaxon says, nodding. “The football star, right? He was there when you were shot.”

“He was already dead,” I snap, irritated that they think I struggled with one of my kills. “And I handled him just fine.”

It’s Jaxon who picks up on it. His blue eyes go wide and then glitter devilishly, and I immediately regret saying anything. I should have let them think it was that boy.

“The girl,” he says slyly. “The survivor.”

“The survivor.” Ambrose hisses the word like a snake. “Oh, I should have known.”

They both look at me. There’s no denying it. I’m caught.

“Fine,” I snap, crunching my empty beer can down on the table. “I was a little distracted.”

That sets both of them to laughing and hollering and slapping each other’s backs like this is just the funniest thing in the world. I scowl at them and go over to the cooler to dig out another beer, crack it open, and take a long drink.

“I saw her,” Ambrose says. “In the papers and such. No cuts. Did you even touch her?”

My scowl deepens as I sink down in my chair.

“What was her name?” Jaxon asks. “I remember seeing her around. She went on that one podcast, what’s it called?—”

“Podcasts,” Ambrose scoffs. “Not doing us any favors, those things. Makes anyone think they can start investigating our killings.”

I’m not in a mind to listen to Ambrose rant about new-fangled technology, although there’s a part of me that wants to know what the podcast is called. Wants to listen to it. Hear my perfect prey talk about me and what I did. What lies she told about those final moments before my death.

“She said you tried to strangle her or something,” Jaxon says. “If I’m remembering right.” He leans over the table, that devilish glint still in his eyes. “But you aren’t a strangler. I know that much about you. You wouldn’t give up your knife for anything.”

My face is hot, and I drink my beer to keep from answering. Not that it’ll work. Both of them are staring at me, waiting for me to answer.

“The girl got you killed,” Ambrose says when I swallow my beer.

“No, she didn’t,” I snap. “I got myself killed. Turned my back to the door. And yeah, I was distracted, like I said.” I can’t decide if I want to tell them about her. I’m not worried they’ll kill her themselves; that’s not their style. But they’ll tell me I should kill her. That I could take my time and enjoy myself, sure. But ultimately, they’d say the same thing as Mama.

---