Page 7 of Windlass

“What did you do to my hair?” Stevie asked.

“I gave you a period updo. Like the ringlets?”

“Lovethem,” she said sarcastically. “They match my bubbly personality.”

“You do bubble.” Angie turned the pad back around and examined her work. “Oops. Forgot your freckle.”

“Not thefreckle. . .”

Angie’s phone buzzed. Angie glanced down at it, and her cheeks simultaneously flushed and paled, blotches of color disrupting her lightly tanned skin. Dread seized Stevie’s intestines in a tight fist. The expression in those eyes—guilt, defiance, shame—told her exactly who had sent the text message.

“Um,” Angie began.

Stevie pulled Marvin’s lip back up and let it drop, watching the mottled pink inner skin surrender to gravity.

“I was gonna move my stuff into Morgan’s room tonight, anyway. That room has a better view. Dibs.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

They stared at each other. She thought Angie might be about to cry. Her eyes glistened, huge and luminous in her stricken face.

Which made no sense. Why was she upset when she’d been the one to say yes to Lana? Did sheknowhow much it hurt Stevie? That was worse. Why had she gone ahead and done it anyway—to remind Stevie that Angie saw her only as a friend?

“It’s cool.” She shrugged. The motion was difficult with the weight of the lie tugging at her body as surely as gravity had tugged Marvin’s lips a moment before, but she wasn’t going to reveal her hurt. “You going to her place?”

Angie shook her head. “She’s . . . coming here.”

What did it feel like to get shot? Stevie’s hand rose unconsciously to her throat, shielding her chest too late.

Silently, she stood and left the room, heading upstairs before Angie could see her cry.

Angie had joked about haunting Stevie, but the expression on Stevie’s face would haunt Angie forever. She gasped out the breathless sob she’d been holding in once the door to Stevie’s room shut upstairs. She allowed herself one more searing breath, then shoved the emotion down. This had been her decision. Her choice. She had known this would hurt Stevie, and she had done it anyway. She didn’t have the right to be upset.

Lana waited on the front step, looking impatient as ever. Seeing her after spending time with Stevie always jarred Angie. Lana was coldly beautiful, with gorgeous pin-straight dark hair—that stupid hat she always wore notwithstanding—and a litheness to her limbs promising the kind of violence that made Angie’s skin shiver in anticipation. Stevie, meanwhile, was warm and golden, with eyes the cornflower blue of summer, and she made Angie shiver right down to her dark matter.

The comparison ended when Lana reached for her and kissed her hard, possessively, as if tasting something she was sure would always be hers. It left Angie breathless, but literally so, not metaphorically.

“Not on the lips,” she reminded Lana with an edge of irritation she didn’t bother concealing. LanaknewAngie drew the line at her lips.

“Forgot.” Probably a lie. Lana always “forgot” things like that when it was convenient. She’d never liked Angie’s no-kissing rule.

Lana laced their fingers together and led Angie back through her house, stopping at the liquor cupboard to grab a bottle of vodka (it was always vodka, which Angie hated) before leading them upstairs to Angie’s room. Stevie’s door was shut, but so was Morgan’s, so Angie didn’t know which room she’d occupied. Morgan’s, she prayed. It was farther away.

She should tell Lana to leave. There was still time. Stevie might forgive her.

Or maybe it was better this way. Kinder in its up-front cruelty. Stevie deserved better than anything Angie could give her, and Angie deserved someone like Lana, who could personify her self-loathing.

Lana shut the door to her room at least before shoving her against it. The thud of her back against the wood was audible. Lana pinned her hands to her sides and looked her over, blue eyes—so much colder than Stevie’s, an Antarctic chill ringing her dilated pupils—raking up her body. Angie’s lips tasted like Lana’s Chapstick. She wished she could scrub them clean.

“Strip,” said Lana.

“I can’t.” She pulled at Lana’s grip, illustrating her point.

Lana released her, but before Angie could obey, her T-shirt was ripped over her head, catching the tip of her nose uncomfortably, and the ice in Lana’s eyes sharpened with lust. Angie knew what she must look like, pinned against the door, her breasts straining at her bra and her hair tousled. She knew, too, what Lana wanted, and she looked up at her through her lashes and moved as if ducking away, the deer to her wolf.

Lana’s nails were on her instantly. She dragged them up Angie’s ribs, leaving red welts that would linger for several days, and shoved Angie’s legs apart with her thigh. The smell of her perfume was suffocating.

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