Page 29 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
Crane is grinning, though. He can feel the blood in his veins again.
“The fuck is wrong with—fuck.” Levi hunches over, clutches his shoulder, struggles to get his breath. He’s glassy-eyed, feet planted in the pink soap-water smearing the kitchen floor. Still holding the beer too, dangling by the bottleneck from his fingers.
He points the bottle at Stagger. “You. Move.”
Crane wouldn’t mind if Stagger did—let’s refresh some bruises tonight—but he doesn’t, and that sets Levi off too.What, you think you knocked him up, big motherfucker you think you are.That sort of thing. It’s been a while since he’s gotten to see the good stuff. Crane hadn’t realized he’d missed it.
“Get out of the way,” Levi snarls, then, “Look at me, the fuck’s gotten into you?Look at me.”
Oh, he’ll let Levi know. That’s no problem. He grabs a notepad from the counter and a pen, the same notepad and pen they use for the grocery lists, and writes in big, scrawling letters.
ARE YOU FUCKING JESS
Levi stares at the sentence like there’s a chance he’s misreading four of the simplest words in the English language.
“Am I—”
He laughs. It sounds like a bark.
“It’s the hormones,” Levi says. He looks to Stagger as if bro codesupersedes the past fifteen seconds,you seeing this?Stagger doesn’t catch on because he is a bunch of worms stuffed into a human body. “Holy shit, they really do make you crazy.”
Stagger identifies the note as a source of tension and crumples it.
“Is this because I didn’t take her on the hunt today?Special treatment?” Levi’s showing all his big predator teeth and Stagger is getting pissed and, you know what, Crane hadn’t thought of that, but sure! After everything Mike and Levi put him through during his first months with the hive, this is absolutely because he didn’t take Jess on the hunt today, one hundred percent. “You think I wanna babysit some little girl again? Shut the fuck up. Shut thefuck—”
Crane’s phone rings.
It gets real quiet in the kitchen real fast.
He’d completely forgotten that the damn thing was in his pocket. It still has the janky default ringtone too, because nobody ever calls him.
Both Stagger and Levi watch him—always watching, the kind of cruel and unusual punishmentwatchingthat would violate the Geneva Convention if he was a prisoner of war—as he pulls the phone out and checks the caller ID.
He tilts the screen. Tammy.
Levi snaps, “Answer it.”
He does. Through the haze of his pounding head, he remembers to click his tongue twice to acknowledge that yes, he has in fact picked up.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Tammy says. “Sorry about the call, I know how much you hate these things. Just wanted to let you know we got something interesting down at the house you might wanna see, if you can keep your mouth shut.”
Tammy snorts dryly at her own joke.
“Anyway. The little girl from the McDowell hive’s here. Pregnant,but won’t be for much longer. Could use an extra hand with the mess.”
Crane is halfway out the door by the time she’s done with the last sentence, Stagger pausing only for a moment to grab his gaiter and gloves before trailing behind. Levi only yells a little.
Thirteen
No car keys means walking. That’s fine. It’s a good day for it.
Tammy lives in Washville proper, tucked against the woods in a ranch house some two decades older than she is. Used to be that Harry would come by every week; cut the grass, hack down the ivy, do the things Tammy can’t with her hands so bad and her husband dead. Then he died too, so Crane picked up the slack. Then Crane got knocked up and nobody wants him doing hard work, so now Jess is doing it. Last time Levi and Crane swung by, she was in the yard with gloves, yanking grass out of cracks in the concrete walkway.
For a better part of the twenty minutes down the side of thehighway to town, Stagger grumbles about Crane’s stunt in the apartment. Crane waves him off—he’s distracted, burning with adrenaline, repeating over and overthere’s another one, there’s another one?—but Stagger won’t let it go. The worms won’t stay still.
They need to work on their signing. The only thing Crane can manage isokay.The sign forO, the sign forK. Okay.It’s okay. He’s in one piece, okay? Drop it.
God, he hopes Levi makes him pay for it later.
