Page 70 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

“What?” he eventually mutters through parched lips. He licks them. His obvious nerves are a worrying sight, as though we’re all on shaky ground without Rory there to control it, even it out, for us.

As though sensing Rory’s sudden pain, Captain Porthos growls again. Rory’s gaze follows the dog’s, dropping to the plastic bag by Oscar Munro’s feet.

Rory stares at it for a long moment, his mind calculating. “What’s in the bag?”

His dad regards him coolly. “What do you think?” All of a sudden, he stands, yanking Captain Porthos by his bright blue collar and gripping him around the waist.

Everything happens at once.

Captain Porthos’s paws cling to the tablecloth and he buries into the fabric, sending plates crashing to the floor.

Rory shouts “No!” and lunges at Captain Porthos.

Finlay and Luke join in, yelling in outrage, while the dog initiates a series of ferocious barks.

And throughout the commotion, Rory looks inside the bag and rears back in horror.

“Oh my God,” he mutters, sounding sick as he orients himself against the wall. “Oh my God.”

Eventually, Oscar Munro hauls Captain Porthos out into the hallway, slamming the door behind him.

“Why?” Rory asks, his voice breaking. I stare at him in alarm. What the hell did he see? He turns to his dad, and it’s not just his voice that’s breaking buthim. His brows are drawn, there’s tension in his glassy gray eyes. Oh my God, all I want to do is hold him tight in my arms and tell him everything will be okay. “Why?”

“It was a favor for a neighbor,” Oscar Munro says simply, as I make my way toward the plastic bag. Finlay and Luke are already there, inspecting the contents with a shared look of disgust.

I know what’s inside before I see it. It could only ever be one thing to make Rory react like that.

The one thing he’s cared about.

The one thing he’s opened his heart to.

Crumpled inside the large plastic bag, folded around itself like an ill-flattened cloth, broken-necked and ruined, is the most beautiful bird.

Before I can process it, my hand flies to my mouth.

Light shines upon caramel-colored plumage. White feathers from its underwing stick out oddly. The noble tilt of its head and neck are gone, the angles all strange and wrong. Even the act oflooking down atan eagle seems barbaric, like the whole world has been inverted.

It’s the eagle. It’s Rory’s eagle.

I remember it soaring free through the clouds. It being so inherently majestic that a crown would have been overkill. And now here it lies, yet another victim of Oscar Munro’s quest for supremacy.

I feel sick.

“You shot it?” Rory asks, as though there’s a possibility that the eagle may have had the misfortune to have fallen from the sky.

“It had been terrorizing the Drummonds’ livestock,” Oscar Munro says, as though this is explanation enough. But there’s a gleam in his sharp black eyes, shining and victorious, as he watches his son crumpled against the back wall like the dead bird, a gleam that says there’s more to this than his words imply. “You know I don’t like to upset these farming types. For one thing, it’s against party line.”

Rory stares across at him uncomprehendingly. “Party line,” he whispers, as though repeating the phrase will help him to understand. “Party line?”

Oscar Munro raises a brow. “What are you doing, standing over at the far wall? Are you actually upset over a filthy bird?” He gives a soft laugh. “My son, if you care so much about this particular fowl, you should see it mounted on my wall.” His eyes briefly meet mine, before returning, almost mockingly, to Rory. “I know just the spot for it.”

I screw my eyes shut. Of course. Oscar Munro has to be the master of this creature’s death in every circumstance, in an act of brutal dominion. A glorification of its last moments, permanently installed as decoration in a gaudy room stuffed with taxidermy, something to taunt his son with for eternity.

“It has chicks,” Rory mutters, gaze dropping to the floor. “Ithadchicks. Without her, there’s no way they’ll make it.”

The look Oscar Munro gives him then is chilling. “I can’t stand the sight of you. Sniveling over a dead bird?” He regards his son as though he’s somehow alien. “I want you out of this house.”

His voice is clipped, controlled, commanding. But when Rory raises his head, there’s something deadly about the sheen of his silver-gray eyes that takes my breath away.

“Tell me something,” Rory asks slowly. “One thing, and then I’ll leave. I’ll be out of your hair forever. This isn’t about politics. It isn’t about placating farmers and caring about sheep. This is about last night, isn’t it?”

A cold smile spreads across his father’s noble face, not reaching his black eyes. “You took what was mine,” he says, and my stomach lurches sickly. “What was owed to me. Something I’d been looking forward to, in a world that has so little going for it. And so, for that, here is your punishment.”

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