Page 66 of Mate

“You pathetic asshole.” The Vampyre voice jostles him awake. He’s asleep beside Serena’s bed— has been for . . . He doesn’t care. “It’s kinda gross, how madly in love with her you are. But please, continue. Pitiful, twitterpated men are very entertaining.”

I THINK IT WAS ALL A DREAM.

Not just the fight and the fire and the abduction.

Not just Koen, me being a Were, and my time at The Herald .

I think I’m still in college, wondering who the hell is getting kickbacks for putting a chemistry requirement in a finance degree.

I think I’m at the Collateral house, wondering whether the new landscaper’s resting asshole face means that he’s secretly an anti-Vampyre activist.

The last six or seven years were all a nightmare. Nothing else could explain that the first thing I hear when I regain consciousness is Misery’s cackle. “Oh, boy. He’s gonna be so pissed.”

“Who?” I wheeze out. My palate feels coated in kelp. When a straw is thrust into my mouth, I latch on to it and take about twelve gulps.

“Who what?” Misery asks.

I am, obviously, in a hospital bed. She is, obviously, in the chair next to it.

Judging by how my bedside table is covered in electronic devices, an empty blood bag, and even the last installment of the Were mystery series we both swore we’d stop hate-reading, she’s been here for a while. “Who’s gonna be pissed?”

“Koen. You’ve been out for four days, and he literally just agreed to leave this morning.”

“Where did he go?”

“Something something pack . I think he’s getting yelled at by . . . Is it possible that Amanda mentioned an Assembly?”

Yup. “Am I . . . Is this the Southwest?”

“What? No. Look out the window. It rains here. There are trees and shit. We’re in the Den.

” She leans back in the chair, kicks off her shoes, and stretches her long legs at the foot of my bed.

Her pretty, fay-like face curves into a happy smile.

“Anyway. I’m sure you’re very confused. And have questions.

I’ll be happy to fill you in,” she offers, magnanimously.

When is Koen coming back? seems like a shitty thing to ask my best friend, who’s clearly been watching over my sickbed. So I go with “Did she shoot me?”

“Irene? Yup, but only in the arm. Leg? I don’t know. You were in wolf form.”

“Where is she?”

“Um, so. Koen was, um, mad.”

“Ah.”

“You have been de- aunted, I fear.”

“How tragic,” I say, not giving a single fuck. “The girl?”

“The redhead? The one they put your tracker in? She’s fully recovered. I met her sister, by the way. She has a crush on both you and Koen. It’s kinda cute, honestly.”

“She’s sixteen.”

“I think it’s a platonic crush. But also, when you were sixteen, you wanted to pork Mr. Lumiere in the mudroom.”

“Did I?” I groan. Yeah, I did. “What about everyone else? Anything I should know?”

“Let’s see . . . The cult members are either in custody or with Irene.

Which, I am sure, will delight them. The fire was put out.

No one from the Northwest died, though there were minor injuries.

Can I just say— I’ve had a lot of time to consider recent revelations, and I’m not at all surprised that you come from a long line of cult leaders.

You’ve talked me into so much weird shit through the years, and I always wondered why I kept falling for it. ”

“I’m glad we figured it out.” I sit up. It’s a pleasantly easy and painless process. “Not that I’m unhappy about it, but why are you here?”

She pouts. “Because my sister was on the brink of death?”

“Was I, though?”

“Well, critical condition. Interestingly, not because of the bullet. You hit your head hard when you slammed into Irene. Basically, you are responsible for the worst of your own injuries. Way to show agency.” She holds up her hand.

With a sigh, I high-five her. “Lowe flew in with me. He left yesterday, when they cleared you. Today I had to drink fridge blood, and it’s like going from gourmet peanut butter to diarrhea. ”

“Such vivid imagery— ”

The door opens. “Misery! Look at this frog that I . . .” A gasp.

“Serena is awake ?” A second later, the frog is leaping away, and a soft, bony weight lands on me with all the grace of a flying squirrel.

I return Ana’s boa constrictor hug, trying not to burst into tears at how much she’s grown in the last few months. “Hey, baby.”

“Your hair is so long,” she says. “Can I braid it?”

“Sure.”

“Misery and I got matching tattoos!” The back of Ana’s right hand is suddenly in front of my eyes.

“Is that a . . . narwhal?”

Misery nods proudly and lifts her arm to show me hers.

“Also, did you know that next week is Misha’s birthday and my present for her is a bouncy castle? Also, Sparkles says hi.” I glance at Misery, who slowly shakes her head. He doesn’t , she mouths at me. He cannot talk.

Ana chatters in my lap for a few more minutes— Lowe is gone on pack business but he’ll come back soon, Uncle Koen bought her unicorn waffles, what’s my favorite cheese, there’s a kid at her school she totally does not have a crush on but will marry as soon as she’s of age, I’m still her favorite because we’re the only two “hybrids” in the world, but Nele is her new best friend.

“Nele?”

“They’ve been getting on,” Misery tells me. “You and Ana might have to split custody. Hey, pest, why don’t you go tell Nele where you are before she worries?”

Ana blinks at her. “Are you trying to get rid of me so you can have a grown- up conversation with Serena?”

“See? I told Lowe that you’re too smart to fall for this crap.” Misery rolls her eyes.

“What are you two going to talk about?”

“I’m going to rip Serena a new one.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know how right now she only has one butthole? I’m going to— ”

“ Ana ,” I interrupt, “why don’t you go find, um . . . another frog? To keep this one company?”

Ana leaves in a peal of giggles, and I shake my head. “Wow. She learned to pronounce your name.”

“It’s tragic,” she says mournfully. “Every day I do my best to delay her cognitive development and keep her a child forever, and that’s how she repays me.”

“My condolences.”

“Anyhoodles, how do you feel?”

Honestly, not bad. There is no smoke. Not much hurts. Everyone I love seems to have survived the week. “If I say fine, will you be yelling at me?”

“I’ll yell at you either way.”

I frown. “Why? You would have done the same. You did do the same— you married some dude you didn’t know to come look for me in enemy territory. How is that less irresponsible than a calculated bait plan to— ”

“You think that’s why I’m mad at you?” She lowers her legs and leans forward, showing me her fangs. Which means that she is very angry. “Miss Girl, I don’t give a shit about that.”

“Then what— ”

“Why do I have to find out from Lowe what a Heat is?”

I freeze. Did she just say . . . ?

“Yup, I know. And I will be reminding you that I know every day for the rest of your natural life. Which, as it turns out, you thought was going to end soon ? Not that I would have known if other people hadn’t told me.”

Shit. Shit, shit. This is bad . “It turned out to be nothing. And the Heat, I would have told you the second I came back to live in the Southwest. And— ”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, you should, because— ”

“No, Serena, I’m talking. Remember when you didn’t tell me you were a Were? And we agreed that you should have? Clearly you learned nothing. You acted selfishly again. And you know what? I’m sick of this. I’m sick of you shouldering everything like you’re the fucking guy with the stone.”

“Sisyphus?”

“No— the other guy.”

“King Arthur?”

“No, the asshole who carries the planet.”

“Atlas!”

“Yes!” Her victorious smile mirrors mine. Then she remembers herself, and her expression becomes disheartened. “Serena, I can’t keep wondering what you’re not telling me. I can’t keep finding out that you’re facing enormous problems alone.”

“Misery, it’s not . . .” I have no right to cry. So I try very hard not to. “I just don’t want you to have to worry— ”

“I worry anyway. I worry more , because I don’t know whether you’ll reach out to me when you’re in need. Listen, you’ve seen me stuff my bra with math homework. I’ve seen you with your eyebrows shaved. There’s no dignity left between us. We’ve been with each other at our worst— ”

“And now you are at your best ,” I blurt out. “And I don’t want to drag you back down with me.”

It’s what I feel. Really. Genuinely. I didn’t fully know it until the words slipped out, and now I’m looking at Misery, my beautiful, beloved sister, and the hurt in her eyes makes me want to step off a cliff.

“Is that what you think?” she whispers. “That I’m too . . . too functioning for you? That I wouldn’t want to be with you because . . .”

“It’s just . . . ,” I start. But anything I can think of saying feels so profoundly myopic.

“You have many people who love you now. You’re not alone anymore.

And I want you to be able to enjoy it without having to worry about your loser hybrid unemployed maybe-terminal friend who now has weird mating cycles and is a liability for everyone because of the undiagnosed narcissism in her family tree.

” I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand.

And Misery is silent for so long, I wonder if this is it.

She’s had enough.

But then she says, “I’m not. At my best. And I .

. . I feel alone and insecure and lost all the time.

I wonder whether people’s lives are worse because of me all the time .

Having a Vampyre mate doesn’t buy Lowe any favors.

And Ana? I have this fucking child who looks at me like I’m a role model.

Serena, she’s so fucking small, basically held together with spit and duct tape, and one of these days she’s going to join a biker gang or ask me how children are made— ”

“You’re probably good for a while.”

“— and I’m ruining her, because I forget that I’m not supposed to swear around her. And some classmates at school have been making fun of her for not being able to shift— ”

“What?” I pull back the sheets and jump to my feet. “Those cunts !”

“I know !” She shoots up, too. “Can you believe that Juno won’t let me go suck their fucking pets dry in front of their fucking useless eyes?”

“I can, actually. The pets did nothing wrong. But we could shank the classmates themselves— ”

“Juno forbade that, too! No violence against minors ,” she singsongs, in the worst imitation of Juno I’ve had the pleasure to witness.

I’m still pondering avenues for revenge, but Misery continues.

“It sucks. I constantly feel like I’m not equipped for this.

And the reason it hurts so much is that .

. . I want to be. I adore her. But would she be better off if I went away?

And Lowe, his life would be so much easier with a Were mate.

I should leave him, right? But I love him so much. Almost as much as he loves me.”

I laugh, and some gross snot comes out.

“But, Serena, the thing about Ana and Lowe and Juno and every other person I’ll meet for the rest of my life is .

. . they’re not you . They don’t get it.

They’re never going to get it.” I think— I know that if she could cry, she would.

I certainly am. “Just like Koen or Amanda are never going to get it. They’ll get other things.

They’ll get other moments— they’ll get their own exclusives. But they won’t get this .”

What a shameless abuse of the verb “to get.” And yet. “I can’t believe I know exactly what you mean.”

“It’s because you— ”

“Get it. Yes.”

Two normal friends would exchange a hug. We just sit back in our respective places and stare at each other, fondly amused by our very own idiocy. “Ribbit,” the frog says, and we both nod in agreement.

“You haven’t even told me that you’re in love with Koen,” she whines.

“How do you— ”

“Come on, Serena.”

I shrug. “He can’t be with me, anyway.”

“Yeah. It’s just . . .”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Koen’s not the kind of guy who lets himself be limited by stuff like people saying no.”

“And yet.”

“Yeah. What else have you been hiding? Don’t bother saying ‘nothing,’ because— ”

“I might want to stay here,” I blurt out.

“Oh.” Misery looks around, like she doesn’t quite know what to say. Honestly, it’s endearing as fuck. “In the . . . hospital?”

“No, I . . . I love this place. The Northwest. I don’t know if it’s because part of me remembers being here when I was a kid, but it feels like home.

And I think I might want to live here, even if I can’t be with Koen.

This is such a large territory, and I could be out of his way, and . . . Would you hate me?”

“What? No. We’ll still see each other all the time. I mean, look at Lowe and Koen. They are just as codependent as we are.”

“Are they?”

“Oh, come on. Koen is Lowe’s . . . If I said father figure, would that make things weird?”

“ So weird.”

“Okay, then let’s say, the older brother Lowe always needed.

He basically saved his life when he took him in, and I think Koen is proud of Lowe.

I once overheard him say that ‘raising the kid’ was the best thing he’d ever done.

If they can make it work, so can we. I don’t care if we’re close geographically.

I just want to feel like I know what’s going on with your life. ”

I nod gratefully. “Since we’re being honest: Deep down, aren’t you glad you had to skip through the whole death false alarm thing?”

“Yes, but that’s beside the point. And you deprived me of the pleasure of making fun of you for having a three-day compulsory fuckfest.” She sighs. “Serena?”

“Mmm?”

“Should we cut each other’s toenails and talk about the knot thing?”

I think about how little I want to do it. How overdue we are. “Are there clippers in the bathroom?”

She stands and goes to look for some.