Page 3 of Fangs

“You should have thought of that before you borrowed from those people.” I pause. “And I can take care of myself.”

“I borrowed to save your mother.” His eyes find mine, and for one aching moment I glimpse the man he used to be. “Every coin. Every gamble. I thought I could fix it. Thought I could bring her back. And now I’ve lost everything… Including you.”

The anger in my chest falters, softens against my will.

“What about you?” The question comes quiet. “What happens to you?”

“Don’t worry about me.” He waves a trembling hand. “I’ll be fine. I just need to know you’re safe.”

His face crumples. “I’m so sorry. I know this isn’t the life you wanted.”

“It doesn’t matter what I wanted.”

Safe. I think of my books. My dreams. The future I imagined. Someone who might love me for the questions in my head, for the way my gaze always searches past the horizon. Gone. Only Joe Tallow remains.

My foundation collapses. I’m glued together by sheer spite and stubborn breath.

Hot, angry tears carve paths down my cheeks before I can stop them.

“You have until dawn to decide. Tomorrow, I go to tell Joe you’ve agreed.”

I nod. Words won’t come.

He stands, body trembling with the effort. At the door he pauses. “I love you, Lucy.”

“I know.” The whisper escapes me. “I love you too.”

I should feel rage. Grief. The cold knife of betrayal. Instead there is only a strange, hollow peace that I know is the beginning of the end.

I climb to my room. The little altar by the window still holds my mother’s locket, her dried flower, a melted candle stub. I touch the locket, cold against my fingers. She told me to be brave, to be strong, to never to let anyone take my fire.

Is she watching now? Disappointed?

The lumpy bed mattress dips as I sit. My gaze fixes on the water-stained ceiling. Moonlight slips through the curtain’s crack, casting a single silver bar across the floorboards.

In the quiet of my own mind I wonder if I’ll survive this. If I’ll even want to.

The village girls’ laughter fades into the night. My books wait beside the bed. The man who might have loved me exists only in stories, not in this life.

There is no man. No rescue. Only a future of damnation.

A painfully beautiful pink golden dawn creeps across the horizon, and a presence stirs in the corner of my room. The shadows rearrange themselves. Cold curls through the air, unrelated to the open window.

Heart racing, I turn. Nothing there. Just the empty corner, the fading night, the first thin birdsong of morning.

I’m imagining things. I press my fingers to my temples and squeeze my eyes shut. I’m losing my mind before I’ve even left the house. But when I open my eyes, I could swear—just for a moment—that the shadows in the corner are darker than they should be. Dense. Waiting.

And then the knock comes at the door.

“Lucy. It’s time.”

I open it. Dad stands there, older than yesterday. He’s been crying.

“Yes,” I say before he can ask. “Tell Joe Tallow yes.”

A shaky breath escapes him. “Thank you. I know this isn’t—”

“It’s fine. Do what you have to.”