Horizon (03) by Sophie Littlefield Page B

and stinging and making her head whip around. She bit her lip, and tears stung her eyes. She put her fingertips to her mouth and touched blood.
    “Oh my God, Sammi,” Valerie said, horrified. “Oh my god I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean, oh, please—”
    But what Sammi felt was victory, a mean and hungry victory, and she bared her teeth in a snarling grin. The hot, stinging impression on her cheek where she’d been struck meant that she had won. “No worries. I’d be pissed too. I mean, you’ve been so nice to my dad. Look at you, in your little skirts and all, and with your sewing, you probably thought you could make a home for you guys, with curtains in the window and a hope chest or whatever, right?”
    Valerie made a horrified sound in her throat, a convulsion of shock and grief. Sammi knew she was hurting her, but she’d been hurt so many times and it wasn’t like anyone was very concerned about that, was it? Valerie—with her mended dresses and inspirational quotes and wind chimes—was just pathetic. Sammi was doing her a favor. She’d either deal with this or not; she’d get over her dad or she’d sink like a stone, and then she’d be the one who wasn’t careful when she ate her salad, or who went on the mainland without a weapon, or who walked into the water until it filled her lungs. Whatever. It wasn’t Sammi’s fault.
    “I mean, I guess you could still do that,” she muttered. “Get dad to build you a little picket fence. You’ll just have to move Cass in with you, so you guys can share him.”
    Valerie had been backing away from her, little stumbling steps, her sneakers too white, as though she’d found bleach and soaked them. But now she turned and ran, weaving and unsteady, heading for the path that led to her place, the sound of her wailing eerie and heartbroken.
    “Sammi,” Sage cried. Sammi had almost forgotten she was there, on her knees in the dirt, up against the house. “Sammi, look.”
    Jammed through the slot in the side of the house were fingers, the nails torn and bloody, deep gouges in the skin.
    Phillip’s fingers.

Chapter 12
    CASS WOKE FEELING like teeth were working her head from the inside. Her eyes were gritty and her mouth tasted like the fetid rot in the bottom of a trash can. She staggered out of the bed after checking on Ruthie—a trembling hand pressed to her cheek, feeling the warmth and her daughter’s steady pulse, calmed by the sight of her hair tangled and cascading over the pillow—and down the stairs, skipping the third one from the top, the one that squeaked. It was already getting late, the sun rising in the sky, and people would be up in the house. Cass heard voices from the kitchen and slipped out the back way, the damp cold hitting her like a washcloth dipped in ice water.
    She went down to the shore and did her morning routine there. She brushed her teeth twice with the kaysev stub, spitting over and over again into the river. This time, she checked the other shore first, and there were a few of them there already, though they looked sleepy, too, bumping and stumbling into each other as they got as close to the water as they could. They kept up a steady stream of muttering, but it wasn’t the desperate hungry keening that signaled a hunt. Cass tested the air with a damp finger—sure enough, she was downwind. And sheltered by the overhanging willow that was coming back into leaf, they couldn’t see her.
    On another morning Cass might watch them for a while, taking in the details of the clothes they’d been wearing since before they turned, of what was left of their hair. It could be a fascinating exercise, looking for clues to who they’d been—a gold watch that still hung on a bony wrist, the remains of a tattoo in the ruin of a bicep, a hank of dreadlocks stringing across a filthy scarred scalp; a T-shirt with a now passé slogan or a skirt with last season’s flared hem.
    But today she didn’t care. She