Kin by Lili St. Crow Page A

sneaking out a few times, including the last and most memorable when Rube had been trying to get out on a fullmoon night, desperate to hunt down missing Ellie and thinking that maybe with the
shift
burning in her she could find what nobody else could.
    Or maybe it was something else. Gran hadn’t mentioned collaring again.
    Was it that? But she’d been so
good
lately. “You can even ask Nico. But I suppose you think he’d lie for me, for Cami’s sake. I’d go to those lengths to cover my tracks, right?” She shrugged. “Okay, fine. What is this?”
    â€œRuby . . .” Gran took a deep breath. “When did you last see Hunter?”
    For a moment the words made no sense.
Why is everyone asking that?
“At the train station, when we picked up Conrad.” She looked at him, but the Grimtree was no help at all. He just watched. The world gave a little jiggle underneath her, but she didn’t have any attention to spare to figure it out. “Why?”
    â€œSit down.”
    The floor was acting funny, and there was a buzzing in her ears. It was her body again, knowing before the rest of her.
    She pulled out her usual chair and lowered herself into it, slowly. “Gran, what’s happened?”
    â€œWe found Hunter.” Gran’s hands tightened against each other.
    Then why are you asking me . . .
She couldn’t even finish the thought. Sweat prickled all over her. “Found him?”
    â€œIn Woodsdowne Park, in the heart of the green. Ruby, he . . . he has gone to greet the Moon.”
    What?
The roaring in her ears made it difficult to think. “That’s impossible,” she said, with perfect logic. “He’s a
cousin
.”
He’s young, and we don’t get sick often. When we do, we fight hard. Like Tante Rosa.
    Gran was very pale. She’d only looked this way once or twice before. “He was attacked.”
    What?
Her mouth was numb all through, as if she was buzzed on something stronger than honeywine. “Attacked? You mean . . .”
    â€œYes. He . . . Hunter is dead, Ruby. He . . . he fought, but something—someone . . . I am sorry.”
    What?
Numb, she stared at Gran’s familiar face, turned alien now. She kept talking, but all Ruby could hear was the roaring. Maybe it was the honeywine coolers, though kin didn’t get drunk really, just pleasantly slow for a little bit. The simple sugars burned off with the poison of alcohol, a little lassitude and then you were done.
    She could still smell the chlorine from the pool in her hair. Her bikini was still in the car, too. She had to go get it out. Plus there were chores, right? Chores to do. There had to be. This was all a mistake, and if she just did her chores . . .
    â€œDo you understand?” Gran, quietly and firmly. “Please, Ruby. I am so sorry.”
    There was a hand on her shoulder. It was Conrad, and he squeezed. He didn’t know his own strength, because it hurt, badly. A crunching, grinding pain.
    She didn’t wince. She just stared at Gran’s familiar-strange face across the table.
    â€œIn the Park.” A good schoolgirl, repeating her lesson. “Hunter . . . in the Park. He’s . . . dead. Who . . . Gran, who would hurt
him
?”
    â€œWe do not know.” Gran’s irises were the color of steel, now. “But when we do, there will be justice.”

TWELVE
    N EW H AVEN SW ELTERED UNDER A LID OF GRAY , HEAVY cloud. Wet flannel, pressing down on everything below, steaming its way into every pore. The trees drooped, even though their green turned deep and vibrant like a jungle; the ones that had begun to turn stood halfway painted, splashes of color on their branch-fingers as they shivered feverishly.
    In the old days, the kin would have been deep in the woods, and a platform would have been built in the treetops. The