Karhi Emelyn

Sloane handed him the keys when they got back to the car, climbing into the passenger seat without a word.

“Does this mean I can have my car back now?” he asked as he started it.

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

She sat with her feet up on the seat, knees pulled to her chest. Her arms rested on her kneecaps, and she leaned against the door, gazing out the window. Her emotions were a dense knot that he couldn’t decipher.

“Was that your first time watching someone die?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Saw someone die from a heroin overdose once.” She sighed, her breath not fogging up the window. “Saw a cop kill a man once.”

He didn’t have a reply for that. He had come in on the tail end of the shifter dying. Sloane had been tense, but he could tell at the time that she hadn’t been scared or worried. She just seemed tired.

“I saw my mom die,” she murmured quietly.

He glanced at her in surprise. “You did?”

“She was a chain-smoker,” she said. “Died from lung cancer before she even hit forty. I watched her die in the hospital.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. He could feel the hole the words left in her as she spoke them. There was a numbness associated with talking about her mother.

She shrugged. “Predisposed, I guess.”

Like her.

“Like me.”

He couldn’t look at her.

“You told me once, when you got angry at me . . .”

He winced.

“You said I was dying when we met.”

He had.

She had been angry that night. He hadn’t really known why, but he had come home to her, and an explosion of thin, yellow paper surrounding her. Phonebooks. Torn phonebooks all around her, as if a bomb made of phonebooks had detonated in the room. Karhi hadn’t even known he had that many phonebooks in his apartment.

But she was tearing them apart and throwing the pieces she pulled out to the ground.

Her rage turned on him when he walked in. “I never wanted to be a vampire.” The cold fury in her voice was like ice against him. He found himself taking a step back from the intensity.

“You could have said no,” he replied.

“Consent doesn’t exist with vampires.”

He didn’t have a reply for that. He hardly remembered the night he had turned her. He had been drunk. He hadn’t even remembered her at first when he woke up with her in bed next to him.

She flew towards him faster than he expected. He couldn’t avoid her shove. It was weak enough that it didn’t matter.

“I didn’t want this,” she screamed at him.

“You wouldn’t even be here anyway!” he shouted back before he could stop himself.

She froze, the fury still there, but now with confusion mixing in. “What?”

“Nothing.” He turned from her to go to his room.

He didn’t get very far before Sloane yanked him back.

He shoved her off, spinning around. “Leave me alone,” he snarled. He felt fangs prick at his tongue as anger snarled against the back of his neck. It was hot and loud.

“What did you mean?” she demanded.

He clenched his fists. “You were dying when I found you.”

She stared him. “What?” she whispered.

“I could smell it on you when we met. Probably lung cancer. It smells on your breath when you have it.” Like mould. It wasn’t a pleasant smell.

And then, he had turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, letting her deal with it on her own. Letting her process her death. On her own.

“I wasn’t surprised, you know,” Sloane said, pulling him out of the memory of that night.

“You weren’t?”

She was still looking out the window. “My mom got lung cancer early in life. And I smoked a pack a day basically since I was ten. The year before we met? Two packs a day.” Her voice was bitter. “I guess it wasn’t surprising.”

Karhi didn’t know enough about medicine to agree or disagree, but it seemed possible. Tragic, but possible.

“I haven’t seen you smoke since I turned you.”

“Doesn’t turning affect addictions?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t change enjoying them.”

“Guess I stopped enjoying them.”

He didn’t reply, letting the silence settle between them.

“That day . . . I was angry because it was Bell’s birthday.”

He remained silent. Her emotions were a gentle tug on him, and they told him that interrupting her would result in her clamming up.

“He bulked up in high school. Started playing soccer. Even got a scholarship to U-dub in Seattle for it. But I used to tease him and say he was strong, but he’d never be strong enough to tear up phonebooks. I even made a bet with him on his eighteenth birthday that he couldn’t tear one in half.” She laughed humourlessly. “He couldn’t. He had to buy my dinner that night.”

He nodded for lack of any other response. He didn’t know what to say.

“Mickey and Bell are cousins,” she said. “Their moms adopted me when I was fifteen. The adoption went through on my sixteenth birthday. And on my eighteenth birthday, they disappeared.”

He found himself exhaling heavily. She had been hit with a lot of bad shit on her birthday. He had turned her on her nineteenth birthday.

She continued. “I guess, this whole time, they were werewolves? No idea how when there ain’t shifter blood anywhere in their family.”

He actually knew the answer to that. “It can be a recessive trait that pops up generations down. It’s rare, but it happens. Were their fathers in the picture?”

She shook her head. “When their moms found out they were pregnant, the fathers bolted. I guess they could have been shifters. But usually, halfshifters start transforming at nine or ten.”

She was right. “Eighteen is odd . . .”

“Either way, they fucked off to wherever to be wolves and left me behind and didn’t tell me anything. And here I am, trying to deal with my one family falling apart and my other family coming back together and I just . . .” She huffed out a breath through her nose. “I don’t know.”

“Well, the upside is—you don’t have to know.”

She gave him a sceptical look.

“It’s one thing at a time, Sloane. You can’t expect to deal with it all at once. Right now, your focus is on Mikko and finding out what happened to him.” He turned onto Mira’s street. “And I don’t know him, but I’m pretty sure Bell is being a dick. Mira already told him to knock it off and he’s still pushing.”

She rubbed her forehead. “It’s what he does. He doesn’t like things being undone. And to him, I’m a giant thing undone. He wants to fix it already.”

“Some things take a while to fix. And some things never get fixed.”

She slammed her feet down onto the floor and sat up straight, looking at him with wide eyes. “I don’t want that.”

“Oh?”

“They’re . . . I’ve known them since I was five. I can’t . . . I can’t let them go again. They’re my brothers.”

He smiled, his gaze on the street before him. “One thing at a time Sloane. Unravel Mikko. Then you can re-ravel them.”

She blinked at him, her alarmed expression turning into curiosity. “You’re . . . a lot more insightful than I ever gave you credit for.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been around for a long time. I’ve had more knock-down-drag-out fights with Lunette than I can count.”

“But at the end of the day, she’s still your best friend.”

He grimaced. He didn’t like calling Lunette his best friend. It sounded childish and weird. “She’s something,” he said. “Whatever it is, she’s still the first person I can turn to.”

He pulled up in front of Mira’s house and put the car in park. He almost missed what Sloane said as he pulled out the keys.

“Liar.”

He blinked in surprise, turning to look at her. “What?”

“If she’s the first person you turn to, why didn’t she know about the heroin? Why does she still not know that Ilona tortures you on the reg? Why do you keep her in the dark like that?”

He didn’t have an answer for that.

“Instead of telling her, you tell me; because it’s easy to pour out your guts to someone who doesn’t have as much of a vested interest in you.”

“Ouch, Sloane,” he said, putting his hand over his heart. “That really hurt.”

She ignored that. “Just talk to your fucking sister.”

“You talk to your fucking brothers.”

She gave him the finger and got out of the car.

But he could feel the relief that had kindled in her chest. It was a small flame, but it was one he had helped ignite. And it made a small flame inside of his own chest kindle. He felt good.

He followed her out of the car, locking it as he did. Though, considering that Mira’s house was full of thieves, did it even help him to lock his door?

He decided it didn’t matter. It made him feel better, so he would continue to lock it.

He followed Sloane to the path that led to Mira’s house and didn’t continue past the sidewalk. Sloane was halfway down the walkway before she noticed. She stopped, looking back at him. “What are you doing?”

“Mira told me yesterday that I wasn’t to step foot on her property ever again. And while she did it so that Ilona couldn’t force me to come back, there was still some obvious seriousness in the command.”

Sloane pressed her lips together, nodding. Footsteps behind the front door made them both look up, and Mira opened the door.

“You can stay over there,” Mira said to him. “Mikko’s going to come out anyway. He’ll be out—”

Mikko’s voice from inside cut her off. “I need the sun, woman. I haven’t seen it in days. Just let me have this.” He emerged from the house, using the doorway to steady himself. He looked up towards the sky and smiled as the sun hit his face.

“Mikko, you’re still limping,” Annie said, ducking under him to come out standing next to Mira.

He continued to look towards the sun, eyes closed. “I can limp just as well out here as I can in there.” He opened his eyes and grinned when he saw Sloane. “I was worried it was a fever dream and that I made you up.”

Sloane’s laughter was so loud and genuine that Karhi had to double check to make sure the sound was coming from her. It was. The laughter was a full belly laugh, her cheeks turning pink with mirth.

He had never heard her laugh like that before.

Looking at Mira, he saw a strange expression on her face. She looked like she was going to cry—her brow knitted together, a frown on her mouth. It took him a second to realize she was relieved.

Sloane glanced back at Karhi, a confused smile on her face as she sent him a questioning look. She had felt the tug of his thoughts as he went through the experience of her laughter.

He shook his head, focusing on Mikko.

Mikko already looked better than the night before. He still had a black eyes, and cuts on his face and arms, but they were clean. And the majority of the bruises seemed lighter. It had been pretty dusty and grimy where he had been held—a lot of it had probably transferred to him and coloured his skin and injuries darker than they were.

A second surprise for Karhi: Sloane stepped up to Mikko, ducking around Annie and Mira, and hugged him. Karhi had never seen Sloane initiate a hug with anyone. She let Zeren hug her, even hugged him back, but she never went out of her way to do it.

Karhi had thought he was beginning to realize just how much he didn’t know about Sloane. But watching this now, he had only just scratched the surface. It was more than just all of the magic stuff. Of course, he hadn’t known how involved she was in the Underground, but there was so much more.

He had known she was a foster kid, but he hadn’t even realized how long she had been in it. He’d known she’d been adopted but hadn’t known she had brothers. He’d known about Elizabeth, but it never even occurred to him that Sloane would know, too.

But more than all of that, he hadn’t realized that despondence, anger, and apathy weren’t even part of her normal persona. She was warm and kind. As she pulled away from Mikko, she took his hand in hers, lacing their fingers together and helping him sit down on the top step. It didn’t even seem alien to her—she was falling into old habits. All this time, she had been missing her family, and he had never even noticed.

He was ashamed to realize how jaded he had been to it all. How jaded he had become.

“We found where you were held,” Sloane murmured to him.

Mikko nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Why is the vampire here?” Annie asked, looking from Mira to Karhi. Her tone indicated that her feelings on the subject of Karhi were neither warm nor happy. She was standing in the front yard now, her and Mira having stepped down to give Sloane and Mikko space on the steps.

“Vampire is helping us figure out what happened to you guys,” Sloane replied. He felt her twinge of annoyance at Annie. “His name is Karhi.”

Annie sneered but didn’t say anything else.

Sloane glanced at Karhi, which he took as the cue to take the lead.

“Mikko,” he said, “can you tell me what happened? Starting from the last thing you remember from before where you were taken?”

The breeziness of Mikko’s posture from walking out into the sun and hugging Sloane deflated. His shoulders sunk, and he looked down at the ground. He nodded, squeezing Sloane’s hand. “Um, yeah. So, Annie and I separated after she won her boxing matches that night. I was bringing the money to Mira and Annie was going to a party. The last thing I remember is going to the bus stop to get back to Mira’s and . . .” He shook his head. “Everything goes black until I woke up.” He leaned heavily into Sloane, keeping his gaze firmly on the ground.

Sloane let go of his hand to put her arm around him.

“It all sort of blurs together,” he said. “I could take off the blind fold, as long as no one was in the room. And when they were in the room . . .” He brought one knee up, crossing his arms against chest and hunching over. His voice didn’t waver as he spoke, and he hardly seemed to notice the way he had moved to sit. “Um . . . they’d tell me before they came in to put on my blindfold. And then—and then they’d come in and they’d grab me by my wrists, making sure the ropes were still tight. Then they’d—they’d like . . . they’d just hit me and smack me. A c-couple times they’d cut me with knives? Or maybe claws?” He shook his head. “And I’d ask them why they were doing this, and th-they wouldn’t answer. Just tell me to shut up and hit me again until I couldn’t stay awake.”

Mikko’s recounting was curiously steady despite the handful of stutters. Karhi had found over the years that the more fucked up stuff that had happened to someone in their lifetime, the more dispassionate they could recount recent fucked up stuff.

“You said they didn’t give you any sort of explanation. But did they say anything at all?”

Mikko shook his head. “Besides telling me to put on the blindfold, no. I think, once, while I was losing consciousness, I heard a man say, ‘who is that?’ And I think they said I was the mistress’s prisoner or something? But I never heard a woman ever talk.” He shook his head. “But I also had a lot of bad dreams, and I don’t know if that was real or a nightmare.”

Karhi nodded. “Are you sensitive to magic at all?”

He shook his head. “Not like Sloane. Sometimes I can feel it a bit. And I think, maybe I felt it a bit in there. Sometimes it would get weirdly cold. And I’d just feel this . . . despair. And I thought at one point it could be magic, but it also usually happened when I got beat. So . . . I don’t know. It could’ve just been my body.”

“Did they give you anything to eat or drink?”

“When I woke up, there was usually like some bread and a bottle of water and some carrots or something.” He grimaced. “Hard to open the bottle of water with tied hands.” He rubbed his wrists where the bruises were darkest on his skin outside of his black eye.

Karhi asked a few more questions about where he had been and what he had heard, but Mikko didn’t have anything else for him. He did comment that they left him a bucket to go to the bathroom. Karhi had remembered the room smelled like piss, but he hadn’t seen any buckets.

“Thanks for telling me,” Karhi said.

Mikko sighed unhappily. “I don’t think it was very useful.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” He wasn’t going to argue that it was the most useful information, but it was good to have. In investigations like this, useless information tended to build on more useless information until something fit together, and the information as an aggregate was useful.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked it to see Lunette was calling. “Sorry,” he said to them, turning away to answer the phone. “Hello?”

“I found some stuff here, but nothing too useful.”

“Yeah?”

“The room he was in had a secret trapdoor. It led to this underground system of tunnels. I found some buckets with human waste.”

“Those would belong to Mikko.”

“Yeah. I also found some dead shifters. All died the same way as the other one, I think. One of them had like $600 on them in cash, which was weird, because all of the rest of them only had wallets with plastic.”

“Hold on.” He looked up at where Sloane was still next to Mikko, Annie on his other side comforting him. “Hey, how much did you make at those fights? The money that disappeared?”

“$598,” Annie replied, eyeing him suspiciously. “Why?”

“That money was taken from Mikko,” Karhi told Lunette.

“Alright. I’ll give it to you when I see you.”

“Thanks. Anything else?”

“Not really. I’m going to dig up some more on the magic that was used because I was able to get some glyphs off the doors. Meet up back at that motel?”

“Sounds good.”

She hung up.

Karhi put his phone away and relayed what he had learned to the rest of them. Most of them had probably heard the conversation, Sloane being a vampire, Annie being a shifter, and Mira being able to read minds, but Mikko would not have.

“She found the cash?” Mikko asked, perking up.

“Yes. Probably took it from you as a bonus for their services.”

“Wait . . . you think they were hired?” Sloane asked, tilting her head at him.

“It’s the only thing that really makes sense,” he said. “Lunette and I are going to look into it and see if we can identify the shifters that she found.” She hadn’t said it, but he knew Lunette was probably already working through how she would get that information. “I’ll get you back that money later today.”

“I’ll just go with you—” Sloane started.

“Actually, I’d like you to ask around about where I was taken to. See if you can find out anything with your sources around here.” Also, he didn’t want to have to constantly separate Lunette and Sloane from fighting all the time.

She paused, clearly having forgotten she had agreed to that. Then she nodded. “Sure. You’ll tell me the minute you find anything?”

“I will. I’ll text you the address where I woke up. We’ll meet up later tonight after I go to the morgue.”

“Okay.”

“I’m taking my car.”

“Fine,” she scowled. “Still can’t insure it.”

He rolled his eyes and left.