Revenge and the Wild(32)
“I think I’ll slip over to the Tight Ship. I’d like to avoid that little terror when she wakes.” James looked at Westie in a way that might’ve sent a flutter through her had they been alone. But as it was, all she felt was sick. “It’s always nice to see you, Westie. Good day.”
Westie watched the Fairfields leave. As soon as it was safe to turn her back on them, she rushed into the doctor’s office, locking the door behind her.
Sixteen
They arrived back at the mansion just before supper. Alistair was awake and, other than complaints of a headache, seemed no different than before he was shot. They sat down to eat. He wore a red handkerchief over his nose and mouth like a bandit after Nigel had taken his mask for repairs.
Alistair lifted his kerchief with one hand and shuttled a broccoli floret into his mouth with the other, careful not to let Westie see the face hidden beneath. She wished she had peeked at him when she’d had the chance.
He raised his hands. Stop watching me, he signed.
“Sorry, Alley, I don’t remember what those signs mean,” she lied. “You wear that blasted machine so often I’ve forgotten the hand language.”
He glared at her until she broke into a smile. His eyes softened.
“Enough,” Nigel said from the head of the table. He’d been so quiet Westie had nearly forgotten he was there. “I want to talk about what happened at the airdocks before the two of you went off seeking adventure.”
Westie looked down at the plate of food she hadn’t touched. “I was hoping to avoid it,” she said.
“You have been, but no longer. Now”—he tossed his napkin onto his full plate—“I want you to stop all this nonsense about the Fairfields being cannibals.”
“Nonsense?” She crushed her fork into a silver ball with her machine. “You don’t believe me?”
Neither Nigel nor Alistair would look at her. She wished Bena were there. Bena would at least give it some thought before dismissing her completely.
“I believe that you believe they are who you say they are, but please, Westie, look at this from all sides. You spent months searching for these people in the valley, always one step behind them, you say. You dug tirelessly into the cases, trying to dispute the reports of skilled pathologists on their findings—”
“They were calling them creature attacks. I’ve helped you in the surgical rooms enough to recognize a creature attack. There weren’t any fang punctures on those bodies. I know a human bite mark when I see it.”
Nigel’s mustache moved like a living thing as he chewed his lip.
“I realize you saw . . . what you saw as a child, but you are no expert on human bite marks. Vampire and elf bites can look very much human.”
Each word that came from his mouth stoked the fire that grew within her. No one believed her. She heard it in Nigel’s voice and saw it in Alistair’s eyes.
He went on, “And don’t you think it is a miraculous turn of events that the cannibal family who killed your own seven years ago just happens to show up on our doorstep—quite literally—the day after you get back into town?”
“You think I’m lying?” she asked with narrowed eyes.
Westie had told some tall tales as a child, and she’d told a few whales to get out of trouble, but she had never lied to Nigel about the important things. It pained her that he didn’t believe her now.
“Not lying—I believe you are mistaken. I think you want to find your family’s killers so desperately that you see them in every new face you encounter. I mean you no offense, but with the way you’ve been drinking lately, and some of the mistakes you’ve made in the past, I have to just come out and say it: you are not the most reliable witness.”
Nigel’s words tore through her chest and ripped out her heart. She was quite aware of her past mistakes and regretted them, but it hurt no less hearing Nigel throw them back in her face. She felt ganged up on. Ashamed of the mess she had become. She needed Nigel and Alistair more than ever, and they wouldn’t stand by her. And worst of all, she had no one to blame but herself.
She left the table without being excused, ignoring Nigel’s pleas for her to return.
That night after everyone had retired to their rooms, Westie slipped out her bedroom window and went down to the barn.
She saddled Henry and made her way to the Wintu village. Once she was outside the city limits and into the pitch darkness of Wintu land, she slowed her horse. To keep from getting an arrow between her shoulder blades, she spoke the Wintu word for friendship—that, or the word for being flatulent. The Wintu children used to find it comical to teach her the wrong words for everything, and with friendship and flatulent being so close in sound, she couldn’t remember which word was which. When she heard the quiet laughter of Wintu scouts coming from the trees, bushes, and crags, she knew.
They let her pass anyway. Everyone in Bena’s tribe recognized Westie, and she was welcome.
In a clearing was a circle of huts and a large campfire in the middle, with most of the tribe gathered around. Grah sat by the fire, scraping an animal hide with a sharpened bone. He was the closest to Westie’s age, and they’d played together when Bena would take her to the village as a child. She’d developed quite the infatuation with him back then, following him around, braiding his long hair when he wasn’t able to avoid her. He would tease her about her pale skin blinding him in the sunlight. She hadn’t thought about him much since Alistair had come into her life, but seeing him, his long black hair and shirtless broad chest, made her sweat a little. He smiled and winked when he saw her. She had to fight the urge to hide her face in her hands like she’d done when she was young and still shy.