Page 74 of Seasonal Fears

“No, you won’t.”

“No, I won’t,” agrees Matthew, with a sigh. “Misty does want her pound of flesh, and I know how hard it’s been for her to resist taking it out of me. Poor little mite. She’s a nightmare, you know. Far more frightening than either one of us, at least until we get to the labyrinth. I’m assuming you’re traveling with your Winter because the two of you care about each other? She came out of that convenience store with roses for you, and it’s Valentine’s Day, so that had to mean something.”

Hearing that makes Harry’s heart hurt. Last Valentine’s Day, he bought her so many roses that his parents lectured him on sensible uses of his allowance and the other guys on the football team gave him shit for making them look bad. This year he didn’t even get her a Hershey bar.

Sure, he ran away with her and fully intended—fully intends—to drive to Alabama for the sake of keeping her alive, but they’re the products of a capitalistic society, and it’s hard not to see his empty hands as some sort of a failure.

Some of his distress must show in his face. Matthew laughs. “She adores you, whether or not it’s mutual, and she’s not going to consider another partner while you’re alive. I need a Winter if I’m going to win. You need to repudiate the crown or I’m going to do terrible things to you. Terrible for you, anyway.”

“You’re going to kill me whether I repudiate or not,” says Harry. If he repudiates, Melanie dies. That’s enough to keep him playing at bravery, even while he doesn’t feel very brave at all. If he dies while they’re linked …

Melanie’s entanglement is what pulled him under, and he’s her counterweight, but she’s the reason he’s so deep in this shit already. Neither of them had much of a choice about how this was going to go. If he dies while he’s still a candidate, maybe the Winter that’s slowly strangling her will just change its allegiance to the nearest available Summer.

And since the nearest available Summer has a bone saw and is threatening him, he’s not very interested in helping that happen.

“I am not giving up my claim to the crown,” he says, slowly and clearly. “If you kill me, you kill me while I’m a candidate, no matter what that does to what you’ve promised your sister. Because you’re right, my Winter and I are a thing. She’s been my girlfriend since middle school. You’re getting your hands on her over my dead body.”

“Is it a cliché if I say that can be arranged?” asks Matthew mildly. “Because it can absolutely be arranged.”

“Fuck, this is like watching two dogs try to figure out which one of them is in charge of the front yard,” groans Jack, letting her head flop back until she’s staring at the plastic-wrapped ceiling. She flexes her hands like she wants to clap them over her eyes, but her arms are tied down, and she can’t move. She looks more relaxed, somehow, and Harry can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or not. “You’re both big and impressive and scary as shit, okay? You don’t need to bark at each other all night.”

“Matthew!” Misty’s yell comes from the other side of the plastic wall, loud and shrill enough that she might as well be in the room. “Mom says you have to come take out the trash!”

Matthew gives Jack a poisonous look. “You’re lucky my parents are unreasonable,” he huffs, and turns to stomp for the exit.

“Bark bark,” says Jack mildly.

Matthew looks back at her, and there’s no disguising the malice in his face. “I’m going to make you regret that,” he says, and it sounds like a promise, not a threat. “I’m going to make you sorry you ever crossed me.”

“I’m already tied to a chair while you try to make yourself feel like a real scary scientist by threatening me with a bone saw,” says Jack. “Not sure how you could make me sorrier than I am right now.”

“She makes a good point,” says Harry.

“I wouldn’t be helping her if I were you,” says Matthew.

“Matt!” howls Misty.

Matthew sighs and hands his saw to Tommy. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “Keep an eye on them.”

He stomps out of the room, already pulling off his gloves. Tommy watches him go for several seconds. There’s a slam, as if someone has gone through a more substantial door. Jack opens her mouth. Tommy shakes his head and gestures for her to be quiet, and she settles, eyeing him warily.

After another five seconds he drops the saw and moves toward the chairs where Jack and Harry are tied. “He’s going to kill you both, you realize that,” he says, voice low and tight, speaking fast. “He’s already killed two other Summer candidates. The first one was the night the coronation was called. I hadn’t even been able to tell my girl that it was happening…”

“You’re not Matthew’s original attendant?” asks Jack.

“No. I belonged with a girl named Sandra. She would have been an amazing Summer. She and Matthew went to high school together. He found her at the Valentine’s Day dance, and strangled her in the middle of the dance floor when he realized no one was paying attention to them anymore. I couldn’t be there with her.”

“Why not?”

“High school, remember?” Tommy gestures to himself. “I graduated four years ago, and while the seasons lend a lot of anonymity to the situation, they’re not good enough to keep a bunch of white teachers from noticing the Latino guy in his twenties skulking around the campus. I was with her before I graduated, and I’d been teaching her everything she’d need to know. She’d complained to me about Matthew before, called him the school creeper and said he was way too into her, but she’d never realized he was attracted to her because they were both candidates for the Summer. Then the coronation started and she recognized him, and he saw her as the competition. Not just the competition: she was also the girl who’d rejected him over and over for years. He got his revenge while the DJ played terrible dance music, and I felt her die, and there was nothing I could do to save her. I couldn’t even get onto the campus without running into the security guards.”

“Did he not have an attendant?” asks Jack.

“His Corn Jenny left a long time ago,” says Tommy. “He was smart enough to see the writing on the wall when Matthew was a kid. He warned the rest of us that there was a potential Summer in the area who couldn’t be trusted, and so we kept our distance.”

“That sounds … It’s weird for there to be two Summers in a town this small,” says Jack. “How many of you are there?”

“This was in Sacramento,” says Tommy. He grimaces. “They’ve moved around a lot. I’m sure you can guess some of the reasons why.”