Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

            “Why are they always children?” she asked me.

            “He must be related to someone important.” I shrugged. “That’s how you make the Collateral a deterrent, by taking the heir to a prominent family. Someone who’s valued by a person in power.”

            She snorted. “They haven’t met your father.”

            “Ouch,” I said with a laugh.

            The child heard it and wandered our way, eyes lingering on my mouth, as though he suspected I might be like him. When he approached us, Serena dropped to her knees to level with him. “If you don’t want to be here,” she said, “if you’d rather come with us, just say the word.”

            I don’t think she had a plan—not even a contrived, improbable one only for show. And I don’t know how we would have rescued—abducted?—the child if he’d asked us to whisk him away. Where would we have kept him? How would we have protected him?

            But it’s who Serena was. Badass. Caring. Committed to doing the right thing.

            The child said, “This is an honor.” He sounded rehearsed, too formal for his years. Not at all like I did when I was nine and begged Father to let me go back to Vampyre territory over, and over, and over again. “I am to be the Collateral, and that is a privilege.” He turned around and left.

            I was of age, and finally free, and chose not to attend his ceremony.

            This is not a core memory for me. I barely ever recall it, but I’m thinking about it now, awake just before sundown. Perhaps because of what came after the child left us: Serena, furiously determined to burn down the entire world—the Vampyres, the Humans, and whoever else made themselves an accomplice of the Collateral system.

            I listened to her rant without quite understanding her, because the most I could feel was resignation. There was little fight left in me, and I simply couldn’t afford to spend it on something hopeless and unchangeable when waking up every morning in a hostile world was already so exhausting. Her anger was admirable, but I didn’t get it then.

            I get it now, though. In the fuzzy, yellow light filtering into my closet and splattering over the walls, in the worn-out ache that has nested in my bones—I get her anger now. Something within me must have changed, but I still feel like a fairly accurate version of myself: exhausted, but furious. Above all, glad to be alive. Because I have something to do. Something I care for. People I want to keep safe.

            And I need you to care about one single fucking thing, Misery, one thing that’s not me.

            Well, Serena, you’re still part of this, whether you want it or not. But there’s Ana, too. And Lowe, who really needs someone to take care of him. In fact, I should go to him.

            Standing takes me several tries. He’s not in his room, so I wrap a blanket around my shoulders and make my way downstairs. The trip feels five times longer than usual, but when I walk into the living room, he’s there, surrounded by over a dozen people.

            His seconds, all of them. A few of them I know, but most I’m seeing for the first time. It must be a meeting, because everyone looks pinch-eyed and serious. A handsome Were with cornrows is saying something about supplies, and I catch the tail end of his explanation, see several people nod, and then lose track when a familiar voice asks a follow-up question.

            Because it’s Lowe’s.

            The rest of the room fades. I sink into the doorframe and stare at his familiar face, the dark shadows under his clear eyes and the stubble he hasn’t bothered shaving. He speaks with patience and authority, and I find myself lingering, listening to the rhythm of his deep voice if not to the content, my marrow-deep exhaustion soothed at last.

            Then he stops. His body tenses as he turns, at once intensely focused on me. Everyone else stares, too, not quite with the thinly veiled distrust I’d expect from them.

            “You should go,” Lowe commands somberly. “I’ll see you later.”

            “Oh, yeah.” I flush. I’m acutely aware that I’m half naked and crashing an important pack meeting that’s probably about how to handle their never-ending conflict with my people. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” But he’s crossing to me, and when the seconds stand, I realize that I’m not the one being dismissed.

            Lowe is in his usual human form, and I wonder whether I hallucinated my encounter with the white wolf. His seconds walk past us, some nodding at me on their way out, a few patting my back, all wishing me well. I’m unsure what to say until Lowe and I are finally alone. “So.” I gesture at myself with a flourish. “It appears that I survived.”