Black Iris by Leah Raeder Page A

following him.
    “This photo was shot—” He glanced at the screen. “That’s her kitchen. This is from the south. What’s south of her building?”
    “Empty lot, then another building.”
    “Maybe one of the tenants—”
    “That building’s only three stories. This angle is from straight across.”
    Our eyes met.
    “The roof,” we said simultaneously.
    Someone had climbed onto the roof of the adjacent building. Waited for us.
    Armin began pacing again.
    “Okay. Let’s assume this is . . . a threat. How did they follow us? We were fast and clean. Unless Donnie—”
    “They didn’t follow us.”
    Shadow. Light. Shadow.
    “Someone was already up there,” I said. “They knew where to go, where to look. Where to see us .”
    The three of us. Together. Like always.
    “ I saw you. ” Armin’s throat rippled with a swallow. “It’s not even about him. They don’t care about revenge. They care about hurting us.”
    Come on, I thought. You’re so close.
    “This is someone who knew what we were planning that night,” he said. “Someone who was waiting.”
    “Just say it.”
    He stopped pacing, that handsome profile in silhouette. “It’s one of us, Laney. One of us turned.”

OCTOBER, LAST YEAR
    O n Homecoming Day the air had a sweet dry tang of rust, like old blood. Corgan University sat on the edge of Lake Michigan, a sprawling ivory palace we’d nicknamed Hogwarts, perching atop shelves of cracked granite as if part of the city had broken off centuries ago and crumbled into the lake. I liked the sense of being surrounded by massive, ruined things. Hiyam and I wove arm-in-arm through tailgate partiers, our hair wind-tossed, sunglasses flashing. My body was wired. I could navigate by feel, follow the electric crackle that leaped from body to body and skittered over gravel and snapped in blue arcs at the corner of my eye.
    Hunting always brings me to life.
    “You don’t have to babysit me,” Hiyam said for the umpteenth time. “I won’t get fucked-up.”
    “I’m not your babysitter,” I said.
    I was basically her babysitter.
    She’d moved in with Armin, so her sobriety was everyone’s problem now. It takes a village to keep someone out of rehab. At first Armin was nervous about letting his newly detoxed sister hang out with his habitually toxed girlfriend, but Hiyam policed herself pretty well, and it wasn’t exactly clear I was Armin’s girlfriend, anyway. This ambiguity became poignant when we’d make out for half an hour until he’d grab my wrist,removing my hand from the erection in his jeans. I’d be so pissed I’d hit him. “If you don’t want to fuck me, fine, but stop leading me on.” He’d pin my wrist to the couch, his body over mine. “I want you so much I can’t think,” he’d growl. Which led in circles. “Then why are we still talking?” I’d say, and he’d say, “It’s complicated,” and I’d guess that complicated meant Blythe.
    Blythe fucking McKinley. She was always there with us. Between us. Part of us.
    “It’s not that you’re boring,” Hiyam was saying now. Hiyam had a way of making everything sound like a backhanded compliment. “It’s just that I’m an adult.”
    “Eighteen is not an adult.”
    “Legally it is.”
    “Legally you could join the Marines or have a kid. If you think you’re ready for that, you’re nuts.”
    “I’ve done actual adult shit.”
    “Doing adult shit doesn’t make you an adult.”
    The sunglasses swiveled to me. “You remind me of someone.”
    Before he enlisted me as babysitter, Armin had warned me about Hiyam. “Keep her away from drugs, and from girls her own age. She has a habit of abusing both.”
    “I’m a girl her own age.”
    He’d frowned, reconsidering.
    “Look, I’ll handle her,” I’d said breezily. “If I can keep Blythe from jumping off a rooftop on X, I won’t let your sister walk all over me.”
    It hadn’t even occurred to me what he was doing. Why he paired us together. Well