Bullshit

“Do you know what my first thought was, entering that trailer?” Rebekah asked. She took a quick sip of her beer and held up her hand. “I mean, after the screaming and confusion. My first real thought, looking at the scene.”

Asche shrugged and leaned back in his chair. He expected some kind of platitude, the kind that was supposed to make the terrible feel like the mundane. Something that would make them okay with the idea that they had failed, and because of it people had died.

Instead, Rebekah said, “Bullshit.”

Asche creased his brow. “Bullshit?”

“Bullshit,” Rebekah said with a nod. She spread out her arms. “I looked at what was before me, and I declared bullshit.”

“I didn’t want to believe it, either,” Asche said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “No one wants to believe it when they see it.”

“True. But it wasn’t that I didn’t want to believe it. It was that I didn’t believe it. At all.”

Asche frowned. Swallowed. Tried to keep his voice even as he spoke. “You…mean…you think they’re still alive?”

Rebekah gave an unfunny chuckle. “No. I understand that they’re dead. But I don’t believe the circumstances surrounding it. Sweet little Daphne, killing her mother and then herself?”

“Daphne was a monster.”

“No, she sometimes turned into a monster. Not her fault.”

Asche sat forward and leaned his elbows on his knees. “She was…desperate. Afraid.”

“No, she was desperate and afraid. And even then, she wasn’t that. At that point in time, after we had been there, she had hope. There was a chance she was going to be okay. So why kill herself? And Winona? Bullshit.”

Asche sat back again, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair.

“If she didn’t do it, then who do you think did?” he asked.

Rebekah made a queer smile. For the first time since the conversation had turned this way she moved, leaning forward herself and finishing her beer.

“Well, I think it was you,” she said.

Asche’s face dropped into shock. “You think I…me…how could you think that?”

“It would have had to have been someone who knew what Daphne was, and at that time it was just the five of us in that trailer. I didn’t do it, Tyler wouldn’t slap the mosquito that bit him, and I’ve already established my ‘bullshit’ theory on the killer being either of those two. That just leaves you.”

“No, Rebekah, this is crazy,” Asche said. “Why would I have? How could I possibly?”

“Because you’re a hunter,” Rebekah said. “You’ve been a hunter longer than I’ve known you. Not only that, you were working with Les, who took the opportunity of me not knowing you from Adam to have you spy on me.”

The look of shock on Asche’s face was starting to break. It was turning into the kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

“See, everybody thinks Les wants me dead, which is true. Traitor, he calls me, or some fucking thing. But he doesn’t hate me. It’s not personal. To him, it’s just business. I have inhuman friends, therefore I’m one of them. Kill me. But, if he could use me to find those inhuman friends and kill them first…that’s just smart.”

“Rebekah, I don’t have any idea-”

“Cut the shit, Alexander,” Rebekah said. “You think I don’t have the resources to run a background check?”

Asche took a deep breath. He picked up his beer, studied it for a second, and then finished it, taking his time.

“You’re right,” Asche said. “Les doesn’t hate you. Beverly does, though. I’ve never been able to find out why.”

Rebekah smiled. “Because I’m the reason that bitch only has one eye.”

Asche raised his eyebrows. “I guess that would do it. So, what now?”

“Now, we are leaving. And by ‘we,’ I mean myself and Tyler. You are going to stay right here until morning, at which point you are going to slink off to Les, who I imagine isn’t that far off, and tell him you got found out.”

“What makes you think I’ll just sit here until morning?” Asche asked.

Rebekah looked over his shoulder. Three of the owner’s sons had come in quietly, and were sitting at the bar. One of them nodded at him.

“About a year and a half ago I ended up in a standoff in this very bar with those very men against a couple of pissed off revenants. If it wasn’t for me, this whole place would have burned, them with it. They owe me a favor. Frankly, asking them to keep you here for a few hours is letting them off light.”

“Why don’t you just kill me?” he asked.

Rebekah rolled her eyes as she stood up. “You hunters think death is just the solution to everything, don’t you? ‘Kill them all, let God sort it out.’”

She threw a bit of money down on the table between them, nodded one last time to the men sitting at the bar, and headed for the door.

“Life is more complicated than that, Asche. Don’t let Les tell you different.”

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