A week later, Melanie was found dead in a dumpster behind a fast food burger place five blocks from her house and two blocks from the park. The window to her room had been pried open and Melanie taken…by the “boogety-man” I’d told her wasn’t in her room and under her bed anymore, but out in the rest of the big, wide world. Sometimes, you can’t know what a monster will do, not the real ones and not the lesser, invisible-man kind.
I turned off the TV, blacking out the news from sight a helluva lot easier than I could from my mind. I let the remote fall from numb fingers as Niko finished fixing us supper, his blond braid swaying across his back. Whatever he was cooking was something nutritious—I hated that word—with rice and vegetables sizzling in a pan. He’d been paid; that meant our food would be healthy for a day or two if far less tasty than a pizza. That was good. I wouldn’t have to make up an excuse as to why I wasn’t hungry. Niko’s “nourishing” as he called it, food was excuse enough. I pulled my knees up to my chest and looped my arms around them. I’d thought…I’d been sure Melanie would be safe. I hadn’t guessed he’d go after her if she wouldn’t come out to him. What to do now?
I couldn’t tell the police what I’d seen, as we were on the run. We spent our life on the run, from Sophia’s creditors and knee-breakers to the monsters. They’d put Sophia in prison, no loss. But they’d put Nik and me in foster care until Nik turned eighteen, another year. And I…I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t be with people who didn’t know about the monsters that would circle their house. That didn’t know what would irritate me and what would make me mad and what I could do if I got mad. People who wouldn’t have any idea that I needed help in watching the dark, watching for Grendels, and, if they knew, impossible as that was, wouldn’t care if I needed help or not. Couldn’t be bothered to do it. I’d be alone. Just me, the monsters, and people who’d be eaten because they didn’t know to lock all the doors and windows before night. Who didn’t know to sleep with knives under the mattresses or to keep at least one knife hidden in every room. Stupid, stupid people who didn’t know fucking anything.
Thoughts tied in panicked knots, I managed to stop myself a second before I would’ve started rocking back and forth. Niko would’ve seen that in a heartbeat and he wouldn’t let it go. Okay. Okay. I had to think. I took a deep breath and didn’t waste time finding it ironic I was more afraid of foster care than supernatural monsters. Taking hold of my emotions and mind, I shook them both ruthlessly. I could handle Grendels, I could handle this. Calmer, I considered the options. The first one I’d already thrown out. No police. What else could I do?
I could leave an anonymous tip like they do on the crime shows or in real life when you want to snitch and not get shot in the head for it. That wasn’t direct contact with the police, and I could use one of the school phones or hop a bus, go to the nearest mall—nearest being at least forty minutes away, make the call there. But the man…there was nothing to say that would help the cops. He had average hair, not brown but not blond, either. He wasn’t tall, he wasn’t short. Wasn’t fat, wasn’t skinny. Wore the same thrift store clothes everyone did around here. Jeans and an old shirt that could be black or could be a dark blue that was practically black. I hadn’t been close enough to see the color of his eyes.
He was as I’d thought when I first saw him. He was a predator, the city his wilderness. He had a natural camouflage that was so good, it was freakish, goddamn genetic. You could walk right past him and not see him at all. I’d notice him again if I saw him, but it might take me more than a few seconds, maybe an entire minute, which was fucking unsettling, considering my near lifetime of training that forced me to notice virtually everything in my immediate and not-so-immediate area. The police already knew where she’d been found, though. They’d cover that area for blocks, blocks including the park. I knew wherever she’d been found, he’d killed her in the park. That was his place—where he found them and where he ended them. His fucking lair. Maybe the police would find her blood there. Maybe they’d find him. Find the invisible man.
I knew they wouldn’t.