His voice was pleasant enough, but his message was clear. Her presence here was predicated on her cooperation.
“Since we’re both awake,” he went on, “perhaps we could talk about this new monster, this—”
“Chaos Eater,” she offered. “What about it?”
“Two days ago, one of my squads turned their weapons on one another without cause or warning, for no apparent reason.”
The air caught in Kate’s throat—it wasn’t shock, or horror, but a strange and unsettling relief. She’d seen the creature, of course, but it was one thing to have visions and another to have facts. She wasn’t losing her mind—at least, not entirely.
“At the time, we couldn’t explain it, but it sounds as if it fits your monster’s pattern.” Flynn drew a small tablet from the other pocket of his robe and began typing. Kate’s eyes widened.
“You have a connection?” she asked.
Again, the grim smile. “Internal only. The interterritory towers were among the first things to fail. We don’t know if the damage was a casualty in the midst of another attack or—”
“I’m willing to bet it was intentional,” said Kate, taking up her coffee. “It’s a siege break tactic.”
Flynn’s brows rose. “Excuse me?”
She took a long sip. “Well, which is scarier?” she said. “Being locked in a house, or being locked in a house with no way of calling for help? No way of telling someone you’re in trouble? It fosters fear. Discord. All the things a growing monster needs.”
Flynn stared at her. “That’s quite a mercenary observation.”
“What can I say,” she said. “I am my father’s daughter.”
“I hope not.”
Silence formed, sudden and uncomfortable. Flynn nodded at her wrist, still bruised from Soro’s grip, the knuckles split from hitting August. “Let me see.”
“It’s fine.”
He waited patiently until she finally held out her hand. He prodded the skin and flexed her wrist and then her fingers forward and back with a doctor’s care. It hurt, but nothing was broken. Flynn rummaged beneath the counter and came up with a medkit, and she watched in silence as he wrapped and taped her hand.
“The question now,” he said while he worked, “is how to hunt this monster. Perhaps you have some insight.”
Kate hesitated, wondering if this was simply another kind of interrogation, but the words didn’t feel leading or weighted. She drew back her hand, searching for something to say.
“Have you noticed anything?” prompted Flynn.
Kate considered this. She’d seen it—or rather, seen through its eyes—during the day, but the vision had been fractured, insubstantial.
“I believe it hunts at night.”
“That makes sense,” said Flynn thoughtfully.
“It does?”
“Night has a way of blurring lines in the psyche. It makes us feel free. Studies show people are generally less inhibited after dark, more open to influence and”—he stifled a cough, then continued—“primal behaviors. If this creature is preying on dark thoughts, turning them into actions, then yes, night would be its optimal time to hunt.”
“And there’s also a camouflage aspect,” added Kate. “This thing is like a walking black hole. Easier to blend into the dark.”
Flynn nodded.
Kate’s stomach growled, loud enough for both to hear.
“You must be hungry,” he said.
And she was. Ravenously. But her father’s words rose unbidden.
Every weakness is a place to slide a knife.
She hadn’t answered, but Henry was already at the fridge. “Omelet?”
“You cook?”
“Two of the five people who live here do enjoy food.”
She perched on a stool, watching as he set a carton of eggs and a few vegetables on the counter.
“Where does it come from, the food?”
“The task force stores what it can,” said Flynn. “We raid depots on both sides of the city. As for fresh food, we hold a grid of farms on the south side of the Waste, but resources aren’t endless and scavengers are plenty.”
Just one more reason this conflict couldn’t last, thought Kate.
Flynn started dicing vegetables with quick, deft motions. He had been a surgeon, she remembered not simply a doctor. It was clear from the way he held the knife. Its edge winked at her, and she turned her attention to the cat instead, now asleep in a fruit bowl. Her fingers crept cautiously toward its tail.
“He belongs to August,” said Flynn. “Though Ilsa is quite fond of him.”
“And Soro?”
Flynn’s brow furrowed. “Soro spends most of their time in the barracks.” He paused over his work. “The Sunai are not like other monsters. They are like us. Every one of them is as unique as a human.”
“And yet, August never struck me as a cat person.”
Flynn chuckled softly. “Perhaps not,” he said, cracking eggs into a bowl, “but my son has always been the kind of person willing to rescue something lost.”
Vegetables sizzled in the pan, their scent twisting her stomach.
“You really think of him that way. As your son.”
“I do.”
A shadow crossed Kate’s mind. The memory of her own father in his office, and the words he used like weapons: I never wanted a daughter.
Flynn split the omelet onto two plates and slid hers forward. Kate dug in, ravenous, but Flynn didn’t seem interested in his own portion. “August believes you want to help.”
“I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t.”
“If that’s true, then you’ll tell me what you know—”
“I already have,” she said between bites.
“—about Sloan,” he finished.
She stilled. “What?”
“If anyone can pick apart that monster’s logic, figure out what he wants . . .”
Kate set down her fork as revulsion rose in her throat. She didn’t want to get inside Sloan’s head, didn’t want to resurrect the specter of her father.
But Henry Flynn was right—if anyone could predict that monster’s motions, it would be her.
She swallowed hard. “If I had to guess,” she said, picking up her fork again, “he wants what all monsters want.”
“And what’s that?”
“More,” said Kate. “More violence. More death.” She pictured the crimson light of the Malchai’s eyes dancing with pleasure, with menace. “Sloan is like the cat that plays with the mouse before eating it, just because it can. Only this time, the mouse is Verity.”
She could feel Flynn’s gaze on her, but she focused on the fork in his hand, the way he nudged the omelet on his plate.
Kate had grown up reading people, the smallest tells in her father’s mouth, her mother’s eyes. She thought of the photos she’d seen of Henry Flynn—the last six months had clearly taken a toll. There was a gauntness to his face, a gray undertone to his pallor, and then there was the shallow way he breathed, as if trying to stave off a coughing fit.
“How long have you been sick?” she asked.
Flynn stilled. He could lie to her, if he wanted to—they both knew that—but in the end he didn’t.
“It’s hard to know. Our medical facilities have never been as strong as those north of the Seam.”