It was only a matter of time before the café kicked her out—she hadn’t bought anything in hours. Still, she didn’t appreciate it when a guy sat down at her table on the pretense of studying, only to ask her if she needed help.
She’d had her first run-in with a monster the night before, and it hadn’t gone well. But considering that the extent of her experience—schoolroom self-defense aside—consisted of executing a bound Malchai in her father’s basement and nearly getting disemboweled by a Corsai on the subway, she really shouldn’t have been surprised.
She’d gotten away with a split lip and a broken nose, but she knew she looked rough.
She told the guy she wasn’t interested in God, or whatever he was selling, but he didn’t leave. A few minutes later a fresh cup of coffee appeared in front of her.
“How did that happen?” he asked, nodding at her face.
“Hunting monsters,” she said, because sometimes the truth was strange enough to make people go away.
“Uh, okay . . . ,” he said, clearly skeptical. He got to his feet. “Come on.”
She didn’t move. “Where?”
“I have a hot shower, an extra bed. There might even be some food in the fridge.”
“I don’t know you.”
He held out his hand. “Riley Winters.”
Kate stared at his open palm. She wasn’t big on charity, but she was tired and hungry and felt like shit. Besides, if he tried anything unwanted, she was pretty sure she could take him. “Kate,” she said. “Kate Gallagher.”
Riley didn’t try anything—thanks to the aforementioned boyfriend—just gave her a towel and a pillow and, a week later, a key. To this day, she wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. Maybe she’d had a concussion. Maybe he was just persuasive.
Kate yawned, tossing the paper plate onto the table beside her gun.
Riley reached for the remote, switching the TV off.
Kate responded by switching the radio on.
Riley shook his head. “What did silence ever do to you?”
He didn’t know, of course, about the car wreck that had killed her mother and stripped the hearing from her left ear. Didn’t know that when sound was taken from you, you had to find ways to take it back.
“If you want sound,” said Riley, “we could always talk.”
Kate sighed. This was his game.
Ply her with food and sugar until she was blissed out on empty calories, and then, invariably, start prying. And the worst part was some masochistic part of her must want it, must relish the fact someone cared enough to ask, because she kept letting him in. Kept ending up here on the couch with empty soda cans and pizza boxes.
Bad habit.
Ritual.
“Okay,” she said, and Riley brightened visibly, but if he thought she was going to talk about herself, he was wrong. “Why did you bring up that explosion?”
Confusion streaked his face. “What?”
“On the chat, you mentioned an explosion. Man-made. Why?”
“You saw that?” He sat back. “I don’t know. The Wardens have got me looking for things that don’t line up, and it caught my eye. . . . It’s the fifth murder-suicide this week. That’s really high, even for Prosperity.”
Kate frowned. “You think it’s some kind of monster?”
Riley shrugged. “Six months ago, I didn’t believe in monsters. Now I see them everywhere.” He shook his head. “It’s probably nothing. Let’s talk about something else. How are you holding up?”
“Oh, look at the time,” she said dryly. “Malcolm’s going to get jealous.”
“Thanks for your concern,” he said, “but I assure you, our relationship is stable enough to allow for time with friends.”
Friends.
The word glanced off her ribs, hard enough to leave her winded.
Because she knew a secret: there were two kinds of monsters, the kind that hunted the streets and the kind that lived in your head. She could fight the first, but the second was more dangerous. It was always, always, always a step ahead.
It didn’t have teeth or claws, didn’t feed on flesh or blood or hearts.
It simply reminded you of what happened when you let people in.
Behind her eyes, August Flynn stopped fighting, because of her. He collapsed into darkness, because of her. He sacrificed a part of himself—his humanity, his light, his soul—because of her.
She could handle her own blood.
She didn’t need anyone else’s on her hands.
“Rule one,” she said, forcing her voice even, light. “Don’t make friends. It never ends well.”
Riley rolled a soda can between his palms. “But doesn’t it get lonely?”
Kate smiled. It was so easy when you could lie.
“No.”
Violence
has a taste a smell
but most of all it has
a heat— the shadow stands
in the street engulfed
in smoke
in fire
in wrath
in rage
basking
in the warmth and for an instant light glances off a face finding— cheekbones a chin
the barest hint
of lips
for an instant— but it is not enough it is never enough one human holds so little heat and it is cold again— hungry again— its edges blurring
back into darkness the way edges always do it wants
more
searches
the night and finds— a woman, a pistol, a bed a couple, a kitchen, a cutting block a man, a pink slip, an office the whole city a book of matches
just waiting to be struck.
VERITY
The steel violin shone beneath his fingers.
Its metal body caught the sun, turning the instrument to light as August ran his thumb along the strings, checking them one last time.
“Hey, Alpha, you ready?”
August shut the case and swung it up onto his shoulder. “Yes.”
His team stood waiting, huddled in a patch of sun on the north side of the Seam—a three-story barricade that stretched like a dark horizon line between North and South City. Ani was drinking from a canteen, while Jackson studied the magazine on his gun, and Harris, was, well, he was being Harris, chewing gum and throwing knives at a wooden crate on which he’d drawn a very crude, very rude picture of a Malchai. He’d even named it Sloan.
It was a cool day, and they were dressed in full gear, but August wore only combat slacks and a black polo, his arms bare save for the rows of short black lines that circled his wrist like a cuff.
“Checkpoint One,” said a voice over the comm, “five minutes.”
August cringed at the volume, even though he’d pulled the comm piece out of his ear and let it hang around his neck. The voice belonged to Phillip, back at the Compound.
“Hey, Phil,” said Harris. “Tell me a joke.”
“That’s not what the comms are for.”
“How about this one?” offered Harris. “A Corsai, a Malchai, and a Sunai walk into a bar—”
Everyone groaned, including August. He didn’t really understand most of the FTF’s jokes, but he knew enough to recognize that Harris’s were awful.
“I hate waiting,” muttered Jackson, checking his watch. “Have I mentioned how much I hate waiting?”
“So much whining,” radioed their sniper, Rez, from a nearby roof.
“How’s it looking up there?” asked Ani.
“Perimeter’s clear. No trouble.”
“Too bad,” said Harris.
“Idiot,” radioed Phillip.
August ignored them all, staring across the street at the target.