Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(28)

“So he had motive,” said Malcolm.

Motive, thought Kate. It could have been an ordinary crime—a gruesome one, yes, but something human—except for the fact it wasn’t.

“You were right, about the explosion,” she said, “the string of murder-suicides. There’s nothing normal about this.”

“Are you sure?”

She remembered the wrongness in the killer’s eyes. A pair of silver discs shining in the dark. She’d seen the shadow, followed it . . .

But there the memory faltered, dissolving into darkness and the press of cold.

“Any survivors?” she asked.

“One,” said Malcolm. “She was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.”

Kate stilled. “Why do I sense a but coming?”

“They got her stabilized, but the moment she woke up—well, she snapped. Killed a doctor. Attacked two nurses, too. If she hadn’t been as bad off as she was, it would have been worse for everyone. They ended up quarantining the wing. Put the nurses under observation, in case whatever she had was contagious.”

Kate pressed her palms to her eyes, trying to quell the headache, trying to smother the feeling that rose in her throat at the word contagious. She’d been there. She’d seen . . .

“Kate?” pressed Riley in a too-even tone. “How are you feeling?”

Like hell, she thought. Like hell, but like myself.

“She should to go to a doctor,” said Malcolm.

“She is fine,” snapped Kate. Her phone chirped. “And she has to go to work.”

She got to her feet, steadied herself a moment, and turned toward the hall.

“Is that such a good idea?” asked Riley.

Her temper flared. “I said I’m fine.”

“And I’m just supposed to believe you?”

Kate spun. “I don’t care if you believe me. You’re not my parent and I’m not your pet project.”

“That’s uncalled for!”

“Hey, hey,” cut in Malcolm. “Everyone calm down.”

Kate scrubbed at her face. “Look,” she said slowly, “you’re right, I don’t feel great. But I’ve got to go to work. I’ll bail if I have to. Promise.”

Riley opened his mouth, but in the end said nothing.

If there was one sound Kate hated, it was the bell above the café door.

What was the point, when the counter faced the door and she could see the people coming in? At this time of day, the line stretched all the way back to the door itself, the constant open and close eliciting a near-continuous chime.

“Next!” she called impatiently.

To take her mind off the bell, she tried to focus on the customers themselves and play a game called “guess the secret.” The woman in the purple dress two sizes too small? Sleeping with her handyman. The man on the cell? Embezzling. The one in front of her right now? Addicted to sleeping pills. That was the only thing that explained how long it was taking for him to order.

A vein in Kate’s temple twitched.

“Next.”

A man shuffled forward without looking up from his phone.

“Sir?”

He was talking softly, and she realized he was taking a call.

“Sir?”

He held up a finger and kept talking.

“Sir.”

Annoyance rose inside her, taking a sudden sharp turn into anger, and before Kate realized what she was doing, her hand shot across the counter.

She snatched the cell phone and hurled it against the exposed brick wall installed to give the Coffee Bean that extra homey charm. It smashed, and when the man’s head finally came up, veins bulging as he stared, not at her, but at the pieces of his cell raining down the wall, Kate’s first thought was of reaching out and snapping his neck. Of how nice that would feel.

The urge stole through her, so simple and quick, she almost didn’t notice.

She could see it, clear as glass, could feel his flesh beneath her hands, hear the clean snap of bone. And the very idea was like a cold compress on a fevered head, a balm on a burn, so sudden and soothing that her fingers actually started curling—that little voice in her head, the one that said don’t, suddenly replaced by one that said do—before she thought no, stop, and came jarringly back to her senses.

It was like being thrown out of a pleasant dream and into a nightmare, the wonderful, certain calm replaced by a wave of sickness and a lancing pain behind her eyes.

What had she just done?

What had she almost done?

Kate forced herself backward—away from the counter, away from the stunned line and the man who’d now begun to shout—tore the apron over her head, and fled.





She dropped her bag beside the door.

Riley and Malcolm were no longer there—thank God for small mercies.

Her pulse was still a raging beat inside her skull, but whatever had come over her back in the coffee shop was gone, leaving only a headache and a pressure behind her eyes.

A migraine? But Kate had never gotten migraines, and she was pretty sure their side effects didn’t include the sudden desire for violence.

Violence—her mind snagged on that word, and the night before came back again: the man and the shadow, both so steady, so calm. The emptiness in the man’s face as the monster’s own seemed to fill out. And then—the alley. Kate standing face-to-face with the monster, the nothing of it, all cold and hollow hunger and those silver discs, like mirrors—