This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(51)

But that fantasy came with its own dangers. No people meant no souls, and he’d calculated how long it would take to get that far out, and back, and knew it was too risky.

“Pack a meal,” Leo had said dismissively.

August had wanted to say several things back, none of them kind.

But now . . .

Now it was just him and the white walls and the violin, and August closed his eyes and began to play.

Kate lingered after school, watching the campus empty. The students left in a wave, heading for the subway or peeling out of the lot as if they were racing against the darkness, which she supposed they were. Curfew was technically sundown—7:23 today, according to a helpful chart outside the main office—but nobody ever cut it that close, not even the teachers. As long as they had a medallion, they would be safe—that was the idea—but no one seemed eager to test the theory, and twenty minutes after the 4 P.M. bell, the only people still on campus were a handful of sophomores retaking a quiz, a pair of seniors loitering in the parking lot, and the monster in the music room.

Kate perched on a bench inside the gate, waiting for the black sedan to show. The copper-lined zip ties jabbed at her through her back pocket, a nagging reminder of what she needed to do. She glanced back at the school—the car needed to get here before Freddie.

Thirty minutes after the bell, there was still no sign of either.

Kate rapped her nails on the bench. She’d told Marcus she’d be late, and she tried to still the nervous prickle in her chest, but fifteen minutes later, with Colton going quiet around her and no sedan in sight, she broke down and phoned the driver.

He didn’t answer.

Fear flashed through her, sudden and sharp.

It was almost five.

The light was already starting to weaken. Kate got to her feet, began to pace. She thought of calling her father, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She wasn’t a child. But Freddie was still inside, and without the car she had no way of getting him to go with her anyway. Abandoning the mission, she shifted the backpack on her shoulder and headed for the subway entrance across from campus.

But when she got there, it was locked.

Kate’s pulse quickened as she wrapped her fingers around the metal bars.

This wasn’t right. The subway lines were supposed to run until sundown, but the gate had already been pulled across the entrance and padlocked shut. Her bad ear started ringing, the way it did when her heart was going too fast. She closed her eyes for a moment, tried to slow it down, but it was telling her, over and over, to run.

No. Kate closed her eyes, took a breath. Think, think. She let go of the bars and turned back toward the school, dragging her phone from her pocket and phoning a cab.

The guy didn’t want to dispatch, and she didn’t blame him, but it was after five and the sun was getting lower, and she had no intention of being trapped alone on campus with a monster after dark.

“My name is Kate Harker,” she snapped. “Name your price. Just get here fast.” She hung up, and dug the iron spikes out of her backpack, the sound of metal on metal a reminder of how quiet Colton had become. She shoved one spike into her sock and gripped the other near the blunted top, knifelike point away.

She headed for the front doors, but they were locked; tried to swipe in, but nothing happened. She rattled the handles, just to make sure, and then, through the glass, she saw the body.

He was lying twisted on the floor, his head craned back so she could see his face.

It was Mr. Brody, the history teacher, his neck broken and his eyes burned black.

For the first time in ages, August finished his song.

And then he played it again.

And again.

The melody—this strange, incredible thing that had come to him that first day in the alley and never left, never let go, sang in his head beneath the gunfire, always waiting to be set free—poured from him now through skin and bow and string. It thrummed through muscle and bone, wove through heart and vein, and made him feel human, and whole, and filled with life.

Maybe it wasn’t the soul he fed on.

Maybe it was this.

Each chord hung in the air, shimmering like dust caught in beams of sun, and as the song ended a third time and the melody trailed off, he stood there savoring the perfect moment.

The timer chirped, a shrill sound that shattered the last lingering notes and dragged August back to the world and all the troubles waiting in it. He sighed and took up the phone, silencing the alarm, then frowned. He’d sent Henry a text to say he’d be home a little late, but there was no reply. Not even from Leo.

That’s when he noticed there was no signal, either. Damn. He reluctantly returned the violin to its case, slung his bag onto his shoulder, and went for the door.

It didn’t open.

August tried to put his weight behind it, but the door wasn’t just stiff, or stuck.

It was locked.

He looked around, wondering if there was some kind of card swipe in the studio, but there was nothing. The access pad was on the other side. Panic chewed through him, but he swallowed and pressed his face to the glass insert, straining to see something—anything—and what he saw was the access pad busted open, spilling cut wires like innards down the wall.

He was trapped.

Kate staggered back from the main doors, the corpse’s black eyes staring blankly out at her. She fought back a shudder, tried to think. Three Sunai. Logic said it was Freddie. But if it was Freddie, how had he gotten out and locked the subway gate without her seeing him? And if it wasn’t Freddie, and the second Sunai never left the compound, then that meant . . . Leo.