This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(77)

“Okay, August,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm and even. “I won’t let you fall.”

He buried his burning forehead on her shoulder. “Please,” he whispered. “Promise me.”

She reached up, and stroked his hair. “I promise,” she said.

They’d made it this far. They would get to the house. Cool him down. Get the money from the safe. Get the car from the garage. And they would drive until they found something—someone—for him to eat.

“Stay with me,” she said, taking his hand and rising to her feet. “Stay with me.”

Heat prickled through her fingers, at first pleasant, and then painful, but she didn’t let go.





They made it to the house.

Gravel crunched beneath her feet as Kate half led, half dragged August across the field and past the overgrown drive and up the front steps. The blue paint on the front door had faded, the garden plants had all gone wild, and a spiderweb of a crack ran across a pane of glass, but otherwise, the house looked exactly as it had.

Like a photograph, thought Kate, edges frayed, color fading, but the picture itself unchanged.

August slumped against the steps as Kate scavenged under weedy grass for the drainpipe and the small magnetic box with the key hidden inside. She’d knock the door in if she had to, but it had lasted this long, and she didn’t like the thought of being the one to break it now.

“Tell me something,” murmured August, echoing her words from the car. His breathing was ragged.

“Like what?” she asked parroting his answer.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, the words trailing off into a sob of grief or pain. He curled in on himself, the violin case slipping from his shoulder and hitting the steps with a thud. “I just wanted . . . to be strong enough.”

She found the box and fumbled to get it open. She didn’t realize her hands were shaking until the sliver of metal went tumbling into the weeds and she had to dig it out. “This isn’t about strength, August. It’s about need. About what you are.”

“I don’t . . . want . . . to be this.”

She let out an exasperated sound. Why couldn’t he have eaten? Why couldn’t he have told her? Her fingers found the key and she straightened, shoved it into the lock, and turned. It was such a small gesture, but the muscle memory was overpowering. The door swung open. She knew the place would look abandoned, but the sight still caught her off guard. The stale air, the surfaces covered in dust, the tendrils of weed creeping up through the wooden floorboards. She almost called out for her mom—the urge was sudden and painful—but caught herself, and helped August inside.

Her feet carried her through the front room. She found the generator box in the kitchen, flipped the switches the way she had a hundred times, the gestures simple, automatic. She didn’t wait for the lights to hum on but went straight for the bathroom with its warm blue-and-white tiles, its porcelain tub.

She snapped the shower on, praying the rain tanks still worked. There was a groaning sound in the pipes, and moments later, water began to rain down, rust red at first, but then cold and crystal clear.

August was there behind her, swaying on his feet. He set the violin case down, managed to get off his jacket and shoes before stumbling forward, catching himself on the lip of the tub. Kate went to steady him, but he threw out a hand in warning. The tallies were burning up his arm and back, singeing through his shirt. He dragged it off, and she saw four hundred and twenty-three white-hot lines blazing across his skin.

She didn’t know what to do.

“Go.” The word was a whisper, a plea.

“I’m not leav—”

“Please.” His voice was shaking, heat rippling his hair like a breeze, and when he looked over his shoulder at her, the bones of his face were glowing white hot, while his eyes were turning darker, black pressing in on the flames. She took a step back, and August climbed into the shower half dressed, gasping as the cold water struck his skin and turned to steam.

She turned toward the bathroom door and heard a voice through the hiss and crackle of the shower, little more than a breath, but still somehow audible. “Thank you.”

Kate’s hand was throbbing as she ran it under the kitchen tap. It looked like she’d put it on a stove. It felt that way, too. All she’d done was take August’s hand and not let go.

Anger, madness, joy . . . I don’t want to keep going.

That’s what he’d said in the woods.

Whatever he was going through now wasn’t joy. How long had he been suffering? She’d noticed the temper, when the car broke down, but he’d managed to keep most of the madness to himself. The joy he couldn’t. And now . . . the sound of his pained voice clawed inside her head.

I don’t want to disappear.

She set the bloodstained spikes in the sink, cut the tap, and wove back through the house. The bathroom was clouded with steam, but August was no longer standing in the shower, and she panicked until she noticed his mop of dark hair cresting the wall of the tub.

I can’t keep going toward the edge.

His eyes were closed, his head tipped back, his body dangerously still beneath the shower’s stream as the water rose over his hips.

Don’t let me fall.

“August?” she said quietly.

He didn’t answer. Didn’t move. Kate forced herself forward, holding her breath until August gave a small shudder. She exhaled, relieved by the subtle motion. His teeth were clenched, his eyes squeezed shut against the fire.