Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(20)

That left the maze.

Someone shouted behind her and Joan hurled herself across the garden, crushing hydrangeas as she ran. The perfume of them rose, fresh and sweet. There were bodies lying among the flowers. Joan glimpsed a man with a mermaid tattoo curled delicately around his wrist. A woman with long red hair.

Joan risked a glance back. A figure in black appeared from around the corner of the house. Joan threw herself into the mouth of the maze. Had they seen her going in? She had to assume they had.

She ran, stumbling into the hedge walls in her haste to turn corners. And then she just ran and ran until she had to stop, hands on her knees, sucking in air and trying to quiet herself. Her own wheezing breaths sounded like Gran’s last gasps. Like Ruth’s agonised grunt. She was still shoeless, she realised then, and still clutching the heavy candlestick like a runner’s baton. Her dress was torn from where it had caught on the window ledge.

Joan wanted to lie down and cry. Her family. Oh God, her family. She wanted to pretend this wasn’t happening. She imagined what Gran would say to her now. Her incredulous expression. Joan, you’re running for your life, girl. So bloody run!

Joan stumbled forward.

She wasn’t sure when she began to hear the other sounds. At first they could have been hedge leaves rustling in the wind. But soon the thud of steps was unmistakable. There was someone else in the maze with her, running too.

And someone was in pursuit of them, perhaps no more than a turn behind.

Every now and then, the maze brought them close enough for Joan to hear them clearly—the broken gasp of someone who’d been running too fast for too long; the steady breaths of someone who’d been trained to chase.

Joan peered into the thick press of the hedge, but the night was too dark. There was no way to tell how far away the runner and chaser were. The other side of the hedge wall could be miles of twisting paths away, or a single turn.

Then the sounds of running stopped abruptly. ‘Oh God. Please don’t. Please don’t.’ A boy’s voice.

Joan caught herself before she gasped out loud. It sounded as though the boy were right next to her.

Joan walked forward carefully and then hesitated. She had no idea where she was in the maze. Everywhere she looked, the view was the same: dense hedge walls and dirt path.

‘Please,’ the boy said, hoarse. ‘Please.’

Joan crept around the corner. And there they were—Aaron Oliver, trapped in a dead end, facing one of Nick’s men.

In the moonlight, Aaron’s golden hair looked almost white. There was a tattoo on the back of his pursuer’s neck—a snarling wolf. The man’s posture was relaxed and confident as he walked toward Aaron. He drew a long knife from his belt.

Aaron saw Joan and froze. Joan knew exactly what he was thinking. He’d left her to die back at the house.

Two steps, Joan thought. Two steps back the way she’d come, and she’d be safe again. Two steps, and she’d be out of sight.

Joan took two steps. Aaron’s eyes widened. She slammed the heavy candlestick into the back of the man’s head.

The man rocked on his feet. He seemed shocked but unhurt. He grabbed Joan’s hair and jerked her head back, knife coming up. Joan swung the candlestick hard into his face. There was a sickening crack like a twig breaking. The man stumbled, and Joan swung at him again, as hard as she could, connecting with his jaw. He fell, and she fell with him, feet tangling with his. The candlestick slid from her grasp, and she scrabbled after it desperately.

‘He’s out.’ Aaron’s voice. ‘You hit him rather hard.’

Joan’s vision focused. ‘Oh my God,’ she heard herself say. The man was lying on his side, unconscious. His face was a bloody mess. Joan put her hands on her knees and breathed.

Aaron’s feet appeared in front of her eyes. ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ Joan told him. Then she turned away and retched, hunched over, at the base of the hedge.

When she was done, Aaron offered his hand, gingerly, as though he didn’t really want to touch her.

‘Fuck you,’ Joan said. Her stomach was still rolling.

‘Why did you help me?’ Aaron said.

Joan got herself upright, ignoring Aaron’s question and his outstretched hand. She felt like she’d been pummelled in the stomach. She avoided looking at the man lying in the dead end. ‘I don’t know how to get out of the maze from here,’ she said.

‘I do,’ Aaron said. When Joan looked up, he’d rearranged his expression to something more familiarly supercilious. ‘I grew up in this house.’

Grew up in this house? Joan couldn’t make sense of that, but she didn’t care enough to think about it. ‘Then get us out of here.’

Aaron grabbed her sleeve as she turned.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she said reflexively.

Aaron tugged the pinch of cloth in an exaggerated gesture to show that he wasn’t touching skin. ‘Wrong way.’

It took Joan a second to understand him. ‘We can’t go back to the house,’ she said, confused.

‘I need to find my father,’ Aaron said. ‘He’ll take care of . . .’ He nodded at the unconscious man. ‘That.’ At Joan’s blank look, he added, a little awkwardly, ‘No harm will come to you now, of course. You saved my life. My family will pay the debt.’