Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(21)

Aaron didn’t know.

The night around them seemed very quiet. ‘We can’t go back,’ Joan said. She took a breath. ‘Your father is dead.’

Aaron went still. He let go of her sleeve. ‘What?’

Joan saw Gran again in her mind’s eye. Gran was back there in that room. Joan had just left her lying there. And Ruth . . . Joan squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Your father is dead.’

‘No, he isn’t.’

Joan opened her mouth, and then couldn’t think of what to say. I’m sorry. That’s what she’d normally say if someone’s father had died. Only, she wasn’t sorry. Edmund had wanted her to die, horribly, for his own amusement. Aaron had just walked away; he’d left her to die. ‘It was fast,’ Joan said.

Aaron straightened the cuffs of his jacket. They didn’t need it. He was neat and ordered and unrumpled. Someone stumbling onto the scene would never have guessed he’d just been running for his life. ‘You’re wrong.’

Joan thought again about the way Edmund had died. The sword wedged deep into his chest. She took a slow breath, hoping not to retch again. ‘I’m really not.’

‘You think I don’t know—’ Aaron bit off the words as his voice started to rise. ‘You think I don’t know when my own father is going to die?’ He was clearly forcing himself to stay calm, to stay ordered. ‘I know my family history. This isn’t when he dies. It isn’t today.’

There wasn’t time for this, Joan thought, frustrated. Standing here, where Nick’s people could come upon them from any angle, was unbearable. ‘The boy who was with me,’ Joan said urgently. ‘The human boy. He killed Lucien. Then he killed your father. His people are all over the estate. They’re killing us.’

‘Us?’

‘Monsters,’ Joan said. And then she remembered how Edmund had called her an abomination because she was half-human. She wanted to scream suddenly. She wanted to grab Aaron by the shirt and drag him out of there. But she didn’t know the way. ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘My gran is dead. My family. Your family. They’re all—’ Her voice broke. ‘They’re all dead. And if we don’t get out of here, we’re going to die too. They’re killing us.’

Aaron stared down at the unconscious man. The wolf tattoo on the back of the man’s neck was stark black against his skin.

‘Aaron,’ Joan said. Without view of Aaron’s face, she had no idea what he was thinking.

After a long moment, Aaron spoke. ‘I saw people in the South Garden.’ He sounded as though he were pulling the words reluctantly from somewhere deep. ‘Ivette. Victor. I saw people in the Green Lane. They were just lying there.’ He lifted his head, focused on Joan. He frowned. ‘You look like you’ve been in a car accident.’

Joan blinked down at herself. Then she wished she hadn’t. Gran had bled so much that her dress was stiff with it.

‘Are you hurt?’ Aaron said.

‘No.’ Then Joan remembered Lucien and the sword. Well, not too badly. At least, she hoped. She fished in her pocket for the phone she’d found and the necklace Gran had given her. She started to remove her dress.

‘What are you doing?’ Aaron sounded horrified.

‘I can’t walk around covered in blood,’ Joan said. She tugged the dress over her head and caught his scandalised expression. ‘I’m not naked underneath.’ She gestured at her bike shorts and tank top.

‘Oh,’ Aaron said, face stiff.

Joan balled up the bloody dress and shoved it under the hedge next to the unconscious man. A message. Dear Nick, I took out your guy. Love, Joan.

‘How do we get out of here?’ she said.

Aaron gestured ahead. Joan waited for him to turn his back, then fastened the necklace around her neck, tucking it under her tank top.

A Hunt and an Oliver cooperating. Yesterday, Joan’s family would have said that was impossible. We hate them and they hate us. A few minutes ago, fighting against Lucien, Joan would have agreed.

But today, Joan had gone up against the Oliver family and lived. Today, Nick had saved her life. Then he’d revealed himself to be a threat beyond imagining. What was one more impossible thing?





SIX




Joan walked out under the leafy archway, past the cheerful You escaped the maze! sign. She found herself in darkness, in a field at the edge of the grounds. Dandelion heads brushed her ankles in the long grass. She couldn’t see any sign of Nick or his people.

From here, Holland House was the size of her palm. The windows glowed like candles. The house looked welcoming, even homey.

Aaron came to stand beside her, just a shape in the darkness. He looked at the house. He’d said it had been his childhood home.

It was too dark to see his face.

Joan touched his elbow. He didn’t react. But when she headed for the road, he followed.

Kensington High Street was all lights and cars and people, the cheerful bustle surreal after the silent grey of the maze. Joan stood at the curb, staring at the ordinariness of it all: kebabs and burgers and black cabs.

A car started nearby, making her jump. It crawled along the road, as though the occupants were lost—or looking for someone. Joan glanced at Aaron, and by unspoken agreement they both slid into the shadows of a doorway.