Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(24)

Joan stared at him as he picked up his jacket from the bedside table. She wasn’t scared of him, she told herself. She’d been afraid of his father, but she’d seen Aaron at his basest self. He was a coward. He might be more than a head taller than her, but if it came down to a fight between them, she was sure that she could take him.

Aaron didn’t seem to notice the way she was looking at him. He made a show of shaking out the jacket and walking to the wardrobe. ‘Really,’ he said. ‘Clothes should be hung. Not tossed aside like wrapping paper.’

Joan pulled herself together enough to say: ‘Not exactly important right now, is it?’

‘It’s important to look respectable. We represent our families.’

Their families were dead. He seemed to remember it at the same moment she did. He stood, frozen, a hand on the open wardrobe door. ‘Well,’ he said. He closed the wardrobe with more force than necessary. ‘These coat hangers are wholly inadequate.’

The first-aid kit had been raided before—it was that kind of place. Joan sat on the bed and sorted through what was left. Bandages. Tape. Antiseptic. Scissors.

She peeled up the mess of her tank top. Aaron hissed. ‘It’s not all mine,’ Joan said. She suspected it was mostly Gran’s.

Aaron came over to sit on the bed opposite hers. There was a small gap between them—so small that they were practically kicking each other. ‘What exactly happened back there at the house?’ he said.

Joan looked up at him. He was stupidly good-looking. In his designer suit, he made this poky little room seem almost glamorous. His hair shone like a crown.

‘You mean after you left the Gilt Room?’ she said.

He hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘After you left me to die?’

His chin came up, and he met her eyes without apology. ‘Yes.’

‘Well . . .’ Joan dampened the towel in the soapy water and started to clean herself up. It hurt. A lot. Her jaw felt clenched tight enough to break teeth. ‘After that, your uncle tried to stick a sword in me. Then my friend Nick killed him and put that sword through your father’s heart.’ She put the towel back into the bowl. The line of the cut was revealing itself along her side. She remembered the sword coming toward her. ‘I ran,’ she said. ‘And . . .’ Her composure wavered. ‘And I found my gran dying. Then I ran again and found you in the maze. Is that what you wanted to know?’

Aaron’s face was reddening. ‘Yes.’

‘Did you think we were friends because we escaped together?’

‘Of course we’re not friends.’

Joan wanted to laugh. Of course not. She was half-Hunt. And, worse, half-human. Edmund had shown her exactly what the Olivers thought of that. She tore open an antiseptic wipe and swabbed it over herself. It stung like being sliced open again.

‘Listen,’ Aaron said, ‘I know you’re new to this.’

Joan paused, feeling a new wariness. What did that mean?

‘I’m an Oliver,’ Aaron said. ‘We can see if someone is a monster or a human just by looking at them—our family power. And you . . . you stink of new-car smell.’

Joan was reminded again that she knew close to nothing about this world. It was a familiar sensation. She’d grown up between Dad’s house and Gran’s. Half-human, half-monster. Half-Chinese, half-English. It all felt the same sometimes. Joan was more than a stranger, but less than a true insider. She stood on a threshold, neither outside nor in.

‘You’ve barely travelled, have you?’ Aaron said.

‘First time yesterday,’ Joan admitted. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Well, baby monster . . .’ Aaron leaned forward, intense and serious. ‘I don’t know how much your family has taught you, but you saved my life, and monsters don’t take such debts lightly. Of course you and I aren’t friends. Until I pay you back, you’re more to me than that.’ There was no gratitude in his pale grey eyes, only that odd intensity—almost anger—as though Joan had burdened him with something instead of saving his life.

Joan didn’t want him to feel indebted any more than he did. ‘I stopped you from getting stabbed,’ she said, ‘and you showed me the way out of the maze. We’re even. There’s nothing owed.’

‘Well, that answers that,’ Aaron said.

‘What?’

‘How much your family taught you.’

Joan really, really didn’t want to discuss her family with Aaron Oliver. Her hand shook as she smoothed a bandage down. She added waterproof tape and went to have a shower.

The bathroom was tiny. In the mirror, Joan’s reflection looked glassy-eyed. There was blood on her chin and all over her arms and hands. Under her fingernails. In her hair. She started to shake again as she stripped.

Just a few days ago, they’d all had dinner together at Gran’s little kitchen table. Uncle Gus had made lentils with fresh tomatoes. And Ruth had said to Joan: How’s your crush from work? And Aunt Ada had said: What crush? What’s this? And Bertie had said: Ooh, what’s he like? Show us a photo! Is he nice?

Joan had another flash of memory. Of pleading with Nick. Don’t do this, Nick. Don’t hurt my family.

She turned on the water as hot as it went. Then she scrubbed and scrubbed. She kept scrubbing until the water ran clear and her skin hurt, and even after that.