Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(4)

She tried to laugh now. It came out high and nervous. She wasn’t scared, she told herself. Not exactly. Mr Solt was just confused and trying to get his balance back. In a second, they’d both find their feet.

She wondered how she’d even tell Nick about this when he arrived. This weird thing happened before you got here. Mr Solt kind of lost his balance, and so did I, and then we were just stumbling around in the middle of Kensington High Street together.

Except that then Joan’s knees buckled. ‘Mr Solt!’ she blurted. Mr Solt frowned. For a second, awareness sparked in his eyes. He pushed Joan away from him with a confused shove. She stumbled backward, flailing her hand up to grab his shoulder, his shirt, anything to keep her feet.

Joan’s back hit the wall with a painful thump, and for a moment all she could see was that cloudless blue sky.

And then there was a kind of snap.

And everything went dark, as if someone had switched off the lights.

Joan could hear herself breathing loudly. She felt totally disoriented. She reached out in the dark, trying to feel for where she was, and as she did, flares of light roared past her, making her flinch.

She stumbled back. The lights had been a car.

Her eyes were beginning to adjust now, but the feeling of disorientation was only getting worse. She couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing.

On the other side of the road, there was a burger shop. Joan knew it well. She’d walked past it dozens of times before.

She turned slowly. The café stood behind her, dark and empty. There was a Closed sign in the window. She hadn’t moved, she realised. She was still here. Still standing on the exact same spot where Mr Solt had pushed her.

Only Mr Solt was gone.

Joan stared. A moment ago, she’d been waiting for Nick to arrive. The sun had been shining on her face. It had been morning.

But where the sky had been blue, now it was black. The stars were out. The moon.

It was night.





TWO




Joan looked disbelievingly at the black sky. Night had fallen—not with a gradual sunset, but in an instant, as though someone had thrown a blanket over the world.

She couldn’t make sense of it. A moment ago, she’d been waiting for Nick to arrive, and now . . .

She went to check the time and realised with another rush of confusion that she wasn’t holding her phone. She had a vague memory then of it slipping from her grip in the scuffle.

A car zoomed past, lighting up the street. The spot where her phone had fallen was empty. Joan took a stumbling step, disoriented.

A curl of panic started in the pit of her stomach. She was supposed to meet Nick here for breakfast. But now the café was empty, chairs stacked inside. Her eye caught on that Closed sign again.

God, what had just happened?

Mr Solt had pushed her and then . . . Joan tried to remember. And then nothing. Then it had been night.

The sound of voices made her start back. A group of girls tottered past her along Kensington High Street, chatting and laughing. They were all dressed up and clutching at each other to stay upright, like they were in the middle of a big night out. ‘Ooh, sorry,’ one of them said when she walked too close to Joan.

Joan’s heart skittered as she watched them go. It was obvious that they were just enjoying their night; nothing strange had happened to them.

Joan closed her eyes, hoping the world would right itself when she opened them again. That it would be morning. That Nick would be walking toward her, up the road. But when she opened her eyes again, the sky was still black. The shops of Kensington High Street were still closed for the night, their windows dark. And it felt like night. The temperature had dropped at the same moment that the world had gone dark.

Joan pinched her arm. It hurt. The air was cold. The ground under her feet was firm. She wasn’t dreaming.

But if this was real . . . Joan turned back to the dark windows of the shop behind her. There was a sign there with the café’s hours: seven a.m. to nine p.m. If this was real, that meant there was a gap in her memory at least thirteen hours long.

Joan pushed down a surge of panic. She reached into her pocket for her phone, needing to talk to Nick—to tell him she was here—and then remembered again that her phone was gone.

Another surge of panic hit her. And then it was too much. She was alone in the dark with no memory of the day. She suddenly wanted to go home to Gran. She felt like a little kid again—like she’d fallen and hurt herself. Like if she could just get home, Gran would give her a hug, and then everything would be okay.

Joan stumbled back down Kensington High Street and then Earl’s Court Road. All the familiar streets looked different in the dark. The shops were like empty shells. What time was it? It felt late.

What had happened? Had she been knocked out? Had she been drugged? Had she imagined it all? Each possibility scared her more.

In a rush of panic, she stopped and patted at her clothes. She was still fully dressed, she discovered in relief, still dressed for her date with Nick—sundress and sandals.

Could she be sleepwalking? She’d never done that before.

But underneath all her speculation, there was another question—one that she was afraid to think about too much: What did Mr Solt do to me?

Mr Solt’s house loomed near the corner of Lexham Mews. Joan cringed away from it, afraid Mr Solt might come out the door. She broke into a run, tripping on the uneven path outside his house. And then she ran the rest of the way back home, tumbling onto Gran’s doorstep in the dark.