Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(3)

She’d never lived alone before.

The school dorms had always been two-to-a-room, and back at Harker Hall, she’d had her father, at least in theory. And his shadow, Sloan. She’d always assumed she’d relish the eventual privacy, the freedom, but it turned out that being alone lost some of its charm when you didn’t have a choice.

She smothered the wave of self-pity before it could crest and headed for the bathroom, peeling off her armor as she went. Armor was a pretty fancy word for the copper mesh stretched over paintball gear, but Liam’s combined interests in costume design and war games did the job . . . 90 percent of the time. The other 10, well, that was just sharp claws and bad luck.

She caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror—damp blond hair slicked back, black gore freckling pale cheeks—and met her own gaze.

“Where are you?” she murmured, wondering how other Kates in other lives were spending their night. She’d always liked the idea that there was a different you for every choice you made and every choice you didn’t, and somewhere out there were Kates who had never returned to Verity and never begged to leave.

Ones who could still hear out of both ears and had two parents instead of none.

Ones who hadn’t run, hadn’t killed, hadn’t lost everything.

Where are you?

Once upon a time, the first image in her head would have been the house beyond the Waste, with its high grass and its wide-open sky. Now it was the woods behind Colton, an apple in her hand and birdsong overhead, and a boy who wasn’t a boy with his back against a tree.

She turned the shower on, wincing as she peeled away the last of the fabric.

Steam bloomed across the glass, and she bit back a groan as hot water struck raw skin. She leaned against the tiles and thought of another city, another house, another shower.

A monster slumped in the bath.

A boy burning from the inside out.

Her hand wrapped around his.

I’m not going to let you fall.

As the scalding water ran gray and rust red and then finally clear, she considered her skin. She was becoming a patchwork of scars. From the teardrop in the corner of her eye and the pale line that ran from temple to jaw—marks of the car crash that had killed her mother—to the curve of a Malchai’s teeth along her shoulder and the silvery gash of a Corsai’s claws across her ribs.

And then there was the mark she couldn’t see.

The one she’d made herself when she raised her father’s gun and pulled the trigger and killed a stranger, staining her soul red.

Kate snapped the water off.

As she taped up her latest cuts, she wondered if, somewhere, there was a version of herself having fun. Feet up on the back of a theater seat while movie monsters slunk out of the shadows, and people in the audience screamed because it was fun to be afraid when you knew you were safe.

It shouldn’t make her feel better, imagining those other lives, but it did. One of those paths led to happiness, even while Kate’s own had led her here.

But here, she told herself, was exactly where she was supposed to be.

She’d spent five years trying to become the daughter her father wanted—strong, hard, monstrous—only to learn that her father didn’t want her at all.

But he was dead, and Kate wasn’t, and she’d had to find something to do, someone to be, some way to put all those skills to use.

And she knew it wasn’t enough—no matter how many monsters she slayed, it wouldn’t undo the one she’d made, wouldn’t erase the red from her soul—but life only moved forward.

And here in Prosperity, Kate had found a purpose, a point, and now when she met her gaze in the mirror, she didn’t see a girl who was sad or lonely or lost. She saw a girl who wasn’t afraid of the dark.

She saw a girl who hunted monsters.

And she was damn good at it.





Hunger gnawed at Kate’s bones, but she was too tired to go in search of food. She turned the radio up and slumped onto the couch, sighing at the simple comfort of clean hair and a soft sweatshirt.

She’d never been all that sentimental, but living out of a duffel bag taught you to value the things you had. The sweatshirt was from Leighton, the third of her six boarding schools. She had no fondness for the school itself, but the sweatshirt was worn and warm, a little piece of a past life. She didn’t let herself cling to these pieces, holding on just tight enough that they wouldn’t slip away. Besides, the Leighton colors were forest green and cool gray, way better than St. Agnes’s horror show of red and purple and brown.

She booted up her tablet and logged into the private chat space Bea had carved out in the infinite world of Prosperity’s opendrive.

Welcome to the Wardens, said the screen.

That was the name they’d chosen for themselves—Liam and Bea and Teo—before Kate ever showed up. Riley hadn’t been a part of it, either—not until she brought him in.

LiamonMe: hahahahahahaha wolves

TeoMuchtoHandle: it’s a cover-up. everyone knows what happened in verity.

Beatch: See no evil → hear no evil → tell yourself there’s no evil

LiamonMe: dunno I had a mean-ass cat once

For a moment, Kate just stared at the screen and asked herself for the hundredth time what she was doing here, talking to these people. Letting them in. She hated that part of her craved this simple contact, even looked forward to it.