Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(32)

When the machine jammed, Kate took a few slow breaths.

She hadn’t lost her temper at any of the drivers, hadn’t so much as sworn when someone cut her off, despite the whisper in her head, the longing—stealing over her like a blanket—to speed up and up and up until someone crashed.

She punched in her order again, and when the coffee finally came out, she downed the drink in a single long gulp, ignoring the way it burned her throat. Two hallways down she found the vast wall of rentable square lockers. The hall was empty, and she knelt in front of a cubby on the bottom row and reached into the narrow gap between the bottom of the locker and the linoleum floor.

Six months earlier Kate had stopped at the Crossroads, not knowing when or if she’d ever come back. But her father had been a strategist as well as a dictator, and one of his few bloodless sayings was this: only fools get cornered.

In Callum Harker’s decade-long rise to the top, he always had a way out. Cars across the city, safe houses and stashed weapons, the home beyond the Waste and the box under the floor filled with fake papers.

The only kind of trail you were supposed to leave was one you yourself could follow home. After several maddening seconds, Kate’s fingers snagged the corner of the packet, and she drew out a single padded envelope.

Inside were the last remnants of another life. A few folded bills and a bundle of IDs—school card, driver’s license, two credit cards—all under the name Katherine Olivia Harker. A whole life reduced to the contents of an envelope.

Kate emptied it into her bag, then began shedding the last six months of her identity, shoving papers and ID into the envelope, until all that was left of her time in Prosperity was her cell phone. Kate weighed it in her palm. It was still off, and she knew she should leave it that way, put it in the envelope with the rest, and walk away, but some traitorous thing inside her—not the monster, but something all too human—held down the power button.

A few seconds later, the screen filled with missed calls and messages. She should never have hesitated, should never have turned the phone on, but she had, and she couldn’t unsee the latest text.

Riley: Not like this.

Kate swore softly to herself, and called him.

Riley picked up on the second ring.

“Where are you?” He sounded breathless. She’d spent half the drive planning what she’d say, but now nothing came out. “I mean what the hell, Kate? First Bea hears you lost your shit at work and then you just up and leave? No word?”

Kate ran a hand through her hair, swallowed. “I left a note.”

“Oh, you mean, sorry, duty calls? That’s your definition of a note? What the fuck is going on?” Kate winced. Riley never swore. “Is this about what you saw? At the restaurant? What are we dealing with here?”

“We aren’t dealing with anything,” she said. “I’m working this one myself.”

“Why?” He cracked his shin audibly against something and swore again under his breath. “What’s going on?”

Kate leaned back against the cold metal of the lockers, and tried to keep her voice light. “It’s complicated. I’ve got a lead, but it’s not in Prosperity, and I don’t know how long it will take; that’s why I sent the files, just in case . . .” She couldn’t finish that sentence, so she changed course. “I’ll be back. As soon as it’s done. Tell the Wardens.”

“Will I be lying?”

“I hope not.”

“Where are you going?”

“Home.” The word scraped her throat. And then, because Riley had given her so much, and she had given him so little, she added, “To Verity.”

Riley let out a long, shaky breath, but there was no surprise in his silence, as if he’d known all along. When he spoke, his voice was urgent.

“Listen to me, whatever’s going on, whatever you’re running away from, or toward, I just want you to know—”

Kate swiped a tear from her cheek and killed the call.

Before he could call back, she switched the phone off and dropped it in the envelope, sliding the contents beneath the lockers for safekeeping.

The bathrooms were as clean as the rest of the Crossroads, pristine in an industrial sort of way. A mirror ran the length of one wall above a bank of sinks, and Kate set her sunglasses on the counter and washed her face, wishing she could scrub away the call with Riley, the doubt he’d kicked up like dust inside her head.

She was doing the right thing—wasn’t she?

She knew the city in the vision, knew she was headed in the right direction.

Unless she was wrong. The shadow was in her head, weaving through her memories, her darkest thoughts and fears. What if she was only seeing what it wanted? What if she’d left Prosperity for nothing? What if what if what if—

Enough.

She knew the difference between truth and lie, between vision and dream, between her mind and the monster’s. Didn’t she?

She looked up and found her gaze in the mirror.

Her stomach turned. The crack in her left eye was larger, stealing across the blue. Was it spreading on its own, or was she worrying it like a wound? She hesitated, weighing the potential damage against the need for certainty, all the while losing ground against the shard’s strange pull.

The need won out—Kate held her gaze.

“Where are you?” she whispered. It was the same question she’d asked herself a thousand times over the years, whenever she wanted to imagine herself somewhere else, someone else, but the darkness answered by pulling her forward, down into—