Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(51)

“That happy to see me?”

He fumbled—she could tell he wanted to lie and couldn’t. “Look around, Kate. Only a cruel person would be glad to see you here.”

“You invited me to stay, once.”

“Things have changed.”

“So you’ve said.” She shook her head, exasperated, exhausted. “Anything else I should know?” Something flickered in his face, too fast to read. “What is it?”

He hesitated. The pause was too long, the answer, when it came, too rushed. “Ilsa survived.”

Kate brightened. “That’s wonderful,” she said.

But there was something else—something he wasn’t telling her.

“She has no voice,” he added darkly.

“But she’s alive.”

August’s head bobbed once, and Kate wondered why he had veered toward this particular truth, and what he’d swerved away from. What was he hiding?

“You must be tired,” he said, the formality back in his voice, and Kate was—too tired to pry, to fight, to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until the real August, the one she remembered, came free.

So she nodded and let him lead her down the hall to the room with the open door.

Unlike her bedroom at Harker Hall, the sterile surfaces she tried to make hers, this place was August to a T, from the precarious stacks of philosophy and astronomy books, to the music player discarded among the tangled sheets, and the violin case propped against the footboard.

Standing in this place, the August in front of her made even less sense. Kate had spent enough time hiding behind her own walls to know a barricade when she saw one.

His sleeves were rolled up, and she gestured to the marks circling his forearm.

“How many days?”

He looked down, hesitating, as if he wasn’t sure. That uncertainty, at least, seemed to bother him. Instead of answering, he reached for the instrument case and turned to leave. “You can have the bed.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“There’s a couch in the living room.”

“So why don’t I sleep there?”

It was a challenge. She knew the answer—she just wanted to see if he would say it. Her eyes went to the doorknob under his hand, the locking mechanism on the other side.

August didn’t take the bait. “Get some rest, Kate.”

She still had a dozen questions—about the FTF, about him, about her own uncertain future—but fatigue was wrapping itself around her, dragging her down. She sank onto the bed. It was softer than she’d expected and smelled of cool linen. August started to close the door.

“One hundred and eighty-four,” she said.

He paused. “What?”

“That’s how many days since I left Verity. The same number since you fell. In case you couldn’t remember.”

August didn’t say anything, only pulled the door shut behind him.

And Kate was left wondering if she was wrong, if August had gone dark since she left.

It would explain the coldness.

But the August she’d known had fought so hard to hold on.

Kate heard the lock click and rolled her eyes but didn’t get up. If she’d traded one cell for another, at least this one had a bed. There were no mirrors, and for that small mercy, she was thankful.

Her bag was sitting at the foot of the bed, and Kate rummaged through it, turning out its contents on the bed. She knew what she would find—her weapons were gone. Confiscated. So was her tablet.

Frustration prickled through her—but it wasn’t like she would get a signal, and even if she could write to the Wardens, to Riley, what would she say?

Alive for now. Hope you are, too?

Kate fell back on the bed and tried to find calm, surrounded by the familiar scent of August and the unfamiliar room, by the strange bed and the light beneath the door and the thoughts spinning through her head.

Where are you? she asked herself, and the answer came rushing up: She was on Riley’s couch, splitting a pizza, while the TV droned on and she told him about the shadow in her head, about Rick and the green, about the Fangs, and Soro, the race through the red, and the concrete room, and Riley listened and nodded; but before he could answer, he dissolved, giving way to August, his cold gaze and his voice echoing through her head: You should never have come back.

And Kate lay there in the dark, wondering, for the first time, if maybe he was right.





August stared down at the tallies on his skin.

One hundred and eighty-four.

All this time, Kate had been counting.

When had he stopped?

Things change.

He returned to the kitchen, trying to clear his head.

I’ve changed with them.

He tapped his comm. “Command, this is Alpha.”

Three short beats of silence. “Alpha.” Phillip’s voice was uncertain. “Logs show you’re off tonight.”

“Since when do monsters take nights off?” said August. “Find me a job.”

“I can’t do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been grounded.”

Henry.

The tension in his chest grew. “Let me speak to him.”

“He’s overseeing a convoy from the southern Waste.”