Page 77 of A Mastery of Monsters

I don’t waste any more time and start climbing.

Once I’m down the ladder, I use my phone to light the way.

It’s damp, and the space is huge. So much bigger than I thought it would be.

I look back up at the hole I came out of, and it’s rough.

The edges aren’t smooth the way they are in the rest of the space.

Like someone forced this hole. Even the ladder is just something from a hardware store.

Bernie must have made this setup himself.

And I guess he isn’t much of a handyman.

He couldn’t even finish the bathroom and didn’t think of using a steel door for the basement.

I walk several feet down the tunnel, shining my light on the walls until it illuminates something that makes me stop in my tracks.

A cage.

A cage that looks exactly like the ones in the Pen. I run my hands over the lock on it. It’s been smashed and melted, and replaced with chains and a padlock that are open. Inside, there are scratches and claw marks. And just outside the cell… dried blood.

Laira said that when senior Masters get a new partner, they put them in a cage so it’s easier to do the flesh exchange part of the bonding.

They skip the initiation. All they would need otherwise is the serum.

The heavily protected serum. Except perhaps if you were a professor monitoring the candidacy.

They would need the serum for initiation.

Bernie must have found a way to use his position to get some.

His son was never missing. Bernie saved him. No one ever saw Davy turn, so they wouldn’t know what his monster form looks like. Bernie got hold of the serum and has kept his son hidden and alive this whole time.

Bernie, who helped raise Virgil. Who’s been so invested in Virgil’s success. Who loves Virgil like a son.

I sprint back down the tunnel and up the ladder, already shouting to Corey. “Bernie is going to bond with Virgil! Just like he did with Davy! But I don’t know how he’ll handle two mon—” The words crumble to nothing as I pop my head into the basement and spot Corey standing with her hands up.

I turn and see an East Asian–looking woman holding a shotgun. She says, “Get the rest of the way up here, slowly. Then put your hands up, just like Corey.”

“Ms. Mathers,” Corey tries, but the woman cuts her off.

“Quiet.” Ms. Mathers. Bernie’s wife. Davy’s mom. “I can’t let you leave. I can’t let you tell people about Davy.”

“We wouldn’t—”

“Don’t lie!” Her lip trembles, and her grip on the shotgun tightens.

“It was bad enough the first time when he had to do it. And now he’s getting mixed up in trying to save Virgil, too!

I left for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to try to stop him, and in that time, you broke into our home, and you know everything, and I can’t let you leave. ”

Had to do it? I assume she means that he had to save their son. But the tone is off… like it’s not something she wanted. But she’s aiming a gun at us to protect Davy, so obviously she wanted Bernie to bond with him. “You’re going to kill us?” I ask.

She flinches.

I say, “We’re Virgil’s friends. We don’t want to see anything bad happen to him. We wouldn’t tell. We won’t tell about Davy, either.”

“You’re lying! I know about protecting your own.

You don’t abandon family. Isn’t that why you’re here?

! You stay put, and I’ll tell you where he’s taking Virgil, and you call Henry and make him stop Bernie from bonding with him.

It’ll kill him. Another monster will kill him for sure this time.

” Tears slip down her face, and she steers the gun toward Corey. “Call him!”

As Corey slowly slips her phone out of her pocket, I go back through everything Ms. Mathers said. She’s desperate to stop Bernie from bonding, obviously because handling multiple monsters hurts people, and he’s already sick. But she also said “this time.”

It will kill him for sure this time .

I know about protecting your own.

You don’t abandon family.

I was wrong. So, so wrong.

Bernie’s already bonded with another monster. That’s why he’s been so sick. And he’s been like that all year.

Jules was sent an invite in February.

You know.

“Bernie,” I choke out. “Bernie bonded with Jules. He’s been controlling Jules. Two monsters… We thought it was two Masters, but…”

Ms. Mathers’s eyes widen. She thought we were here rooting through their stuff because we’d figured everything out. She didn’t know we were only here to find Virgil.

I take that moment to throw my knife. It hits her shoulder, and her grip on the gun slackens. It’s more than enough time for Corey to run forward and knock the gun out of her hand before slamming a knee into the woman’s gut. She goes down with a cry.

I expect the gun to go off as it falls and brace for it, but nothing happens.

In fact, it sounds almost hollow. I pick the thing up and peer at it. “It’s fake,” I say, a little giggle coming out.

Ms. Mathers whimpers from her spot on the floor.

Corey looks over at me, her own eyes filled with tears. “It’s Bernie?!”

“It’s Bernie,” I repeat.

The same man who helped and supported me during the candidacy.

The reason I didn’t get disqualified right from the first task.

The one who had such a big hand in raising Virgil and was the only person who could calm him down enough to hold on to his human form.

This is the man who enslaved my brother with the promise of helping him, who ordered the murder of multiple QBSS members using not just Jules but his own son, and who now is trying to acquire a third member of his deadly group in Virgil—a boy as desperate and trusting of Bernie as the two who’d come before him.