Page 90 of A Mastery of Monsters

I’m startled awake by a horn sounding. I have no idea for what time. I stumble to my feet, gasping. My body is too warm. I turn to the left and meet a pair of huge dark amber eyes. Perfectly intact and self-aware. He’s curled up beside me. Tame as a puppy.

I don’t need Virgil to tell me that he stayed in this form because I was vulnerable.

I look down the hall. The other Monster is gone. It ran away when it heard the roar.

We should have ripped it apart.

Virgil could. I’m aware of every bit of taut muscle in his body. Of the strength and deadliness of his tail.

The only reason we didn’t is because I know Virgil wouldn’t have liked that.

And so, we didn’t.

This isn’t what I thought the bond would be like. Knowing things like this.

Seconds later I understand that it’s because our bonding is so fresh.

“Change back,” I say. Or I think I say it. I might also just think it.

I walk toward the exit. Not with a mental map. I can smell them, where they’re gathered, so I follow my nose. I don’t need to look back to be aware of Virgil behind me, but I check on him anyway.

Each time I look over at him, something has changed. Less fur. Smaller teeth. A face slowly knitting back together.

We pass a smear of flesh and limbs on the floor. I stare at it. Beside it lies a sledgehammer, the wooden handle broken.

Caden.

I want to squat and scoop bits of him into my mouth. To smear the blood and entrails on my lips. Just the thought holds something euphoric. Like a bite into a perfectly ripe piece of fruit.

“August,” Virgil says, and I turn to him.

He’s in human form again and naked. Though in this moment, I don’t care. It’s like getting excited about seeing your own body in the mirror. It’s not novel or interesting.

I look back at the mash of flesh.

“Don’t.”

I lick my lips.

“Don’t,” he says again, and I snarl at him. He snarls back.

We stand there, staring each other down.

Another horn sounds and breaks me out of my thoughts.

Too close together. That must be the last one.

When I turn back to the mess that was once Caden, vomit crowns at my throat, and I can’t imagine how I wanted to eat that seconds before.

Medics rush toward us, and I let them treat me.

Not that there’s much treating to be done.

My shoulder is numb, and the bleeding has stopped.

Same with my back. I don’t notice the pain either. They tell me that’s just adrenaline.

Satisfied, the medic lets us go. He gives me and Virgil shiny blankets to cover our skin. We exit the tunnels with them, returning to the hallway with its five doors where we started.

On the other side, Hudson, sweaty and bruised, rushes to the door we came out of. Caden’s door. I wonder if that was Caden’s partner with bloody teeth who we scared away. She’s gone now. They’ll be taking her underground.

Caden never even gave her a chance. So she didn’t give him one either.

“Your buddy’s a smear on the ground if you want to go get him.” I love the way Hudson’s chin trembles when I tell him. Almost as delicious as it would have been to taste Caden’s corpse. “You can definitely get some into a jar and follow that around if you’d like.”

“August,” Margot says, coming forward with my jacket.

“What? You don’t think if our places were switched, Caden wouldn’t be laughing about my death with his buddies? But I have to be the bigger person?”

Margot and Virgil share a quick look.

There’s a crust of blood around the insides of her ears. “What happened?” I ask.

“You did.” She massages her forehead. “Don’t worry about it. Just… chill, okay?”

Virgil says, “She’s still coming down.”

“I hope you’re right,” she replies, handing him his glasses.

I don’t like the way they’re talking about me. Virgil’s worried about what other people will think. I don’t care about other people.

Margot takes a deep breath. “How you act right now is as much of a test as that initiation was. And they would love to put you down. To put you both down. So shut your mouth and breathe.”

She can’t tell me what to do. We could fucking crush her in an instant.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

No. I don’t want to crush Margot. We wouldn’t do that.

I breathe. In and out. In and out. In and out.

And something monstrous bleeds away from me.

But also, some of it stays.

The medical team does one final check before letting us leave.

We’re in the parking lot, a few feet away from the car, when Corey runs out of it.

I don’t think she’s supposed to run on that leg, but she does it anyway, crashing into both me and Virgil and pulling us in close.

The three of us stay like that for a moment before Corey pulls back, wiping tears from her eyes.

The car door opens again, and my eyes widen when Riley comes out. “Glad to see you alive,” she says.

“Sorry I forgot to send you an invite,” I say. “Thought you’d be busy.”

“I’m never too busy to see if you do or don’t get eaten. Thankfully, someone thought to call me.”

I glance at Corey, who flushes. “I thought she would be invested in knowing how you were doing. Then she insisted on coming.”

I tilt my head. “And how did you get her number?”

Corey grins. “I asked.”

No one can say that girl is shy.

Riley says, “Corey offered to send me regular updates about what’s happening with the Bernie stuff since you”—this with a point at me—“needed space to deal with what was going on with your brother and this death tournament.”

“Well, I’m alive,” I say.

Virgil shakes his head. “You should have stayed with the medic longer.”

“He bandaged me up and said I wouldn’t die. It’s fine.”

Virgil’s regeneration ability extends to me, though not as strongly. I’ll definitely have scars. Virgil’s eye, however, is in perfect condition. Better than perfect. I stare at the glasses on his nose and then snatch them off, a realization dawning on me. “Wait, these aren’t real?!”

He rolls his eyes. “Of course not. You thought I had heightened strength, hearing, and smell, but somehow poor vision?” He takes his glasses back, settling them on his nose. “They’re aesthetic .”

“You fucking would.”

“You’re taking the survival of your imminent death in stride,” Riley says.

I shrug. “I’m a go-with-the-flow sort of person.”

“Of course. Well, since you’re fine, I’ll head out.” She fingers the chain at her neck. “But the two of us are going to have a conversation about this.”

“I’m not joining QBSS.”

“Did I ask you to?”

“Well, actually—”

Riley waves her hand. “I’ll reach out. We’ll do coffee.”

“What about Malachi?”

She grins at me. “Oh, he’s been demoted.

” She pulls another necklace out from under her shirt.

This one has a tiny sickle pendant. I originally mistook it for a scythe.

But when Riley holds it, it’s just as deadly.

“Looks like they’d rather be led by the girl who was trying to solve the murders instead of the guy who wanted to pretend they weren’t happening. ”

She was dangerous enough without a blade.

Riley gives a final wave goodbye before walking over to her car, pulling out of the parking lot unnecessarily fast, and driving away.

“And she’s siiiiiiingle,” Corey sings.

“I’m glad you took the time to get that information.”

She presses a hand to her chest. “She supplied that all by herself.” She spots the blood on Margot’s ears. “What happened to you?”

“A roar,” Margot says.

Corey laughs. Margot doesn’t. “Wait, are you serious?”

“Our roar.” Virgil’s eyes flick back to me.

“But roars are like…” Corey throws me an apologetic glance. “No offense. But it’s historically a shitty ability as far as defensive stuff goes. It’s just intimidation. It doesn’t actually hurt people.”

“Theirs was different.” Margot’s forehead wrinkles. “And of course, they had to show it off. So now we’ll have to deal with the fallout of that.”

“It’s not that serious,” I say. But it’s Virgil’s skeptical thought laced with anxiety.

“Don’t worry about it now. Rest. You did it. Both of you.”

I think of what Virgil said yesterday before we got into this. That this isn’t the end of the fighting.

It’s just the start.