Page 93 of A Mastery of Monsters

I look out the car window at the other people alongside us in the ferry.

Virgil borrowed Margot’s SUV to take me to Bailey’s place, where I’ll spend the winter holidays.

I thought Jules would come today, but he ominously said that he had affairs to get in order.

I cross my arms over my chest. We just got him out of one bad situation.

I hope he hasn’t found himself in another one.

People died in Natalie’s rebellion. I won’t let Jules become a casualty.

I plan to keep a very close eye on him and his new partner.

Now it’s just me, Virgil, and the radio, which is, predictably, playing Christmas songs.

After last night’s ceremony, we’re back to being dressed down. Or I am, anyway, in my jeans and puffy jacket. Virgil is in slacks, a dress shirt, and a peacoat.

“What are you going to do during the break?” he asks, tipping his seat back.

“Not study.”

“Of course.” Virgil stares out as the island gets closer.

There’s something at ease in him now. It’s more noticeable, the ways he held himself tight, fearing what was to come.

Though it still isn’t over. The Monster’s Ball is next semester.

But at least I have three tries at the Master title, and three tries to defend.

Better odds than the Bachelor candidacy.

I don’t know if he’s thought about the kiss. It’s both like it just happened and like it happened years ago.

This is the one rule I know he won’t budge on.

Because it’s not arbitrary or unfair. It’s obvious why it’s in place. We’re bonded for life. Nothing would make that messier than a relationship.

“What will you do?” I ask him. “Contemplate how deciding to partner with some random girl with a knife actually worked out for you?”

“It wasn’t that random. Henry did see you on the security footage and tell me to check things out.”

“What?” I have a vague memory of the first time we met, and Virgil saying there was a ping or something on the cameras. “I thought whoever was watching told you to go outside. Like, the people from the Mastery group who watch them.”

“Yeah, but it’s Henry’s system. He gets pings on movement too.” He shrugs. “If anything was fate, it was the fact that we’d only recently set it to see that far because of what happened to Samantha.”

“So… he saw me throw?”

“Yeah, he just didn’t think that was enough to choose a partner, but, I mean, we did work well together at Big Sandy Bay. Plus, you needed me to help with your brother, so the bargain cemented us together. It made you devoted in a way I couldn’t be sure the others would be.”

“Fair enough.”

I don’t mean to be disappointed. After all, I knew those facts too. Virgil chose me because it happened to work out that way.

Even so, I can’t help thinking about Henry’s role. That man never does anything by chance. Plus, the guy from the Mastery group, he was the one who started that fight. That actively antagonized me. Almost… almost as if he was trying to get me to fight with him. To see what I could do.

I shake my head.

That doesn’t make sense. If Henry wanted Virgil to see me, to know me, to pick me, why was he such an asshole when we first met? I was the last person he wanted Virgil to pair up with, it seemed.

The ferry docks, and Virgil drives me to the tiny house community and carries my bag to the door. Bailey thanks him and then disappears inside with my backpack, like it’s a bunch of luggage instead of the same thing I would have brought to stay for a weekend.

Me and Virgil face each other in the snow. I stare at him as flakes fall onto his head and gather in his lashes.

“Well,” I say. “See you next yea—”

“Those weren’t the only reasons I picked you,” he says looking down at his shoes. They’re rubber things that protect his loafers from the snow. I spent at least ten minutes making fun of him for them.

“Okay…”

He looks at me then. Properly. “I picked you because you were what I wanted to be. When you wanted to do something, you just did it. When you were angry, you let it out. You weren’t afraid to be yourself even if you knew people wouldn’t like it.

I wanted to be that way, but I was too scared.

And at first, I was scared to see that in you.

It’s why I left like that at Big Sandy Bay.

But then, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.

I met those other people who Henry lined up for me, and every single one I compared to you. ”

I swallow. I want to look away, but it’s like his eyes are trapping me. Keeping me still.

“I wanted you . But, well, I guess I’m used to not getting what I want.

So I didn’t try to approach you again. But then you turned up at McIntosh Castle.

I tried to play it cool, but it was like…

that moment felt like fate. I knew I had a chance to hold on to you, and so I took it.

I proposed that deal. You are the greatest risk I’ve taken in my whole life, and I was right to do it. ”

My bottom lip trembles, and I bite onto it.

Once, and never again.

“Despite the many times I’m sure you’ve regretted it?” I ask with a laugh. I want to cut the tension of the moment. To ruin it, because living in it is too hard.

“I never regretted choosing you. Even when you pissed me off. Even when I wanted to quit. I still knew I had only gotten this far because I was with you.” He reaches out and adjusts one of my braids, tucking it behind my ear. “That girl from my mom’s story…”

“What about her?”

He doesn’t move his hand, keeping a hold of that single braid, the tips of his fingers resting on the side of my neck.

“She should have let the bird sing whatever it wanted exactly as it chose. She should have asked for its story and learned why it pecked and fought the others. Maybe then she would have realized that it was beautiful and strong and special just as it was. Maybe then they could have had more between them than obligation.”

“Didn’t you say they were friends?”

“I thought so. I needed to, I think. So I wouldn’t feel bad for the bird. And I suppose it never occurred to me that she could have loved it as it was.” He drops his hand and smiles. “Have a good holiday, August.”

“You too,” is all I can manage.

It’s several more moments before he finally walks away.

Once, and never again.

Bailey insists on hosting us for Christmas because her tiny home is actually larger than Dad’s small, shared apartment.

She was aghast that he didn’t remember the Trini dishes their mom taught them.

We’re all given a crash course in making paratha roti from scratch, the secret to a good curry, and John Legend’s (Bailey adjusted) macaroni pie recipe.

The latter of which she waited until Grandma died to admit is better than hers.

We bring it out to the barn for the shared holiday dinner. We do it on Christmas Day, though it’s technically nondenominational, so me and Mia just do snow-themed decorations.

Last Christmas, we were out in the cold, crying and handing out missing posters. Eating warmed-up casseroles dropped off by my parents’ coworkers.

Now we’re just living without Mom.

I sit between Jules and Bailey with a loaded plate.

Dad is on Jules’s side and keeps clapping him on the back or shoulder, making excuses to touch him, as if to remind himself that his son is there.

He doesn’t know how close he was to losing him.

Bailey has her camera beside her. She’s been taking pictures nonstop the whole holiday.

I think she doesn’t only want to look back on her memories with Mom. She wants new ones with us, too.

After dinner, Dad and Bailey get involved in an Uno game with some of the other community members.

Jules stands and says to me, “Let’s go for a walk.”

I have basically become macaroni pie after several helpings, and the last thing I want to do is walk around in the cold, but I grumble and stand, shrugging on my jacket.

The two of us venture out into the snow. The area is surrounded by multicolored lights. They’re part decoration and part functional, according to Mia.

My brother leads us toward the back end of the land. The whole space is flat, and so even though we’re far away from the community, we can still see the twinkling lights.

“I lied,” Jules says.

I look back at him.

My brother is staring at the ground with his hands in his pockets.

“You lied? About what?” I ask.

He swallows so hard, I see it going down. “I needed to talk to you away from all of them.”

“Jules…”

“I was with Mom the night I got bit. But…” He swallows again.

“But I already knew I was a Monster. I was born that way. Mom told me what I was a couple of days before because she saw the signs. We were supposed to meet someone that night. I think that’s why she was so tense and got pissed at you about training. ”

I freeze in place, eyes glued to my brother.

Mom knew Jules was a Monster, and she’d been training me, training us both , because she knew. Was she training me… for Jules? For the candidacy? Like Corey’s parents had? “What happened?” I ask, because I know something must have.

“After you left that night, we went to meet that person. Mom didn’t want Dad to get suspicious, so she went by herself, and I snuck out after.

She picked me up, and we drove to the Scarborough Bluffs.

Except the person didn’t come, and we were attacked.

” Jules clenches his hands at his sides.

“It looked like a blur, but it went after her, except then it saw me and came after me instead.” He sucks in a breath.

“It bit me, and she was begging it to let me live, that she would die if it would just let me live.”

I don’t like this story. I don’t want to hear this. I want to bury my head in the snow and pretend this isn’t happening.