Page 1 of Endless Anger (Monsters Within #1)

ASHER

THIRTEEN YEARS OLD

According to my father, next to death, anger is the only constant in life.

When Mom and Grandma aren’t around, his father, my grandpa, says anger is a part of our heritage—unforgiving and endless.

So I have to be too.

“ Daddy! Asher and Foxe are fighting again!”

My older sister’s scream echoes down the beach, bouncing off the water as Foxe’s elbow catches my right eye.

I wince as pain shoots across my forehead. He’s not supposed to fight back . That’s not part of the deal.

If Mom were here, she’d have come running to break things up already. She always gets to us before we can do too much damage.

Dad is another story entirely.

I sense the moment he steps out from the rosebushes partially hiding our backyard, impossibly tall and foreboding, like one of the ash trees lining our property.

He stuffs his hands into his dress pants pockets, walking over casually. There’s no urgency with him, no rush to correct bad behavior. Everything is calm, like the moment before a storm rolls in .

I grab my cousin in a headlock and drive my fist into his face. Blood spurts from his nose, painting my knuckles, and I wait for a beat of excitement to pulse inside my chest the way it normally does when I let rage win.

Nothing happens.

Glancing over Foxe’s head at the sandy shore, I search for the cause of the fight.

Well, not that she did anything. I just like sticking up for her. Sometimes she’s too nice to do it herself.

Right now, though, Lucy’s not even looking in my direction. I wonder if that’s why I feel so stupid .

She’s with some of the others, plucking wilted flowers from my aunt Violet’s garden. They drop the petals on top of a wooden lockbox and repeat some Latin prayer that none of them even understand.

The box isn’t that big—just enough for the ashes of the mutt her family’s had since before she was born—but there’s a fresh carving of a wolf with an arrow between its teeth on the lid, which is why she insisted on using it for the memorial.

She lives for symbolism like that.

Black hair falls out of the double braids her mom did this morning and sticks to her face, hiding her expression from me.

But I don’t need to see her to know she’s crying.

Don’t need to hear the sniffling or watch her nose get all red to want to beat the crap out of Foxe anyway.

He grunts when I lift my knee and wedge it into his stomach. A heavy hand comes down on my head and then on Foxe’s.

I see the flash of a black wedding ring.

It doesn’t match Mom’s, but it fits him.

“Aren’t you two tired of this yet?” Dad asks in that level, almost bored tone of his. “There are much better ways to spend your time, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t even do anything!” Foxe snaps, growling when Dad wrenches us apart. “Ash-tree is just a freaking psycho. ”

Swallowing, I slide my fist over my bottom lip, tasting blood. My knuckles are already throbbing and turning purple; I tuck that hand beneath my armpit, glaring at my sister Noelle, who’s at the back gate watching everything, because she’s a nosy bitch.

She’s always the first to tattle. Quincy, the oldest of us three, would have walked inside without a word. Unfortunately, she’s off at some stupid fancy college, and I’m left to fend off the brat here all by myself.

“Name-calling seems unnecessary.” Dad bends slightly, gripping Foxe’s jaw and tilting his head to inspect his bloody face. “Your mother’s in the kitchen. Please go see her so she can clean you up.”

I cringe internally. Aunt Violet’ll be pissed that we got into another fight, and I know she’ll tell the rest of the parents. The adults in our family gossip more than anyone I’ve ever met, and since I started eighth grade at Aplana Academy this year, that’s saying a lot .

Foxe tries to frown but winces as Dad releases him. He touches his nose. “Is it broken?”

“Don’t think so. The swelling will be a pain though. Put some ice on it.”

Tossing a dirty look my way, Foxe huffs and storms off, leaving us alone. I feel other pairs of eyes on us, but when Dad lets out a long sigh, I know better than to give anyone else my attention.

I glare at my feet, keeping my gaze down even when he starts manhandling my face like he did with Foxe. His skin is always a little chilled at the fingertips, but I’m used to it by now. It’s almost calming on my flushed, enraged flesh.

“What was it this time?” he murmurs, pressing my lip with his thumb.

“Nothing.”

His black eyebrows arch. “Sure about that?”

“Yes.” My frown grows, and I cross my arms. “Where’s Mom?”

“Still in town with her sisters. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know.” I scuff my toe across some sand. “She gets me. I don’t have to explain myself to her. ”

“Yes, your mother once enjoyed throwing punches without thinking too. Although I don’t believe I asked you to explain anything besides what happened.”

“Yeah, and I said nothing. You don’t believe me.” Now, I glance up into his dark, almost black eyes. He towers above me, even though I hit a huge growth spurt this month, and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever catch up.

The kids at school call him the Grim Reaper. I don’t understand why—aside from his height, he looks just like me, and I don’t look like the collector of death.

Mom says so.

Still, I guess if you don’t know better, he does seem pretty scary. To anyone else, the look in his eyes might spell trouble, but I can see the laughter hidden behind his brown irises. The grin he’s trying to keep from me.

He knows what happened.

And he thinks my misery is funny.

Pulling my chin from his grasp, I shoot the little trio down the beach a glare and then move past my father. “I’m going to my room.”

“Leaving partway through a funeral is a bad look, my son.”

I press my teeth together. “It’s a funeral for a dog who was, like, a hundred years old. Who fucking cares?”

He shrugs. “Is that really how you feel?”

No. I’m just repeating the same bullshit Foxe said that ticked me off and made Lucy burst into tears after I spent the entire morning trying to cheer her up.

When her mom, who the dog belonged to first, dropped her off for the unofficial ceremony, that was her single request to me: make Lucy feel better about all this.

Death, the circle of life. I don’t know why that’s my responsibility, but here we are.

And I fucked it up, letting Foxe join. He’s such an idiot. No one ever asks him to comfort their kids, even though he’d be good at it if he put some effort into the gesture. He’s goofy and lighthearted where I can’t help being angry and violent, but he can’t seem to take anything seriously either.

Maybe that’s why he keeps coming back after our fights. I guess I should count my blessings. A plastic punching bag wouldn’t be as satisfying.

“Asher!” Aurora calls from down the beach, waving her hands over her blond head. “Where’d Foxe go?”

“Why don’t you go look for him?” I snap.

“He’s inside with his mother,” Dad says.

I glare at him. “Don’t tell her that. She just wants to give him googly eyes all day long.”

Dad chuckles. “What’s so wrong with that?”

“It’s gross .”

“Ah. Sounds like you’re projecting.”

Aurora calls out again to me, not having moved from her spot beside Lucy and Lachlan. “Asher, come back! We’re gonna spread the ashes in the water!”

I glance over at them, at her , but don’t respond. She’s looking at her brother now, laughing at something he says, all sunshine and happiness. Her fingers cling to that box though, the only sign that she’s still giving the dead dog her silent attention.

How do you compete with that?

If I go over there now, I’ll be playing second fiddle to something that isn’t even alive.

Dad seems to read my mind. “Doesn’t have to be a competition, you know. There’s enough of that girl to go around.”

My nostrils flare. Yeah, that’s the problem. She’s already spread thin, and I don’t want to be another thing she has to balance her focus on.

Especially since she’s really bad at it, anyway.

Shooting my father a look, I step away from him. “You are way more annoying than Mom.”

“Oh, I’m devastated. Wait until I tell her about the googly eyes you have for her best friend’s daughter. ”

Cutting my gaze to his, I watch for a moment as Dad’s facial expression softens slightly as if in understanding.

Or because he was baiting me, the jerk.

Dad clamps his hand down on my head again. “Come on.” He nudges me forward, nodding toward the house with his chin. “Let’s get you cleaned up before your mother comes back and assumes I’ve let all hell break loose.”

Keats, my short-haired calico kitten, curls up at the foot of my bed later that night. He kneads at the blankets, pulling them away from me, and I shift my focus from the thirty-second volume of Berserk in my lap to him.

A sliver of darkness peeks in through the partially open bedroom door; I’m usually the last awake at night, unable to ever fully feel at ease in this big, creepy mansion.

Despite Mom’s best efforts to make the fancy, overly furnished former hotel into something family-friendly, there’s always been something off about the place.

Or maybe it’s the inhabitants who are off.

I grip the book and Keats’s nape when the door begins to slowly creak, and the darkness is swallowed by the lamplight.

I’m expecting Mom, who likes to check in before she goes to sleep, or Noelle, who insists on sneaking out to visit her endless parade of boyfriends, even though our parents let her see them any other time.

She says she enjoys the rush, but maybe I don’t get it because I’ve never been attracted to anyone before, so there’s no thrill to be had there. Or maybe it’s because my room is always the one being snuck into, rather than me trying to leave.

Lucy Wolfe’s thin frame slips from the shadows. Her hair is still in those two braids, pieces of her bangs sweeping into the corners of her eyes. The bright blue of her irises is undercut by the red rimming her lids, and I ignore the way my heart seems to pound extra hard inside my chest.