Page 2 of Endless Anger (Monsters Within #1)

Get a grip, loser. She’s your best friend .

I’ve known her our entire lives, and I think that’s part of the problem. Maybe you can know a person too well, and your relationship starts to break apart in the midst of familiarity.

That’s how I reason away my reaction to her, at least.

She’s wearing plaid pajama pants and a black zip-up hoodie over a red tank top. Wolf slippers cover her feet, and I wonder if she came all the way from her house across the island in them.

I bet she did. They’re her favorite. Really anything to do with canines or their ancestral relatives interests her.

Walking over, she reaches a hand out, stroking the top of Keats’s head. He immediately starts purring, and the hint of a smile pulls at her mouth.

That smile feels like the eighth wonder of the world.

The stupid, selfish part of me wishes she’d direct it my way, but she’s always favored animals over humans.

Everything over me.

“Foxe got you pretty good, huh?”

I touch my fingers to the outside of my eye, which is still tender and hot. “Whatever. You should see him.”

“Is that supposed to impress me, pretty boy?”

My heart skips a silent beat, but I pretend not to notice.

Rolling my eyes, I close the manga and toss it down the bed where Keats is. He barely flinches.

“Why would I be trying to impress you, pup ?” I ask.

She hates that nickname, and I’ve never cared. It keeps distance between us. Not enough to freak her out but enough that I can somewhat breathe when she’s around.

When she sniffles, wiping her nose with her sleeve, I slide over in the bed, pulling back the comforter.

Without a word, she kicks off her slippers and joins me, stretching out on the edge of the mattress.

My gaze darts around the room. There’s a cobweb in one ceiling corner that I’ll tell our housekeeper, Marcelline, about tomorrow.

Everything else is in its regular boring place—all my sketchbooks and the trays with my charcoal, ink pens, and pencils sit neatly on my desk, while the floating shelves above it house my manga collection and a few of the classics I stole from the library downstairs.

The only person who ever disturbs any of my drawings or books is in my bed, sulking. I don’t mind that she makes the room chaotic just by existing.

“You left,” she says finally.

I roll over on my side, facing the wall away from her, and tuck my arm under my head. “Surprised you even noticed.”

“It was kind of a shitty thing to do, Ash. You loved Laurel too.”

Big, soft brown eyes and black fur appear in my vision, but I ignore the way my heart twists. This is the circle of life. Everyone and everything dies, no matter how hard you try to put it off.

No matter how good and pure something is, death is the one thing that will eventually touch it.

The sooner Lucy learns that, the better.

“Well, it’s not like he knows I wasn’t at the stupid ceremony,” I grumble.

“But I know.”

“You didn’t need me.”

“That’s not true. It’s never true.”

My fingers buzz with some unknown sensation. “You shouldn’t say never.”

She huffs, and the bed jostles as she rolls toward me. “I mean it, you big dummy. You make everything easier to deal with.”

“Oh, so you want me around because I’m useful?”

“Why do you do that?” she snaps. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”

I roll back over, now facing her, but I’m not expecting her to be so close.

Her lips are mere inches away, and my stomach tenses, my chest growing tight. Sticky with something warm, something I don’t fully understand.

She’s glaring at me, her blue eyes hard as sapphires, but all I can focus on is the shape of her mouth .

I want to cover it with my own. Make her look at me differently.

What is wrong with me?

“I’m sad,” she admits after a few seconds, sniffling again.

Throat burning, I clench my teeth. She’s sad a lot these days, what with each failed project at school, being kicked out of the Aplana Youth Club for being too polarizing, and now her first animal death.

Somehow, even though her mom has been fostering and running the island’s animal shelter since before we were born, they’ve been lucky enough to avoid any demise.

But Laurel was old, and we all knew it was coming. Turns out, that doesn’t make it any easier.

Still, you’d never know about the weight on her shoulders. Lucy buries everything inside, and then when she comes here late at night—this is where she lets herself bleed.

“How do you do it?”

My jaw relaxes slightly. “Do what?”

“Well, you don’t really ever seem sad, right?” She blinks at me, rubbing her nose. “How do you do it? Is there, like, a switch you can flip?”

Embarrassment floods my face. “I don’t know, Luce. It’s not really something I put any thought into.”

She frowns, seeming to contemplate this, and I shove my trembling hands beneath the comforter.

It’s a flaw I wish she couldn’t see.

I don’t know how to fix it. Almost like there’s so much anger within me, there’s no room for anything else.

Just anger and her.

After a few seconds, she scoots a little closer. Swallowing becomes difficult as the scent of her coconut shampoo surrounds me.

That’s something I never used to notice.

Funny how everything changes in the blink of an eye.

“I miss him,” she says, her breath brushing the skin on my neck above my T-shirt. “Do you think I’ll ever stop?”

“ You ?” I scoff. “Doubtful. ”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so either.” Looking down at Keats, a soft little smile tugs at her lips, replacing the frown from before.

“I kind of like that though. It’ll be like he’s always with me.

One day, when I open up a big conservation center and rescue all kinds of endangered species, I’ll dedicate it to him so he can help me watch over the animals. ”

“Corny.”

She kicks me. “Sorry not everyone wants to be a cynical jerk like you all the time.”

“That’s how you keep the sadness away though.”

Those blue eyes swivel up. “Are you sad, Asher?”

Only when you are.

“Nope. Just angry. Mostly at Foxe for being an asshole earlier.”

“Eh, he can’t help it. Serious stuff makes him uncomfortable. He’s not like you and me.”

“You’re too forgiving.”

She sighs. “Thank you for the box. It’s pretty.”

Warmth spreads across my cheeks. I spent the morning carving that design into it, unable to think of any other way to help.

Her fingers brush against mine under the covers. I stop breathing for a moment.

We don’t mention how her forgiveness benefits me or our friendship. When her hand slides closer, her fingers interlocking with mine, I feel I might explode into a million little pieces.

I think this must be what death is like, and I wonder how she’d react if I told her.

Dying doesn’t seem all that bad. Not if it’s like this.

Not if it’s with you.

“You won’t leave me again, right?” she asks, moving her head to my shoulder.

My heart pounds a wild rhythm against my ribs.

Glancing down, I note the deepening of her breathing and how she gets heavier on me within seconds .

She’s asleep, her long black lashes resting on top of her pale, freckled cheeks, and there’s no point in me answering.

Still, I can’t help it.

My “no” is whispered into the dark room, drowned out by Keats’s snoring and the hum of the mini fridge on the far wall.

The crickets outside and Mom’s rustling down the hall as she gets ready for bed—all of that is louder than the single syllable I utter, yet the weight of the one word is unbearable.

Because it makes me a liar.