Page 10 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

The woodland had tamed as they’d made their way up the garden, and they were hidden in the last thicket of trees before it

transformed into lush, picnic-perfect lawn.

“We’re going to have to run across that stretch,” she whispered. Aaron wanted them to break in via a servant’s door, and they had to get to the side of the house. “If anyone looks this way, they’ll see us. There’ll be nowhere to hide.”

“I’ve snuck in and out of here a thousand times and never been caught,” Aaron said. “Just be quick and keep low.”

Joan counted the seconds as she ran. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—

She gasped as she hit the relative safety of the formal garden, with its shielding hedges and trees. Just beyond the garden,

the conservatory shone pearl-like in the darkness.

Nick gestured for Joan and Aaron to stay put. He was already moving again, prowling silently to check that they were still

alone. After a minute, he nodded and beckoned.

They stuck to the darkest parts of the garden. Joan concentrated on keeping her footsteps silent on the grass as they weaved

among sculpted hedges: a trident-wielding mermaid; a bull with spiral horns. Gusts of wind rippled through the leaves, making

the sculptures shiver into life.

Through the thick leaves, the pale stone of the house was just visible. This was the service wing: kitchens and storage rooms.

According to Aaron, it would be completely empty at this time of night. The servants themselves slept in a separate building,

out of sight of the main house.

But before Joan could take another step, gravel crunched. They all froze. The sound had come from just around the corner.

A disgruntled voice said: “How long are the Olivers going to keep us waiting?”

Joan padded silently to the edge of the building, peering around the wall.

A thrill of fear ran through her, with just a thread of relief, and she pulled back again, holding up both hands, fingers splayed. Ten guards , she mouthed to Aaron and Nick. And Ronan.

Nick drew a slow breath, expression calculating. Could he take out ten guards? Maybe. But they’d certainly draw Eleanor’s

attention if he did that.

No... They had a plan. They needed to wait. On the bus, Aaron had said that Ronan would be put into a basement cell and

left on his own for up to an hour while everyone waited for a Griffith to arrive. According to Aaron, there’d be no cameras

in the hallway or in the cell itself—his father didn’t like his work to be recorded. That would be their chance.

Joan looked carefully around the corner again. Ronan and the guards were in a large graveled space at the end of the Oliver

driveway. The five cars of the convoy were parked in a neat row, facing the house, and from the guards’ slumped postures,

they were tired.

“I’m starving,” a guard said. “I missed dinner for this—going to need a feed on the way back.”

“Steak and kidney pudding,” a guard said longingly.

“I’ll knock you around with your own kidneys if you don’t shut up about food,” a third guard said. He had dark hair, closely

cropped, and he stood next to Ronan, arms folded. Joan had the impression that he was the leader. The other guards were subtly

canted toward him, as if waiting for his orders.

There was some space between Ronan and the lead guard. For a second, Joan wondered why Ronan hadn’t at least tried to run. And then she caught a golden gleam on his wrist. It was a tattoo of a winged lion—the handcuff of the Monster Court. The guards could control his body with it.

The lead guard spoke again. “You know... they say there’s something wrong with the head of the Oliver family. He chains human prisoners up in the basement here for any Oliver to use. It’s a slow

execution.” His gaze on Ronan was taunting. “They say he does worse things.”

Joan felt sick. Edmund Oliver had once told Nick: I’ll keep you locked up in my house, available anytime an Oliver wants to travel.

She glanced back at Nick now. He shifted his weight. His expression was so familiar, so dangerous, that for a second Joan

was sure she was looking at his old self. Nick had killed Edmund that night. He’d thrown a sword across a room into Edmund’s

chest, accurate as a dart.

Joan had been afraid for months that Nick might revert to being the hero who’d once slaughtered her family. Right now, though,

she almost wanted him to unleash himself. If any world needed a hero, it was this one.

“ I heard that the Olivers—” The guard was cut off by a door opening.

A man emerged from the house. It was Lucien Oliver—Edmund’s cousin and right-hand man. Joan recognized his long gloomy features,

his raven hair. His suit was as beautiful as Aaron’s: black as ink and perfectly tailored to his narrow waist. She found herself

touching her own side again, where Lucien’s blade had once sliced into her.

“I believe you have a prisoner for me?” Lucien said in his deep, dour voice.

“Uh... Yes...” The lead guard looked as intimidated as Joan felt. “We’re supposed to wait for Lord Oliver to take custody himself.”

“Lord Oliver assigned the task to me. If you want to wait for him, though...”

The guard hesitated again. “No.”

Aaron had been pale after the guard’s words about Edmund, but now his mouth twitched slightly at the fear in the man’s voice.

He might not have been on good terms with his father, but he’d always liked seeing Olivers on top. Joan understood a lot of

things about Aaron, but not his steadfast loyalty toward his awful family.

The guard handed a pocket watch to Lucien. No, not a watch. The tool that controlled Ronan’s handcuff.

Lucien fiddled with it for a moment. “I never understand the mindset of traitors,” he said musingly.

“I’m not a traitor!” Ronan’s voice came out in such a terrified burst of pressure that Joan suspected the cuff had been forcing him

into silence earlier; Lucien had changed a setting to allow him to speak. “ Please! ”

Lucien twirled a finger in a request for Ronan to turn toward the house. Ronan obeyed in a jerky, reluctant movement—the compelled

motion of the cuff. Joan shuddered. She’d been cuffed like that before. She knew the terror of being under someone else’s

physical control.

“Take me to the guardhouse!” Ronan said pleadingly. “Let me speak to them !”

“Do you think we’re fools?” Lucien said to him softly. “I know you have allies everywhere. You think I’d allow you anywhere near a guardhouse? Now come !”

Ronan shuffled toward the door. Joan shoved down her own impatient desire to get to him now, before he was out of sight again.

They needed to stick with the plan; they’d have easier access when he was in that basement cell. And she’d noted, too, the

reference to allies. If they could just connect to them...

Ronan glanced around, as if trying to figure out a way to free himself. As he did, his eyes grazed over Joan, and then stopped.

Joan had thought she was near invisible in the darkness, but his mouth dropped open. He’d seen her.

We’re going to help you , Joan mouthed to him, hoping he could make out the words.

“You’ll inform us when Lord Oliver arrives home?” the lead guard asked Lucien. “You’ll tell us of his judgment after the interrogation?”

“Interrogation?” Lucien seemed surprised by the question. “There is no need for an interrogation. Lord Oliver has standing

orders for traitors.”

Ronan drew an urgent breath, and Joan was suddenly sure that he was going to say something back to her—something important.

But as Ronan’s lips started to move, terror passed over his face. Lucien had put a hand on his neck.

Joan froze in shock and horror. No , she breathed, the word swallowed by the rustling leaves, by the startled sounds of the guards.

With a swipe, Lucien siphoned away all of Ronan’s life, and Ronan crumpled to the ground, dead.

No. The word echoed through Joan’s mind. She stared, horrified. Lucien had killed Ronan like someone stepping casually on an ant. Without a trial, without even questioning him. Ronan hadn’t been a threat—he’d been standing there helpless in cuffs.

Ronan lay now barely ten paces from Joan, his eyes wide open in a look of pleading terror that would be forever frozen on

his face. His sleeve had rucked up as he’d fallen, and his hand was splayed, the gold lion of the Monster Court shining in

the lamplight. His lock-like pendant sat against his throat. Even in death, he wasn’t free.

Joan barely felt the tug on her elbow. Someone was dragging her back behind the shelter of the wall. Aaron.

Lucien looked up sharply at the movement. “Who’s there!” he said. His voice rose, commanding the guards. “Check that garden!

I saw someone out there!”

Joan barely registered the words. She and the others were already running, as silently as they could through the maze of the

sculpted hedges.

Aaron led the way with unerring knowledge, pulling Joan with him. Nick took the rear. When they reached the conservatory,

Aaron shoved them into an alcove alongside it, motioning for them to crouch.

It was a small space—bordered on two sides by a high hedge, and on the third by the curving conservatory wall. Joan tried

to keep her breathing quiet when—after a minute—the guards stumbled past, confused and seeming a little lost.

“This way!” one of them called, and they hurried away, their voices becoming softer and softer, until they were out of earshot.

Joan sucked in a shuddering breath. “We need to get out of here,” she whispered urgently.

She looked around. Beside her, the conservatory glowed like a lightbox, dark leaves pressed against the glass. “We can’t go

back the way we came.” They couldn’t risk another sprint over open lawn—not with guards out there, searching for them.

Plan B had been to walk out alongside the river, but that was risky too—the territories and alliances had shifted, and Joan

and Nick were out after curfew. If they were caught...

“I vote the river route,” Joan whispered—even with the risks, it seemed the safest under the circumstances. She turned to

Nick. “What do you think?”

Nick took a long moment to answer. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “I should have made a move against those guards—before

they killed that man.”

The regret in his voice made Joan’s chest ache. “Nick...” Her voice cracked.

Nick didn’t meet her eyes—he couldn’t bear to look at her. He couldn’t stand what he’d done for her. And Joan couldn’t stand

that .

“You’re not looking at this rationally,” Aaron hissed to Nick. “That man’s death was a gift !”

It took Joan a second to parse Aaron’s words. She’d caught the tone first—his most obnoxiously posh. Sometimes he said things

that she was sure he didn’t mean. This had to be one of those times.

“What did you say?” Nick said slowly. His tone was dangerous, and Joan’s stomach dropped.

“He recognized Joan, and now he can’t tell anyone he saw her,” Aaron said. “That’s the ideal scenario and we both know it.”

“ Hey ,” Joan said before Nick could reply. Tension had been simmering between them since they all got on the bus together, but

it couldn’t escalate. Not here—so close to the guards. “We have to go !”

Nick nodded slightly in acknowledgment and got to his feet, but Joan could still see the horror in his handsome face. The

horror of this world, that he’d created. She could hear the words he couldn’t say. I made the wrong choice when I chose you.

The thought of it stole her breath as she stood too. Eleanor had pulled a thread between them, and they’d been unraveling

ever since. And when he looked at her like this—like she was a mistake he’d made—she felt like she was being torn apart.

For a second, the sensation was almost physical—she wasn’t just tearing inside, there was something tearing under her hands

like fine cloth.

Aaron made a shocked sound and bent double with a groan of agony.

Joan reached for him, and a wave of nausea crashed over her too.

Nick caught Joan as she stumbled. “What it is?” he said, voice urgent with concern. “What’s going on?”

Was this another fade-out? No. Joan still had full access to her senses. “I don’t know,” she gasped.

Even as she said that, though, she remembered the last time she’d felt like this—in a café where a dark force had ripped a

hole in the fabric of the timeline itself.

As if her thought had made it manifest, a pinprick of black appeared in the air, spreading like splashed ink. Joan gripped Aaron’s arm and pulled him and Nick away from it.

She was only just in time.

Darkness bled through the alcove. Joan gasped, terrified. The thing was a hole in the world, edges fluttering like a torn shroud. Aaron retched again. He stumbled back—or tried to. His legs

were shaking so much that he barely moved.

Nick hauled Aaron away from it with easy strength, his other arm still tight around Joan’s waist. He shoved them both behind

him, and Joan realized he wasn’t experiencing the same visceral horror. He didn’t have Joan’s and Aaron’s monster sense of

how wrong this was.

“What the hell is that?” Aaron choked out.

“I think it’s a tear in the timeline,” Joan managed. “A tear showing the void itself!” The terrifying nothingness that surrounded

the timeline.

In the distance, a dog barked. Nick jerked his head, looking over his shoulder to the woodland garden across the lawn, and

Joan followed his gaze. To her dismay, beams of light shot through the trees.

“My uncle’s mobilized the Oliver security team!” Aaron whispered. “They’ve joined the search! We have to get out of here!”

Joan wanted to go, but something was happening inside the tear now. The shadows of the void seemed to be forming into a structure. No,

not a structure. A figure. A person .

“Joan!” Nick said urgently. “We have to go!”

“Wait,” Joan said. The shape was strangely familiar: a cloud of hair; a bony frame. Mum? Joan thought. But... it couldn’t have been Mum. Joan had never met her, wouldn’t have known her silhouette.

Color seeped in until the person inside was solid and real. A woman with bright green eyes and a halo of gray hair. Joan gasped

as she finally recognized her. “Gran!”

And then the view inside the tear in the timeline was perfectly clear, all the shadows of the void gone. Even the sickening

sense of horror vanished.

“Joan?” Gran was in a garden too. In this garden. Except... on her side, the conservatory had different plants: trees laden with pink cherry blossoms, and huge

sunset-colored chrysanthemums.

Gran seemed barely five steps away—Joan could have run over and hugged her—but at the same time, Joan had the feeling she

was much farther away than she appeared.

“I’ve been trying to get a message to you.” Gran’s voice was soft and indistinct—as if she was speaking at the end of a long

tunnel. “You can still fix what your sister’s done. You can restore the world to something better—but you’re running out of

time.”