Page 9 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

They got off at the last stop. As soon as they did, the bus trundled away, its comforting lights dimming.

Joan peered into the dark, trying to find her bearings. They were on a narrow road that ended in an iron gate, spotlit with

lamps and protected by a manned security lodge. Mermaids were worked into the iron of the gate. The Oliver family sigil. And...

Joan’s heart thumped. “You were right,” she whispered to Aaron. Beyond the gate, car lights were snaking down the long driveway.

The convoy was here.

The Oliver estate was vast in this timeline—the family was clearly a formidable power here. A gleam in the distance hinted

at a lake. The house itself was high on a hill, its turreted towers stark against moonlit clouds. Joan was reminded of the

Gothic gloom of Westminster Abbey. Beside the house, a domed conservatory glowed like a second moon; it must have been visible

for miles.

“The security lodge is new,” Aaron said. “I didn’t expect that.”

“Well... humans know about monsters here,” Joan murmured. “And we know there’s a resistance movement.” Those wanted postersand

Ronan’s arresthad made that clear enough.

She surveyed the obstacles to getting in. A high brick wall ran around the estate, and dogs barked from the grounds. With a look, Nick directed them silently toward another problem—a camera, positioned on the wall, facing the bus stop.

Joan dropped her head, but she knew it was too late. “We’ve already been recorded.”

“Not much we can do about that,” Aaron said reluctantly. “At least it’s dark enough that they won’t have seen much of us.

And I have a way in....”

He guided them along the wall of the estate, stopping out of sight of the gate. Nick stepped back, assessing the climb. The

wall was more than twice his height, and covered in ivy so thick that it could have been hedge.

“We’re not climbing it,” Aaron said. “Or at least I’m not—not in these clothes.”

“Your clothes?” Nick said incredulously.

“This is a Jonathan Meyer original,” Aaron said. “Probably the only one left in this timeline.” At Nick’s blank expression,

he rolled his eyes. “Save us all from the great unwashed.” He pulled the ivy aside like a curtain, revealing a wooden door,

weatherworn and moss-stained.

Despite the wear, the wood was solid. Joan examined an intimidatingly huge lock set into an iron plate. She had pins in her

hair, but the keyhole was so big she might need sticks.

To her surprise, though, Aaron just lifted the latch and cracked the door, revealing a glimpse of trees. It wasn’t locked.

“Not very secure after all that security,” Joan whispered.

“I don’t think anyone knows about this entrance but me,” Aaron said. “I found it as a child, and never told anyone about it.” He went to push the door farther.

Nick stopped him. “Let me go first.”

Aaron hesitated and then stepped back. After a moment, Joan did too. It was their first mutual acknowledgment since they’d

arrived in this timeline of who Nick was. Of who he’d once been.

Moonlight silvered Nick’s dark hair and outlined his muscled shoulders. Back on the bridge, Joan had thought of him as vulnerable,

surrounded by people who could kill him at a touch. And he was, but... even in his latest incarnation,born and raised

as an ordinary human, he was far more dangerous than he seemed. Over the last few days, he’d begun to wield some of his old

abilities again—he’d caught a man’s fist mid-punch, breaking bones. He’d snapped a thick metal chain with his bare hands.

What else might he still be capable of?

Joan wondered suddenly if monsters here had myths of a human hero in this world. Did theystill tell legends of a boy who

slayed monsters? Did some part of them remember him?

The door was barely ajar. Nick pushed it open farther now, just enough to slip inside. He cocked his head, listening, a still

shape in the darkness against the shifting leaves of trees. Then he beckoned for them to join him.

Joan went first. There were scratches on the brick where the door met the wall, but that was the only sign of human life here.

They were in a garden—apparently untended. Dense trees obstructed the moon, and ankle-length brambles tangled underfoot.

It wasn’t quite as wild as it seemed, though. The brambles brushed harmlessly against Joan’s legs as she walked in—they were thornless—and she could smell crushed mint and thyme. This was a Georgian-style savage garden, untamed and overgrown in appearance, but carefully designed.

Behind her, she heard Aaron’s soft footsteps and then the clunk of the latch as he closed the door behind them. Joan turned

to see ivy curtaining the exit, completely concealing it.

Unease bubbled up inside her. Even though she’d just walked through that door, she couldn’t have easily found it again. All

the trees here looked the same, and the leaves were unbroken along the wall.

Nick held up a hand to stop them walking farther in. Joan took his lead and just listened. There was no sound but rustling

leaves.

Aaron broke the silence first. “No one ever comes to the wall. Look—” He kicked at the overgrown grass. “Even the gardeners

neglect the grounds here.”

Joan nodded, but unease ran through her again, stronger this time. She turned back to that ivy-covered wall. The leaves fluttered,

mothlike, in the breeze. Joan realized suddenly what had been disturbing her. “You said no one comes up here,” she whispered,

“but someone’s been using that passage. When we came in, there were marks on the stone—scrapes from the door. More than what we just made.”

Aaron frowned. “I’ve never known anyone else to come up here.”

Maybe that was true in the last timeline, but things were different here. They’d arrived at the Oliver mansion with assumptions that were proving wrong. They hadn’t known there’d be cameras along the wall or a security lodge at the gate.

“It’s okay,” Nick said, his voice low and reassuring. “We made backup plans. We can take a different route out if this one

is compromised.”

Aaron took a step in the direction of the house, and then he was the one hesitating. The hairs rose at the back of Joan’s

neck. Aaron had turned to the ivy wall, as if he’d seen a ghost.

“What’s wrong?” Joan breathed.

Aaron took a moment to reply. “When Eleanor altered the timeline, you protected us,” he whispered to Joan. “You shielded us

from the changes she was making.”

“Yes... ,” Joan said uncertainly.

“We stood outside the timeline while it was being changed. That means that this timeline may have formed its own Joan. Its own Nick. Own Aaron. It’s very likely that we have”—Aaron searched for the word—“ counterparts here. Versions of us born and raised in this world.”

“Counterparts?” Joan thought of the wanted poster with her own face on it; the illustration that wasn’t quite herself.

“The marks on the wall... ,” Nick said to Aaron. “You think there’s another you in this house? You think he’s been using that door?”

“Is that possible?” Joan asked. The thought was so strange—other versions of themselves born into a world where monsters ruled.

“Could we run into him down at the house?”

Aaron shook his head. “The laws of time travel would never allow two versions of us to exist in the same time and place. If there were other versions of ourselves here, they would have been replaced by us when we arrived.”

Replaced. It was such a disturbing thought that Joan wanted to push it away and never think of it again. Nick folded his arms,

looking as rattled as Joan.

“It’s academic, I suppose,” Aaron said. “We still need to get to Ronan before he’s interrogated. This doesn’t change anything.”

“It does change things, though,” Nick said slowly—Joan could see him thinking through the implications. “If you’ve replaced your counterpart

here,you can feign being him . You’d have access to the house. We wouldn’t even need to—”

“No.” Aaron’s tone was flat.

“You said it was very likely —”

“I said no .”

Nick gave him a long look, and Aaron’s chin lifted defensively. Nick thought he was being a coward, and some part of Aaron

thought so too.

Joan bit her lip. The truth was, Aaron’s family despised him—his father surrounded him with minders, belittled him, publicly

humiliated him. Joan had seen Aaron’s meager bedroom, separated from the rest of the Olivers’ palatial mansion. If he had

a counterpart here, it wouldn’t help matters.

Aaron would never say that to Nick, though—he’d rather cut his own throat. He’d never even spoken about it openly with Joan.

“Let’s go in as we planned,” Joan said softly. “We don’t want to complicate things.” They just needed to find Ronan and get

the hell out of here.

The Oliver mansion came into view, framed by curling branches.

It was gray stone with castle-like turrets that made an eerie silhouette against the clouded moon.

A setting for a ghost story. Aaron stared down the barrel of the garden, gaze distant, as if he were seeing something far more sinister than a house on a hill.

Nick pushed his hands into his pockets. “This is where you grew up?” There was a very faint needle in his voice, and it seemed

to shake Aaron out of his paralysis.

“Why?” Aaron said. “Better than you’re used to?”

As a child, Nick had lived in a tiny flat with his family. Three brothers and two sisters , he’d said to Joan once. My brothers and I all slept in the TV room until I was seven. His mouth stretched now into a not quite smile at Aaron.

They were getting off on the wrong foot. Joan didn’t know why that dismayed her so much. She should have guessed they’d chafe—they

were from very different worlds, and they’d once been on opposite sides of the human-monster battle.

And when this fight was over, they’d all be pitted against each other again....

Joan pushed the thought aside. There wasn’t time to worry about that now. She judged the distance from here to the house.