“. . . breaks apart . . .”
“Hush . . .”
He fell asleep like that, surrounded by Ilsa’s voice and Allegro’s purr and hundreds of stars.
Kate spread her tools on the bed.
Duct tape (the utility of which really couldn’t be overestimated), half a dozen copper-threaded zip ties, and a set of iron spikes the length of her forearm (at the very least, they might slow him down). She considered the meager selection, feeling like she was going into battle with a toothpick, then packed the tools into her backpack and headed out.
She was halfway through the kitchen, shrugging on her Colton jacket, when she noticed Callum Harker sitting on the couch.
She’d barely seen her father since the trials in the basement, but there he was, arms stretched along the back of the sleek leather sofa. A step toward the couch, and she realized he wasn’t alone—Sloan was kneeling at his side, head bowed and stiff as a statue, or a corpse. Harker was speaking softly to the Malchai—Kate couldn’t hear the words—and she hesitated, feeling like an intruder. But this was her house, too. She fetched a mug and poured herself a cup of coffee, making no effort to be quiet. Harker clearly heard. He made a short motion with his hand, and Sloan withdrew and went to stand by the window. Morning light streamed in against his blue-white skin, and seemed to go straight through it.
“Good morning, Katherine,” said her father, lifting his voice.
Kate took a long sip of coffee, ignoring the way it burned her throat. “Morning.”
She imagined him asking her how she was settling in, imagined telling him that she didn’t need Sloan keeping tabs. Maybe he would ask her about school, and she could tell him that she’d met a boy and planned to bring him home. But of course, he didn’t ask her any of those things, so she couldn’t answer. Instead she said, “You’re up early.”
“Actually,” he said, “I’ve been up all night.” His arms slid from the couch as he stood. “I figured I would stay up a little longer to see you off.”
Hope flickered through her, followed almost immediately by distrust. “What for?” she challenged, blowing on the coffee.
Harker crossed the room, moving with the sure steps of someone who expected the world to get out of his way.
“I’m your father,” he said, as if that were an explanation. “Besides, I wanted to give you something.” He held out his hand. “Something more fitting for a Harker.”
Kate looked down and saw a new pendant glittering in his palm. It looked like a large coin on the end of a thin chain, the V embossed and filled with nine garnets, each shining like a drop of blood. “The metal is silver,” he said. “More delicate than iron, but still pure.”
Kate tried to find the meaning in the gesture. The trap. “Was it my mother’s?”
“No,” said her father sternly. “It was mine. And now it’s yours.” He crossed behind her and swept her hair aside to unfasten her standard medal. “And one day . . . ,” he said, sliding the silver chain around her throat. “Perhaps you’ll have more than my pendant.” She turned to face him, this man who’d given her his eyes, his hair, and little more, this father who’d always been a shadow at the edges of her life, more legend than real. The knight in a story, strong and stoic and always somewhere else. He was all that she had now. Was she all that he had, too?
Behind her father, Kate met Sloan’s red eyes.
“I know,” she said, holding the Malchai’s gaze, “that you don’t want me here.”
She waited, half-expecting Harker to deny it, but he didn’t. “No father wants his daughter in harm’s way,” he said. “I already lost your mother, Katherine. I don’t want to lose you, too.”
You lost my mother to fear, she wanted to say. To her own monsters, not the ones that follow you.
“But,” continued Harker, “you deserve a chance. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To prove you belong here, with me?”
The Malchai’s red eyes narrowed.
“I want a chance to show you,” she said, finding her father’s gaze, “that I’m your daughter.”
Harker smiled. No teeth, just a quiet curl of his lips. “You better go,” he said. “Or you’ll be late for school.”
The elevator was waiting. When the doors closed, Kate considered her reflection and brought her fingers to the silver pendant.
I have something for you, too, she thought, clutching the medallion.
She couldn’t wait to see the look on her father’s face when she laid a Sunai at his feet. Then he would know—without a doubt—that she was a Harker.
“Hey, want a lift?”
The morning air was heavy and stale, and August was standing on Paris’s front steps, trying to shove the Colton jacket into his bag when he looked up and saw the black sedan idling on the curb, Kate Harker leaning against it. His fingers tightened on his violin case.
“Um.” He glanced back at Paris’s building. “How do you know where I live?”
She gave him a look that said I’m a Harker before opening the door. “Come on. Get in.”
In response, August actually took a step back. Not a large one—it could have been mistaken for a shuffle, a shift of weight—but he still cursed himself.
“Oh,” he shrugged, “that’s okay. I don’t need—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she cut in. “We’re going to the same place. Why suffer the subway when there’s a perfectly good car?”
Because the perfectly good car comes with a perfectly dangerous girl, he thought, but he managed not to say it out loud. He hesitated, unsure what to do. There could be cameras in the car. It could be a trap. It could be—
“For God’s sake, Freddie. It’s just a ride to school.”
She turned and climbed in without closing the door, an obvious invitation—or maybe a command—to follow.
Bad idea bad idea bad idea thudded his heart as he approached the sedan. He hovered in the open door, then took a breath, ducked his head, and climbed in, closing the door behind him with a click that made fresh panic flutter in his chest.
You’re the monster, he thought, followed rapidly, reflexively, by you’re not a monster, and then, in desperation, be calm be calm be calm, because his thoughts were threatening to spiral out.
The car had two bench seats, one facing forward and the other back, and Kate had already claimed the rear bench, so he took the other one. Putting his back to the driver made him almost as nervous as putting his front to Kate, but before he could say anything, do anything, the car pulled into traffic, and moments later Paris’s building vanished from sight. He could feel Kate watching him, but when he went to meet her eyes, they were leveled on his shirt.
“You’re not wearing your medal,” she said.
August’s pulse stuttered. He knew even before he looked down that she was right. There was no prickle of iron, no weight, because the medallion was still on his bedroom floor where he’d thrown it the night before.
He groaned, and leaned his head back on the seat. “My dad’s going to kill me,” he muttered.
Kate shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said, flashing the ghost of a smile. “But make sure you’re home before dark.” He couldn’t tell if she was joking.
The car cut through the streets, a blur of speed, the city tunneling behind Kate’s head. Her nails, usually tapping their short, metallic beat, were curled into her palms.
If she learns the truth, you’ll know.
He watched her chest rise, her lips part.
She’ll tell you herself.
August braced himself, but when she spoke, all she said was, “I want to apologize.”
“For what?” asked August, and Kate gave him one of those looks that wasn’t really surprise. “Oh,” he said, “you mean, for assaulting me in the hall.”
Kate nodded, opened her mouth, then closed it again. He tensed. She seemed to be struggling to find the right words. Was she trying to hold back? Could she? He watched as she fiddled with the medallion around her own throat. It
was new, polished silver and bloody red stones. “Look,” she said at last, “growing up the way I have, I guess it makes a person . . .”
“Paranoid?”
Her dark eyes narrowed. “I was going to say guarded. And yes, okay, a little paranoid.” Her hand slipped from the coin. “There’s not a whole lot of trust in my family. I don’t expect you to understand.”
August wanted to say that he did, but he couldn’t, because it wasn’t true. For all their differences, Ilsa and Leo were like family, and so were the Flynns. He trusted them.
“The moment I met you,” she said. “I knew you were different.”
August dug his fingers into his knees, silently begging her not to say more, not to confess to this.
“So am I,” she added.
He held his tongue, focused on his breathing.
“We don’t fit in,” she went on. “Not just because we’re new. We see the world for what it is. No one else does.”
“Or maybe they do,” he cut in, “but they’re too afraid of you to say it.”
Kate gave him a withering smile, and shook her head. “I make them uncomfortable, because I’m a reminder that it’s not real. That it’s just this . . .” she waved her metal-tipped fingers. “Veneer. They’d rather close their eyes and pretend. But our eyes . . .” she trailed off, her dark blue gaze weighing him down. “Our eyes are open.”
And then she flashed a strange, private smile, and he was back in the hall again.
Whoever you are . . . I’m going to figure it out.
August felt dizzy. The things Kate was saying, they were the truth, they had to be, and yet it all felt like a line to reel him in. It was too clean and too messy at the same time. Was she flirting with him? Or trying to tell him she knew? Did she mean what she was saying, or was she saying something else? August felt himself scrambling for purchase as the car filled up again with silence.
“You’re right,” he said at last, throat dry. “About us being different . . . But I’d rather be able to see the truth than live a lie.”
“Which makes you the only bearable person at that school.” Her smile widened when she said it, shifting into that genuine, contagious grin. Watching her, it was like watching a flickering image, two versions that shifted back and forth depending on how you turned your head. He waited for her confession to spill out, but it didn’t.
“I was wondering,” she said, tapping a metal nail against the pendant, “about your marks.”
August swallowed, rubbed his wrist. “What about them?”
“You said they were for sobriety, but they’re permanent.”
“Yeah. So?”
She cocked her head, revealing the silvery edge of her scar. “So what if you relapse?”
He looked at her, unblinking. “Well, that would suck.”
She laughed, but her attention was still fixed on him—she wasn’t going to settle for a brush-off—so he swallowed, trying to find a way to tell the truth. “If I could just wipe them off at the end of the day,” he said, “they wouldn’t mean anything. They wouldn’t matter. And they do. I was in a dark place, once, and I don’t ever want to go back. I’d rather die than start over.” She stared at him, a slight furrow between her brows, and he could imagine her thinking, So this is what it looks like when he tells the truth, and he thought, So this is what it looks like when she believes you.
Which was almost funny, seeing as he’d never lied, but it also scared him, because it was the first time he’d seen her make that face, and the others now looked empty by comparison.
Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?
He could ask her. Force her to answer. But the question was damning, and the car was too small, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do if she said yes.
The violin case sat on the floor between his feet, and Leo was right—if he tried, he could smell the blood on the driver’s hands, but not on Kate, and she didn’t have a restless shadow, and—
“Freddie?”
He blinked. She was looking at him expectantly. The car was idling in front of Colton.
“Sorry,” he said. He climbed out first, and held the door open for Kate. At the last moment he offered his hand to help her from the car, and to his surprise, she actually took it. He fought back a shiver when her nails brushed his skin.
“Hey, Marcus.” She leaned her head back into the sedan. “I have a counseling session, so I might be a little late.”
The man in the driver’s seat only nodded, and drove away.
Kate set off toward the front gate, glancing back when he didn’t follow. “You coming?”
“I’ll catch you around,” he said, nodding at a random cluster of juniors as if they were his friends.
Again, the edge of a smirk, the raise of a brow, the careful composure that he now realized went with disbelief. “I’m glad we talked, Freddie,” she said, her voice sliding smoothly over the name.
“Me, too,” he said, pulling his cell from his pocket the moment she turned away.
He dialed Henry, but it was Leo who answered.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“Flynn is stitching someone up. What is it?”
“She knows.”
“Knows what?” pressed Leo.
“Something. Everything. I don’t know. But she knows, Leo.”
His brother’s voice was stiff, impatient. “What changed?”
“I don’t know, but yesterday she threw me against a locker, and today she wants to be my friend. It’s off, something’s off, and the way she said my name—not my name, I mean, Freddie’s name, it’s wrong, and I look at her and I see two people and I can’t tell which is real and—”
“Stay put, August.”
“But—”
“Stay. Put.”
August dug his nails into his palms. “I forgot my medal.”
A sigh. “Well,” he said slowly, “try to stay away from monsters. In the meantime—”
“Leo—”
“You’re letting your head get away from you. If Kate Harker knew what you were, she would have felt compelled to tell you.”
“I know, but . . .” August closed his eyes. But she did tell him. Didn’t she? What was she trying to say? “I have a bad feeling. Could you just have Henry call me when he’s done? I need to talk to him.”
“Fine,” said Leo. “But in the meantime, little brother, take a deep breath, and try not to lose your head.”
“Okay, I’ll—” he started, but Leo had already hung up.
Kate slammed her hand into the bathroom counter.
She glared at her reflection. “What the hell is your problem?”
A girl behind her jumped. “Um, nothing!” she whimpered before scurrying off.
Kate exhaled as the bathroom door swung shut, and slumped into a crouch, resting her forehead against the cold counter. “Dammit, dammit, dammit. . . .”
She hadn’t done it.
He’d been right there in front of her, but every time she thought of crossing to his seat, of reaching for the copper ties in her pocket, she couldn’t do it. She tried to picture black-eyed Leo torturing that man until his life welled up like blood, but all she saw was Freddie sitting there folded in on himself like she was the monster.
The images didn’t line up.
But she’d seen the photo on her phone, she knew what he was, knew the thing sitting across from her was just a trick of the light, a façade.
Freddie might look innocent, but he wasn’t.
He was a Sunai.
But he didn’t know that she knew. She still had the upper hand, the element of surprise. But for how long?
It was okay. She’d prepared for this, given herself another chance. Kate would just offer him a ride home. She didn’t really have a meeting after school, but she’d seen his name on the practice room sheet, in smooth cursive. Frederick Gallagher. 4 p.m.
“What are you doing?” came a voice, the words like a whine. Rachel. The girl who’d cornered he
r on the way to the gym.
Kate forced her grip to loosen on the counter. “Praying,” she said, straightening slowly, composing her features.
Rachel arched a brow. “For what?”
“Forgiveness,” said Kate. “For the things I’m about to do if you don’t get out of my way.” Rachel had the good sense to back up and let her pass without another word.
By the end of the day, August was beginning to think he’d overreacted about Kate. She’d sat beside him in History, doodling monsters in the margins of her own work instead of his. They’d passed in the hall, exchanged a nod and an awkward smile, a murmured hey there, and that was it. He’d waited on the bleachers during study hall—found himself wanting her to show—but she didn’t come. At lunch, August sent Leo a text that simply said, Feeling better, and got back a single word: good.
By the last class, he was glad he hadn’t left—it was finally his turn in the practice studio. As soon as the bell rang, he grabbed his violin from the locker and headed straight for the room. He was breathless by the time he reached it, heart tight with the panic that it would be locked, or taken, but it wasn’t; the only name left at the bottom of the page was his own.
He knew he should go home, talk to Henry, and he would, but Leo was probably right, he was overreacting, and the chance to play—really play—was too tempting. Besides, the longer he stayed, the less likely he was to run into Kate on the way out. A win-win, that’s what he told himself. And he believed it.
August swiped his ID, and the door gave a small beep of approval before letting him in. The studio itself was a cube so white it swallowed the corners and made him feel like he was standing in a void, the emptiness interrupted only by a black stool, a music stand, a bench. When the door closed behind him, it sealed, and he felt as much as heard the soundproofing kick in—a subtle vibration followed by sudden, absolute quiet.
Of course, it was never quiet in his head. Within a heartbeat or two, the gunshots started up, distant but relentless, and August couldn’t wait to drown them out. He laid the case on the piano bench and took out his phone, setting the timer for forty-five minutes—he’d still have plenty of time to get home before dark. The violin case clicked open at his touch, the sounds short, staccato in the silence. He drew the instrument and bow free, then lowered himself onto the stool.