Ah. August.

It was indeed hard to catch a Sunai, harder still to kill one. Sloan knew from personal experience. Ilsa had been a lucky turn, but the new Sunai, Soro, was developing a reputation. Sloan’s old friend, Leo, had driven a steel pole through his back, and August had slipped through Sloan’s grip before he had a chance to break him.

He didn’t expect Alice to succeed where he hadn’t. He had simply given her the task as a means of distraction, something to do besides feeding her bottomless appetite.

“If I catch him, can I keep him?” she’d asked.

Now her tongue rested between her sharpened teeth as she stacked a second tier. “I did lose a few Fangs.”

“How many?”

“Seven, I think? Maybe there were eight.”

He was beginning to regret her assignment. “And how, pray tell, did you lose them?”

“I’m not sure it really counts as losing.” She continued building her tower. “They did take out five soldiers and, really, isn’t that what they’re for?”

“Alice—”

“Don’t Alice me.” The mask of humor was suddenly replaced by scorn. “They’re pawns, to play with Flynn’s little toy soldiers.”

“This isn’t a game.”

“But it is.” She swung back to face him. “And games are meant to be won. Aren’t you tired yet, of playing this tug-of-war? Of keeping your pieces on only half the board? Make a move. Change the play. You are supposed to be king of the monsters, Sloan.”

She leaped down from the counter, flashing a wide smile full of teeth.

“So act like it.”

Sloan had held his ground through her whole little speech, but now he moved. In a single motion, he pinned her back against the counter. Alice’s shoulders knocked into the makeshift tower, and it collapsed with a soft sound.

She stilled as Sloan drew his fingers through her white-blond hair.

“Careful, Alice,” he murmured. “My patience is like that house, precariously balanced.” His grip tightened, forcing her head back to expose her throat. “Who knows when it might tip.”

Alice swallowed. “Careful, Sloan,” she said, eyes flaring bright. “It’s one thing to kill a nameless thug. But start killing those close to you, and the others might wonder . . .”

She let the sentence die, but the threat was clear.

“Well then,” he said, loosening his grip, “it’s a good thing we’re on the same team.”

One day, he thought, I will savor your death.

“As for your concerns”—his eyes danced over the pile of patches that had so briefly been a tower—“I can only promise that your patience will be rewarded.”

He took up the nearest patch from the pile and ran a nail across the letters on its front.

FTF.

Three letters that had come to mean a force, a wall, a war. But were, in truth, nothing but a compound, stones and mortar assembled by men.

And what goes up, thought Sloan, can always be torn down.

VERSE 2

THE MONSTER IN ME

She is

not

she is

not

she is

not

herself

she has no body and she is falling without falling down darkness

rushes past her through her— because she is not her and her first thought is how good it feels to be not her to be no one to be nothing at all.

The world came back in pieces.

The pulse in Kate’s ears, the couch beneath her back, the voices somewhere overhead.

“You should have called someone.”

“I called you.”

“I’m not a doctor, Riley. I’m not even a medic yet.”

Kate dragged her eyes open and saw a ceiling streaked with daylight. Her head ached and her mouth was dry, the salt taste of blood coating the back of her throat. All she wanted was for them to shut up and let her go back to sleep.

“She should go to a hospital.”

“What am I supposed to tell them? My friend got hurt fighting monsters? I’m pretty sure she’s not even supposed to be in Prosperity.”

Riley swam in her vision. Over his shoulder, his boyfriend, Malcolm, was pacing.

“How long has she been out?”

“Six hours. Almost seven. I should have called sooner but—”

“Too loud,” she groaned, pushing herself upright. She quickly wished she hadn’t. The room swayed and her pulse slammed inside her head. “Son of a bitch.”

Riley knelt beside her, one hand tight on her shoulder. “Kate? Jesus, you scared me. Are you all right?”

Malcolm leaned in, flashing a penlight in her eyes, which did nothing for the pain in her head.

“What happened?” she asked.

Riley was pale. “You showed up here, looking like hell, locked yourself in the bathroom, and passed out. I had to break down the door.”

Kate remembered cold tile against her skin. “Sorry.”

Malcolm checked her pulse against his watch. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

She hesitated, her mind filling with fragments—the scream, a man holding knives, a body against glass, sirens and a shadow, the sense of falling, falling into what?