His eyes narrowed. “Let go of me, Kate.”

She leaned in. “Whoever you really are,” she whispered, “I’m going to figure it out.”

Just then another body came crashing, an arm thrown around Freddie’s shoulders.

“There you are!” said the boy loudly. “Been looking for you everywhere!” The kid flashed Kate an apologetic smile while pulling Freddie free of her grip. She let her hand fall away. “We’re going to be late. For that thing. You know. The party thing.” He tugged Freddie down the hall. “You didn’t forget, did you? Come on . . .”

The other boy waved good-bye without a backward glance, but Freddie cast a last, unreadable look her way before the two disappeared around the corner.

Anger rolled through her as Kate stormed out of the school.

She tapped another pill out of the vial Dr. Landry had given her and tossed it back, berating herself for letting Freddie of all people crack her calm. Stupid, stupid, stupid—but she thought he liked her, thought he got her, let him get under her skin. Idiot. If she’d learned anything from her father, it was that composure was control. Even if it was just an illusion.

I know it’s hard to believe, but not everything in this world is about you.

The rage flared fresh.

I thought you were better than this.

Who did he think he was?

I guess I was wrong.

Who was he?

Kate reached the lot, but the black sedan wasn’t there yet. She paced and tried to take a few steadying breaths, but it didn’t help. She could feel her nerves rattling like loose change inside her chest. She perched on a bench and dug a cigarette out of the box in her bag, shoving the filter between her lips as she watched the students pour out of the school like ants.

“Miss Harker!” called an administrator as she reached for her lighter. “We have a strict no-smoking policy on campus.”

Kate considered the man. She was in the mood for a fight, but the more logical part of her recognized this wasn’t the right one. “Let me guess,” she said, returning the cigarette to its box. “It’s a health . . .”

She was going to say risk, but something caught her eye.

They were striding across the lawn, Freddie and the short boy and a girl she didn’t know. The boy and the girl were smiling, and Freddie was doing that the thing people do—the flickering grin and the nod—when they want you to think they’re paying attention but they’re not.

And then Kate watched as the girl skip-stepped a few paces ahead and turned back, lifting her phone to snap a picture of the boys. At the last minute, Freddie held up his hand in front of his face. He did it with a smile, but there was something to the gesture, and when the girl teasingly tried again, Freddie closed his eyes and looked away. Just like in his school photo.

It was such a small thing, really.

But as she watched him deflect, a ghost of panic crossing his face, a single word hissed through her head.

Monster.

It was ridiculous—absurd, paranoid—but it was there, and suddenly her thoughts were spiraling past the blurred picture on the Colton Academy page to the lack of photos anywhere on the updrive and the false name and the words scribbled in the margins and his protective parents and the stolen medal and his refusal to play for her and his rebuke and the way he looked at her, as if they shared a secret. Or as if he was keeping one.

Sunai, Sunai, eyes like coal.

Sing a song and steal your soul.

Kate reached for her phone. The girl gave up trying to snap photos, and Freddie disentangled himself from the other boy, waved good-bye, and began to walk away. Kate didn’t hesitate. She pulled up the camera on her cell and held the button down, snapping a sequence of shots before he could turn away.

A car honked behind her. It was the black sedan.

Kate climbed in, heart racing, fingers clenched around the cell’s screen. She didn’t look, not right away. She waited until the car pulled away from Colton, waited until the world began to blur beyond the windows.

And then, slowly, she looked at the phone.

It was a crazy theory, she knew, and she scrolled through the photos, half-expecting to see nothing but Freddie’s face staring back at her. In the first few shots, he was already looking away, and she swiped back through the rapid-fire sequence with nervous fingers, rewinding until the moment when his head was turned enough to show his face.

Her eyes tracked over the image, sliding over his uniform slacks and his crisp Colton polo to the bag on his shoulder and the dark hair falling across his cheeks and into his eyes . . . but there the illusion ended. Because his eyes weren’t their usual gray.

They were nothing but a smudge of black, a streak of darkness the camera couldn’t catch.

Have you ever seen a monster up close?

Kate slumped back against the seat.

Freddie Gallagher wasn’t an ordinary student.

He wasn’t even human.

Who are you?

Kate’s voice followed him onto the subway.

You don’t look like a Freddie.

It trailed him through the city.

I’m going to figure it out.

It tailed him on the street.

August was relieved when he made it to the top floor of the Flynn compound and found the place empty. He dropped his bag onto the bed next to Allegro, and sank into his chair, his thoughts spiraling.