Her cell phone rang. It was still sitting on the sidewalk where it had been knocked from her hands, and she rushed forward and answered.

“Hello?” she asked, breathlessly. But it wasn’t her father. Or Marcus. It was the cab company. The car was waiting in front of the school. The meter was running.

Kate looked around at the wreckage of the fight: the two Malchai corpses, the torch scorching a black line into the sidewalk, the unconscious Sunai at her feet. She was covered in drying blood and streaks of blackish gore. She swallowed.

“Stay there,” she told the cab. “I’m on my way.”

VERSE 3

RUN, MONSTER, RUN

When August woke up, everything hurt. Pain had always been a fleeting thing, something that skimmed along the surface of his senses, but this was deep, knotting around every muscle and bone. The last time he’d gone dark, it had hurt to the core, burned through him like a fever, but even that was different. Now he felt hollowed out. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to be. And for the first time in his life he wanted to crawl back into the darkness of his dreams.

Instead, August dragged his mind to the surface where his body waited and opened his eyes.

He was sitting on a concrete floor, propped up against an unfinished wall, a tangle of metal girding and wooden beams against his back. His vision swam, then focused, then swam again; he tried to move, but his wrists were bound to the metal framework on either side with zip ties.

Kate Harker was sitting in the middle of the concrete floor, arms around her knees, watching him. She was wearing his Colton blazer over her blood-streaked polo. A bruise was coming out along her jaw, and she held one arm in front of her at a protective angle, her polo torn where the Malchai’s teeth had sunk in. She looked shaken, but when she saw him staring, she stiffened, her face unreadable.

“Welcome to my new office,” she said. Her voice was cold, distant. Maybe it was shock. He’d seen FTFs go through that, after a brush with death. “I was starting to wonder if you’d ever wake up.”

August tore his eyes away and looked around the room. They weren’t alone. A man was slumped in the corner, unconscious, hands bound, and mouth covered in duct tape. A label on his shirt read “V-City Cab.”

She followed his gaze. “You’re heavier than you look,” she explained. “I needed his help getting you up here. And then . . . well . . . I didn’t think I should let him go. But I paid him pretty well before . . . well.”

August tried to swallow. His throat felt like it was coated in sand. “My violin.”

Kate rapped her nails on the case beside her. He sagged with relief, and she gave him a look he couldn’t parse. Her attention drifted to the windows, empty frames covered in plastic sheeting. Even through the plastic, he could tell it was getting dark. He should have been home by now. Where was his phone? He couldn’t feel it in his pocket. Had he dropped it?

“Where are we?” he asked.

“My father has safe houses set up around the city.”

A wave of panic hit him like nausea. “And you took us to one? After his Malc—”

Kate shot him a withering look. “They weren’t my father’s anymore,” she said icily. “But I’m not stupid. We’re in a renovation project around the corner from the safe house. I have a lot of questions, Freddie.”

He swallowed again. “August,” he said tiredly. “My name’s August.”

“August,” she said, as if testing it out. “That does suit you better. August Flynn.”

So she did know.

“How long?” he asked, and she must have understood the question because she said, “Yesterday.” August nodded. He’d been right. He’d probably feel vindicated, if he weren’t in so much pain.

“I thought your kind were supposed to be invincible.” She said kind like it was a dirty word.

He cringed. “Nothing is invincible.”

A dry smile flickered across her face. “That’s what I thought.”

“Kate—”

“No,” she cut in, “you don’t get to talk yet.”

He fell silent. The blood pounded in his head.

Kate scraped black gore from her metallic nails. “Why did you help me?” The question came out fast and sharp, like this was the one she’d been waiting to ask.

He closed his eyes. “It was a trap. Those Malchai weren’t just trying to kill you. They were trying to make it look like a Sunai execution. They would have pinned the death on me—on my family—and used it to break the truce.” He dragged his eyes open again. The illness was finally, mercifully, receding. “I meant what I said in the woods. About wanting peace.”

“I’m supposed to believe the monster’s a pacifist?”

“I never lied to you.”

“But you didn’t tell the truth.”

“How could I?” he asked. “Would you?”

Kate didn’t answer. She was staring at the floor, her face taut with pain.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly.

Her head snapped up. “Are you f*cking with me?”

August shrank back, confused. “I was just ask—”

“Stop talking.” She got to her feet, revealing the iron spike she’d tucked beneath her knee. “I know what your kind can do. I’ve seen the footage, seen the way you toy with your victims, playing some sick game of cat and mouse. . . .” Footage? thought August. “I am not a mouse, August Flynn, do you understand? I know what you are.”