Page 60 of Misfit Monsters
I squeeze my hands at my sides. I’m fine. Raze just said no one’s here.
And whoever was here before, it obviously couldn’t have beenthatman.
Raze returns with a grim expression. “As far as I can tell, the shadowkind creatures here recently came from different directions. The faintest trails are scattered. The most recent trail is all of them together, heading in the direction where they ran into us.”
Hail’s voice is flat and cold. “So the sorcerer gathered them here and sent them off on a hunt.”
Jonah grimaces. “Let’s take a closer look and see what else we can find.”
As we walk to the cabin, his light glints off tiny shapes amid the scruffy grass. Mirage ducks down. “Stars on the ground to match the sky!”
His fingers brush them, and he recoils with a wince. “Stars that burn. They’re silver and iron.”
I peer at the trampled earth. Ringlets of pale gray metal shine amid the grass—few enough that I can barely pick up on their repelling quality.
My forehead furrows. “They look almost like…”
My voice trails off with a smack of panic that makes flailing feel even more appealing.
Hail finishes for me. “Links from one of those hunter nets.”
My heart is suddenly pounding twice as fast. A prickling sensation spreads all over my skin. Echoes of interlocking links searing into my limbs and face…
I drag in a steadying breath, but the air flows shakily into my lungs. My legs stiffen under me.
My voice comes out in a thin chirp. “I can stay out here! Someone should keep watch, right? I’ll shout if I see anything.”
Jonah shoots me a concerned look, but I manage to smile at him. He beckons to Raze. “Come on. We’ll need that keen sense of smell to investigate.”
All four of the men push into the cabin.
I take a couple of steps back from the scattered links and reach for the exercises Shanty started to teach me. Picture somewhere calming. The park in that city?—
A crackle amid the underbrush makes my pulse lurch. He could be coming, storming in to capture us all. We have to?—
I shut my eyes against the blare of panic.
No. What’s happening here has nothing to do with my past. I need to get a grip on myself and help with this mission.
The thought has only just passed through my head when Mirage bursts out of the cabin clutching a few metal objects in his arms. “Look what we found!”
They don’t gleam as brightly in the dim moonlight as the bits of netting did in Jonah’s penlight beam, but I can make out their shapes well enough. He’s holding a tarnished, scuffed medal, a small trophy cup with a dent in the side, and a figurine that I think is an award, the head knocked right off.
My mind blanks. All I can see is the display case in that basement room, the memorabilia the man who caged me kept of his “defeated enemies.”
A wail careens from my mouth. He’s found me again—he’s going to trap me and haul me away and?—
The horror explodes out of me in a wave of darkness thicker than the night.
Mirage yelps. There’s a shout from somewhere behind him. Distress and pain, reverberating into me from all of them?—
A few firm words cut through the cacophony in my head. I yank back the agonized energy pouring out of me, reining it in by some means I didn’t know I had.
Then I’m standing there, trembling and panting, staring at Jonah—who just gave me a sorcerous command to stop.
I didn’t rein myself in, not really. He did.
I only catch a glimpse of his fraught expression where he’s standing in the cabin doorway before he’s focusing on the other men. “Is everyone okay? If you need to enter the shadows to recover, we can sort out the rest after.”
