Page 29 of Monsters Like Us
He’ll break us apart piece by piece.
CHAPTER 24
Micah
I’m not supposedto be here, but I don’t trust Vale at all. So, I used some of the more susceptible residents to cause a distraction, allowing me uninterrupted time to watch Katana’s session with him.
I watch through the thin slit of the cracked blinds as his pen hovers, his questions circling closer to her.Friends—that’s the word that floats through the door. He says it like a snare, waiting for her to stumble into it.
Her face stays careful, but I see the tensing of her shoulders and the stiffening of her spine. The flush of her skin on the back of her neck. I know exactly who she’s thinking of.Me.
My fists clench at my sides, hidden in the dark. Vale’s eyes narrow, his mouth curving into that thin, knowing smile. He smells blood.
Unease prickles sharply under my skin. If he presses too hard, if he dares to say my name, I’ll rip the door from its hinges and show him what real breaking looks like. But that would put her in more danger.
So I force myself to remain still. To be my usual cold,calculating self. If Vale suspects anything, I’ll starve his suspicions. I’ll disappear from her sight, let him believe there’s nothing between us but silence.
It takes everything in me not to stalk her down the hallway after her session, even though I’m desperate to claim her where everyone can see. But I don’t. I wait. I let the unease coil into a plan.
Vale wants her secrets, but he can’t have them.
He wants me exposed. He’ll get nothing.
I’ll devise something better. Something that makes Vale chase shadows while I sew Katana tighter to me, stitch by stitch.
For now, though, I remain hidden in the shadows.
CHAPTER 25
Katana
The days stretchinto an endless sea of gray, cold and empty. Micah hasn’t been in the cafeteria. He doesn’t appear by the benches outside. Not even a glimpse of those black eyes burning into me across the common room.
At first, I thought he was punished and locked up again. But I hear whispers from the other residents who seem as unsettled by his absence as I am. “Micah Morrow’s been quiet. He’s being good.”
He’s not locked away. He’s avoidingme.
It gnaws at me until it’s unbearable. That heat he lit in me hasn’t gone out—it’s spread, leaving me restless and raw. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Every time I catch the echo of shoes in the hallway, I think it’s him. But it never is.
Finally, I snap.
Marcy leaves me in my room with a warning about curfew. The second her footsteps fade, I’m out the door. My heart hammers as I slip down the corridor, past the cameras that never work right, until I’m at his door.
I peer through the window. He’s there, sitting on his bed,his shoulders hunched forward, his elbows on his knees. There are no new marks or scars indicating he was punished.
The anger boils hotter than the fear. My hand tightens on the knob before I shove it open and step inside.
His head lifts, and when those dark eyes meet mine, I almost falter, but my anger gets the best of me. “You’ve been avoiding me,” I snap, my voice low but sharp. “Why?”
For a moment, his face is unreadable. Then, slowly, a dangerous smirk curves his lips.
His voice is as smooth as glass, “I wanted to see if you’d come to me on your own.”
The air between us tightens, the power shifting. I came here angry. But standing in his space, with his eyes stripping me bare, I realize exactly what he’s done.
And I walked right into it.
“I came because I was worried,” I hiss, my fists clenching. “And now I realize you were just... testing me? Playing with me?”
