Page 4 of Monsters Like Us
I dial, still holding the knife.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the dispatcher asks.
My voice is steady and strong. “I just killed my mom’s boyfriend. Send someone to 1331 Hemlock Lane.”
I hang up and stare at the moon, waiting for whatever comes next.
Happy Halloween.
CHAPTER 2
Micah
The residents screamlike the building’s old pipes are splitting.
I sit in the chair and stare at the grounds outside Holloway Psychiatric Institute. Everything is covered in gray, remnants of last night’s rain slowly fading.
The iron gate yawns at the end of the drive, barbed wire covering it like a crown of thorns. The maples have bared their naked branches, shivering against the sky, while pines press against the perimeter, forming a dark wall. Fog crawls low across the lawn. It should be forbidding, but it’s not. Not to me.
I thrive in the places others are uncomfortable.
My brows draw in as a black car eases up the lane. The windows are tinted dark, preventing me from seeing inside. It slows at the cracked fountain. I lean forward, anticipation curling through me. Visitors don’t come here in sleek cars. New patients arrive in vans or steel-gray sedans, men with clipped faces serving as their escort. Whoever is in that car is mistaken if they think they can fix what lies inside these brick walls. Especially me.
The passenger door opens. A tall man steps out first. Then he opens the back door, and she steps out, her hands bound in front of her.
Fucking hell.
Long brunette hair falling to the middle of her back. Hazel irises that dart around like a startled animal as she scans the walls and windows. She’s too thin and too pale. Her coat is wrapped around her small frame like armor. Her face contorts in horror. She looks at Holloway like she stepped into a bad dream.
Her eyes connect with mine through the glass. For a moment, time stands still. Everything quiets inside my head. The screams and insanity that make up Holloway cease to exist. It’s just her and me.
The guard—clumsy and heavy—snatches her arm, severing our connection. She flinches, protesting as he drags her toward the door. My jaw tightens. I’m on my feet, my palms pressed against the cool glass of the iron-bar window. The way he grips her is wrong. It makes something in me tighten like a wire.
She disappears through the doors, swallowed by the institution.
The first pulse of confusion hits me. I’m unshakeable. Ten years here, and nothing fazes me. They call me the ice monster. It’s a valid nickname. One I earned after I attacked a therapist and snapped his neck for calling me a fucking lunatic. I never said a word or made a sound while I did it. I simply ended him, staring down at his lifeless body until the guards dragged me away.
That’s how I operate. I don’t argue. Don’t defend myself. I don’t speak to anyone, quietly shuffling through the hallways like a phantom. Despite my massive size, I’m a silent predator, watching and listening, but neverspeaking.
The residents clear a path for me whenever I exit my room. They fear me. As they should.
But the brunette being manhandled bruises me in a way I don’t understand. I like to think I can’t be broken. Maybe I’m wrong. Feeling anything implies I can be hurt. That I can feel. It’s contrary to what the mental health professionals have been telling me since I was fourteen. Ten fucking years of being told I’m inhuman. Not in so many words, but that’s what they meant.
Footsteps sound behind the door. A key jingles in the lock before Bruce, one of the only guards I don’t hate, steps inside. He keeps his hands off unless I lose control. That hasn’t happened in a long time.
He silently comes over, snaps on the cuffs, and leads me from my room.
As we pass the doors of other residents, their noises die off. They look at me and fall still, eyes moving to their feet. They know better than to test me.
We step onto the old elevator, and Bruce presses a button. It descends. My heart—the cold machine beneath my ribs — thumps with odd impatience, surprising me. For a moment, I wonder if she’ll be in the cafeteria. I want the chance to smell her before she smells like the rest of us—institutionalized.
The doors open. The hallway smells of bleach and stale coffee. My pace is measured, my head turning only when I need it to.
Then I see her.
Gray sweatpants hang on her thin frame, but even the mandated gray doesn’t dull her. Up close, the precision of her bones is almost beautiful—high cheekbones that color when she flushes, lips full and pink, the pale arc of her neck. The small dart of her tongue over her lower lip—a nervous habit—makes my chest ache in a way I would call hunger if I were human.
Cinnamon and a floral note roll through my nostrils, a human signature I want to collect like a specimen.
