Page 113 of Only a Monster

‘The first time I met you . . .’ She could hear the raw emotion in her own voice. She closed her eyes. The drug wasn’t just forcing her to speak; it was forcing her to feel it. ‘The first time I met you, it was like I already knew you,’ she said. ‘Like I’d known you my whole life.’

There was no response from Nick. She hoped he wasn’t there.

‘Wherever you were,’ she said, ‘I wanted to be there too. You were like the sun. I was always turning toward you.’

There was a slight click as the spring gave on the lock. She blinked out of her reverie. Focus, she told herself.

‘You kissed me that night,’ she said. ‘I’d never wanted anything so much. Later, I thought maybe you’d been playing me the whole time. But then, at that nineties café, I started to wonder . . . Because you didn’t kill me, even though you knew I’d stolen time.’

She heard footsteps and then Nick was looking at her through the bars. Joan’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. He hadn’t left.

‘The Liu family has a story,’ she said. ‘They say that there was once another timeline. One that existed before our own.’

‘I know what you’re doing,’ Nick said. ‘You’re working on those handcuffs. It’s pointless. You’re not leaving this cell.’

‘Don’t you feel it?’ she said. ‘Don’t you feel that this timeline is wrong?’

If he did, he wasn’t showing it. But the drug didn’t care. It forced more words out. ‘The Liu story says that in the original timeline, the hero was just an ordinary boy in love with a monster girl,’ she said.

‘Stop,’ Nick said.

‘They say that if people belonged together in that first timeline, then our timeline will always try to bring them back together. They say that—’

‘Joan, stop.’

Joan wanted to laugh. ‘I can’t. Your stupid truth serum is making me talk and talk and talk. I think you’d have to kill me to make me stop.’

His hands came up to grip the cell bars then, knuckles whitening.

‘Oh, you don’t like that idea?’ she said. ‘Why not? You killed everyone else.’

‘You’ve taken time.’ He sounded formal. He’d said those words to other monsters just before he’d killed them. ‘You can’t be allowed to harm another human.’

Joan twisted the pin just like Gran had taught her. She almost had it.

‘So you’re going to kill me, then?’ she said to him. ‘Or will you ask someone else to do it?’

Something dark and dangerous crossed his face. No, he wouldn’t let anyone else touch her.

‘What’s the alternative?’ she asked. ‘Keeping me prisoner here? Turning me in to the police? What are you going to say to them? “She touched their necks”?’

‘I’m sorry, Joan,’ Nick said. ‘I don’t believe that we’re—whatever it is you think we are. The fact is, I should have done my duty a long time ago. The fact is that you’re a monster, and as long as you’re alive, you’ll hurt people.’

There was a click as the left cuff finally released. Joan shook it off. With another click-click, she had the right cuff off too. She showed Nick her free hands.

‘It doesn’t matter if you’re cuffed or not,’ he said. ‘You don’t have any time to travel with. And if you travel without time, you’ll die.’

‘You can’t keep killing us,’ Joan said. Her throat felt so tight. ‘I can’t let you.’

‘You’re locked in that cell,’ Nick said. ‘You need human time to travel. And I won’t let any human in there with you.’

Joan braced herself. She wasn’t sure what she more afraid of—this next bit working or it not working.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I do need human time to travel. But I’ve had a hunch about something since I woke up in here.’ She could hear the fear in her voice now. ‘I’m not just half-monster. I’m half-human too.’

Nick’s eyes widened in realisation.

Joan reached up to touch her own neck.

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