Page 26 of Only a Monster

‘After you left me to die?’

His chin came up, and he met her eyes without apology. ‘Yes.’

‘Well . . .’ Joan dampened the towel in the soapy water and started to clean herself up. It hurt. A lot. Her jaw felt clenched tight enough to break teeth. ‘After that, your uncle tried to stick a sword in me. Then my friend Nick killed him and put that sword through your father’s heart.’ She put the towel back into the bowl. The line of the cut was revealing itself along her side. She remembered the sword coming toward her. ‘I ran,’ she said. ‘And . . .’ Her composure wavered. ‘And I found my gran dying. Then I ran again and found you in the maze. Is that what you wanted to know?’

Aaron’s face was reddening. ‘Yes.’

‘Did you think we were friends because we escaped together?’

‘Of course we’re not friends.’

Joan wanted to laugh. Of course not. She was half-Hunt. And, worse, half-human. Edmund had shown her exactly what the Olivers thought of that. She tore open an antiseptic wipe and swabbed it over herself. It stung like being sliced open again.

‘Listen,’ Aaron said, ‘I know you’re new to this.’

Joan paused, feeling a new wariness. What did that mean?

‘I’m an Oliver,’ Aaron said. ‘We can see if someone is a monster or a human just by looking at them—our family power. And you . . . you stink of new-car smell.’

Joan was reminded again that she knew close to nothing about this world. It was a familiar sensation. She’d grown up between Dad’s house and Gran’s. Half-human, half-monster. Half-Chinese, half-English. It all felt the same sometimes. Joan was more than a stranger, but less than a true insider. She stood on a threshold, neither outside nor in.

‘You’ve barely travelled, have you?’ Aaron said.

‘First time yesterday,’ Joan admitted. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Well, baby monster . . .’ Aaron leaned forward, intense and serious. ‘I don’t know how much your family has taught you, but you saved my life, and monsters don’t take such debts lightly. Of course you and I aren’t friends. Until I pay you back, you’re more to me than that.’ There was no gratitude in his pale grey eyes, only that odd intensity—almost anger—as though Joan had burdened him with something instead of saving his life.

Joan didn’t want him to feel indebted any more than he did. ‘I stopped you from getting stabbed,’ she said, ‘and you showed me the way out of the maze. We’re even. There’s nothing owed.’

‘Well, that answers that,’ Aaron said.

‘What?’

‘How much your family taught you.’

Joan really, really didn’t want to discuss her family with Aaron Oliver. Her hand shook as she smoothed a bandage down. She added waterproof tape and went to have a shower.

The bathroom was tiny. In the mirror, Joan’s reflection looked glassy-eyed. There was blood on her chin and all over her arms and hands. Under her fingernails. In her hair. She started to shake again as she stripped.

Just a few days ago, they’d all had dinner together at Gran’s little kitchen table. Uncle Gus had made lentils with fresh tomatoes. And Ruth had said to Joan: How’s your crush from work? And Aunt Ada had said: What crush? What’s this? And Bertie had said: Ooh, what’s he like? Show us a photo! Is he nice?

Joan had another flash of memory. Of pleading with Nick. Don’t do this, Nick. Don’t hurt my family.

She turned on the water as hot as it went. Then she scrubbed and scrubbed. She kept scrubbing until the water ran clear and her skin hurt, and even after that.

When all the blood was gone, she turned the tap off and slid to the tiled floor. She pulled her knees to her chest. The position tugged painfully at her cut side, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Here, in the quiet, she could hear Gran’s last harsh breaths again. When she closed her eyes, she could see all those people lying dead among the flowers.

Once upon a time, Gran had said, there was a boy who was born to kill monsters. A hero.

Joan had been so angry with her family earlier today. For their silence. For the secrets they’d hidden from her. And now they were gone. Nick had killed them.

Joan pictured Nick’s face, square-jawed and honest. She drew her knees tighter against her body. In movies, heroes killed monsters all the time. When the camera moved from the monsters’ bodies, you never had to think about them again.

But when you were the monster, when the monsters killed were the people you loved . . .

Joan kept her eyes open. She watched water crawl toward the drain, making long lines on the tiles.

When she got back to the bedroom, Aaron was lying on top of his bedcovers, shoes off but still clothed. ‘I tried to call emergency services,’ he said. He was holding his phone. His throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed. ‘The dispatcher kept asking who I was. Where I was. Whether anyone else had survived and where they were. I hung up.’

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