Page 63 of Only a Monster

‘No!’ Nick’s jaw tightened. ‘I’m human.’

‘You liar!’ Joan said. He was too good at lying. Everything he said was clear-eyed and true. ‘Only monsters can travel!’

‘Only monsters and me. And I travel in a different way. I don’t steal time.’

‘How, then?’

He didn’t answer, and Joan shook her head in contempt. She thought about how she’d left Aaron and Ruth back at the market and couldn’t believe how cavalier she’d been. If Nick’s people found them, they’d be helpless.

Or maybe they were already dead. Maybe everyone at the inn and the market . . . Joan wrenched at her hands. Nick’s grip tightened.

‘Sorry,’ he said. He didn’t sound sorry. ‘I can’t let you touch me.’

It was unbearable to be this close to him, to look at his familiar face, his serious eyes. Joan had looked at him so much at the house. She imagined what they must seem like to anyone glancing at them from the outside—a boy holding his girlfriend’s hands at lunch. A few days ago, she’d have wanted that so much. Now they both knew that if he loosened his grip, she’d fly for his neck—cameras or not.

One question had been burning in her mind since that night. ‘Did you know they were my family before you had them killed?’

‘No.’ Nick’s eyes were still clear.

Joan made herself keep going. ‘Would you have killed them if you’d known?’

Nick didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes.’

It hurt like a physical wound. ‘We were friends. You and me. We were—’ Her voice broke. He’d kissed her. She’d never kissed anyone before. ‘Why did you have to kill them? Why did you have to?’ She could hardly recognise her own voice. The worst of it was that she felt it still—the pull toward him. ‘I hate you,’ she said.

This time Nick did hesitate, long enough for Joan to hear his hitched exhale. ‘I know.’

Joan wanted to kick the table over. She wanted to hurt Nick like he’d hurt her. ‘You didn’t have to kill them!’ she said. ‘You didn’t even know them! They were people! You’re killing people !’ ‘They were stealing time from humans.’ His brown eyes were still earnest. ‘I couldn’t allow them to harm anyone else.’

Joan couldn’t bear the earnestness. She couldn’t bear being on the other side of it. ‘You killed all those people!’ she said. ‘You didn’t even give them a chance!’

And now those solemn eyes hardened. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Every monster who died that night had stolen time. Every member of your family. The Olivers. The other families.’ His voice went cold. ‘You know who didn’t get a chance? The humans they stole from. All those people on the Tube. The tourists of London. People just walking down the street. Your people prey on them. But not anymore. I won’t allow humans to be harmed. We won’t be prey.’

He’d never been prey. He’d seemed so vulnerable in the Gilt Room, a boy among monsters, and all that time, he’d been the deadliest thing there.

‘Hello,’ a cheerful voice said.

Joan jumped, startled. It was a waitress. Joan had almost forgotten that they were in public.

‘Ooh, didn’t mean to scare you, love.’ The waitress had a Welsh accent and kind eyes. She pulled out a notepad and pen. Her name tag was cloud-shaped and said Donna. ‘What would you like?’ she said. ‘We do breakfast all day. Bit of toast? Eggs? Everything on the menu is good except the porridge. Chef did something fancy with grapefruit peel and nutmeg today. I’d avoid it.’

Nick shifted subtly, changing his grip on Joan, making it look more like they were holding hands. His posture changed too, loosening out of dangerous into something gentler. If it hadn’t been for the tension in his jaw, the sharpness in his eyes, Joan might have thought he was the Nick she’d known. The volunteer she’d met in the Holland House library. She fought back a pang. That Nick had never existed. Joan was missing someone who’d never been real.

Donna looked at their clasped hands and smiled as if they looked sweet sitting there together. ‘What can I get you?’ she said.

Joan made herself smile back. ‘Might need a bit longer.’ Donna’s neck was bare. Joan found herself hunching, wanting to cover her own neck in sympathy. But Donna didn’t know that monsters were real, that another London existed within her own. She didn’t know that people could steal life from her just by touching her neck—and that this sweet-seeming boy was capable of a massacre.

‘Sorry,’ Nick said to Donna apologetically. ‘I need a minute too.’ Sandwiched out of Donna’s view, one of his hands had clamped down harder on Joan’s wrists, grinding down, almost painful. He thought he was protecting Donna from her, Joan realised, and a wave of anger hit her again.

‘All right, then,’ Donna said, still cheerful, ‘I’ll be over there. Just give me a yell.’

They watched her walk back to the counter.

‘If you touch anyone in this room,’ Nick murmured, ‘I’ll risk the cameras.’

Joan dropped all pretence of smiling. ‘I’m not the one responsible for a massacre.’

Now that Joan had seen a glimpse of the old Nick again, she could see something of him still in this new incarnation. The two Nicks shared a kind of serious quality, a calmness that Joan had found peaceful at the house.

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