Page 64 of Only a Monster

She’d been on a school excursion once to a chapel built in the first century. They’d all been allowed to touch the rough stone wall of it—two thousand years old and still standing. Utterly solid, while everything around it had fallen. Joan had imagined its foundation stretching miles down into the earth. When she’d first met Nick, she’d been oddly reminded of that wall. This new Nick had that quality too, but in him it just felt like implacability. Now she knew why. He had a mission, and nothing would alter it. He wouldn’t stop hunting monsters until every one was dead.

‘If you’re not here to kill me, then what do you want?’ Joan gritted out.

Nick’s eyes travelled down her neck. Joan flushed. ‘That’s a nice necklace,’ he said.

Joan wrenched at her hands, but it was like tugging at a wall. Nick adjusted his grip so that he was holding her wrists with one hand and then slipped a finger under the chain. He tugged until the pendant slipped out from under Joan’s shirt. He made a sound that wasn’t quite amused, just a soft huff of air.

‘I looked for this at the house,’ he said. And Joan remembered the audit he’d been doing—cataloguing every object in every room. Joan thought about how Gran had given her the necklace with the last of her strength. She thought about Ying’s widening eyes when he’d seen it. ‘You were looking for this all along,’ she said.

‘And you had it all along,’ Nick said. ‘I’d never have guessed.’ He turned the pendant. His knuckles brushed against Joan’s throat. She swallowed involuntarily, and knew he’d felt it when he lifted his eyes to hers. ‘I never guessed you were a monster,’ he said. ‘I watched over you at the house. I thought I was keeping you safe.’ He ran his thumb over the little pendant and his forehead creased. ‘I never thought you were one of them.’

It hurt unexpectedly. She hadn’t even known what monsters were until that last day with him. ‘Was it hard killing all those people?’ she asked. ‘Did you feel anything?’

‘I did what had to be done,’ Nick said. And he was the new Nick completely when he said it, his gaze hard. Dangerous.

‘Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night?’ Joan said.

Something flickered over Nick’s face.

‘Oh, you don’t sleep?’ she said. ‘I haven’t much either since that night.’

‘Where did you find the necklace?’ he said.

‘What is it?’ Joan countered.

He shrugged. ‘A gold necklace with a charming alphyn pendant. Made in the mid-nineteenth century, I’d guess.’

‘What’s at the Monster Court?’

His posture stiffened. He pulled the chain gently until he found the clasp. His fingers worked, and then the chain and pendant were in his palm. They disappeared into his pocket. When he pulled his hand out again, he had a knife.

Joan’s breath caught.

‘I told you,’ Nick said. ‘I won’t kill you here.’

‘You should,’ Joan whispered.

Nick tilted his head.

‘I’m going to come after you,’ Joan promised. ‘I’m going to stop you from killing anyone else. I’m going to kill you.’ She’d never imagined she’d say those words to anyone—let alone Nick. She’d never imagined they could be true. She felt as though she were squeezing her own heart in her fist.

Nick’s hand tightened for a moment over Joan’s wrists. Then he released her, slowly. He stood, knife ready if she attacked. When she didn’t, he stepped back.

Joan gripped the edge of the table so that she wouldn’t be tempted to try anything now.

‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘You’re dead.’

He gave her his familiar solemn smile, the one that he’d given her all the time at the house. ‘Aren’t we all,’ he said. ‘Somewhere on the timeline.’

FOURTEEN

Joan ran back to the monster street. She wiped angrily at her face as she did. She hated that she was crying.

Being that close to Nick had brought it all back—all the feelings she’d had for him. Maybe still had for him. And in turn he’d told her the truth in that clear-eyed way he had. He’d have killed her family even if he’d known who they were to her. He’d have killed her if the cameras hadn’t been there today. To him, she was a monster, and he’d been born to kill monsters.

And Joan was terrified too. Her mind kept throwing up images of Ruth and Aaron dead in the flat. Of everyone on that monster street lying dead—just like at Holland House.

She made herself take the long way, though, down side alleys and doubling back rather than running straight to the flat like she wanted to. She wasn’t going to lead Nick to anyone.

---