The Heart of a Monster: The Complete Series

Chapter 5

Quinn

Istared at Dad’s reply to my hasty text from last night for several minutes before I could pull together the words to write back. I’d told him I’d run into a friend from school while I’d been out and ended up crashing at her place. My shock-and-exhaustion-addled mind hadn’t come up with an excuse to keep me away for longer than that.

If it’d been a normal day, a normal excursion, I’d probably have called him so he’d be more reassured hearing my voice. But I was afraid that whatever he’d hear in my voice right now would have the opposite effect.

Trish found out about this architecture convention happening in Atlanta this weekend,I typed, picking the name of a random classmate I hadn’t actually exchanged more than brief greetings with in class last semester. It sounds really amazing—we’re going to make a trip of it. I’ll probably miss you and Mom when I stop by to grab my things. See you soon!

The lies gnawed at me. There were a lot of things I hid from my parents for their own benefit, but they were only secrets that affected me, that wouldn’t have done anything except make them worry more. And they were just passing lies, like, “I’m doing good,” or, “I stopped by the mall” when actually I’d hung out on a skyscraper’s rooftop.

The fact that ravenous monsters were prowling Jacksonville’s streets felt like a totally different ballgame, as did a multi-day disappearance. But if I told them the truth, they couldn’t have done anything to fix that either. From what Torrent had said, the creatures were after me, for whatever reason. They wouldn’t bother anyone else if I wasn’t there.

I had no idea what story I’d come up with if I ended up stuck in this swamp for more than a few days, though. Of course, I’d need a lot more than a story by then. I had enough pills to last me nearly a week, but then…

“Regrouping” shouldn’t take that long, right?

I worried at my lower lip for a moment and then plugged my phone into its charger. Thank God this place at least had electricity. That device was my only way of keeping track of the time.

A faint ache ran through my forearm beneath the flesh Lance had mostly healed last night, but that was the only unusual bodily sensation I noticed. Like I had a few times since I’d woken up in the oddly cozy cabin this morning, I closed my eyes, exhaled slowly, and felt around inside me for any hint of some special quality. Anything that would explain why monsters were converging on me by the dozen.

Nothing inside me felt particularly different. I didn’t even detect another of those little wobbles that’d run through my chest yesterday.

Maybe the whatever-it-was would turn out to be a temporary condition that was wearing off? That’d make my life a hell of a lot easier.

So I really shouldn’t have gotten even a tiny quiver of disappointment at the thought that this all might be an accident and I was totally ordinary after all.

I shook myself and went back out into the living area of the cabin. A series of tall windows gave a view over a wooden deck and the sprawl of the surrounding swamp, all murky water, clumps of vegetation, and mossy trees rising up toward the sky. I couldn’t see signs of any other habitation out there.

A cluster of armchairs stood in one corner of the room, an oak dining table in the middle, and the kitchen along the far wall, really just a short span of counter-topped cupboards next to an oven and a fridge.

A faint cedar smell drifted through the space. The wood-paneled walls were bare other than the scrapes and squiggles I’d seen Lance carving into them with those razor claws of his.

If they could do that to wood, how easily could they cut through a body? I shivered at the thought. The men had fought off the other creatures that’d come at me, but they still didn’t feel exactly friendly toward me either. I couldn’t quite tell whether I was a hassle or a welcome divergence from their regular lives.

The room had looked empty when I’d walked out into it, but I’d already caught on enough to realize that appearances were deceiving. These monstrous men who called themselves “shadowkind” could meld right into the shadows, after all. I never really had any idea which of them might be around or where they were unless they bothered to show themselves.

Before that thought could creep me out too much, a figure condensed into physical form—Torrent, sitting in the same armchair as before.

He didn’t look totally comfortable here, the two tentacles I’d never seen him without squashed between his waist and the chair’s arms. He slung them over the sides of the chair and folded his hands in front of him, the pale eyes I now knew were sea-green studying me from beneath his scruffy dark red hair.

“Did you need anything?” he asked evenly but with his usual cool, hollow tone.

Was it his collapsed cheek that gave that odd quality to his voice? By daylight, I could see I’d been right that the bone appeared caved in, giving him a physical hollow in the side of his face beneath his left eye, but the skin over it was smooth, only a smudge of a scar that barely showed against his already pale skin. The scar suggested the odd facial shape was the result of an injury, not his original form.

“I—I guess I was just wondering if you’ve come up with any plan other than us just staying here,” I said. If the three of them had been discussing it, they hadn’t brought me into the conversation, but who knew what they might be chatting about while they lurked in the gloom? “My parents will start to get concerned soon—there are only so many stories I can give them that they’ll believe. And I’ve got two summer classes I’m supposed to be keeping up with. I can’t do much without my laptop.”

Torrent let out a huff as if dismissing the idea that my classes mattered at all, and my jaw clenched. He couldn’t have any idea what it was like racing against the clock to get my certification so I could actually do any of the things I hoped to accomplish before my replacement heart gave out.

Maybe I’d get a new one when this one failed. Maybe there’d be a viable heart donated at the right time, and I’d be chosen to receive it. But there were no guarantees. I’d been lucky just getting the first one.

“It shouldn’t take very long to come up with our next steps,” Torrent said. “But I do need to wait and see what happens now that we’ve removed you from the immediate danger—whether the other shadowkind keep hunting for you or disperse will affect our approach.”

“Of course,” I said, hugging myself despite the warm air. How long was I going to be stuck in this same outfit? I guessed I could exchange my tank top for the hoodie in my bag, but I’d be sweating up a storm in that at this temperature.

Torrent seemed to guess my thoughts. “When we scout out nearby activity, we can also pick up some supplies for you, whatever essentials you’d need for the next couple of days.”

Should I make them a shopping list? “I mean, some changes of clothes would be nice. And a toothbrush.” There’d already been soap and toothpaste in the washroom, but I’d made do with scrubbing my teeth with my finger. “Oh, and some sunscreen, the highest SPF they have.” I carried a small bottle in my messenger bag, but if we ended up traveling by daylight, it’d be good to have more. “I think that should cover it as long as it’s only a couple of days.”

“We can handle that,” Torrent said. “For the clothes, we’ll need to know your correct size, of course.”

Of course. I looked down at myself, embarrassment prickling through me at the thought of the most vital pieces of clothing I’d want to change. “I, um, medium should be fine. For everything.” Either they’d skip a bra or pick up a sports one in those kind of sizes.

“Duly noted. You may as well be comfortable while you’re here.”

He made it sound like my comfort was more of a secondary concern, but I guessed keeping me alive was the higher priority. It would have been a little much to expect them to have had the cabin prepared for my arrival ahead of time. They hadn’t been expecting to suddenly sense my “specialness” any more than I’d anticipated the monster attack.

Although… certain parts of their story still didn’t add up to me.

I glanced around the cabin. “So, this place belongs to the three of you? What do you need a house for if you can just live in the shadows?”

Torrent’s lips curved with one of the thin smiles that were the closest thing to friendliness I’d ever seen him offer. “We might be able to spend all our time in the dark, but we do enjoy physical comforts and luxuries as well. We wouldn’t bother coming to the mortal realm otherwise.”

I couldn’t shake the sense that he was avoiding answering my question clearly. “You just happened to have an isolated building set up in case you needed to run off to safety?”

“There are plenty of squabbles between the shadowkind. It can be useful to have a home base to retreat to as need be.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand, adjusting his position in the chair.

The movement reminded me that I didn’t think he found the physical world all that comfortable, no matter what he said about it. It wasn’t just the fact that the furniture in the cabin wasn’t built for his peculiar body. Something in the way he held himself, especially the couple of times I’d seen him get to his feet since we’d arrived here, sent a twinge of recognition through me.

I’d spent more time in support groups for sick kids than I liked looking back on. I knew how a person moved when they were in pain, when they were picking every position with care to avoid provoking the tender spots.

Torrent handled it well, only a little stiffness showing here and there. I didn’t think the soreness was from some injury he’d taken in last night’s battle. It was something he’d been dealing with long enough that it’d either faded or he’d gotten very good at coping, or a little of both.

My current line of questioning didn’t seem to be getting me anywhere, so I switched tactics. “Have you ever found another human being who attracted the kind of attention I’m getting?”

He shook his head. “I’ve been around for several centuries, and I’ve never seen a situation like this before. That’s why we’re not entirely sure how to handle it.”

That was fair enough. I was still having trouble wrapping my head around the part of the situation that was knowing nightmarish beings were slipping from their home dimension into my world on a regular basis. Beings that could live for multiple hundreds of years?

At least it seemed to be true that they didn’t usually stir up much trouble. They wouldn’t be able to keep their presence a secret for long otherwise. But my brain was still insisting the whole idea was crazy, even with a dude sporting tentacles right in front of me.

“There are so many of you, and you own houses and all this stuff… How is it nobody knows about you?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Oh, a few do. There are humans who hunt shadowkind. Sorcerers who’ve taught themselves how to affect us, to some extent. Collectors who set up little bestiaries, living or dead. And the rare ones who don’t like the others and get in their way. But they don’t want to spread the news any more than we do. Too many humans in the know would spoil their stew.”

I could only imagine the chaos if everyone suddenly found out that monsters were real. My gaze slid back toward the window. I didn’t know what else to ask him that would help me in any way—and I felt kind of guilty knowing he was only holding his physical form with whatever pains it presented so that he could talk to me right now.

A restless urge tugged at me. I needed to stretch my legs, breathe in the fresh air, and figure out what my options were in case I wanted to make plans that didn’t include my supposed saviors. Until we knew exactly what was going on, I couldn’t assume they’d continue protecting me—or that I’d agree with their version of protection.

“Is it a problem if I go outside?” I asked.

Torrent seemed to consider the matter for a moment. “There isn’t very far to go without a boat or wings, unless you want to swim in the swamp. You wouldn’t want to roam much beyond the deck anyway. The farther you get from the cabin, the more chance some other shadowkind out there will sense your presence. But as long as you stay close, it should be fine.”

It was very convenient that his explanation was full of reasons that I should stay here of my own free will. He wasn’t forcing me to stay… only making it clear that I could be committing suicide if I tried to make a run for it.

Of course, that didn’t mean he was wrong.

“I won’t do any swimming, and I don’t think it’s likely I’ll sprout wings,” I said. “I’ll just take a look around.”

He nodded. The moment I headed for the door, he vanished into the shadows.

I pushed past the door into the thicker humidity outside. Insects buzzed all around me, and something scampered through the trees nearby. I patrolled around the cabin, taking stock.

The deck surrounded three sides of the building. The back of the cabin sat against a stretch of ground that looked like a tangle of tree roots with mud filling in the gaps between. I could see the shimmer of water maybe twenty feet through the clump of forest. No easy escape route that way.

No boats were moored here. The deck held nothing at all except an outdoor shower stall by one back corner with a pipe that jutted out from the cabin. Useful if you needed to rinse off the muck after a dip in the swamp?

One of the trees stood close to the deck’s side railing, its lowest branch just a couple of feet higher. I studied it before hefting myself onto the railing and managed to step over onto the branch. Then I scrambled higher up, setting my hands on the least mossy spots, working my way from branch to branch.

Within a minute, I was sweating even in my tank top. I pulled myself onto the next tree limb and then peered out over the landscape around me.

I’d clambered several feet higher than the roof of the cabin now. There were a few more branches above me that should support my weight no problem. This was one of the tallest trees nearby—I’d get a great view of my surroundings from up there.

I hauled and scrambled until I reached the highest point that wasn’t outright insane, wrapped my arms around the narrowed trunk, and scanned the landscape again.

Torrent hadn’t been kidding about the lack of access to this place. I must have been able to survey at least a mile in all directions from my current spot, and I couldn’t make out any patches of land that were more than small, swampy islands, let alone other human-made structures. The dingy water gleamed beneath the sun in every direction.

I could swim, though, if I really felt I needed to. If risking whatever infectious crap might be stewing in the swamp water seemed a better bet than sticking around.

I’d have to watch out for the wildlife too. No doubt there were gators cruising nearby—it looked like their kind of digs.

Sighing, I leaned against the tree and let my forehead rest on the ridged bark. I could use a break before I swung myself back down to earth. I still wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was, but at least I had a better idea of what lay around me.

I pictured myself slogging through the swamp, my chin high with determination. I could do it if I had no choice. I’d spent the last nine years learning how to take care of myself and avoid relying on anyone else in every area I could. I was already dosing myself with a course of antibiotics after yesterday’s injury. Why should I be a burden even to monsters… especially when those monsters had motivations I didn’t totally understand for helping me?

It would be an adventure—a wetter, stickier version of my usual urban exploring. No big deal. I pulled that thought around me and let it strengthen my resolve.

I’d been chilling out there for a while when I caught a ripple of dark movement from the corner of my eye. My head snapped around automatically, my pulse hiccupping. But I didn’t see anything around me but the other tall trees, their leaves swaying slightly in the languid breeze.

It’d probably been a bird or a large bug. Who could blame me for being jumpy?

All the same, I sat up straighter, about to plan my descent. Before I could make my first foray downward, a winged form with jutting tusks and scruffy burgundy fur sprang at me out of the shadows dappling the tree next to mine.

A cry escaped my throat. I lurched sideways instinctively—but there wasn’t much of anywhere to go.

My legs slid against the branch. I groped at the trunk, and the thing crashed into my body, throwing me off and snatching at me in the same motion.

The creature’s knobby arms closed around my torso—and a roar reverberated through the swamp. A larger form, gray as slate, barreled into the creature holding me.

The thing let go—and I fell.

I snatched at the branches I tumbled past, bumping my elbow, scraping my ankle. A shriek broke from my throat. Just before my head whacked against the next branch, a blur of scaly deep green burst through the foliage and yanked me out of the way.

We fell the rest of the way together, the skin on the limbs that’d closed around me turning pliant instead of rigid with scales. When my rescuer’s feet thumped onto the boards of the deck, his arms cradling me so I only felt a brief jolt of impact, Lance was totally human-looking again, from his dark curls to his golden tan. Well, other than the claws he’d curved carefully away from me.

The jolt had knocked the breath out of me, and having his ferally gorgeous face that close to mine, my body pressed up against his well-muscled chest, made it hard to get my air back. My heart thumped as I stared up at him, and he grinned back at me, somehow getting even more scarily stunning with that expression.

“No more flying sessions for you,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to—” I jerked my gaze away, my mind screaming that I really shouldn’t be feeling this rush of heat over a guy with three-inch claws protruding from his fingers, and a crash amid the trees had me squirming out of his hold. “There was another monster. Something attacked me.”

Lance put me down, but his knuckles grazed my back in a gesture that felt both purposeful and way more enticing than seemed reasonable. “Our living hunk of stone is taking care of the beastie,” he said. “It shouldn’t take long. There’s not much that can take on Crag and come out better for it.”

I peered through the brush, making out only twitches of the vegetation along with the grunts and thumps. “He’s going to kill it?”

Lance chuckled. “Can’t have it going off telling tales about where it found you, can we? Stupid thing should have known better if it wanted to live.”

As if to punctuate that sentence, a shriek of pure pain wrenched through the air. There was a gristly sound of flesh being torn, vivid enough to make my stomach twist. Then the noises quieted.

For a moment, there was nothing. Just as I realized that Torrent had materialized on the deck near the cabin door, Crag emerged from the shadows beneath the deck’s railing. Traveling through the gloom must have been easier than moving physically through the swamp when he didn’t need to carry me.

He didn’t look like a hunk of stone now—well, other than the blocky jaw that was the same slate-gray all of him had looked like in my brief glimpse when he’d collided with my attacker. In his human-like form, most of his skin—from the scalp that showed through his thin sheen of black hair to his muscle-bound calves where they protruded from his shorts—was a burnished bronze-brown.

“It’s taken care of?” Torrent asked.

“Done,” the huge man rumbled. I didn’t see any blood on him, but I could imagine those large hands ripping into the creature far too easily. His dark brown eyes focused on me. “You shouldn’t go up there again.”

His brusque tone made me want to cringe. I folded my arms over my chest. “Obviously. I didn’t know going up would be a problem.”

“The beasties come from all directions,” Lance said with a tsk of his tongue.

“It seems that way.” Torrent frowned at the swamp around us. “You must have gotten high enough that the protections didn’t totally disguise whatever vibes you’re giving off. Definitely no more climbing.”

A lump filled my throat with the impression of my world shrinking even smaller than it’d already gotten in the past several hours. The attack last night hadn’t been a fluke. Whatever the monsters wanted in me, it was still there, maybe even more potent than before.

“They’re going to keep coming,” I said.

Torrent turned to me. “For the time being. We’ll figure something out.”

The three of them, he meant. Because what the hell could I do against these creatures full of stabby appendages that could spring out of a patch of darkness without warning?

I didn’t like feeling this helpless, this dependent on men who were not only strangers but also monsters themselves. There had to be something more I could do for myself other than standing—or falling—around while they did all the work.

I squared my shoulders and gave the bunch of them a firm look. “If I’m in this much danger, I need to be prepared for the worst. Even if it’d only help a little bit, I want you to teach me every possible way that I could fight them myself.”