Where Monsters Hide: An Academy Bully Romance (The Monster Within Book 1) Read online

  “Though, I suppose I have a fascination with them more than most. Usually they get sold to collectors.”

  “What’s that one?” I point to one at the top. It has no decoration and no card.

  Waldman glances at it; she carefully places the phylactery she’s holding back on its shelf and straightens its card.

  “That one’s empty,” she says calmly, but something about her demeanor has changed. “It was supposed to hold a Wendigo, but—” Her voice chokes off and she closes her eyes, turning her face away from me.

  “But that’s not what I wanted to show you, really.” She moves to a different shelf, away from the phylacteries, and picks up a little box about the size of a pencil case. “I actually wanted to ask you for a favor.”

  “A favor?” I repeat.

  “Yes.” Still holding the box, she picks up a glass vial from the shelf beside it and shows it to me. “I need you to fill this with Piers Dagher’s blood.”

  “What?” I snap, taking a step back from her, toward the door.

  “No, no—okay, that started off wrong.” She laughs a little. “You see, Piers’ father asked me to concoct an anti-vampire serum for him. A protective charm,” she adds.

  “Okay.” I stare at her face. She’s acting … strange. Her smile seems forced, and her hands look a little shaky. “Why don’t you just ask him?”

  She laughs, but it sounds almost frantic. “Well, he doesn’t want Piers to know. He doesn’t want to embarrass him.”

  I look around. I’m not entirely sure I have a choice. This is a direct request from a teacher, after all, however strange.

  “I don’t know why you’re asking me,” I say. “I’m the last person Piers is going to let anywhere near him. I can’t just … poke him with a needle or something during class.”

  “That’s where this comes in,” she replies brightly, holding up the box. It’s entirely unremarkable; just a plain wooden box. She suddenly becomes serious as she holds it out to me. “Avery, your parents gave this to me. It seems fitting that you should have it.”

  I take it and look it over. I find the little lid and am just about to open it when Waldman slams a hand over the top to stop me. “No, not here! You remember our first class? We talked about iratxoak?” She points to the box. “That’s what’s in there.”

  I almost drop the box in surprise. “There are a bunch of little imps in here?” I say, holding it out at arm’s length.

  I vaguely remember a photo of them, but she went over so many different kinds of pixies.

  “Yes. I think they could probably help you.”

  “And couldn’t you just use them yourself?”

  Professor Waldman pales, and she takes a step back. Her eyes flicker over to the empty phylactery meant for the Wendigo she never caught.

  “No, no,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t deal with monsters anymore. Not directly. Not after … well … some things change you, Avery. And not for the better.”

  One of her hands briefly closes over the top of the box, and for a second, she looks like a haunted version of herself. I snatch the vial from her and slip both it and the box into the pocket of my jeans.

  “All right. Thank you for the … iratxoak.” I stumble over the word.

  She smiles warmly at me, all traces of darkness gone like a shadow. “No, thank you for your help, Avery. I loved your parents. They were great monster hunters.”

  I should ask her more. I want to know how she came across this box, and if she has anything else that once belonged to them. But I can’t. I have to go.

  I think it must just be the light, but there was something almost … skeletal … about her in that moment, and I just want to get out of this closet as fast as I can.

  Even if it means somehow stealing a vial of Piers Dagher’s blood.

  Chapter Nine

  The party winds down soon after I emerge from the library-closet, and I don’t stick around long enough to get stuck alone with Eve Waldman a second time. While the other girls linger for another free drink, Erin and I take the first chance we get to slip out without causing a scene.

  We’ve barely slipped out the door, freedom in sight at the end of the hall, when the door swings open behind us.

  It isn’t Professor Waldman, however, but the girl Luiza.

  “Well. So you’re the new girls, huh? And you’re the one everyone’s been talking about.” She points at me.

  I glance at Erin. “Uh, everyone’s talking about me?”

  “You tried to fight an ogre.”

  I straighten my shoulders. “Tried and won.”

  Luiza starts walking towards the residence wing and we follow since we’re going in the same direction, anyway. “Look, not a lot of girls get accepted into Saint M. Those were all the female students at that … what did she call it? Soiree.”

  She grins at us over her shoulder. Her high heels are making steady clomp, clomp noises against the tile floor. “And as for you, little Singer—I’m not quite sure what to make of you. You don’t seem cut out for the monster hunter life.”

  Erin looks at the floor, and I feel anger flare up in my stomach even though I’ve wondered the same thing at times. “Erin is incredibly smart,” I snap at Luiza. “It takes more than brute strength to be a monster hunter.”

  “True. But it does take courage. And at least some physical ability.”

  “How do you know all this shit, anyway? Why are you so goddamn nosy?” I ask.

  “Avery,” Erin mumbles, but I ignore her.

  Luiza laughs; it’s a throaty sound. “I make it my business to know my competition. Other women are a threat to me, plain and simple. I want to be the best female monster hunter that ever lived.”

  Erin stops walking, so Luiza and I stop as well. It takes me a few seconds to realize that it’s because we’re at our dorm. Luiza turns to face us fully. She takes a step forward until she’s directly in front of me, towering over me in her heels, looking down into my face with a smirk.

  “I want to be better than Riley Black,” she says in a conspiratorial whisper. “And I won’t need to rely on my husband to help me.”

  My fists clench. I open my mouth to say something, feel myself moving into a fighting stance, but Erin’s small hand closes around my wrist.

  “We’re going to bed now,” Erin says, her voice shaking just a little. “It was nice to meet you, Miss de la Cruz.”

  “I’ll figure out your deal soon enough, Singer,” Luiza says as Erin opens the door and pushes me through it. “I think you’ve got a secret, and I want to know what it is.”

  I hear her throaty laugh as Erin slams the door shut behind us and Luiza’s heels on the floor as Erin locks us in. She turns to me with a grim expression.

  “I don’t know if I like her very much,” she tells me.

  I grin. “That’s the meanest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

  I wait for Erin to go to sleep before I open the box. While I wait, I can’t help but think of what Luiza said. She thinks I’m her competition, but she’s wrong.

  She’s got it all wrong.

  I don’t want to be the strongest female monster hunter. I want to be the strongest, period.

  It’s dark, but enough moonlight filters through the window that I can see the movement of her breaths becoming steadier under her flowery blanket. Once I’m sure she’s asleep, I cross to the windowsill and place the wooden box on it.

  My notes say that feeding the creatures at the end of their task will make sure they slip back into the box without problem, but all I can scrounge up in the moment are some moldy crumbs left over from a cereal bar I forgot about on the plane. It’ll just have to do.

  I slide the window open as quietly as I can, so as not to wake Erin. I know she’d like to see the iratxoak, but this feels like something I should do myself. Alone. A chilly breeze flows in, raising goosebumps on my arms. Not for the first time, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.

  But Waldman wants Piers Dagher�
�s blood, and I want answers.

  I open the box.

  At least two dozen tiny faces look up at me; little humanoid figures clamber up the sides of the box, squeaking in a language I can’t understand. Each one is smaller than the nail on my little finger, and they move with surprising, insect-like speed.

  “Sh! Quiet, please!” I whisper frantically, and immediately their squeaks recede in volume.

  “English!” shrieks one, clambering over the others. “English! What to do? What to do?”

  The other creatures break out in a similar chorus, the chime of “What to do?” growing louder and louder with each iteration.

  “Okay, look,” I say, and I hold up the crumbs. They immediately start scrambling towards my hand, but I close my fist. “I have food. But you’ll only get it after you’ve done what I asked.”

  “Task! Task!” they chorus; I hold a finger to my lips, and they all copy me, gazing up at me with eager faces.

  “There’s a boy named Piers Dagher,” I tell them, and I hold up the vial. “I need you to fill this with his blood.”

  They begin clapping eagerly.

  “Shh!” I shush them again, and glance over at Erin. “When you come back, your food will be in this box, okay?”

  “Task! Task!” they whisper at me.

  “Yeah, that’s your task. Go ahead.” I set the vial on the windowsill, and all of them stream out of the box in a jumble of little naked limbs, snatching up the vial and carrying it out like a line of ants pouring out of the window.

  “Don’t let anyone see you, not even him!” I whisper out into the darkness behind them. The last one gives me the tiniest thumbs-up I’ve ever seen.

  It’s an agonizing wait. I try to do homework, but I can’t focus on anything, and I don’t want to turn on a light in case Erin wakes up. I wonder what would happen if I just left the crumbs in the open box, but I have a vague memory of Waldman issuing us a warning about leaving iratxoak to their own devices.

  It was either them or the Welsh pixie that likes to eat its victim’s eyeballs, but I don’t plan on finding out for myself. Not tonight, at least.

  Minutes pass, then hours. I just sit on the floor underneath the window, poking at the breadcrumbs I’ve put into their box. I could get in trouble for having these; the Saint M handbook forbids students from having monsters for themselves unless proper paperwork is filled out, and I doubt “gathering blood from students” is a viable reason to have iratxoak. I lean my head back against the wall. This is absolutely insane.

  Finally, I hear a squeak and a cascade of naked bodies drops from the windowsill. The iratxoak are back.

  In a surprising show of strength, one shoves the vial into my hand and they swarm into the box to fall hungrily on the breadcrumbs. Once the last one is in, I shut the lid and stand up, stretching, before quietly closing the window.

  If I put my ear to the box, I swear I can hear happy munching sounds from within. These things could come in handy.

  The vial is full of dark red blood. It’s warm to the touch, which makes my stomach turn. I wrap the box and vial in one of my shirts and shove the bundle to the back of a drawer. When Monday rolls back around, their task can be delivering the vial to Waldman.

  I crawl into bed and pull my blanket up to my chin. I’m halfway through worrying about what Waldman plans to do with the blood when I make myself stop. Actually, fuck Piers. If he’s in danger, he deserves it. He and his cronies, gorgeous as all of them may be, are doing their best to make my life hell.

  Cruel and gorgeous. Now that’s a dangerous concoction.

  I drift off to sleep with them on my mind, and my dreams are filled with tiny, naked men with tiny, gleaming muscles.

  Chapter Ten

  I’ve found the pattern.

  I realize it weeks after Waldman’s party on a Tuesday—the day before this year’s Halloween—during survival class, when I come back to the forged passport I’d been painstakingly working on for days to find it face-down on my desk.

  I turn it over to look at all the predictably smudged ink, then glance up just in time to see the sleeve of Bennett’s coat as he whisks out of the classroom. I think to yesterday, when I was supposed to be crouched low to the ground in PW, and Owen shot me with a blunt practice dart while Professor Davies’s back was turned. It hit me square between the shoulder blades and leaving a nasty bruise.

  There was a moment there, at the very beginning, that I thought they’d grown tired of tormenting me. I was wrong, however.

  They just get tired.

  By the end of the week, usually by Thursday afternoon, Piers, Owen, and Bennett have exhausted their supply of trickery for the week and generally leave me alone. At least, until come Monday again. Everything returns in full force after the weekend, when they’ve had time to rest.

  Seriously, they’re like a bunch of well-dressed toddlers vying to prove something no one actually wants them to prove.

  The numbers on the wall have barely budged since the start of year. Piers and I are currently neck and neck for the bottom four, with our scores creeping ever close to the rest of the pack every day. There’s still no real way of telling how things will pan out. It’s still way too early.

  I pick up the ruined passport off my desk. I don’t have time to make a new one, not after I spent the last week peering through a cracked microscope using a brush with literally two bristles to finalize the perfect details. With a sigh, I resign myself to my fate and walk up to Professor Helsing, who takes it with a grunt.

  “Should’ve used laser printing instead of ink. No waiting for it to dry.”

  “I wanted it to look more legitimate—”

  “And you’ve sacrificed time. And look; one mistake, and the whole thing’s ruined. All that work down the drain.” He writes my grade down in his book. “Don’t forget—if people can’t see a troll standing right in front of them, they aren’t going to notice you’re using a fake passport. Get going, Black.”

  I nod and leave.

  In all these weeks, Piers and his boys have somehow kept their antics mostly under the radar. I think Professor Helsing is aware of what’s going on, but it’s not in his character to swoop in as some kind of rescuer. This is not the kind of place for coddling. No hand-holding. No intervention. This is my battle, and I shouldn’t expect anyone to fight it but me.

  Speaking of … Bennett is still up ahead of me in the hallway, walking alone. This is a rare opportunity.

  I walk faster to catch up to him. “Hey, Bennett!”

  He turns and actually stops to wait for me to catch up. I forget just how big he is until I’m close to him; he’s a good foot taller than I am and at least twice as wide. His muscles have gotten more defined since we first met. If he wasn’t so goddamn human, I’d still swear he’s secretly a bear.

  It isn’t until he’s staring at me that I realize I actually have nothing to say. So, I just stare back.

  Eventually, his gaze shifts. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and then turns and walks off, leaving me mystified. Did Bennett just … apologize? That’s a first. And also, about the last thing I expected him to do.

  “Avery, wait up!”

  I turn. Erin and Sawyer are emerging from the classroom after us. Poor Sawyer is covered in ink. My passport may have been smudged, but it looks like his exploded. Erin, on the other hand, looks pleased with herself. I’ve known her for a while now, and I know that she’s done hers perfectly.

  “Professor Helsing said I got full marks,” Erin says happily as she catches up to me. She’s looking a little less frail these days. We might be up in the mountains of eastern Europe, but all this time out in the sun has left a warm glow in her cheeks. She’s even got some muscle definition starting to form on her calves.

  “Wanna hug?” Sawyer asks with a grin, opening his arms. His fingertips are completely black, with spots of ink flecked all the way up to his elbows.

  “I’ll pass,” I say.

  His grin widens. “Aw, c’mon, Avery!
Don’t you just want a little—SQUEEZE?” As he says the last word, he grabs me and does just that until I laugh and twist in his arms.

  “Sawyer, let go!” His fingertips are leaving black marks on my clothes, and my face is warm, but I can’t stop laughing. Erin’s laughing too, so I must look ridiculous.

  Finally, Sawyer sets me down. “Come on, let’s go.”

  As we walk toward the residence wing, I start to feel watched. I’d forgotten my brief interaction with Bennett until I spot him, standing at the end of another hall, watching us with an unreadable expression.

  I nearly stop in my tracks to stare back, but by the time I’m sure what I’ve seen, Bennett is already gone.

  The next morning is probably the worst I’ve ever had at Saint M; courtesy of Piers, Owen, and Bennett.

  Professor Davies makes us do the intermediate obstacle course, the one used for the entry trials. After weeks spent on the earlier course this one should be easy, but Piers and Owen break the mechanism in a rotating platform while I’m on it, causing me to overbalance and fall several stories. I would have died if it wasn’t over a pool of water.

  Somehow, by the time I’ve pulled myself dripping, out of the pool, they’ve convinced Professor Davies the incident was my fault. On top of getting chewed out and forced to run sprints, they get good marks while I get a zero for being “careless”. I don’t discover until washing up in the bathroom later, but I also inherited a new gash on my forehead from smacking the edge of the platform on my way down.

  Knuckles on the door to the bathroom announces Erin is ready to head to our next class. I dab the tip of a brown paper towel into the cut and wince. This is going to take a minute, so I promise her I’ll catch up later. I’d rather deal with this alone. I don’t need Erin fussing over me even more than she already has been lately.

  I’m not even halfway to creature studies when Owen and Bennett take advantage of the fact that I’m away from Sawyer and Erin and throw me into an abandoned classroom. I don’t know what they push against the door, but it’s so heavy it makes an awful scraping noise against the tile. The old stone walls and doors as thick as the trees they were made from make for few opportunities to be found out. It takes me half an hour of banging against the door and screaming to get rescued by a passing third-year, who just thinks it’s hilarious.