His breath caught.
The boy on the screen was standing there, hands shoved in his pockets. He wasn’t looking at the camera. His eyes were half-lidded, his head turned away, the faintest blur to his edges, a picture snapped midmotion. But it was him. No black streak. No empty gaze.
August exhaled a shuddering breath, and clicked print, and a minute later the machine spat out his ID. He stared at the image for several long seconds, transfixed, then pocketed the card, and slipped out of the office just as the bell rang for lunch. He was halfway to his locker when a voice called his name. Well, Freddie’s name.
He turned to find Colin, flanked by a boy on one side and a girl on the other. “Alex and Sam, this is Freddie,” he said by way of introduction. “Freddie, Alex and Sam.”
August wasn’t sure which one was Alex and which was Sam.
“Hey,” said one of them.
“Hey,” echoed the other.
“Hello,” said August.
Colin swung an arm around his shoulder, which was hard to do considering he was a full six inches shorter. August tensed at the sudden contact, but didn’t pull away. “You look lost.”
August started to shake his head, when Colin cut him off.
“You hungry?” he asked cheerfully. “I’m starving, let’s get some lunch.”
“. . . gives me the creeps.”
“. . . party this weekend . . .”
“. . . such an asshole.”
“. . . Jack and Charlotte an item?”
August stared down at his half-eaten food.
The cafeteria was loud—much louder than he’d expected—the constant clatter of trays and laughter and shouts as staccato as gunfire, but he tried not to think about that and instead focused on the green apple he was rolling between his hands. Apples were his favorite food, not because of the way they tasted, but because of how they felt. The cool, smooth skin, the solid weight. But he could feel Sam—that was the girl, it turned out—watching him, so he brought the apple to his mouth and bit down, fighting back a grimace.
August could eat, but he didn’t enjoy it. The act wasn’t repulsive. It was just . . . people talked about the decadence of chocolate cake, the sweetness of peaches, the groan-inducing pleasure of a good steak. To them, every food was an experience.
To August, it all tasted the same. And it all tasted like nothing.
“That’s because it’s people food,” Leo would say.
“I’m a person,” he’d say, tensing.
“No.” His brother would shake his head. “You’re not.”
August knew that he meant, You’re more. But it didn’t make him feel like more. It made him feel like an impostor.
Now, the way other people felt about food, that’s how August felt about music. He could savor each note, taste the melody. The thought made his tallies prickle, his fingers ache for the violin. Across the table, Colin was telling a story. August wasn’t listening, but he was watching. As Colin talked, his face went through an acrobatic procession of expressions, one folding into the next.
August took a second bite, chewed, swallowed, and set the apple down.
Sam leaned forward. “Not hungry?”
Before August could show her the half-eaten contents of his bag, Colin cut in.
“I’m always hungry,” he said with his mouth full. “Like, always.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “I’ve noticed.”
The boy, Alex, speared a piece of fruit. “So, Frederick,” he said, emphasizing every syllable in the name. “Colton doesn’t get a lot of new blood. You get thrown out of one of the other academies?”
“I heard she got kicked out,” whispered Colin. He didn’t have to say who.
“That’s not the only reason people change schools,” said Sam, turning to Alex. “Just because you got tossed—”
“It was a voluntary transfer!” said Alex, turning his attention back to August. “Well? Expulsion? Transfer? Bang a teacher?”
“No,” he answered automatically, and then, slower, “I was homeschooled.”
“Ah, no wonder you’re so quiet.”
“Alex,” said Sam, angling a kick under the table, “that’s rude.”
“What? I could have said ‘weird.’”
Another kick.
“It’s okay,” said August, managing a smile. “I’m just not used to so many people.”
“Where do you live?” asked Colin around a mouthful of pasta.
August took another bite of apple, using it to force down the words rising in his throat. In those stolen seconds, he sorted through his lines, trying find the right truth. “Near the Seam,” he answered.
“Damn,” said Alex, whistling. “In the red?”
“Yeah,” said August slowly, “but it’s North City, so . . .”
“It’s only scary if you don’t have a medal,” added Colin, tapping the embossed pendant around his neck.
Sam was shaking her head. “I don’t know. I’ve heard bad things happen in the red. Even to those with Harker’s protection.”
Alex shot a look across the cafeteria. “Don’t let her hear you say that. She’ll tell her dad.”
Colin shrugged, and started talking about a concert—the boy’s mind seemed to jump around even more than his—but August followed Alex’s gaze. Katherine was sitting alone at a table, but she didn’t look lonely. In fact, there was a small, defiant smile on her lips. As if she wanted to be alone. As if the fact people avoided her was a badge. August didn’t get it.
“You want to come, Freddie?”
He watched as she picked at her food in a slow disinterested way, as she drew a metallic nail around the edge of her pendant, as she got to her feet.
“Freddie?”
The current of the cafeteria shifted with the movement, eyes drifting her way. But she didn’t seem to mind. She kept her head up as she dumped the tray and walked out.
“He’s not even listening.”
August’s attention snapped back. “Sorry, what?”
“Concert, Saturday, you want to come?”
“None of us are going,” Sam cut in, sparing August from having to answer. “Because there’s a curfew, Colin. And it’s practically in the Waste!”
“And we don’t want to die,” added Alex in a gross exaggeration of Sam’s tone. He flailed his arms as he said it.
“My mom would skin me,” said Sam, ignoring the impersonation.
“Not if a Corsai did it first,” teased Alex. Sam gave him a horrified look and punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow!”
“I just think,” said Colin, leaning across the table, “that life is short, you know?” His tone was soft, conspiratorial. He had a way of making August feel like he wasn’t new, like he’d been there all along. “You can’t spend it afraid.”
August found himself nodding, even though he spent most of his time afraid. Afraid of what he was, afraid of what he wasn’t, afraid of unraveling, becoming something else, becoming nothing.
“Yeah,” cut in Alex, “life is short, and it will be a hell of a lot shorter if you go wandering at night . . .”
Colin’s mouth quirked. “Freddie’s not afraid of monsters, are you?”
August didn’t know how to answer that. He didn’t have to.
“I totally saw one once,” added Colin.
“You are so full of it . . .”
“What did you do?”
“I obviously ran like hell.”
August laughed. It felt good.
And then, between one bite of apple and the next, the hunger started.
It began as nothing.
Or almost nothing, like the moment before a cold starts, that split second of wooziness that warns you a fever is coming. Dwelling on it—Is that a tickle? Is my throat getting scratchy? How long have I been sniffling?—only made it worse faster, and he tried to smother the spike of panic even as it shot through him.
Ignore it, he told himself. Mind over body—which would work right up u
ntil the hunger spread from body to mind, and then he’d be in trouble. He focused on his breathing, forced air down his throat and through his lungs.
“Hey, Freddie, you okay?” asked Colin, and August realized he was gripping the table. “You look a little sick.”
“Yeah,” he said, pushing to his feet, nearly tripping as his legs tangled in the chair. “I just . . . I’m going to grab some fresh air.”
August swung his bag onto his shoulder, trashed what was left of his lunch, and pushed through the cafeteria doors, not caring where they led, so long as they led out.
He was behind the school, the trees a green line in the distance. The air was cool, and he gulped it in, muttering, “you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,” to himself before realizing he wasn’t alone.
Someone cleared her throat, and August turned to find Katherine Harker leaning against the building, a cigarette dangling from her fingers.
“Bad day?”
Kate just wanted a moment of peace. A moment to breathe, and think, and not be on display. Charlotte’s words were still lodged under her skin.
I heard her mother went crazy. Tried to drive them off a bridge.
The words brought back not one memory but two. Two different worlds. Two different Kates. One lying in a field. The other stretched on the pavement. One surrounded by rustling quiet of the country. The other surrounded by ringing silence.
She brought her fingers absently to the scar beneath her hair, traced a metallic nail around the curve of her ear. Disconcerting, to be able to feel but not hear the drag of nail on flesh.
Just then the doors burst open, and a boy stumbled through. Kate’s hand dropped away from her ear. The boy looked a little lost and a little ill, and she couldn’t really blame him. He’d come from the cafeteria, and that place was enough to set anyone off balance.
“Bad day?”
He looked up, startled, and she recognized him.
Frederick Gallagher. The new junior. Up close, he looked more like a stray dog than a student. He had wide gray eyes beneath a mop of messy black hair, and a starved look about him, bones pressing against his skin.
She watched him open his mouth, close it, open it again, only to offer a single word. “Yeah.”
Kate tapped ash off the cigarette and pushed herself up to her full height. “You’re the new kid, right?”
One black brow lifted, just a fraction. “So are you,” he shot back.
The answer caught her off guard. She’d expected him to be a mumbler, or maybe a groveler. Instead he looked straight at her when he spoke, and his voice, though soft, was steady. Maybe not a stray dog, then.
“It’s Katherine, right?”
“Kate,” she said. “Frederick?”
“Freddie,” he corrected.
She took a drag on her cigarette. Frowned. “You don’t look like a Freddie.”
He shrugged, and for a second they stood there, sizing each other up, the moment stretching, the gaze growing uncomfortable until his gray eyes finally broke free, escaping to the ground. Kate smiled, victorious. She gestured to the patch of pavement, the border of grass. “What brings you to my office?”
He looked around, confused, as if he’d actually intruded. Then he looked up and said, “The view.”
Kate flashed a crooked grin. “Oh really?”
His face went red. “I didn’t mean you,” he said quickly. “I was talking about the trees.”
“Wow,” she said dryly. “Thanks. How am I supposed to compete with pine and oak?”
“I don’t know,” said Freddie, cocking his head. Stray dog again. “They’re pretty great.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear and caught Freddie’s glance. It didn’t linger. There was a flush in his cheeks, but it wasn’t all embarrassment. He really did look ill.
“I’d offer you a chair,” she said, tapping ash on the pavement.
“It’s all right,” he said, slumping back against the adjacent wall. “I just needed some air.”
She watched his chest empty and fill and empty again, gray eyes leveled on a low bank of clouds. There was something about those eyes, something present and distant at the same time.
Where are you? She wondered, the question on the tip of her tongue. “Here.” She held out the cigarette. “You look like you could use one.”
But Freddie waved his hand. “No thanks,” he said. “Those things’ll kill you.”
She laughed, soft, soundless. “So will lots of things around here.”
A rueful smile. “True.”
The bell rang, and she pushed off the wall. “See you around, Freddie.”
“Do I need to schedule an appointment?” he asked.
She waved a hand. “My office is always open.”
With that, she stubbed out the cigarette and went inside.
By the end of the day, Kate was untouchable.
Word had obviously spread—at least through the senior class—about her stunt with Charlotte in the girls’ bathroom. Most kept their distance, went quiet when she passed, but a few took a different tactic.
“I love your hair.”
“You have great skin.”
“Your nails are amazing. Is that iron?”
Kate had even less patience for the would-be minions than the Charlottes. She had seen people grovel at her father’s feet, try to plead and con and worm their way into his graces. He told her once that it was why he preferred monsters to men. Monsters were base, disgusting things, but they had little interest and less talent when it came to gaining favor or telling lies. They were hungry, but that hunger had nothing to do with ambition.
“I never have to wonder what they want,” he’d said. “I already know.”
Kate had always hated monsters, but as half the school steered clear and the other half tried to make advances, she began to see the appeal. It was exhausting, and she was relieved when the last bell finally rang.
“Look,” she said to Marcus when she reached the black sedan. “Not expelled.”
“It’s a miracle,” deadpanned the driver, holding open her door.
Shielded by the tinted windows, she finally let the cold smile slide from her face as the car pulled away from Colton and headed home.
Home, that was a word that took some getting used to.
The Harkers lived on the top floor of what was once the Allsway Building and was now known ostentatiously as Harker Hall, since her father owned it from sidewalk to spire. Marcus stayed with the car, while two men in dark suits held open the glass doors and ushered Kate inside. Classical music wafted through the air like perfume, fine in small doses, but quickly becoming noxious. The place itself was decadent: the lobby vaulted overhead, the floor a stretch of dark marble, the walls white stone with gold trim, and the ceilings awash with crystal chandeliers.
Kate had read a sci-fi novel once about a shimmering future city where everything was glamorous on the outside but rotten to the core. Like a bad apple. She sometimes wondered if her dad had read it, too (if so, he’d obviously never read to the end).
A dark suit fell in step behind her as she crossed the lobby, which was brimming with men and women in lush attire, many obviously hoping for an audience with Harker. One—a gorgeous woman in a cream-colored coat, tried to slip an envelope of cash into Kate’s hand, but she never made it past the suit. (Which was too bad. Kate might have taken the bribe. Not that it would have made it to her father.) Instead she kept her eyes ahead until she reached the golden elevator. Only then did she turn, survey the room, and offer the edge of a smile.
“People are users. It’s a universal truth. Use them, or they’ll use you.”
Another line from Callum Harker’s manual for staying on top.
And Callum Harker had been on top, or at least on his way up, for a very long time. He was a man good at making three things: friends, enemies, and money (most of it illegal). Long before the Phenomenon and the chaos, before the territory wars and the truce, he was already becoming a
kind of king. Not on the surface, no, that title belonged to the Flynns, but all cities were icebergs, the real power underneath, and even in those days Harker had half of V-City in his pocket. So when the shadows started growing teeth, when the neighboring territories shut the borders, when panic drove people out of the city and then the people outside the city drove them back, when everyone was terrified, Harker was there.
He had the vision—had always had the vision—and then suddenly he had the monsters, too. And it seemed so simple: go with Flynn and live in fear, or go with Harker and pay for safety.
And it turned out, people were willing to pay a lot.
The Harker penthouse was minimalist and sleek: more marble and glass, interrupted by dark wood and steel. There were no servants up here. No suits. Everything about the apartment was cold, full of sharp edges, no place for a family. And yet, they had been one here. They’d lived in the penthouse, all three of them, in those short months after the truce and before the accident. But when she dragged through her memories, searching for home, the images were all mixed up, open fields and distant trees, broken glass and buckling metal.
It didn’t matter.
She was here now. She would make it hers.
“Hello?” Kate called out.
No one answered. She hadn’t expected a welcoming party, a how-was-your-day-sweetheart. They’d never been that kind of family. Her father’s private office was attached to the penthouse, but it might as well be its own apartment, its own world. The massive doors were shut, and when she brought her good ear to the wood, she heard only a low and steady hum. Soundproofing. Kate pushed off the doors and turned back toward the rest of the loft.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sun was just starting to sink behind the taller buildings. She tapped a panel on the wall, and the lights came on, flooding the space with artificial white. Another tap, and the heavy silence was broken by music pouring out of speakers across the apartment. She kept her eyes on her father’s office and held her finger down; the volume rose and rose until the sound vibrated in her chest and made the empty space feel full. Her steps were lost under the beat as she made her way to the kitchen, climbed onto a stool at the counter, and unpacked her bag. The Colton workload was daunting, but she’d spent years at boarding schools that seemed to have nothing better to do than assign homework. In among her papers was a handout on university preparations titled, “Life after Colton” filled with options, most inside Verity, but a few beyond. The borders had reopened two years ago on a heavily restricted basis—the territory was still a closed zone, under Quarantine Code 53: Other—but Kate imagined a few of the Colton kids had enough connections to get transport papers to go with a university invite.
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