Pretty Monster

by Somers, Jill

  But she couldn’t focus on knocking people out. She couldn’t focus on anything, really, except Cole Crowley and how much she wanted to kill him.

  Dash wasn’t far from her now. He was face-to-face with a few tough-looking monsters who were firing assault rifles at him. He was handling it surprisingly well. Still, he repeatedly glanced back at her, watching her approach Crowley and his people, knowing—he must know—what she had to do.

  He didn’t try to stop her.

  “Tell me why,” she said to Crowley when she reached him, giving his right-hand man, Shield, a nice, hard kick in the chest. She took pleasure in that kick. The man had been partially responsible for Kurt’s death; he was lucky she didn’t do what she really wanted to do to him. “Tell me why you did it.”

  “Did what?” Crowley asked with a smirk. “Killed Charlotte? Killed Kurt? Nuked the island?”

  “All of it. What did any of us ever do to you, Crowley? Why hate us so much?”

  “I wouldn’t take it so personally. It’s not personal. It’s simple. You’re all monsters. Monsters should be exterminated.”

  She glared at him, reaching out to grab him by throat. Instantly, a whole new wave of bullets and projectiles shot out at her, Crowley’s army rushing to his defense. Shield jumped at her, hitting her, scratching her, yanking at her. But he couldn’t stop her. Even if he could negate her physical abilities, it wouldn’t matter. She was stronger than Crowley to begin with.

  “Kurt wasn’t a monster,” she told Crowley. “Why should he deserve our fate?”

  “You’re right,” Crowley hissed, voice barely escaping her chokehold. “He didn’t deserve it. Had he chosen any other friend—any other partner—he would have lived.”

  It wasn’t news to her. It was something she had thought about many times.

  And yet, hearing it said out loud, it made her heart ache.

  “It was your fault,” he said. “Don’t you know that?”

  It wasn’t entirely intentional, her grip tightening around his neck, snapping his bones, piercing his airways. Killing him instantly. It wasn’t even a fully conscious decision.

  But had she given herself the time to think about it, she wouldn’t have done things differently.

  At least, not until she saw who collapsed to her feet when she let them go, crumpled and limp—someone who wasn’t Crowley at all.

  Izzo.

  14. LIE AFTER LIE

  The battle continued on. The world kept spinning around her. One by one, every soldier and every deviant who had betrayed them was knocked out, tied up, and taken away. None of them were killed. Not a single person.

  Except for Izzo.

  Quinn stood there, staring down at the ruined body, for what felt like hours. She could hear Rory’s voice in her head, telling her it wasn’t her fault, telling her Izzo had to have known what she was getting herself into, that the girl had probably had some kind of death wish all along. She could hear Dash’s voice out loud. He was trying to hold her. Comfort her. Tell her the same things Rory was telling her. Tell her things about Crowley that she already knew. How he was a coward. How he was twisted. How they would show the world that he hadn’t even been man enough to come fight his own battle.

  “Will we?” she whispered when he told her that. She looked over at him, tears in her eyes. “That’s why he sent her, isn’t it? To make me kill her. To show the world they couldn’t trust me.”

  He sighed, taking her into an embrace so tight, she could feel the love radiating out of him—like he never wanted to let her go—like he wanted to protect her from everything that was happening.

  But he couldn’t. She had just committed her first murder.

  • • •

  “We edit it out of the video. We have no other choice.”

  It was later that evening. Quinn was still numb. If it was up to her, she would have stayed there, staring down at the dead body of the girl she had once made decorations with and attended class with, the girl she had killed with her bare hands. But they had taken the body away, and they had taken her to the dining hall, the damned dining hall where they always had to meet about something and talk about something, because it was never, ever over.

  Evelyn was the one speaking, which was no surprise to Quinn.

  “Time is of the essence. Whatever we release has to be quick. The entire world is looking to us, waiting to see what happened when our live stream went dark.”

  “The camera wasn’t on Quinn and Crowley—er, Izzo—when it happened,” Charlie pointed out. “I didn’t record the actual… strangling. By the time I panned over to Quinn, Izzo was already down. It’s clear that it’s the girl who was posing to be Crowley. Maybe people assume she’s just been knocked unconscious.”

  “The second half of the video,” Michael reminded him, “will be panning through the prison, proving to everyone watching that the alliance survived—that we didn’t kill them. What if someone out there is looking for Izzo? What if people ask questions and don’t see her in the faces of the survivors? Do we really say that we killed no one, and then apologize later if someone finds out?”

  “Her family is still alive,” Pence said, frowning. “It’s a long shot, them looking for her—they turned her in to the DCA, all those years ago—but there is a chance.”

  “We can’t hide it,” Quinn said. “We won’t.”

  All eyes turned to her. She was surprised by the confusion in them; she thought the choice was obvious.

  “We tell people that I went rogue,” she said. “It’s the only card we have over Crowley. He wants us to hide this. He knew I’d go rogue, I’d kill Izzo, he’d point it out, he’d demand to see her. When we weren’t able to show her to the world, the world would decide that we were liars and couldn’t be trusted. It was a brilliant plan, really. It can’t come to fruition. We can’t let it. We tell the full, honest story. I apologize, and I say I’m ready to face the consequences. We show me, down there, locked up.”

  Dash shook his head. “It wouldn’t be painting a fair picture. You’re not a murderer. Half of them already think you are. To tell them that you—”

  “I am a murderer. That’s what I did. I murdered someone. Someone I went to school with. Someone I ate lunch with. Someone who had a family, somewhere out there. And if it’s all right with all of you, I’d like to fucking own up to it, okay?”

  Dash fell silent. So did the others.

  “Very well,” Evelyn finally said. “Let’s begin.”

  • • •

  Close-up on: Haley.

  Her eyes are sad. Her hair is unkempt. Her clothes are worn and frayed. She speaks with a heaviness she did not have in the previous video.

  “It’s me again. I’m here to explain what happened when the live feed cut off. Or should I say—when Cole Crowley’s people had it cut off.”

  Wider two-shot on Haley and Rory.

  Rory: “We could explain everything. But what’s the point? We got it all on video. So instead, we’ll show you.”

  Cue entire battle video sequence, starting with Quinn, Dash, and Crowley’s conversation: “Ah, my two favorite monsters”—including, but not limited to, “We will win, and we will destroy the video, and that, as they say, will be that.”

  Quinn and Reese’s fight. The fight between Tommy, Shade, Drax, and Angel. Countless other fights, ones Quinn hadn’t even known were happening… And yet, other than Drax, no deaths from either side.

  Not until the camera pans down to Izzo’s body.

  The camera doesn’t linger long on it. Not long enough to know for sure. The camera pulls back out and records the final stretch of the battle. A dozen or so soldiers load back into their helicopters and fly away. The rest are dragged down to the prison. Evelyn and Michael take their place at the center of the battlefield and instruct everyone to make way to the dining hall.

  The screen cuts to black for a moment. When we open again, we are back on Haley.

  “In just a second, we will cut away from this a
nd over to our prison, where my friend Charlie will walk through our entire prison basement and show you all that everyone is alive. That we took no lives… except one.”

  Cut to: Quinn. Close-up. Locked in a jail cell. The camera is behind the bars.

  “Hello again,” Quinn says. “I know you must all have a lot of questions. Did I kill that girl? What happened to Cole Crowley? Didn’t I swear that I didn’t want to hurt anyone?

  “The truth is, from the beginning, I wanted to hurt Cole Crowley. From the moment he killed my best friend, Kurt Rhodes—who, by the way, was not a deviant, and posed no threat to any of you—I had made it my mission to kill him. I told this to no one here on the island. They had no reason to think I should behave that way in battle. So, please, don’t let my mistakes speak for the rest of them.

  “That being said, Cole Crowley was the only one I wanted to hurt. The girl you see in the video—her name is Izzo Jones. She was a classmate of mine. I would have never killed her knowing that it was her. She was posing as Crowley—using her shapeshifting abilities to protect him. Despite our requests that he come meet with us and talk terms of peace, he didn’t. He sent us an army and an imposter.

  “I killed her. And I’m sorry for that. I will stay here, in this jail cell, on this island, for as long as you all think I deserve to. Maybe you will decide I should stay here forever. I wouldn’t blame you. I don’t think I belong there with you any more. But these people… They do belong there. And they should be welcome there. Even after having a nuke dropped on them, even after having bullets fired at them… Even when one of their own was killed… They haven’t hurt anyone.”

  She falls silent for a moment, eyes cast downward. The camera lingers on her face. Her expression is hard to read. Dark. Solemn. Finally, she looks up at the camera one last time and says, “I’m so sorry.”

  And we cut to black.

  Finally, we re-open on Haley and Rory. Their message is simple.

  Haley: “We are not threatening the people in our prison. We won’t kill them. We won’t hurt them. We will give them back to you, no matter what you decide. Send us the helicopters, we’ll load them up.”

  Rory: “But, when you do, send someone to reason with us. Not Crowley. Not an army. Someone who can actually help us—the way we keep trying to help you.”

  “This isn’t a threat,” Haley says again, and something in her eyes changes. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  • • •

  Quinn didn’t see the video. She didn’t ask to, and she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to do anything except sit in that cell and hate herself.

  She had been put in a cell down the hall from the others—the alliance and the Crowley soldiers—but she was still close enough to them that she could hear them jeering at her. Most of them called her names she had heard before—‘death singer;’ ‘she-devil’—but some had worse taunts for her. She tried to block them all out. The only one that really got to her was the man who proudly told her was one of the men who had opened fire on Kurt. That one got to her. That one almost had her killing all over again.

  But for the most part, she drowned it all out, sitting on the cold, stone floor, hating herself. The image of Izzo’s cold, dead face lingering in her mind.

  Dash came and checked on her. Told her it was absurd that she was forcing herself to stay down there with the alliance. Told her that no one blamed her for what she had done, not even out in the real world. That they all wanted her back.

  “You said you’d only stay here if it was what they wanted,” he urged her, eyes hopeful, full of love despite the horrible thing she had done. She didn’t know why. She wouldn’t blame him if he couldn’t love her any more. “They don’t want it, Quinn. ‘Save the Siren’ says you did what you had to do. They’re all calling for Crowley’s head, too.”

  She didn’t care what ‘Save the Siren’ thought. They were an online movement full of people who considered themselves brave for having controversial opinions while hiding behind their computer screens. Just like the rest of the world.

  “We need your help,” he tried when he saw that his first argument wasn’t working. “The video’s everywhere, and the people are rising up, but the diplomats still aren’t reaching out to us. Rory wants to try for another premonition. To see what we should do next. But she can’t do it without you.”

  “I shouldn’t be involved with the resistance any more,” she told him, eyes cold, ashamed. “I shouldn’t be allowed to.”

  “Quinn, this is a war. You did what you had to do. Can’t you see that?”

  “I didn’t, though. I did what he wanted me to do.”

  And she turned away from him.

  • • •

  Another day or two went by. They wouldn’t stop checking on her—not just Dash, but the others, too. They brought her the food she had always ordered the most, offered her blankets, pillows. She accepted none of it. She couldn’t even think about food. She could barely make herself drink water.

  Finally, on the evening of the second day, when Dash was summoned upstairs to help with the responses to the public’s questions, someone new came downstairs—someone Quinn hadn’t seen since the battle. Someone who looked almost as rough as she did.

  Angel.

  “You look terrible,” Angel informed Quinn, taking a seat in front of her, inches on the other side of the bars from her.

  “You, too.” Quinn had intended for it to come out cold and distant, like everything else she had said as of late, but she caught an unintentional sort of dry humor in her own words.

  Angel didn’t miss it, but she didn’t seem amused. “You’re torturing Dash. As if you haven’t hurt the poor guy enough already. All he wants to do is help you.”

  “You sure you want to convince me to come back?” Quinn snapped. “Maybe if I stay down here long enough, you could finally get who you’ve always wanted.”

  Angel chuckled, not seeming offended in the slightest. “Quinn, you could rot down here for thirty years and that man would still love you. You think I don’t see it? All of us do. It’s why I’ve hated you for so long.”

  Quinn said nothing. She already felt guilty enough; had Angel really come to make her feel worse?

  “I’m not here because of him,” Angel said, straightening. “Not really. I’m here because of Drax. Because of what he would say if he saw you here like this.”

  Quinn looked down, eyes dark, at the memory of her fallen friend. “Drax is dead,” she said coldly.

  “You think I don’t know that? I know he’s dead, you stupid little girl. I was there. And if not for you, I would have killed Tommy for it.”

  Quinn swallowed, starting to sense where Angel was going with this.

  “And if I had—if I watched him kill my best friend, and then murdered him for it—would you have told me that I should lock myself away, torture myself, torture everyone who loved me?”

  Quinn shook her head. “It’s not the same.”

  “It’s exactly the same. Look, Quinn, I’m not saying it’s excusable. We weren’t supposed to kill anyone. We’re supposed to be better than them. But this is a war. I would have been justified in killing Tommy, just as you and Dash would have both been justified in killing Crowley. There was no way for anyone to know that was Izzo. No one even knew she had that ability. No one knew that anyone did.”

  Quinn sighed, tugging at her hair. She knew Angel was right. She knew Dash was right. She just wished they could understand why she deserved to be punished. All her life, she had hated men like Crowley for what they did to innocents like Kurt. As twisted as Izzo had become, Quinn had still thought of her as that naïve young girl she had met in class those many months ago. And she had killed her. She was no different than the men she had always hated.

  Angel seemed to sense what Quinn was thinking. “Those men, Quinn—they kill for no reason. No reason but themselves. They aren’t avenging anyone. They aren’t carrying out any justice. You can’t compare yourself to them.” />
  Quinn remained silent, but the words hit her in the right places.

  Angel rose to her feet, reaching into her bag and pulling out a keychain full of cell keys. She thumbed to the one for Quinn’s cell, unlocking it without waiting to be told she could.

  “Just come out,” she told Quinn. “We’ve both done enough to hurt the people who love us. It’s time to start making things better.”

  • • •

  It was hard, stepping back out onto that island. She wasn’t ready to go back to the dining hall, or the tower, or any of those old gathering spots. Not with all of those people knowing what she had done.

  She made for the place on the island where she had always felt the most comfortable. The waterfall.

  Of course, when she got there, he was there.

  He looked up at her, eyes wide, surprised, and yet so completely elated, she couldn’t help but smile. He jumped up, running over to her and grabbing her in the tightest embrace she’d ever felt.

  She smiled to herself as she let him hold her, breathing in his perfect smell and thinking of nothing but how much he amazed her. Never had she felt so loved. Not by Kurt. Not by anyone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly as he pulled away from her, looking her right in the eyes. “I’m sorry I keep hurting you. You keep proving to me how good you are, and I just… I keep…”

  “Stop,” he said, reaching out to touch her face. The spark she felt on impact only reminded her of how good things were between the two of them—so much better than she deserved. “You’re hurting yourself, and yes, that hurts me. But don’t worry about me. You’re here, and you’re alive, and that’s all that matters to me.”

  “It should matter. It should matter to you that I’m a killer. How can it not?”

  He took a step away from her, gesturing to the river behind her, where they had once played that silly game of I Never. “Do you not remember? Do you not remember treading water with me and telling me that you wanted to kill a man? Do you not remember me saying that I did, too?”