The One Who Eats Monsters (Wind and Shadow, #1)

by Casey Matthews

His eyelids peeled open, but only one held the eyeball—the other was ringed in hooked teeth, a tiny mouth. Both his regular mouth and the second one in his eye socket smiled sickeningly together. “Look-it you, you’re just a little girl. I could take you home in my pocket.” He fell out of the crater and coughed out a molar. His neck was two vertebrae too long. “You’re the reason they did this to me. You’re the reason I haven’t got half my working parts, you’re the reason for the pain, for the fact I got Cody’s brain stitched into mine and can’t stop hearin’ him scream about his missing face. I kill you… and maybe they let us die.” She fixed him with a stare. “Death is here now. Come closer. It sleeps in my hands.”

“You see?” Ryn asked once they stood in the pool of darkness. “It’s empty.” “I see.” Her voice wasn’t quite as high or thin as before. “But how do you know before you’re in it?” “Because I’m from places where shadows aren’t empty. I know the difference.”