Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity, #2)

by Victoria Schwab

He who fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster . . . if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

Hell is empty, All the devils are here.

If Verity’s sins were knives, quick and vicious, then Prosperity’s were poison. Slow, insidious, but just as deadly.

“Honey, I’m home.” No answer, of course.

She’d always assumed she’d relish the eventual privacy, the freedom, but it turned out that being alone lost some of its charm when you didn’t have a choice.

she wondered if, somewhere, there was a version of herself having fun. Feet up on the back of a theater seat while movie monsters slunk out of the shadows, and people in the audience screamed because it was fun to be afraid when you knew you were safe.

no evil → hear no evil → tell yourself there’s no evil

Calling him a Soul Eater was like calling the sun bright. Technically accurate, but only a fraction of the truth.

“Do you pull the gun on everyone, or just me?” “Everyone,” said Kate, “but for you I left the safety on.”

Didn’t know that when sound was taken from you, you had to find ways to take it back.

Because she knew a secret: there were two kinds of monsters, the kind that hunted the streets and the kind that lived in your head. She could fight the first, but the second was more dangerous. It was always, always, always a step ahead. It didn’t have teeth or claws, didn’t feed on flesh or blood or hearts. It simply reminded you of what happened when you let people in.

She could handle her own blood. She didn’t need anyone else’s on her hands.

“We do it, Jackson, because compassion must be louder than pride.”

The urge to retreat rose like bile in his throat, competing with the urge to speak, to assure them that there was no reason to be afraid, that he wasn’t there to hurt them. But monsters couldn’t tell lies.

How much does a soul weigh? he wondered. Less than a body.

quieter than it had been, but there, there all the same—was that vain and useless and impossible longing to be human. A desire he kept trying to drown. A desire that held its breath until his focus slipped, and then surged up again, gasping for air.

The buildings reminded Sloan of jagged teeth, a broken mouth biting into wounded sky.

He could appreciate the elegance, the poetry of made replacing maker, shadow outlasting source.

The lights of the hiding. Thin ribbons that escaped beneath doors and boarded windows, bulbs of safety turned to beacons, as steady and luring as a heartbeat. Here I am, they said. Here I am, here I am, come and get me. And he would.

He didn’t hate Katherine, he simply loved the thought of killing her.

Henry was human; he didn’t understand that in trying to be both, August succeeded at neither.

Running was just like every other habit. It got easier with practice.

It’s freeing, at first, like shedding a heavy coat. And then you get cold, and you realize life’s not a coat at all. It’s skin. It’s something you can’t take off without losing yourself, too.

but imminent danger had a way of silencing pain.

This August took up space.

The Malchai’s eyes brightened. “You’re welcome, s—” He never finished: Sloan tore out his heart.

“Convinced Henry to release you into my custody, at least for the night, so try not to do anything rash.” “But it suits me so well.”

“What act?” “The steely, dark-eyed soldier act.” She crossed her arms. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice look—I just don’t know why you’re still wearing it.”

She heard the words leave her lips, felt them slide across her tongue, traitorous and smooth. A confession.

Where are you? she asked herself, and the answer came rushing up: She was on Riley’s couch, splitting a pizza, while the TV droned on and she told him about the shadow in her head, about Rick and the green, about the Fangs, and Soro, the race through the red, and the concrete room, and Riley listened and nodded; but before he could answer, he dissolved, giving way to August, his cold gaze and his voice echoing through her head: You should never have come back. And Kate lay there in the dark, wondering, for the first time, if maybe he was right.

The look on her face when he forced the truth from her, that horrible mixture of betrayal and disgust. That isn’t me, he wanted to say.

Her spine straightened. Her chin went up. It had always been an act of sorts, a part, but it was one she knew how to play.

or that she was Kate Harker, and everywhere she went, she brought her own gravity with her.

“I know it hurts,” she said. “So make it worth the pain.” “How?” “By not letting go,” she said softly. “By holding on, to anger, or hope, or whatever it is that keeps you fighting.” You, he thought.

And then her mouth was on his again, and the version of himself, the one he tried so hard to drown, came gasping up for air.

He had never done this, never played to soothe a soul instead of to reap it.

But still, a human’s shield was a monster’s prison.

Everyone was made of sounds, and August had learned hers the first day they met.

“Listen to me,” he said smoothly, “and listen well. We are not equals, you and I. We are not family. We are not blood. You are a whelp. A shadow. Your strength is the barest echo of my strength. You continue to exist because I let you. But the scales of my favor are delicate, and if you tip them any more, I will rip your fangs out with my bare hands one by one, and leave you to starve. Do you understand?”

She’d spent the last six months trying to save another city while hers burned, six months hunting monsters while her own hunted here.

“You would risk these lives, and yours, for a sinner.” “No,” said August, “I would risk them for a friend.”

He didn’t smell like death. He never had. No, he smelled like violence. Like leather and blood and pain.

The Malchai was gone. And so was Henry Flynn.

There was a strange place, between knowing and not knowing. A place where things could live in the back of your head without weighing down your heart.

“Dead, you are a martyr.” He pressed the tape over Flynn’s mouth. “Alive, you’re simply bait.”