Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity, #2)

by Victoria Schwab

DEDICATION To those lost inside themselves

Hell is empty, All the devils are here. —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest

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.

people in the audience screamed because it was fun to be afraid when you knew you were safe.

It was a needle in a haystack where a bunch of idiots were shouting, SOMETHING POKED ME.

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

“What did silence ever do to you?” He didn’t know, of course, about the car wreck that had killed her mother and stripped the hearing from her left ear. 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.

There had always been two kinds of people in the FTF—those who fought because they believed in Flynn’s cause (Ani) and those for whom Flynn’s cause was a good excuse to fight (Harris).

imagined himself alone. Not lonely. Just . . . free.

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

Soro was tall and lean, pale skin marked with small black X’s. They sported a plume of silver hair that worked like a shadow, changing their face depending on how it fell. Today it was swept back, their delicate cheekbones and strong brow on full display. August had first thought of Soro as a she, though in truth, he hadn’t been sure, and when he’d worked up the courage to ask whether Soro considered themself male or female, the newest member of the Flynn family had stared at him for a long moment before answering. “I’m a Sunai.” That was all they said, as if the rest didn’t matter, and August supposed it didn’t. He never thought of them as anything but Soro after that.

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.

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

Kate had read a book about serial killers. According to the first chapter, most isolated acts were crimes of passion, but those who killed repeatedly did it because they were addicted to the high. Kate had always wondered if there was more to it than that—if those people were also trying to escape the low, some hollow, unfulfilling aspect of their lives. It made her wonder what kind of job those people must have had, to need such violent hobbies. Now she knew. “Welcome to the Coffee Bean,”

Kate wondered who was more addicted to their high, serial killers or coffee addicts.

the only thing worse than having a secret was letting other people in on it.

Denial—that’s what it was called. The idea that if a thing went unsaid, it didn’t really exist, because words had power, words gave weight and shape and force, and the withholding of them could keep a thing from being real,

Why do you think I chose you to lead the FTF?” “Because I killed Leo?” he ventured darkly. A shadow crossed Henry’s face. “Because it haunts you.” He tapped August’s chest, right over the heart. “Because you care.”

Corpse—another simple word that did so little work, failed to describe something that was once a person, and now was simply a shell.

Sloan wiped the blood from his hands as he climbed the tower steps. There was something foul about it—in a human’s veins, it was warm, vital. Outside, it was nothing but a mess.

Funny, how simple things became when you didn’t have a choice.

He missed them both, in different ways, marveled even through the pain at how different people left such different holes.

Mourning was its own kind of music—the sound of so many hearts, of so many breaths, of so many standing together.

Stubborn hope—that’s how he put it. August liked the phrase. Kate would probably say that she was the stubborn and he was the hope, and he didn’t know if she’d be right, but he held on to that idea—to hope—as

People were messy. They were defined not only by what they’d done, but by what they would have done, under different circumstances, molded as much by their regrets as their actions, choices they stood by and those they wished they could undo. Of course, there was no going back—time only moved forward—but people could change.

It wasn’t easy. The world was complicated. Life was hard. And so often, living hurt. So make it worth the pain.