Monstrous Ends, page 6
The monsters maintain their city more than we take care of our own.
Forcing myself to put my camera away, I find a supermarket on the next street down. I tug up my shirt to cover my mouth and nose, expecting a rotten odour, and then I duck inside the broken sliding glass doors, only to freeze. Lanterns are strung from the ceiling with planks of walkways across the aisles. The checkouts have been left untouched, and the gates that hold them are open. The floor is clean, and there’s no putrid smell. Dropping my shirt, I look around. All the natural produce section is empty and seems to be clean.
I guess I wouldn’t want to live with a foul smell outside my front door either.
Grabbing a metal basket that seems clean and used, I hurry down the aisles in search of food, giggling over the visual of my monster shopping.
The more I see, however, the more I can’t help but wonder.
There are clothes, shoes, weapons, and medical supplies, which were clearly scavenged but laid out for anyone to take and use if they need to. There’s a freezer buzzing at the back with electricity, and it’s piled high with raw red meat. I cringe and hurry away to the canned aisle. It seems mostly untouched, as if they can’t stomach the metallic taste, but me? I’m used to it.
I don’t take more than I need—after all, I’m an interloper here. I choose two tins of peaches, some Spam, and a litre bottle of water. Feeling guilty, I reach into my bag and tear off a corner of the notepad I use and scribble a quick note.
I owe you - Lyra
I tuck everything into my bag as I leave the shop and rip open a can of Spam, eating it with my fingers as I walk. I never thought about it before, but it’s strange that we have to pay for food. It’s essential and we need it, and don’t get me started on healthcare products and hygiene.
Tampons? You might as well sell your liver to buy those, and even though I’ve always had money, it doesn’t make me oblivious to the struggles others face.
I bet the people in the slums couldn’t afford the same riches my father could. He had access to the latest and best healthcare systems, so he would never have cancer, diseases, or any issues at all really, and the women in the mansion I used to live in wanted for nothing, especially when expecting. Pregnancy was celebrated, but when one of my friends, a girl I went to school with, tried to terminate hers, she was locked away.
I wonder what babies are like here over the wall. They had to have some, right?
Do women have a choice here? We certainly don’t over there. That’s why I’m so careful when I have sex. Not everyone wants kids, and I’m not saying I don’t—I’ve never really thought about it—but right now, you damn well bet I don’t. I want the choice. We all do over the wall.
Instead, women are forced to hurry into the slums to find backwater doctors who are willing to help for a price. It’s an unsafe option when perfectly good medical facilities are right there for us to use, all because some man declared babies are a miracle and protected, even over women’s lives.
Blowing out breath, I stop my internal rant, knowing I could keep going. It’s one of the issues I’ve tried to bring to light. I even went to one of the clinics who are willing to do abortions under the table. Obviously, I protected them, since it was the only clinic outside of the slums willing to perform the procedure.
What I saw there broke my heart.
It was filled with desperate women searching for a way out.
All my life, I’ve fought to reveal reality and not just the pretty truth they wish me to showcase. It’s made me enemies, of course, like the time I exposed the truth of the slums and starving children and was locked up and fined. The only reason I wasn’t executed was because of my father.
Here, though, there are no laws or cameras watching my every move, and it’s freeing.
Nowhere is perfect, however, and I wonder what sort of people are in charge here. If the monster who captured me is anything to go by, then they are clearly crazy, but I can’t say I blame them. Folding the tin lid inwards, I locate the bin on the corner of the next street and carefully drop it in before putting my hands in my leather jacket and speeding up. The wall still seems so far away, and I know the sun is moving through the sky. Without a clock or any way to tell the time, I’m guessing it’s mid-morning, which means I need to hurry the fuck up before darkness falls and the monsters crawl out to chase me.
Two mismatched eyes fill my vision, making me swallow.
ELEVEN
LYRA
A grave.
It’s a mass fucking grave.
I didn’t see any bodies on the street, but as I stop before the giant crater that was clearly a bomb location, I can’t help but turn and gag, throwing up all my hard-earned—okay, stolen—food.
Even with my eyes closed, I can still see the mounds of bodies, humans and monsters, all piled in the hole.
Some were skeletons, while others were fresh, with birds pecking at their eyes and insects crawling over and inside them. All the joy and freedom I felt here disappears, morphing into pure, violent sickness.
It’s no different here.
Everywhere we go, there is death, and death is the norm, so I shouldn’t have expected this place to be different. Sadly, I almost find it comforting, but it’s also slightly scary that monsters are killing others, that there are cruel ones who kill their own people.
Is that why the one who held me is scarred?
Have others tried to kill him?
Or is this his grave? A warning not to challenge him?
When I look back, I realise that’s exactly what it is—a warning to his enemies, to those who would cross the wall and invade his land.
That monster is a cruel, wicked king sitting on his throne, ready to defend his territory . . . and I just dared him to come after me.
Fuck!
I practically sprint, aiming for the wall. I knew he was crazy, cruel, and evil, but seeing his handiwork only drives home just what he will do to me when he finds me. The sun is only a reminder of how quickly he will catch me, so the lower it falls, the faster I run.
I outrun the sun, or I try to, but two hours later, I skid to a stop, panting as I try to catch my breath. I’m fit, don’t get me wrong, and I love to run, but after being locked up, starved, and sleep deprived, I’m exhausted.
My feet burn, my lungs scream, and I need a break.
Lifting my head, I look around for somewhere to hide, feeling the need even during the day, as if those mismatched, scarred eyes can locate me in the sunlight. My eyes widen when I realise where I’ve stopped. There are stone steps leading up to an impressive sprawling building.
The sign is hanging off the structure, but it’s still clear enough to read.
NORTH POLICE HQ
Well, shit.
Okay.
Sucking in a deep breath, I force my aching legs to move, knowing I can’t stop for too long, and I climb the steps to the broken glass doors where I push inside. I peer around hesitantly. The sun reaches inside, but deeper into the corridors, it’s darker.
It’s creepy, if I’m honest.
The reception room I’m in has a giant desk covering the whole back wall, with bulletproof glass from desk to ceiling, fissured with cracks from bullets. Beyond, the doors stand open, forgotten, and blood is sprayed across the walls and floors, making my stomach turn.
The bolted down seating area is ripped apart and destroyed, and the TV from the corner of the room is smashed on the floor. The vending machines and water stations are also destroyed, preventing me from hoping the rest of the place isn’t.
After all, when the monsters attacked, I bet the police station was one of the first places they came to so they could take down the controlling government and all. I heard the army couldn’t even mobilise quickly enough before the main sectors of humanity were wiped out—news stations, police, and governments. A lot died in that first wave before the army came rolling in with their tanks and weapons, trying to hold back the tide as everyone fled to the outskirts of the city.
The wall didn’t exist then, and I’ve seen enough footage with my clearance to know that the city we live in now was under construction for the rich and powerful, only it didn’t work out that way, and as the army battled the monsters, the wall was constructed. Men and women were drafted to either serve in the fight or build the wall.
So many people died, even the remembrance halls cannot hold all their names.
The monsters seemed to stop attacking, however, when the wall was finished. They never crossed or tried to follow, and the footage they shot over the wall in helicopters months after, before it was banned, showed them regrouping, burying their dead, and living, as if they were fighting simply for that.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that war, although it’s occasionally spoken of in hushed tones, and I know why.
Footage was erased, reports were closed, and they tried to pretend like it never happened.
The only reminder is the wall—unless you are like me, nosy and possessing a job that allows you to research. I always wondered why the monsters attacked and where they came from. There was never a clear answer on that, and I wish I asked before I ran away.
Curiosity be damned now, though, because my bag burns with the research, and instead of just relaxing, I move around the desk and through the open doors in search of a place to finish looking through what I stole.
I hope for answers, and I also hope it’s enough to keep me alive.
I manage to find an office on the second floor that still has a working computer, so I have high hopes when I plug it in. Despite a few, erm . . . sparks, it turns on. Shocking, I know. I wonder how they have power here, but I’m not kicking a gift horse in the mouth.
The only downside?
Half of the office wall is missing, exposing me to the city outside. I peer over the older computer screen and search the streets beyond, looking for those mismatched eyes. The sun is almost set now, and it’s like I can feel the clock ticking away.
Tick.
Tock.
He’s coming for me.
Fuck.
Ducking my head, I insert the USB and hope the system isn’t too out of date for me to access this without corrupting it. Sitting in the leather chair of the desk that proudly declares it belonged to the sergeant, I groan as I watch the files load.
And load.
And load.
“Come on, you ancient motherfucker. I’ve seen old ladies run faster.” I click the mouse a million times as if that will solve it. “Don’t you know there’s a crazy-ass, weirdly sexy monster either coming to fuck or kill me?” I almost scream at the thing.
I’m about to throw it out of the gap in the building when it finally loads. “Thank fuck!” I mutter as I click on a file, only for it to get stuck on the load screen again.
If I die because of a loading screen, I’m going to be pissed.
I go deadly silent as I point my finger at the screen. “Last warning before I kill you. You have four seconds to load. Four, three, two, one . . .” The video loads, and I blow out a breath, and then I lose myself in the files, searching and watching as many as I can.
I don’t even notice the sun setting or the moon filling the sky until I lean back with tears filling my eyes and anger saturating my heart.
They did this. They made the monsters, but it’s so much more than that.
The things they have done . . .
I can’t even wrap my mind around it.
There’s one thing for sure though—I won’t be safe over the wall, and after seeing this, I know they will stop at nothing to kill me. No, the safest place for me right now is here.
After all, my enemy’s enemy is my friend, and it looks like the monsters and I have something in common.
My mind whirls with plans and options, but under it all are glimpses of the videos I watched, and I don’t know how to process them.
I need time and safety.
Standing, I pack my bag once more and wait for him to come.
A furious howl splits the night air, and I know he’s on his way.
TWELVE
SAMAEL
I wake with a roar.
Before I scramble down to her cell, tossing away those that get in my path, I know she’s gone.
It’s in the pull inside me, stretching out into the city like a rope stretched taut, ready to snap.
Snarling, I tip my head back and inhale, sucking her scent into my lungs and following it right out of the fucking side door. My head falls back under the moon, and I howl a warning to all those around to stay off the streets because tonight, I hunt.
Wherever she is out there, I know she hears it and understands I’m coming for her, and this time, nothing will save the little human.
Stomping to the stables, I leap onto my horse’s back and turn, kicking him into action as I track her into my city.
How dare she escape.
I’m going to wring her fucking neck and tan her ass red . . .
Fuck!
Even now, my need for her wars with my anger, and when we stop outside of a supply outpost, I stomp inside, tracking her scent before finding a crumpled piece of paper on a shelf with writing on it I can’t read. Pressing it to my nose, I suck in her sweetness.
My length hardens in my trousers as I imagine bending her over these shelves and reminding her whom she belongs to.
The little human is mine.
Mine to punish, touch, taste, fuck, and kill.
Snarling, I shove the note deep into my pocket and rush back to my horse, and then I set off into the city to find her. When I do, I’ll remind the human that she belongs to me, and afterwards, she will tell me everything I need to know.
Midnight rears up with his own clatter of hooves before we gallop out into the darkness. Every monster in my territory hides from my wrath, knowing all too well what I am capable of.
I’m tempted to make her walk behind us, tied to my waist, naked and covered in cum and blood just to make my point.
As we thunder through the city, I feel the others hiding in the darkness, trying to avoid my fury. No one has stood against me and lived—until her.
Her scent leads me to a building, and as I dismount Midnight, I lift my head and sniff before circling the structure with a snarl.
She’s standing in a giant hole in the floor above, where the wall has crumbled away to the building below. I narrow my eyes as she smiles at me mockingly, and then I crunch through the rubble and leap, grabbing onto the ledge of the second floor and hoisting myself up until I’m crouched before her like a nightmare coming to claim her soul.
“I can explain,” she starts with a defiant tilt of her chin, as if her bravery will save her.
I’m moving before she can finish, unsure if I’m going to kill her . . . or worse.
When my hand is on her throat and I lift her into the air, I make my choice. “You left,” I snarl before slamming her against the desk behind her. The air whooshes from her lungs with an audible gasp, and she stares up at me with wide eyes but doesn’t cry, beg, or scream.
She does, however, kick me, like a moth hitting a brick building. Groaning, she lifts her foot to do it again, but I capture it midair and squeeze. “I wouldn’t suggest fighting right now, little human, because it will only make what I’m going to do much worse.”
“Fuck you!” she yells. “You kept me prisoner, so of course I fucking left!”
My hand squeezes, cutting off her words as I bend over her, forcing her leg back into her chest as I let her see the fury in my gaze. The haze is taking over, and if I’m not careful, I’ll kill her without meaning to. Humans are so fragile, after all.
“You are my prisoner, and now you will be punished. Did you really think I wouldn’t find you? That I wouldn’t come for you?”
“Was . . . betting . . . on . . . it,” she wheezes as her face turns red.
I loosen my grasp a little, allowing her to suck in deep breaths.
“Listen to me. The humans hate me too. I’m not going over the wall—”
I slap her across her mouth, snarling, “I don’t give a fuck what you think. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t rip out your heart and bathe in your blood this very second.”
She’s still beneath me, her big eyes darting between mine, and when I peel back my hand a tiny bit, her tongue darts out to lick her lips. I groan, remembering what it felt like to stuff my fat cock in that teasing mouth.
Even after my threat, she doesn’t seem scared. Every other fucker here would be pissing themselves or running, but not her.
Not this brave, foolish little human.
“The cleanup would be a nightmare.” She grins but swallows when I snarl. “Because you want me.”
It’s a dare, and she’s right.
I need to quench the bloodlust or she’s as good as dead.
She only helps that along when she moans as my fangs sink into her neck, her body writhing below mine. Her hands flutter up to grab my shoulders and tug me closer, and one leg wraps around me.
My hard cock stiffens further, jerking as if trying to get to her, and my tail thrashes behind me as I taste the sweetness of her blood.
“Please,” she murmurs, her voice so sweet, it makes me feel even more like a monster.
I rip away from her neck, letting the blood trail down her pale skin, and then I grab her and bend her over the desk as I tear off her trousers and slam my hand down on her ass. I need to let some aggression out, so I make her hurt, wanting to see hatred flaring in her eyes alongside need.
She cries out, jerking from the force as her plush cheek reddens with my mark. Something akin to possession and satisfaction roars through me at seeing my mark on her unblemished skin.
“You will be punished,” I tell her in a growl. “Your body will bear my mark, and I’ll march you before my entire fucking tribe and let them see what I did to the human who dared to defy me.” I reach down and grasp her hair, yanking her head back until my lips meet her ear. “Their gazes will sweep across every inch of this body, and then I’ll take you back to your cell and lock you up like a good little prisoner . . . if you’re lucky. If you’re not, I’ll let them watch as I rip you to pieces for your defiance.”
