When Villains Rise (Market of Monsters #3) - Rebecca Schaeffer Page 0,112
and wove her fingers through his so their palms were pressed flat against each other, linking them. She leaned forward so their foreheads were pressed together, drinking in the warmth of his body against hers.
They might both be terrible, and the world might want them dead, but they had each other. Sometimes, that was all that mattered.
Forty-Five
KOVIT SLEPT QUIETLY, his heart monitor beeping softly. Outside, the moon hung high in the sky, and the faint glow of the streetlights barely penetrated the darkness of the hospital room. The door to the room was open a crack, and Nita stood just outside it, in the hallway, bathed in fluorescent lights.
It was the middle of the night, and though the hallway was lit as bright as daylight, Nita was the only person there. The rest of the ward was fast asleep, and there were only a few nurses in this wing, most of them at the desk down the hall and around the corner, chatting. Nita had checked on them earlier.
She stared down at her phone, second- and third- and fourth-guessing her decision, trying to poke holes in it, questioning whether this was truly her best option. But in the end, however many misgivings she had, she knew this was the right choice.
Pride only got you so far. Nita wasn’t going to let hers keep her away from her dreams, or from her survival. She called, lifting the phone to her ear as she waited, tapping one foot against the floor in a small physical sign of her nerves.
Adair picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Nita.”
Static on the other end of the line, and then, “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“It’s been busy here. I imagine you’ve heard the news?”
“Hasn’t everyone?” A short pause. “How’s Kovit?”
“Stable. The doctors think he’ll make a full recovery, but it’ll take many months. They’re amazed he survived.”
“How did he survive, Nita?”
Nita shrugged, fingers awkwardly skimming the flask of vampire blood at her belt. It had her own blood mixed in there too, for good measure. What Kovit didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. And she wasn’t sure what had kept him going through the surgery, so better safe than sorry.
“Who knows?” she responded, evading the question. “What matters is that he did.”
“I’m glad.”
Nita swallowed heavily. “Me too.”
Adair let the silence linger a bit too long before he addressed the elephant in the room. “I assume you’re calling to give me your answer to my proposal.”
She nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. “Yes.”
“And?”
She hesitated. “I want to learn. I want you to teach me about the black market. Who the main players are, where the dangers lie. I want you to train me in the information business.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “You want to be my apprentice?”
“Yes.” The words caught in her throat. She didn’t like the idea of working for Adair. She’d fucked that relationship up before, and she didn’t want to put herself in a lower position than him, but she sucked in her pride because she knew it was the right decision. “I have the information. We have similar goals. But I can’t just trust you to do what’s in my best interests forever. I need to learn these things myself, I need to build my own foundation of knowledge to stand on. I’m tired of being ignorant. Knowledge is power, but it’s useless if you don’t know what to do with it. So I want to know. I’ll give you access to all the information I gathered, and in exchange, you teach me about the market. The players, the history, the deals. Everything.”
He was silent a long time. “That’s something that would be hard to do long distance.”
“I know.” Nita bit her lip. “The University of Toronto has an excellent undergraduate program in unnatural biology, and their admission acceptance times run much later than American universities. If I get my act together, I could apply next week for September start.”
Adair’s voice was careful, but not dismissive. “It’ll be hard, being a full-time student and full-time information broker apprentice.”
“I can manage.” Nita was firm. “I’m not giving up on my dream. If I’m not doing this so I can live the life I want, why the hell am I doing it?”
He laughed softly, and she could imagine those swampy eyes calculating even as he laughed, examining her proposal from every angle.
“All right,” he said finally. “We’ll try it.”
“You agree?” Nita hesitated. “We have a deal?”
“We have a deal.” His voice was soft. “I’ll see you and Kovit in Toronto soon, then.”
Nita clicked off the phone and stared down at it, thinking of the future ahead. She would have her degree in unnatural sciences. She would get a chance to do her research. She would have everything she ever wanted by day.
And by night, she’d study just as hard and learn a different set of skills. She’d work until she knew everything about everyone on the black market, until she could pull their strings and play them like puppets, tearing her enemies down one by one until they were nothing but dust and Nita was the only black market power left alive.
The world would always have a black market. Nita accepted this. And if there would always be a black market, she’d always have enemies. Unless she ruled it.
She smiled and opened the door to Kovit’s room. Whistling softly, she stepped into the pitch-blackness and quietly closed the door behind her, cutting off all the light.
The future looked bright.
Acknowledgments
Here it is, the end of the trilogy. It’s been an amazing ride, and I can’t believe it’s over already. Thank you to everyone who’s stuck with me for all these books. I appreciate each and every one of you.
First, thanks to my agent, Suzie Townsend, for all her hard work, as well as her assistant, Dani Segelbaum. And to everyone else at New Leaf Literary who’s championed these books and worked with me.
I’m grateful to my editor, Nicole Sclama, for all her work on this series, and all her love for these dark little characters. And to HMH, for picking up my strange little series and putting it out into the world. Thanks to everyone on the team—you’re all amazing!
My early readers for book three, I love you all so much, and I couldn’t have done this without your brilliant feedback. Special thanks to Stacey Trombley, Erin Luken, Xiran Jay, Yamile Méndez, and Rosiee Thor.
Thanks also to all the staff at WEBTOON, who adapted Not Even Bones over the last year into an amazing comic and brought more wonderful readers to my books, and who have worked so hard to maintain the soul of the story in a different medium. Special thanks to Stephen Lamm, who’s gone the extra mile adapting and remaining faithful to the story, and to Alai Cinereo, whose phenomenal artwork captured the characters and atmosphere so perfectly.
Thank you to all the people who supported me through the good and the bad as I was writing this book, Julia Ember, Meng Tian, Xiran Jay, Erin Luken, among many, many others.
To my family, who have always supported this crazy dream of mine. You’re the best.
And to my wonderful readers—thank you for sticking with me so long, and loving my characters so much. I hope you’ll follow me along on my next adventure.
Visit hmhbooks.com to find all of the books in the Market of Monsters series.
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About the Author
Author photo by S. Schaeffer
REBECCA SCHAEFFER was born and raised in the Canadian prairies, but her itchy feet have taken her far from home. You can find her sitting in a café on the other side of the world, writing about villains, antiheroes, and morally ambiguous characters.
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