When Villains Rise (Market of Monsters #3) - Rebecca Schaeffer

One

NITA STARED at the cell phone screen, her eyes wide and her mind still trying to process what she was reading.

It was eerily silent all around her. Normally, she never noticed the sounds of Toronto, the roar of cars, the hum of air-conditioning units, the honks and shouts and creaks of life. But she certainly noticed their absence when the soundproofing blocked them out. It made her uneasy.

Her breathing was short and fast as she reread the email. But the words didn’t change, and the truth they told her didn’t either.

Henry, Kovit’s surrogate father and former employer, had sold Kovit’s information to the International Non-Human Police.

Henry had sent them videos of Kovit as a child torturing people to eat their pain, which would be plenty of evidence to convince INHUP that Kovit was a zannie. As a species on the Dangerous Unnaturals List, he could be killed, and it would be considered preemptive self-defense. He would get no trial. No jury would convict him. No judge would sentence him to prison or community service.

He would just be murdered.

Once the paperwork went through, in one week’s time, his face, his name, his life would go up on an international wanted poster that would be spread across media outlets worldwide. He’d be hunted down, and when he was caught, he would be brutally slaughtered.

In one week’s time, Kovit, Nita’s best friend and only ally, was going to die.

Nita clenched the phone in her sweaty palm, and then angrily shoved it in her pocket, as if pushing the phone and its incriminating emails out of sight would somehow make the terrible truth go away.

Across from her, lying on a cot on the floor, was Kovit’s internet friend and former colleague in the Family, Gold. Her bleached-blond hair was short and pressed flat against her scalp like a helmet, and half a dozen earrings danced up one ear. Her face had a bandage on one side from where Nita had burned her with acid, one arm was in a sling, and a crutch lay beside her cot, from when Kovit had dislocated her knee and shoulder.

“Did you know?” Nita asked, her voice tight and angry.

“Know what?” Gold rasped, still hoarse from screaming earlier.

“Did you know Henry was going to give INHUP evidence that Kovit was a zannie?” Nita snapped.

Gold was quiet a long moment, and then shook her head and looked away. “No.”

Nita’s shoulders slumped, and her fingers curled into her palms. She wanted to hurt Henry for what he’d done. But Henry was dead now, and there was nothing Nita could do to punish him, nothing she could do to vent her rage at this final betrayal.

No, now they had to deal with the fallout.

She turned around slowly, knowing the next step was to tell Kovit. He needed to know what had happened.

She thought of his face, the moment after he’d killed Henry. The absolute devastation in his eyes as he realized he’d broken his own rules, he’d killed someone who was like a parent to him. The rage as he made Gold scream, as something inside him broke, and he began to spiral downward into a dangerous place.

But she’d stopped him. Or he’d stopped himself. Or they’d stopped him together. For now, he was okay. Picking up the pieces of his shattered soul and forgetting his pain by causing pain to someone else.

Nita looked down the white hall at the pastel blue door at the end. Beyond that baby blue barrier, Kovit was doing what zannies did best. Hurting people and enjoying it.

Because Nita had asked him to.

She couldn’t hear the screams—the soundproofing was excellent. So she couldn’t hear what horrors he was committing to make himself feel better. Comfort food, he’d called it once, but she tried not to think too hard about the fact that he gained the same comfort from skinning people alive that others got from eating ice cream.

Her steps were silent as she approached the innocuous blue door. She hesitated in front of it. Maybe she should just wait for Kovit to be finished. He’d had a hard day. He deserved some downtime. Surely this news could wait until he’d had a good meal.

She closed her eyes. Did she really want to wait for Kovit’s sake, or because she didn’t want to see the grisly results of her decision? She hadn’t done well seeing Kovit torture an INHUP agent—the memory of his gurgling, tongueless screams was far too fresh.

Taking a deep breath, Nita knocked on the door. Then,

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