Club Monstrosity (14 page)

Her eyes narrowed, and Natalie had to imagine Rehu wasn’t going to get a very nice version of Kai knocking on his door in a little while. At least that was something.

“I’ll see what he knows about Trench Coat,” Kai continued. “And I’ll report back as soon as I hear anything.”

Alec nodded and Kai somehow saw that as a dismissal and started for the door. Natalie rolled her eyes and followed her. Everyone else seemed to think this conversation was closed, but it still felt pretty open to her.

Kai paused at the door and turned back to look at Natalie. “Are you going to be pissed at me forever?”

Natalie drew back. Since when had Kai ever given a damn about anyone else’s feelings on any matter?

“I haven’t decided yet,” Natalie said with a shrug. “You were supposed to be my friend, but you lied to me.”

Kai wrinkled her brow. “You consider me a friend?”

Natalie shook her head. “I did. Now I don’t know what you are.”

Kai nodded. “That’s fair.” She dug into her purse. “Look, these are a new over-the-counter painkiller my company is putting out in a few months. They work great, better than anything else out there. Give them to Alec once every four hours and they should help.”

“Okay,” Natalie said as she took them. Then she met Kai’s gaze evenly. “So are you really going to let us know everything about Rehu or just what you want us to hear about your dearly beloved?”

Kai turned her face slightly. “Okay, I deserved that. I can’t make up for what I did before, but I promise you: I
will
tell you when I know something,
anything
.”

Natalie didn’t say another word, but closed the door in Kai’s face and deadbolted it. Through the peephole, she saw the other woman hesitate like she was going to knock, but then she walked away.

Natalie sighed as she went back into the living room and popped a few of Kai’s experimental pills from the packaging. As she handed them over to Alec, she said, “That was nice of you to let her off the hook like that.”

Alec shoved the pills in his mouth and swallowed without water. “She might as well not beat herself up. Anyway, the worst Rehu did is scar me for life. Make me hideous.”

He laughed, but Natalie didn’t join in. Instead, she flinched and then turned away. She didn’t want to let him see what those words meant to her.

“Yeah, well, I’m going to bed.”

She started down the hall toward her bedroom, but Alec called after her. “Hey, wait!”

She ignored him and kept going.

“Natalie!” he snapped.

She turned to find him getting up off the couch. He hobbled toward her. She held out her hands.

“You’re going to hurt yourself!” she snapped.

“Super-healing, remember?” he said. “So the pain is temporary. But clearly I said something wrong here. What?”

“Nothing,” she said, but she couldn’t help tugging at her sleeve in the hopes she’d cover one of her own scars.

Of course, Alec caught the action and shut his eyes with a sigh.

“Shit. Look, I wasn’t thinking when I made that crack, okay? I know you have all those scars from when you were . . . were . . .”

“Made?” Natalie finished softly. “Yeah, well, whatever. It doesn’t matter. Now I’m tired and—”

She turned, but he caught her arm and held her steady. His golden eyes didn’t flit away from hers. Not even a little. The intensity of his stare was both mesmerizing and disconcerting.

“I get it, Nat,” he said, his tone very quiet in the dim hallway. “I get feeling awkward and weird. I get hating what you see in the mirror because it’s like a neon light flashing
Monster
.”

Natalie shook her head. Alec didn’t get it at all.

“Oh yeah, because
you’re
so hideous.” She rolled her eyes. “Please, you are built like a god and you get laid, like, four times a week.”

She expected him to crack some joke or something, but his face remained serious and focused. “Why do you think I steal razors, Natalie?”

“Because you’re vain,” she answered immediately.

He smiled slightly. “Actually, it’s because the hair is really embarrassing. The full moon makes it pop out everywhere . . .
everywhere
. And every time I see a new hair on my wrist or my elbow or my
forehead,
I feel like someone is screaming out that I’m a freak.”

She shook her head. “But the thing is, Alec, the hair isn’t with you every day; it just gets worse with the full moon approaching, hence the dozens of dull razors currently in my bathroom garbage. And when it
does
get worse, you can make it go away.”

She shoved her sleeve up with a deep blush and revealed one of the ugly long scars that stretched from her inner elbow to her wrist, where it slashed across and around the entire circumference. It marked where her hand had been attached almost two hundred years ago.

“
These
don’t go away. No matter what I do,” she said.

Alec was silent for a moment, but then he stepped forward. She backed up and found herself in her bedroom. He reached around the door and clicked on the light. She trembled as he edged even closer, caught her hand, and lifted it.

She didn’t know what his plans were. Kill her? Bite her? Kiss her?

“Let me see it in the light,” he said, his voice soft.

She normally would have argued. Showing her scars, especially up close, was
not
her thing. But with Alec grabbing her arm, lifting it up to see better, she found herself too mesmerized to argue.

He looked at the scar.

“Did it hurt?”

“I don’t remember,” she muttered with a dark flush of blood rushing to her cheeks. “I wasn’t alive yet, remember? I woke up like this.”

He nodded, then let go of her hand. Without warning, he tugged his shirt off his body and leaned sideways so she could see a dark red gash of a scar on his stomach.

“Oh my God, did Rehu do that?” she asked as she leaned closer.

Alec shook his head. “No. This one is from . . . gosh, sixty years ago, I guess.”

She blinked as she reached out to trace the line. “Did
it
hurt?”

He shrugged. “Not when I got it. I was in wolf form at the time, so I don’t really remember. But when I woke up in human form the next day, yeah, it hurt like a motherfucker. And since it had been festering for twelve hours, it put me out for almost a week before I could even get up.”

“How do you not die?” Natalie asked with a shake of her head as she noticed at least three more scars, all likely from bullet wounds.

He shrugged. “No silver bullets so far. Just lucky, I guess. I tend to steal chickens from very poorly read farmers.”

She couldn’t help but smile. For the first time in a long time, being a monster didn’t seem so . . . lonely.

Alec was super-close now. She hadn’t realized how close until she stopped looking at his scars and glanced up into his face. She had spent years thinking he was nothing but an annoying mutt. And he still was . . . but . . .

She reached up, threaded her fingers through his hair, and pulled him down for a kiss.

Alec froze for a minute, but then he responded with a kiss as hot as her own. And as they sank backward onto her bed, Natalie couldn’t help but think that, as annoying as he was, he was definitely a good kisser.

And getting better as he pushed her deeper and deeper into the bed, tangling his fingers with hers and driving his tongue hard into her mouth. Suddenly her body, which she had just been cursing, woke up from whatever dead slumber she’d been in lately and all those stolen nerves started to fire.

She shivered as sensation rushed through her, making her body tingle from her head to her toes. But just as she gave in to that feeling, accepted it, and decided to just not worry about the consequences, Alec pulled back.

“Whoa,” he muttered as he rolled away from her.

She turned on her side, surprisingly disappointed that he had stopped. “What?”

“Increased sensation,” he explained. His eyes were dilated and his breath came in pants. “Intense. But I—I’m not sure we should do this.”

Natalie pursed her lips. Good old scars struck again. Great.

“I understand.” She pushed up off the bed and turned her back. “Can you get to your room okay, or do you need help?”

Alec got up and touched her arm, making her face him. “I don’t think you do understand, Natalie. I’m not pushing you away because I don’t want to do this.”

“Aren’t you? I mean, I know you haven’t pushed away hundreds of other girls,” Natalie said, more snappy than she wanted to be. Her tone made her obvious and vulnerable.

Alec shut his eyes. “Hundreds may be exaggerating it just a touch. But that doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me,” Natalie said, “. . . for some stupid reason.”

He looked at her, his gaze focused and intense. “Natalie, right now I’m just on the edge of moon-crazed. Whatever I do, whatever I feel, it’s going to be all confused with what’s happening inside of me. If I did this with you, it would be awesome, but I would also have very little control over it. And my memories later would even be dim at best. And
when
we do this . . . I’d really like to remember every minute. And also not be covered in bruises that hurt like a motherfucker.”

He tilted his head and forced her to meet his eyes. “Do you get that?”

Natalie pursed her lips. Shit, why did he have to pick now to be all rational?

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Can I have a postponement?” he asked.

She wanted to say no, to make him feel like he’d lost his one shot, but she didn’t want to lose hers.

“We’ll just have to see what happens,” was the best she could muster.

He grinned. “I’ll take that. And this.”

Then he leaned forward and kissed her again. And Natalie knew, as all that fire in her body lit up again, that next time he tried putting her on her back on the bed, she wasn’t going to say no. And she
wouldn’t
let him go.

She just hoped it would happen soon.

14

Natalie wasn’t holding hands with Alec as they got off the elevator at Jekyll and Hyde’s apartment the that evening, but as they walked up the hallway, she felt him watching her. Actually, staring a hole through her skull was the more accurate description. The boy was nothing if not intense.

Thankfully, her head was way clearer than it had been when she got home.

Making out was fun and all, but she wasn’t about to go thinking there was something else to it. The guy wasn’t just a wolf, he was a dog when it came to women. She was a novelty, nothing else. There wasn’t going to be a future there. And if she wanted to keep him as a roommate, it was probably best to let it stay that way.

As they got closer to the door, Natalie slowed down. Their dwindling group of monster friends was gathered around the door. Linda, Drake, and Kai took turns knocking.

“What’s up with this?” Alec muttered as they reached the group.

Kai turned toward them with a frown. “Jekyll and Hyde refuse to let us in.”

Linda also turned, and when she saw Alec’s bruised face, she flinched. “Oh no. Were you attacked?”

Alec opened his mouth, but Linda didn’t allow him to speak. “Did they try to kill you?”

“Linda—” he began again.

She covered her face and sobbed, “Oh God, am I next?”

Alec reached out and patted her arm. “Dude, chill. It wasn’t Trench Coat.” He tossed a quick glance at Kai, who looked away. “I just bothered the wrong guy.”

Natalie pursed her lips. She had no idea why Alec was so keen on protecting Kai’s boyfriend. He had told her before that nothing had ever happened between him and Kai, but maybe he’d lied. Not that it was any of her business. She was more interested in what was going on with Jekyll and Hyde.

“Do we even know if they’re in there?” Natalie asked.

Alec turned to her. “You’ve got super-ears, why don’t you check it out?”

Natalie shrugged. She
could
do that, yes. She just hadn’t thought of it first. She leaned her ear against the door.

Sure enough, she heard shuffling and Hyde’s angry voice muttering, though she couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying.

“I only hear Hyde,” she said, shutting her eyes so she could concentrate on what was happening behind the door. “No Jekyll.”

“Maybe he’s in Hyde’s head,” Kai suggested in a low whisper.

Natalie glanced at the Mummy Girl. “Good point. One way or another, though, he sounds pretty drunk.”

Natalie frowned as she pulled back from the door and the sounds became more muffled. She had never seen Hyde impaired before. Sober he was bad enough.

Alec nodded. “I agree. Dog ears meet . . .”

She laughed despite herself. “Convict ears, I guess.”

“Okay, lovebirds, enough.” Kai sighed. “So what do we do?”

Alec dug around in his pocket and pulled out a long piece of wire. With a grin, he moved to the door.

“What is that?” Linda asked.

“Lock pick,” he explained to the group. “Can you give me some room?”

In stunned silence, everyone took a long step back. Alec made a noise of pain as he crouched down and started fiddling with the lock. He took a few minutes and then there was an audible click and he turned the knob and the door opened.

Natalie reached forward to help him to his feet and everyone stared into the apartment. The curtains were drawn and the lights were off, so the space was almost completely dark beyond the sliver of light now coming in from the hallway behind them.

Natalie swatted at the light switch next to the door and finally a lamp across the room clicked on to reveal the room in full.

It had been utterly wrecked. Furniture was flipped over and torn, bottles were broken against the walls, leaving waterfalls of booze dripping down the custom paint. Paintings were torn and hanging crooked on the wall.

“Holy shit,” Kai breathed as she took the first step into the room. “What the hell happened here?”

“What happened?”

From the darkest corner of the room, Hyde rose from a crouching position where no one had seen him and staggered toward them. An empty bottle dangled from his fingertips and there was a wild look in his eyes. Natalie actually took a step back.

Hyde had always had an animal quality to him. Not like Alec, with his wolfish charm, but menacing . . . on the edge of control . . . ready to attack. But she’d
never
seen him so wild before. He was already red, his body bigger, his nails talons, which explained the jagged rips in the expensive wallpaper.

“I’ll tell you what happened,” he continued before he spun and threw the bottle against the wall with all his might. It shattered and Natalie turned her face away from the spray of glass and liquor. “Jekyll is dead.”

Natalie lifted her hand to her lips to cover her gasp. Jekyll . . .

She stared at Hyde, all rage and monstrous insanity, and suddenly a terrible thought dawned on her. “Hyde . . . did—did
you
—?”

Hyde spun on her, his dark eyes sparkling with pain and disbelief as he took in the meaning of her truncated sentence. “No!
Never
. I would never kill my brother . . . my best friend.”

“Then what happened?” Kai whispered.

Hyde’s face crumpled. “He was poisoned.”

Alec groaned. “Just like in his story.”

Hyde nodded. “He died a few hours ago. At a club. The police have already taken his body away.”

Natalie shut her eyes. Great. More problems for her to clean up once she got to work. Then she stared at Hyde with a wrinkled brow.

“But . . . how are
you
still here? You two can only be separated for an hour, right?”

Hyde nodded. “That’s true when we’re both alive. If both sides of the coin exist, we can only be separated a short time,” Hyde snarled. “But once he’s gone . . . then I get everything, apparently.”

Natalie blinked. “What—what does that mean, exactly?”

She really didn’t want to know, but there was no choice now. Everything had to be put on the table so they could protect themselves.

Hyde stared around him, looking at the carnage that had been hidden by the darkness until Natalie turned on the light.

“I—I did this,” he murmured, perhaps more to himself than to anyone else.

Natalie hesitated. His voice was so flat, she couldn’t tell if he was sad to see the damage to the apartment, or sorry that he’d lost control. “Yes,” she responded softly. “It appears so.”

He didn’t look at her. “And he couldn’t stop me,” he added. Hyde’s sorrow faded and he smiled. It was an ugly expression, menacing and so much more evil than usual.

“Jekyll’s connection to me was his mind, his memories, his life force.
And
his control over me. Now that it is gone, I can do
anything
I want.”

Natalie’s lips parted in horror and shock. Numerous times she had seen the calming effect Jekyll had had on Hyde. Their psychic connection, their monster abilities, they allowed Jekyll to keep his brother in check.

But now . . . now Hyde had no one to balance his wicked desires. To keep him from roaming the streets robbing, raping . . . and even worse. And she could imagine that Hyde would think of oh-so-much-worse if he had no one to put his desires in lockdown.

“Hyde,” Kai whispered. Her face was pale. There was no doubt she was having the same thoughts as Natalie was. “We know you’re upset, but—”

He snapped his gaze to her and tilted his head like an animal who had just noticed prey. “You are a beautiful woman, Kai. So perfect, like porcelain. So easy to break.”

Kai swallowed but, to her credit, didn’t step away from him. Natalie wasn’t sure she could have held her ground like that, monster strength or not.

“Hyde,” Alec snapped. Though he was still moving slowly because of his injuries, Natalie could see he was ready to attack, or be attacked. “You’ve got to think your actions through. Would Jekyll want you to go nuts?”

Hyde hesitated, but then he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? Jekyll doesn’t
want
anything anymore.”

“Oh no,” Natalie whispered.

This was going to be
bad
. And added to their other problems? Even worse.

“These people . . . these humans, they have controlled us for too long,” Hyde said, his tone harsh and angry. “And now they
kill
us?”

“We don’t
know
who is killing us,” Kai insisted. “It might not be humans.”

“Oh, please. We know it’s humans,” Hyde scoffed. “It’s always been humans. They call us monsters and use that label to justify what they do. Well, they want a monster”—he shoved through the group in one bound—“they’ll get a fucking monster!”

“Wait!” Natalie cried.

She reached for him, trying to grab his coat, but he was already gone, sprinting at a fantastic speed down the hallway and disappearing into the stairwell.

The rest of the group stared after him, the silence heavy and filled with shock.

Linda was finally the one to break it. She motioned for the door wildly. “We—we should go after him. He could ruin everything for all of us if he goes off and shows his true monster face to the world. He might even do it on purpose, just out of spite or pride.”

“That’s probably true,” Kai said, her voice flat as she shook her head. “But I doubt anyone could catch him if he doesn’t want to be caught. Speed has always been part of their . . .
his
powers. Besides, he might be right.”

Natalie turned on her with a blink. “What could you possibly find in that insanity that is
right
?”

She shrugged. “Maybe monsters
should
be monsters and not pretend otherwise. Especially now that we’re being threatened.”

Drake smiled. “That is what I’ve been trying to tell all of you for days.”

Linda sniffled as the usual tears welled up in her green eyes. “Well, I don’t
want
to be a monster, so if that’s our big solution, then I’m going home.”

“What are you going to do at home?” Alec asked. “By yourself, with a killer on the loose?”

She shrugged as she pushed her cheap purse up higher on her shoulder. “I don’t know. But in that awful movie I was riddled with bullets and sank to the bottom of the swamp. So if I’m going to get shot a bunch of times and then drown in my bathtub or the East River or something, at least I’m going to be surrounded by my cats when it happens.”

There was a long pause and then Alec asked, “How many cats?”

Linda pursed her lips, then extended her middle finger toward him and pivoted on her heel out the door and toward the elevator.

Kai watched her go with a sad shake of her head.

“That girl refuses to acknowledge there are benefits to what we are,” she said softly. “What’s the point of living if you’re not going to live?”

“But
she
may be as correct as Hyde,” Drake said. “Not in her fear of what she is, but in her suggestion that we go home. For now, for tonight, there’s nothing we can do but hope Hyde doesn’t get himself arrested or killed by the police.”

“And what about the murderer?” Natalie asked. “Do we just forget about him?”

Kai pursed her lips. “Natalie, you asked Hyde if he had killed Jekyll himself. Do you think that might still be a possibility?”

Natalie jolted. “You mean that Hyde could have been the one behind this all along?”

Kai nodded.

Alec shrugged. “He
is
mad enough. And he hates us all both individually and on a group basis.”

“Those things may be true, but I don’t know,” Natalie said. “I’m the one who asked, but the fact is, up until last night, Hyde had Jekyll to control him.”

“But he’s broken loose of those chains before,” Drake said with a disdainful sniff. “We all remember the Central Park incident.”

Natalie flinched. She tried not to think of that night five years ago. Jekyll had been ill, and somehow Hyde used that fact to free himself of his brother’s control. He’d bolted into Central Park in a mad frenzy and nearly killed a homeless man. He’d called it self-defense, but no one in their group had believed him. He’d taken too much pleasure in retelling the act for it to be a mere act of preservation.

But the truth and the law were very different things. Hyde was lucky he had money, Jekyll to merge himself with, and a good attorney.

“Those were terrible times,” Natalie said with a shiver. “But it was an isolated incident. Jekyll
never
would have allowed him to kill one after the other of our group.”

Alec was the one to nod. “I tend to agree. Jekyll wasn’t good at lying. If he’d known the killer’s identity, he wouldn’t have been able to hide that fact from us when we talked about it in group. We would have seen it all over his honest face.”

“Plus, as much as Hyde resented Jekyll, he also loved him.” Natalie was surprised to find tears tingle in her eyes as she said, “You saw his face, he’s lost without his . . .
brother
.”

Alec considered that for a moment and then nodded. “I hate to say I feel sorry for the psychopath, but I kind of do. Still, if he goes on a three-state killing spree, we’re royally fucked . . . and I’d definitely feel less sorry for him.”

“But the killing spree we must worry about at present is the one targeting
us,
” Drake said with a shake of his head. “So we must return to topic.
Our
killer has never killed more than one of us in a day.”

Natalie shrugged. “That’s true. Ellis was almost a week ago and Blob was probably a day or two before that, based on autopsy results. It took whoever it is a long time to get around to going after Jekyll.”

Drake nodded and continued, “If we base our assumptions about what this person will do in the future on his past habits, then I assume he will go home. Enjoy his handiwork. So perhaps we
should
follow Linda’s lead and do the same. We can try to regroup tomorrow when emotions aren’t so high.”

Kai shrugged. “If that’s what everyone wants, there’s no harm to it. I have a few things to do anyway.”

Without waiting to hear anyone else’s opinion, Drake poofed into a bat and flew toward the closest window. Kai waved her hand at him like he was a nasty fly she could shoo away, then shook her head and motioned Alec and Natalie toward the door.