Contents
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Part One: Run
1
2
3
4
5
Part Two: Team Loser
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Part Three: Engage in Combat at Your Own Risk
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Part Four: Keep Calm
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
Part Five: Alive
39
40
41
42
43
Acknowledgments
Coming Soon from Amy Tintera
More Books from HMH Teen
About the Author
Connect with HMH on Social Media
Copyright © 2020 by Amy Tintera
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
hmhbooks.com
Cover illustration © 2020 by Katlego Phatlane
Cover design by Sharismar Rodriguez
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Tintera, Amy, author.
Title: All these monsters / by Amy Tintera.
Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2020] | Summary: Seventeen-year-old Clara runs away from home to join a vigilante monster-fighting squad, only to discover that sometimes the most dangerous monsters are where you least expect them.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019011416 | ISBN 9780358012405 (hardcover)
Subjects: | CYAC: Monsters—Fiction. | Social media—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Family violence—Fiction. | Racially mixed people—Fiction. | Hispanic Americans—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.T493 Al 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019011416
eISBN 978-0-358-01170-5
v1.0620
Part One
Run
1
The bag slammed into my body, and I hit the mat with a grunt. I flipped over, scrambling to my knees as I tried to find the weapon that just flew out of my hand.
Four claws appeared at my throat. A loud buzzer sounded.
Dead.
I flopped back on the mat, letting out an annoyed huff of air. That was embarrassing. I didn’t even make it thirty seconds that round.
“You have one more life,” the voice on the intercom said. “Do you want to take a break first?”
I got to my feet and turned to where a large, skeptical man named Bubba watched me through the window. I considered telling him to forget about the last life. Surely I’d humiliated myself enough for one day.
I shook my head. “No, I’m fine.”
Bubba made a face like, wow, she’s an idiot. I was very familiar with this expression.
He pressed a button on his computer, and the practice dummy retracted, squeaking as it zipped along the track mounted to the ceiling.
I put my hands on my hips as I took a deep breath. Four lives, and I died within two minutes each round. I really was an idiot. Bubba was a good judge of character.
“You sure you don’t want the body pads, Clara?” Bubba asked over the intercom. “You took a pretty big hit just now.”
“No.” I shook out my shoulders. “I don’t need pads.” Pads were for football players. I’d never had padding to protect me from a hit.
“The girls usually take the pads,” he said. “Especially . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to. Especially the girls who didn’t look tough. Especially the girls with their dark brown hair in French braid pigtails and breasts that were made to hold up dresses, not jump around fighting monsters. I really shouldn’t have been doing this in a regular bra. Sorry, boobs.
“I don’t need pads,” I said again.
“All right. Ready?” Bubba asked over the intercom.
“Yeah.”
“Sword.” Bubba sounded like he’d lost what little faith he had in me.
I grabbed my sword from the mat. It wasn’t actually a sword, just a plastic tube that looked like it belonged on a vacuum cleaner. It had a light on the end that glowed green if I hit a weak spot. I’d only seen it light up once, briefly.
The buzzer sounded, indicating that I had five seconds to prepare. I tightened my grip on my vacuum attachment.
There were four practice dummies hanging from the ceiling, but I’d picked a level one session, so only one jolted away from the wall. It was made out of a large punching bag with plastic arms attached, complete with four-inch claws at the end.
It looked cheap, and stupid. Until it started moving.
The dummy flew at me, metal screeching as it zoomed forward. It was made to approximate a real scrab, and it moved incredibly fast.
Claws sliced through the air. I stumbled backward, the mat squishing beneath my feet.
The dummy’s body swung side to side as it raced along the track, claws outstretched. I ducked beneath its arms and darted around it. I’d clearly surprised it, because it took a second for it to swing around.
I jumped forward, thrusting the sword at its neck. I saw the green light, but only for a second. I hadn’t put enough force behind the weapon for a kill shot.
I barely pulled my hand back in time to miss getting dinged by plastic claws. I spun and ran, ready to swerve and surprise it again—
The bag slammed into my back, sending me crashing into the wall. I hit it so hard that I could have sworn the wall shook. That was going to leave a bruise.
“Whoa, are you—”
Bubba’s voice cut out as I jumped away from the wall and dashed around the dummy. It swung to face me, all ten claws stretching for my face. I launched at it, throwing my sword into its neck as hard as I could.
The sword glowed bright green. The dummy’s arms dropped. A pleasant dinging sound echoed through the room.
I won. I killed it.
“Congrats, darlin’,” Bubba said over the intercom. He didn’t actually sound all that happy for me. “You sure can take a hit. Last guy in here cried after round two.”
I blew my bangs out of my eyes. I could definitely take a hit. One of my few talents.
And I could kill a dummy pretending to be a scrab one in five times.
I watched as the dummy retracted. If I’d had more money, I might have asked Bubba to give me another full set of lives. I wanted to pound the vacuum attachment into that fake scrab until it was thoroughly dead.
“Meet me up front,” Bubba said.
The dummy took its place at the back of the room, and I dropped my sword into its charger on the wall.
I walked out of the simulation room and down the hallway to the
