“Um, Stabby? We don’t need to be enemies, my man.” I hold up my hands as I slowly step backwards.
Eyes intent on my own, Stabby procures a bouquet of flowers from his sleeve. Nestled between the tulips is a single blade.
And here I was wondering where he got the nickname from.
Just before he can swipe, Vin appears from around the corner, wraps his hands around Stabby’s neck, and snaps it. The clown collapses onto the pavement with a thump.
“Goodbye, Stabby. It was nice knowing you.” I give a two-fingered wave as I watch Vin kneel beside his corpse and grab the blade from the bouquet.
“We need to get going,” my best friend states, shoving the blade in his pocket.
“Pinkie will be fine,” I insist immediately, easily able to read the turmoil in his eyes. Though, despite my words, a tiny trickle of fear cascades down my spine. She will be fine, right? All I know for certain is that the portal threw me on top of an elementary school and I was forced to shimmy down a flagpole. Fortunately, Vin had fallen nearby, and we were able to team up.
But there was no Frankie or Hux/Jack.
No Cal or Barret.
No Violet.
I feel her absence as keenly as Stabby’s blade would’ve felt embedded in my chest. I don’t like not knowing where she is or how she’s doing. I can already see Vin wrestling with his protective instincts demanding that he upturn this entire fucking town—monsters be damned—until he finds her. I just barely was able to hold him back when I first found him, Dimitri’s words to Violet reverberating through my head.
The hospital.
Surely, it was a hint.
I have no doubt Pinkie will be heading in that direction as well.
Hoping to distract Vin so his thoughts won’t spiral out of control, I shove him in the shoulder. “Next time we run into a creepy-ass clown named Stabby, you’ll be the bait, okay?”
He snorts, pasting on a smile, but I can tell his mind is still miles and miles away. Probably with a certain dainty vampire with bigger balls than him. I know that he’s also worried about Vanessa, but he knows—as well as I do—that she can take care of herself. Violet, on the other hand…
She once knocked herself unconscious trying to chest bump Barret.
We walk in companionable semi-silence, ribbons of red and orange from the proud sun decorating the rickety, decrepit buildings. Semi-silence because, despite our dour situation, I can’t stop myself from singing softly beneath my breath.
“Can you shut the fuck up?” Vin gripes, spewing vitriol with his eyes.
“Can you make me?” I taunt. And then, because I’m an egotistical asshole, I wrap my arm around his shoulder and whisper in his ear, “I’m sexy and I know it.”
“Asshole.” Vin shoves at my shoulder, and I release a bark of laughter as I stumble over my own two feet. Despite Vin’s normal grumpiness, a wry smile pulls up his lips, and I call that a win. I’m worried about Violet too, but I know we need to remain level-headed.
If anything were to happen to her…
I shake my head quickly as we reach a fork in the road cluttered with abandoned cars.
Vin drops to his knees and tentatively touches a speck of dirt. As a Van Helsing, he’s skilled at hunting—almost scarily so. Every trampled blade of grass, every footprint, every overturned rock… He sees them all.
“The monsters were heading this way,” he points towards the left road. “Towards the center of the city. That means we need to head this way.” He points in the opposite direction, where the road is littered with trash and the cars are scarce.
“If Dimitri was just fucking with us…” I warn tersely. “If we’re actually supposed to go downtown like the other monsters…” I once more trail off as a cold chill races down my back. Despite leaving my statement unfinished, the message is clear—we’re fucked.
Why do we have to rely on a psychopathic assassin for survival?
“It doesn’t matter.” Vin spins the dagger between his fingers, eyebrows furrowed in intense concentration. “None of it matters if we don’t find Violet.”
“Hey,” I place my hand on his shoulder, “we’ll get her back. She’s strong, okay?”
“And she has a tendency to trip over her own two feet and land on a blade,” he points out dryly, and my own worry ratchets up another notch. Because, yeah, that totally happened.
“She’ll be fine.” I don’t know if I’m trying to convince him or myself. Maybe a bit of both. Panic claws at my chest at the possibility that she’s lying in a ditch somewhere, crying for us. She might not know for certain that we’re her fated mates, but I have no doubt she suspects there’s something otherworldly and ethereal about our connection.
Abruptly, Vin grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop. His other hand, still holding Stabby’s blade, points towards the horizon where the cerulean blue sky is interspersed with fluffy white clouds. Below that, the once tall and imposing skyscrapers give way to family homes with shingle roofs and painted plaster. At first, I have no idea what I’m supposed to be looking at, but then tiny blobs materialize in the distance.
“Is that…?” I recognize the figure in the middle almost instantly. Frankie stands with his lips compressed into a grim line. Streaks of blood run in rivulets from an open wound on his forehead as he stands in the midst of beasts.
Not monsters—I’m a monster, Vin’s a monster, Violet’s a monster—but grotesque and disfigured creatures that could only be the creations of Dr. Frankenstein.
The one closest to Frankie appears to be a male silhouette with a smooth black face. He almost resembles a shadow, no identifying features in sight. His frame is lean, almost sickly, and he stands perfectly straight with his head cocked to the side. The beast beside him has lips that resemble those of a sea lamprey—circular with row after row of crenulated teeth. His eyes are
