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“Do you think the Shadow will be there?” Orion asks in his soft voice, granting me the distraction my brain desperately seeks. His fingers continue to tap against his knee, the only outward sign of his distress.
“If he is, we’re going to fuck him up.” Brooks’s smile twists into something sinister. “That bastard is making us look bad.”
He certainly is. The Shadow is a fellow monster hunter who doesn’t seem to play by the rules.
Hunters in the Vault maintain a loose network—a private server on the dark web where we share information about monsters and coordinate major attacks. We keep a wiki of the different monsters we fought and what works and doesn’t work, and yeah—there’s an eBay-style marketplace for weapons and magical talismans because that’s how things roll on the dark web.
We’re what happens when you tell a bunch of nerds who read far too many comic books as kids that monsters are real.
But the Shadow isn’t part of our network. He’s a rogue hunter. The network keeps tabs on all the lone rangers out there, but we have nothing on this guy. He’s just that good. He beats us to our jobs, gets in, and gets out again without anyone having a memory of him being there. Then he takes his cash and disappears.
The only thing we know about him is that he uses charmed arrows to make his kills. It’s sophisticated magic.
Thinking about those arrows sticking up out of wendigo corpses like porcupine quills makes me think of someone else who loved archery. I can see her long, fiery hair streaming behind her and the gold flecks in her dark eyes catching the light as she looses her arrows across the school field—
Stop thinking about her.
I’m all over the place today. It must have been that lumpy motel pillow I tried to sleep on last night. Or the three-cheese omelet I had for breakfast. I need to get my shit together. I need a clear head for work.
Easier said than done. No matter where I am or how much monster gore is splattered on my person, my thoughts always come back to Lily Dean.
We haven’t seen her since prom night. And even though avoiding her is the right thing to do, it still tears me up inside.
Especially with the Shadow making us look bad, making me wonder if we even made the right decision to follow our parents into the slay trade. We’ve been showing up at hauntings and monster sightings only to find the problem sorted, and the only information people can tell us is that a mysterious stranger in a dark coat showed up a few days prior and took care of it.
But not this job. The Shadow seems to go for the flashier bait—demons and wendigos and vampires (oh my). Like Brooks says, this is a by-the-books haunting, even if the ghost is now seriously powerful. The Shadow won’t bother with the Bridgemont Hotel.
Which isexactlywhy we’re going to take care of it.
We need a win. Or we’re all going to go insane.
Eventually,my whining gets to Brooks, and he pulls the car over outside of Cambridge. While he fills up the tank and lovingly checks the spark plugs and caresses the windscreen wipers or whatever it is that car guys do, Orion and I run inside to piss and buy snacks.
“No maple bacon chips.” I shove the bag in his hands back on the shelf. “Last time you ate those, you let off maple-flavored farts all night, and I’m the one who has to share a bed with you.”
Orion makes a face, but he doesn’t argue with me. He never does. He does kick me in the face as he climbs over me into the backseat, though. We have an unspoken rule that after everystop, we’ll alternate who gets shotgun. I’m not sure that’s the preferred seat in the car, though. Having to listen to Brooks’s incessant whining and growling can make a man insane.
“Seat belts,” Brooks, the drill sergeant, snaps as he steers the car through the college town.
“Yes, sir!” I salute.
Orion cracks open his bag of non-maple chips.
We dodge cyclists and two student protests as we make our way—
All thought ceases as the stone gates of Harvard University loom ahead of us. A cold lump rises in my throat.
Orion’s hand freezes, a handful of chips halfway to his mouth.
Brooks’s hands on the wheel are bone white.
It’s Harvard.
Beyond those gates is one of the most prestigious universities in the country and—
Lily.
I know you’re somewhere on this campus, Lily, wowing them with your brilliance. I hope that you’re happy, and that you have tons of friends, and I hope you find someone who treats you better than we ever could.
