Revealing the Monster (Playing with Monsters #4) by Amelia Hutchins

Slipping from the remnants of the bed, I peered around the room, growling as a fresh wave of anger and frustration entered me. The toy Lucian left implanted within me hadn’t buzzed since the first night of being locked away to let me know he remembered me or that he was thinking about me. In my fit of rage, I’d thrown it at the door, where it was currently embedded into the wood.

“Let me out! Lucian! Spyder! I know you’re there, assholes!” I snarled, even though I couldn’t sense them. I couldn’t feel anyone or even hear the heartbeats of the guards usually positioned outside the doors.

The first time Lucian had locked me in the room, their presence had offered comfort, knowing he hadn’t forgotten about me. This time, there was only the sound of soft music playing outside the room. Inside there was only silence, eerie, soul-crushing silence that broke me apart, a little more with every loud click of the minute hand on the broken grandfather clock I’d pushed over, shattering oak that was probably older than the ground on which I stood.

I slid my fingers over the smooth surface of the dresser. I started to lift it, fully intending to send it flying at the door next. The drawer opened, and my gaze lowered to a photo of my family. My heart clenched as warm tears burned behind my eyes, pricking them as the tears threatened to fall. Picking up the picture, I gazed at it as the music stalled, and I was plunged into complete silence.

It was an older photo of us taken before Joshua had gone to basic training. In the portrait, we looked normal, happy even, unless you looked closer. Had we ever been normal? No, it had just been an illusion that we’d swallowed up because that’s how we’d wanted to appear. Joshua’s face appeared haunted, and my eyes were focused on something to the left in the picture.

Whatever I’d been staring at, it was beyond the focus of the camera. Behind Kendra was a light that almost looked like a spirit or orb of magic. My mother’s smile was fake and didn’t reach her eyes in the slightest. My grandmother—well, she was staring ahead with a fearless smile and expression, as if she knew the horrors that would befall us, fully intending to meet them head-on.

Setting the picture on the dresser, I reached into the drawer, withdrawing the backpack I’d left behind inside this club when I’d died. Dumping the contents on the floor, I lowered to the ground, picking up a photo of a dark-haired woman, the same bitch I’d put into my grave.

She’d offered my soul to me in exchange for Lucian’s seal. I had sacrificed my life and my son’s life for this seal, and she wasn’t getting it. When I refused her offer, she countered by trying to force me to accompany her to retrieve a special box that she said only I could touch.

I’d already been through hell, and I wasn’t stupid enough to trust some stranger who offered to help me. I’d learned my lesson about trusting anyone by then. Smiling, I recalled the look of rage in her sky-blue eyes as Joshua and I tackled her. I’d used her waist-length hair to tie her up while Joshua fetched the chains, wrapping them around her body before tossing her inside the coffin in my grave. She’d wanted a box, just not the one she’d gotten.

Next, I picked up Joshua’s car keys, which were the only things left of his Chevy Chevelle after I’d wrecked it. Lucian and Spyder had gone back to salvage it for me, but it had been a total loss.

Frowning, I remembered Joshua telling me who he really was and what was going to happen soon. I’d laughed at him so hard, even though my ribs were broken, I’d fucking laughed at him, trying to convince me he wasn’t Benjamin and that either Kendra or I would die soon.

Tossing the keys onto the dresser, I retrieved another set of keys belonging to my old apartment. How simple life had been back then. I had no idea what horrors awaited me at home.

My biggest worry was blending in and turning in assignments on time without using my magic. I’d spread my proverbial wings, and I’d never even made it off the ground. How naïve was I to think I could return, awaken my magic, and just fucking live my life?

I placed them beside the other keys, fishing around the drawer for more mementos of my past. Brushing my hand over a leather pouch, I plucked it out, frowning at it before scrunching up my nose and tossing it aside.

Reaching forward, I ran my fingers over my family portrait, fighting the swelling of my throat as their laughter echoed inside my head. Turning in place, I chucked the pouch at the wall, screaming in frustration at the life I’d been ungrateful of having.

I’d been blind to the beauty of my life and the pureness of my family’s love. I had craved more without ever realizing magic was pulling me backward. Lucian had already begun dragging his pieces back to cast the dice.

He’d started this game to find Katarina, which had also drawn me home. I’d never been free of the magic that had terrified me because I’d been born to it from the beginning; me to the darkness, and Kendra to the light.

My attention slid to the pouch that dropped to the floor, expelling its contents. Swallowing past the knot in my throat, I eyed the silver charm that rolled across the hardwood before settling at my feet.

Kneeling, I picked it up and frowned. It was the charm I’d pushed into my purse inside the abbey that came from Luna’s old collar, and it sparkled in the light. Holding it in my palm, I moved around the side of the bed, sitting on the hard wooden surface of the bedframe.

Opening it, I pulled out a tiny note before setting the charm on the bed beside me. Chewing my lip, I unrolled the parchment, and as I did so, it glowed with magic as it expanded. Narrowing my eyes on the masculine scrawled words covering the thin piece of vellum, I recognized the handwriting.