Where Monsters Hide (The Monster Within 1)

I turn back to the score screen and find my name. I did very well on the obstacle course and the instincts trials, but it doesn’t quite pull me away from the giant zero I got from missing the written test altogether. I need to get good marks in this trial—as do Piers, Owen, and Bennett, I realize as I find their names. While they all eventually completed the obstacle course, Piers and Owen took longer than they should have, and from the looks of it … Bennett might as well have just skipped the written test, he bombed it so badly.

I was there beside them during the last trial, and though Piers and Bennett both did above average on the instincts trial, Owen really struggled. He seems like the type that always seems to be wrapped up in some sort of inner struggle, thoughts that cloud out his judgement and gut reaction.

Maybe all together they’ll do fine, but individually … I don’t get how they’re so confident in their abilities. I don’t even need to look at Erin to know I’ll find no aid there.

That settles it. This test … its results … are going to be up to me.

A proctor appears by the door and clears his throat. “It’s time.”

The pounding in my heart returns as I shoot to my feet and gather the daggers and throwing knives I chose in the weapons room. Erin stands up grimly beside me, her knuckles white on the crossbow’s grip.

The proctor leads us down a short narrow passageway. It’s lit only by a series of small, recessed lights in the ceiling overhead. I hear Piers and Owen behind me making jokes, but I can’t join in. I don’t know how they take this whole thing so callously. I need to focus.

He stops at a tiny, reinforced wooden door set into the end of the hallway. It’s small enough that the boys will have to duck to make it through once it opens.

“As soon as you go through this door, the next trial officially begins. Everything you do will be watched, recorded, and tallied.” He takes a second to sum us all up, then he unlocks the door and opens it a crack. “Good luck.”

I step through first and the rest follow me into another, narrow, antechamber separated from a large, dark amphitheater beyond by a set of massive iron bars. From where we stand, I can see the edge of a glass viewing platform set up ahead, but I can’t see the creature the people inside all seem to be staring down at.

But the smell.

The moment the door slams shut behind us the iron gate groans to life, retracting inch-by-aching-inch, into the ceiling. The sound is deafened by another, far more terrible. A creature roars from inside the chamber beyond. It’s a deep, guttural, tortured noise that can only come from a creature massive in size.

I grab the hilt of one of my daggers and pull it out of its sheath. I don’t think this is going to be the kind of monster we’re expected to befriend.

Erin takes a step up to the bars, her body rigid and her face trained forward as if in a trance. I don’t know if she catches a glimpse of it, or if the moment is just too much … because suddenly her eyes grow wide, her face pales, and she turns and pushes past us to the door from whence we came, throwing it open and fleeing down the hallway. It slams shut behind her.

For the first time, the boys exchange a worried glance.

I can’t take the suspense any longer. I have to know. I have to see it with my own eyes.

“Shit!” The word falls from my mouth before I can control it.

There, in the middle of the chamber is an ogre; eight feet tall with legs and arms thicker than tree trunks. Its beady eyes are trained directly at me as it roars once more through ugly, jagged teeth.

It’s the stuff of nightmares.

My first monster.

“Should we run, too?” Owen says. “Without her, we’re down one.”

“No,” Piers and I say simultaneously. I look at him in surprise.

“We don’t need her,” Piers continues. “We can fight this thing. Look, it’s got a harness.”

He points to the creature’s torso and I realize he’s telling the truth. A rope connects his harness to a metal ring in the ceiling, keeping him from rushing forward and crushing each of us wit

h a single swing of one of his massive arms.

Even Bennett still looks a little wary, but I’m not about to give up now. I might have been anxious before, but standing here in the presence of this beast has affected me in a strange way. I no longer feel fear. I feel only … excitement.

“I don’t know much about ogres,” I say. I don’t know much about any monsters, actually. Not that I’d tell them. “But they wouldn’t throw something at us we couldn’t face, right? It’s not like it’s a goddamn manticore.”

From the looks on their faces, I’m guessing that’s a real one too. A thrill races through me. I have to make it through today. There’s still so much left to see. An entirely new world. A world of mystery, of adventure … of danger. Delicious, heart-thumping, danger.

I pull a throwing knife off the belt I snagged from the armory. I’m ready.

Not to be outdone by a girl, let alone the same girl he was trying to bully just hours earlier, Owen grins and steps forward into the chamber, his mace in hand. “Fine then. If you say we can take it … I say we take it.”