Where Monsters Hide (The Monster Within 1)

I freeze. “No,” I say, but there’s a weird feeling in my stomach. Am I lying? Do I like him? “Even if I did,” I continue, “it doesn’t matter. I need to focus on getting through school, not pairing off.”

“Sure.”

“Why?” I ask, stopping again. “Do you like him?” I have my back to her, so I can’t see her face. My hands are in one of the dresser drawers. Can she see that I’m not moving? That I’m waiting for her answer with bated breath?

“No,” she says after a while. “He doesn’t talk to me much. I don’t really think there’s a boy here that I like at all, actually.”

I’m relieved, but I also turn to her in surprise. “Really? Not one?”

She shrugs. “I don’t think so.” She sits at her desk and opens her notes from creature studies. Inside our dorm room with her notes and textbooks is the calmest I’ve ever seen her. She seems much more at ease studying and writing essays than doing obstacle courses or practicing with weapons. “Most of the boys here seem mean.”

She has a point.

I get the feeling that there was something else she meant to say, but when she doesn’t say it, I just drop the subject. She doesn’t say anything again until she catches me fighting to pull a pair of jeans up over my thighs. All these exercises are making me stronger, fast, but some of my clothes are struggling to keep up.

Unlike me, Erin actually thought to bring some clothes that weren’t designed for killing creatures. She’s holding a frilly little dress up to herself, but clearly having second thoughts after spotting the hot mess I’m going as.

“What?” I snap, the tightness of my jeans restricting my patience as well.

“I thought I’d wear a dress, but if you’re wearing pants …”

It t

akes me a second to realize what she’s asking. “Oh, don’t base your decisions after me. I’m the idiot who didn’t bring anything,” I say. “If you want to wear a dress, you should. Anyone gives you shit, I’ll punch them in the face.”

She giggles at the joke, and I let her think it’s a joke. Who knows, with jeans this tight, I might be prompted to murder.

And when we run into Bennett on the way to Professor Waldman’s little party, I think I might get the chance to.

I brace for the worst, but he just avoids my gaze and gives the both of us a wide berth. Erin only relaxes after he’s well out of sight. Hopefully this means they’ve decided this whole campaign against me is pointless, but I don’t hold out much hope. It took me all of three seconds to see Piers is their leader, so until he gives it up, I have a feeling this little game is going to continue.

Some of the professors live in town, but most of them live here at the school. Their offices are housed in the opposite wing of the main building as our dorms, so it doesn’t take long before we turn down a hall and hear the faint sound of jazz music floating down the hall towards us. Her room is in the very middle, meaning more than one annoyed teacher glances out towards the source of the commotion as we pass.

Her door doesn’t have her name on it—but it might as well. A large crochet dreamcatcher hangs over the top, and all sorts of floral designs and charms have been carved into the door. The music thumps against it in that uneven, improvised way that’s unique to the genre. I’ve never been a big fan of jazz. It’s unpredictable. I don’t like that.

I open the door and let myself in. I’m enveloped in sound and color, and immediately very aware of how utterly underdressed I am. I want to shrink into a corner and disappear, but I have to be Erin’s shield. I straighten my shoulders and plunge into the thick of it.

Waldman’s office has been transformed from what was once, at least I imagine, a drab little room lined with bookshelves into something out of a bohemian fairytale. There are more dreamcatchers, handwoven tapestries, rugs from Persia, and swaths of brightly-colored fabrics draped from the ceiling—mementos, I’m sure, of Waldman’s earlier travels before she settled down to teach.

Most of the other girls, even less than I thought, have gathered around a small cluster of chairs in the corner. There’s a drink cart there, and whatever is being served looks suspiciously like absinthe. I’d recognize that color green anywhere after a little mishap the night I discovered my aunt’s liquor cabinet.

“Girls! You’re here!” Professor Waldman sets down her drink as soon as she spots us and gets up from her armchair. “Come in!”

I glance around. I recognize one other girl from our year, but the others must be upperclassman. One girl with short-cropped dark hair turns in her armchair, her chocolate-brown eyes flitting over me, a smirk on her red lips. She turns away promptly.

“Hello, Professor Waldman.”

“Oh, please—we’re not in class. Call me Eve.” She holds her hand out to me and shakes it again, her eyes filling with warmth as she offers the two of us a drink.

Erin frowns next to me; I can tell it’s going to be difficult for her to refer to anyone in authority by their first name, let alone drink beside them. Waldman crosses the small lounge space to the drink cart and Erin and I walk toward the couch. The girl on it scoots over to allow us room to sit.

She reaches for the absinthe, but I wrinkle up my nose and wave it away. “Maybe something a little less likely to end up with me inside one of the menagerie cages.”

“Shame, I got it in Morocco, hunting a succubus.” She eyes the green vial like it contains the soul of the monster itself, but then sets it back. “I’ve got vodka, gin, rum, tequila, and whiskey. Pick your poison.”

I glance at the glass the girl next to me is holding. It looks like a martini. I’ve dabbled with alcohol when Aunt Trish wasn’t around, but I’m not very knowledgeable. I rack my brain for something classy to offset the hobo vibe I’m currently rocking.

I settle on a cosmopolitan, even though I’m not one-hundred percent what goes into it, and Erin asks for a soda.