Where Monsters Lie (The Monster Within 2)

The night after Piers and I finalize our plans for our hunt, I can’t sleep. I toss and turn, always feeling a constriction in my chest as I try to drift off. The snatches of sleep I manage to catch are plagued with hellish dreams—the upcoming hunt, the battle last year, my parents.

Finally, I sit up and glance at my alarm clock.

If I can’t sleep, I might as well try my hand at night tracking.

Cleaver has taken to sleeping on the floor by my bed since I sleep so fitfully now, but he perks up as he hears me jangling his leash. I slip on my winter clothes and snow boots, attach Cleaver’s leash to his collar, and tug him out the door.

I avoid the staff guarding certain entrances and exits; I know there are harsher punishments now for people breaking curfew. It’s simple to find a door that isn’t guarded and slip out into the night. It’s brighter than I expected. A blanket of snow covers the ground, as well as the trees in the distance, and it seems to glow in the moonlight.

I shiver, but not just from the cold. It’s an eerie atmosphere.

I feel safer once I reach the woods bordering the school grounds. Almost immediately, Cleaver and I come across some tracks in the snow. I crouch down to give them a closer look, but it’s not immediately clear what it is. It’s too old. All I can tell for sure is that whatever it is, it definitely isn’t human.

“Ready, boy?” I ask, straightening back up. I look down at Cleaver, wait until he looks back up and points his tail, and then let him off his leash. He sniffs at the tracks a moment as snow sprinkles his snout. After a couple seconds, he glances back up at me and sneezes. I laugh as he trots away as if nothing happened.

I follow him for a bit, walking along the trail the tracks make, until his nose leads him elsewhere and he disappears into the forest. Now the race begins.

I still can’t identify what sort of monster made the tracks. They’re old enough that they’re half-covered in snow. Sometimes they disappear completely, and I have to rely on other clues—but those I find too—broken branches and scratched bark on tree trunks.

I manage to meet up with Cleaver again just as the tracks become more intact. He’s growling, hackles raised. The footprints in the snow look almost like an oversize dog’s, but longer, perhaps, with cruel claw marks. The trees here have long grooves in the bark. I feel my stomach drop. I know these signs.

I’m an idiot.

“Cleaver,” I say, snapping my fingers, and he bounds toward me. “We have to get outta here—”

And then a roar splits the night.

Through the trees he comes, bounding on four legs. Once he’s in the middle of a nearby clearing between the trees he stops, standing upright. Almost eight feet tall, covered in light brown, almost blond, fur, with scars marring his muzzle—it’s a werewolf.

And there’s only one on the loose in these mountains.

&n

bsp; “Owen,” I squeak out.

His lip curls, showing a row of sharp teeth with drool dripping from them. This monster looks nothing like the Owen I know. He’s humanoid, sure, with a muscular chest and powerful shoulders, but that’s where the resemblance stops. I take a tentative step backwards.

Wrong move.

Owen leaps.

I scream as he tackles me to the ground, his huge maw snapping shut inches away from my face. He claws at my chest, ripping through my thick coat, and then he roars in pain as Cleaver leaps up and buries his teeth into Owen’s back.

“AVERY!”

I scramble to my feet and look around. Bennett has arrived. He barrels through the trees straight at Owen and hits him hard in the nose. The werewolf yelps and shrinks back. Bennett grabs his arms and forces him to kneel, then wraps one hand around Owen’s snout to keep his mouth closed.

“Did he bite you?” Bennett pants as he struggles to keep Owen in check.

“No,” I say. “I’m fine.”

“Good—then RUN.”

I don’t run right away. “I want to help,” I plead, glancing into the shadows between the trees for some way I might be able to.

“GET OUT OF HERE!” Bennett bellows as Owen snatches his muzzle free from his hand. Bennett hits him again.

I bolt. Cleaver runs out ahead of me, guiding me back to the school. I can still hear Owen and Bennett struggling behind me—roars and yelps that fade into the distance as I reach the edge of the woods.