Monster Mine (25 page)

Around us, the world wound back to
life. The rusted swings squeaked in the breeze. The pressure of
coming snow threatened to make my ears pop. And Hex stood in front
of the sun, his face in shadows, his presence looming over me. I
wasn’t afraid of him. I didn’t feel manipulated. This felt right,
in my heart. I felt the vindication for my mother deep in my
bones.

People would pay for what they’d done
to her.

“
I guess you’ve earned the
rest of our story after killing the Manananggal. That was our
deal,” he said.

“
The truth. No
lies.”

He sighed and a bit of the tightness I
sensed in him unraveled. I relaxed a fraction too, but only by a
fraction.

“
I wouldn’t lie to you.
You deserve more than lies. I’m not like Dean or Killian
Aultstriver or even your friends.”

I didn’t let myself react to his
words. He was baiting me, nothing more.

“
You will only ever get
honesty from me. I could keep this from you, but I won’t. Even if
you hate me for it.”

The cold words bit at my insides. I’d
known the truth, but it still hurt to hear. I wanted Irena to be a
warrior, not the scared woman I remembered. But she
wasn’t.

“
What did you do to
her?”

I thought he wouldn’t answer. I
thought he would feed me a lie, but when he spoke, I realized he’d
needed time to prepare himself, because the truth was hurting him
as much as it was killing me. That was the thing about truths, I
was learning. They wrecked things.

“
I did the worst thing I
could have done to her,” he said, the words reverent. “I destroyed
her faith. I took the thing she believed in most and ruined it.
When she started this place, she still believed in the ideas of
Fear University. She still thought it could do good, but she
required a safe haven in the interim for those who needed
protection. But she believed, up until that day in 1985 when Dean
locked her up, that she could right the course Dean had set Fear
University on. She thought she could rid that school of men like
Killian and the old families who supported him. She believed the
university and its hunters served as protectors against the evil in
the world. I really do think she believed that up until the day she
died.”

He waited for me to say something, to
ask questions.

But I couldn’t say
anything.

There were no words.

Of all the things I’d thought about my
mother, I never imagined that she had still believed in the
university’s credence. I thought when she disappeared, when she
started this sanctuary in Anchorage, that she’d turned her back on
Fear University for good.

Just like I’d been ready to
do.

“
I loved her so much,” Hex
went on when I remained quiet, “but by tearing down her belief in
the university, I ensured she could never believe in anything ever
again, even me. Ollie, I broke your mother’s heart.”

That was part of the truth, but only
part. I sensed the rest of it inside him.

“
How?” I choked out. “How
did you break her heart?”

“
I only ever had the best
intentions. I needed her to understand how bad that place was. How
Fear University couldn’t protect against evil because it had become
that very thing. She had to see it for herself.”

There was a cold wind inside me now,
the killing calm I’d felt so many times before. My red haze. But it
went so much deeper, entwining with my soul. “Tell me.”

He took a deep breath and said the
words that ended me.

“
When Dean took her in
1985, I waited. Like I commanded Thad to wait to rescue you, I
waited to take her back from Dean. I left her there for months
because, like you, I needed her to understand me when I told her
the truth about the university, but I waited too long. She was
broken by the time I found her in 1986. She didn’t trust me. She
was the frail, terrified woman you remember, and she ran. She left
me and this place she’d created behind.”

The truth. The weight of it settled on
my shoulders.

Those wrecking words.

And God, my heart. My heart hurt with
a pain I’d never felt before. Not in the ward when that day-form
’swang bit me and I truly felt pain for the first time in my life
and I thought I might die from it. Not when Max tortured me for
weeks. Not when I wished for death. Not when I thought I was so
broken I’d never find my pieces again.

That was nothing compared to this, to
what I felt for my mother.

“
I waited,” Hex said
again, quieter this time, like he needed to slice me open some
more.

“
You waited,” I said,
rasping through the words, “because she believed in something
different from you. Because she could see a vision for the world
that you couldn’t. So you broke her for it. You obliterated her for
having the nerve to believe in something good.”

Hex frowned at my words, the
expression easing across his face like a tiny shift in the weather,
like the movement of the earth beneath us. He was losing
me.

Just like he’d lost her.

“
She needed to understand,
but she was too weak. You’re stronger than she ever was, Ollie.
That’s why I brought you here. You can see what she couldn’t. You
will help me destroy the university and everything it stands
for.”

“
You tried to break me
like you broke her. Like mother, like daughter, right?”

“
No.” He shook his head.
“I could’ve left you with that man for years, and you still
would’ve found your way out of the darkness.”

He was right about that. Another
truth. I did find my way out of the darkness, and now I was
standing in the light.

Because of my friends. My
pack.

“
I don’t think you waited
long enough. Maybe if you’d left me for a few more weeks I would’ve
been so messed up that I would’ve seen the world the way you see
it, but you fucked up. You didn’t wait long enough. I break for no
one.”

“
Wait—”

“
I
,” I said, emphasizing each word, “
break for no one
.”

“
Ollie,
listen—”

“
No. You’re going to
listen now. She called out for you when Killian killed her. Did you
know that? Killian told me. He said she screamed for you when he
cut her open, over and over again. I saw a picture of how he killed
her. That vision of her is burned into my mind. But do you want to
know what I think?”

“
What?” The word tore from
his throat, ragged and cut up.

“
I think she still loved
you, even after all you did to her. She saw the good in you, just
like she saw the good in Fear University, and she wanted a better
change for you too. Maybe when she ran from you she was trying to
make you understand. Maybe she wanted you to see that people have
the capacity for change, and when she died, she died still loving
you for what you could’ve been.”

He stared me down for a long moment
before saying, “I’ve done the exact opposite of what I set out to
do, haven’t I?”

“
Again,” I
agreed.

“
You’re going back to the
university.”

“
Winter break is almost
over.” I reached into my pocket and drew out the silver knuckles.
“You probably want these back.”

He looked away then, the morning light
moving down his face and making him look hollow. “Keep them. You’ve
earned them.”

They felt heavy in my hand, but like
my mother’s whip, they also felt right. I slipped them back into my
pocket. “I guess that’s it then.”

He stepped back and sat on the swing
again, like he was giving up. Like he’d lost. But when he spoke,
his words were cold. Lethal. “And what we spoke about regarding
Killian’s trial?”

“
What do you
think?”

“
Because you’re my
daughter, I’m giving you one more chance to make the right
decision. And for your sake,” he said slowly, “I hope you
do.”

* * *

“
You’re leaving just like
that, huh?”

I turned around. Thad stood
silhouetted in the bay door’s interior light. His arms were crossed
tightly over his chest. Against the chill or me, I didn’t know. I
glanced back at the others, who were already in the car.

“
Is that a problem?” I
asked slowly, because I really didn’t want it to be. I didn’t have
another fight in me tonight, especially with Thad.

His attention shifted, and I watched
the thoughts sift through his head. Carefully, he said, “I hear it
in your voice, you know.”

My fingertips brushed against the
knuckles in my pocket. “What do you think you hear?”

He touched the mangled mess of his
neck, no longer bandaged now, but just as awful. I wondered if he
felt his scars like I often needed to feel the ones on my face,
like we had to reassure ourselves we weren’t the people we
pretended to be. His hand fell away when he noticed my
attention.

“
You’re not going to do
it.”

Hex’s plan to destroy everything on
the night of Killian’s trial, along with his threat to hurt my
friends if I didn’t help him. But I wasn’t helping, and he wasn’t
hurting anyone.

“
No,” I said. “I’m not.
Will that be a problem too?”

“
I can’t go against him,
you know?” The words weren’t really a question; he didn’t expect me
to answer. “I have to keep the halflings safe. That’s what I do. If
I go against him . . .”

“
I get it.”

His attention drifted again as he
said, “I lied. Well, technically I’ve lied about a lot of things,
but I mean when you first woke up and I made you think Luke hated
you after we’d told him the truth.”

“
I figured as
much.”

“
The truth is that when
Luke came to me and he heard what I was, I expected him to kill me.
He didn’t because all he could think about was saving you. I knew
then that if an Aultstriver could see past what I was and
understand that I might be the only way to save you that things had
changed. Things
could
change. He really loves you, Ollie.”

He dragged a hand through his hair and
glanced over his shoulder. After a deep breath, he went on. “I
didn’t want to wait. Luke made me want to find you right then. His
love for you, even when he knew what you were, was so strong that I
wanted to go against everything I’ve been raised to believe,
because you didn’t deserve a single second with that monster. You
didn’t deserve to be whittled down to the barest bones of who you
are so that anyone, even your father, could build you back up. It
wasn’t right, Ollie, and I’m sorry for my part in it. I really
am.”

His words settled like stones in my
stomach. They landed with the force of solid blows, taking my
breath away. My chest flared with warmth.

“
I . . .” I
swallowed the extra saliva in my mouth. “I don’t hold it against
you.”

Was this what my mother had felt? When
she knew the darkness inside Fear University but still felt the
power of change in people? Had she felt this horrible, hot ache in
her heart? I thought she might have.

“
You should, especially
after last night. But my point is that I understand why you won’t
be his executioner.” His eyes shifted behind me to the car, maybe
to Luke. Maybe not. “I’m glad you beat us to it.”

“
To what?”

“
Rebuilding yourself. You
did a better job than we ever could.”

There was so much heat in my chest,
and I hated it as much as I wanted to hate him for his part in
Ghost’s death and for the rules he held so strongly to. “Thad
. . .”

“
I came out here to warn
you.”

The fire disappeared. Instantly, I
went cold. I already knew what he would say. “About
what?”

“
Hex. When he knows
. . .” He struggled with the words as if he had to force
the betrayal from his mouth. “He’ll come after you. It won’t matter
that you’re his daughter. It didn’t matter for Irena. The only
thing he cares about is building a halfling force to kill the
hunter families and annihilate Fear University. When you don’t help
during Killian’s trial, when he knows for certain you betrayed him,
he’ll come for you and anyone around you.”

He’d risked a lot to tell me what I
already knew. I’d known the moment Hex told me he’d waited to save
my mother from Dean. Part of me had known when he waited to get me
too. He was building an army, forging weapons, breeding
destruction—just like Dean. Two sides of the same coin.

But I’d chosen my lesser monster, just
like my mother had years before me. She’d failed. I
wouldn’t.

“
I’m counting on it,” I
said as I turned to leave.

E I G H T E E N

Sunny

“
I
haven’t been completely honest with you all.”

From the backseat of the car, I
groaned at Ollie’s words. Luke’s grip tightened on the wheel, but
he didn’t take his eyes off the snowy road to Campbell Airstrip,
where Hatter had left the bush plane.