Pretty Monster Read online

  PRETTY

  MONSTER

  JILL SOMERS

  Copyright © 2018 Jill Somers

  Cover image and design by Jose Gil

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in print or electronic form without the express, written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to any organization, event, or person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 9781980540892

  DEDICATION

  To my family. You are my superpower.

  PROLOGUE

  It was late—much later than a girl her age was supposed to be awake. She had intended to keep running, miles and miles farther, away from that strange city and that strange state, back to her little bed in her little trailer in her little town in New Jersey. But it was cold, and she was tired, and she didn’t live in that little home any more. She didn’t live anywhere.

  The steps were cold and hard, but the area was well concealed by the shadowy awning above her. No one would bother her, she told herself. Not there, at the Bank of America building, in the middle of the night. Regular people got their money in the daytime.

  But slowly, and then all at once, they emerged. Raised voices, then yelling, then screaming.

  Did you see it?

  Is it true?

  Where do we go?

  What do we do?

  And then, the alarms. Piercing. Deafening. Emergency. Evacuate. Leave everything behind.

  This is not a drill.

  She tried to be as still as a statue as they came past her. Most of them paid her no heed, far too intent on their own survival. But the few who did frightened her the most.

  So she pulled out her fuzzy pink blanket, the last thing her mother had given her, wrapped herself in it, and hid from the world.

  Minutes passed. Maybe hours. The temperature grew colder. The screams grew louder. The people near her became the people on her, and she was being trampled, kicked. She stayed still, frozen, firmly wrapped up in her blanket, not even her face exposed.

  And then, a voice.

  “Hey.”

  Her eyes widened beneath the blanket, and she clutched it even tighter, her breath hot as it had nowhere to escape.

  “Hey,” the voice said again. It was a male voice. Soft, serene. Almost mystical; unlike anything she had ever heard. “Please don’t be afraid of me.”

  She was afraid; she was afraid of everything. But the trampling had stopped, and in that moment somehow things were better, and she couldn’t help but hope that it was because of him.

  She peeked out from the blanket, just enough to make out his face.

  His face… What was he? He was young, but still a man—or was he a man at all? Far too beautiful… His eyes seemed to emit an entire light of their own, a golden one, flickering like fire…. His bright, translucent skin was equally vibrant, contrasting sharply with his thick, golden-brown mane of hair. He was inhuman; he was something else entirely.

  “You can trust me,” he whispered, and he held out his hand.

  She hesitated. She had a feeling she would always hesitate. In the eight years she had lived, everyone and everything around her had taught her to.

  But then she took it.

  And as the bright light came and swallowed up the city, at least she was not alone.

  1. CROWLEY

  Quinn knew from the moment she walked into Crowley Enterprises that she didn’t have much time. There were three different receptionists at three different help desks, and they all looked up at her as soon as she walked in. One look at her long, raven-colored hair, vibrant, silvery eyes, and translucent skin was all it took to know exactly who she was and what she was there for.

  She could tell from his heavy breathing that Kurt Rhodes, the sixteen-year-old, hundred-pound boy next to her, was thinking the same thing.

  But it wasn’t the first time she had been recognized, and it wouldn’t be the last. I’ve survived this long, she mused, pressing forward.

  Two females at the desks, one male. The choice was clear.

  “Keep an eye on the other two,” she murmured to Kurt. “Any phones or silent alarms, come tell me. Immediately.”

  Kurt gave a meek nod, baby-blond hair falling into his cloudy blue eyes, and took a single step toward the women. Taking a slow, deep breath, Quinn made her way toward the man.

  Sizing him up, she decided he wasn’t unlike Kurt. An easy enough target. Skinny; nerdy. Glasses that needed to be pushed an inch up his nose bridge. Nearly drooling at the sight of her.

  “Hello,” she said to the young man, and his eyes bulged.

  “You’re… you’re…” He lifted a finger and pointed behind her, and she didn’t have to look to know why: her face was all over the flat screens in the lobby. Good Morning America.

  They really didn’t have much time.

  “I need to meet with Mr. Crowley,” she said, voice even and level. Direct eye contact. When her eyes were on them, they never stood a chance.

  “Mr. Crowley? But he’s—you would need—weeks in advance—”

  “It’s urgent business,” she interrupted, starting to lose her cool. Kurt was heading toward her, and she knew why. “He’ll make time for me.” She glued her eyes to his on the final line, silvery gaze as electrifying as it always was. She knew the answer before he gave it to her.

  “Of course. Come with me.”

  She glanced backwards at Kurt, nodding at him to come with her. He shuffled into step behind her, following her and the young man toward the elevators, sweat dripping down his temple.

  “They know,” Kurt whispered, glancing back toward the other two receptionists. “They were pulling out their phones. We should turn back.”

  “I don’t care,” she said sharply, not bothering to keep her voice down. “Let them come. It’ll be me against them, and I always win.”

  Kurt swallowed. She knew what he was thinking. She stepped behind the young man onto the elevator and turned back to face Kurt, locking eyes with him. But it meant something different with him. She didn’t want to manipulate Kurt. She only wanted to help him.

  “If I win, you win. I would never let anything happen to you.”

  She could tell from the look in his eyes that her words meant more to him than she had intended, and it was with a heavy heart that she looked away from him, not wanting to tease ideas back into his head that she had been trying to put to rest for months. She focused her energy back toward the young man, who had punched the button for the top floor and was looking nervously over at her.

  A sense of guilt washed over her as the floors ticked by and she listened to the overwhelmingly rapid heartbeat of the poor young man she had only just met. He was no doubt some mixture of terrified and enraptured, as if he were about to begin a game of Russian roulette.

  “Hey,” she said softly to him, meeting his gaze one last time. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Somehow, he seemed to believe her.

  The ding of the elevator snapped her out of her daze, and she refocused her attention to the floor in front of her: Cole Crowley’s executive suite.

  She knew instantly that something was wrong.

  For starters, both the receptionist at the front desk and the security guard standing next to her were females. This wasn’t terrible news for Quinn, whose compulsion ability, though stronger on those attracted to women, worked on anyone. But it was a sign—a sign that someone had been expecting her.

  You’re just paranoid, she told herself. How many times had she suspected conspiracies against her? How many times had she refused to trust the people around her—even Kurt? You’re fine
.

  “Miss Harper,” said the receptionist, smiling politely at her. Quinn could tell by the receptionist’s shaky smile that the calmness in her voice was an act. She knew who Quinn was.

  But how does she know my real name?

  “Mr. Crowley has been expecting you,” the receptionist continued, standing up. “Right this way.”

  Quinn stiffened, turning to look at Kurt with wide eyes. There was no reason for Crowley to know they were coming. Had the word gotten up that quickly from downstairs? Had Kurt joined the ranks of the dozens of people in her life who had betrayed her?

  Why would he betray you? she asked herself urgently. You’re doing this for him.

  “Quinn,” Kurt whispered to her, sounding terrified. He hadn’t betrayed her; she hated herself for even thinking it. “This is bad. We should turn back.”

  “It’s too late.” She did her best to give him a reassuring smile. “Come on.”

  Crowley’s enormous office building had always disgusted Quinn. It stuck out like a sore thumb, climbing higher and higher into the Manhattan skyline as everything around it decayed. But Crowley’s personal office—the room the receptionist led them to—was something else entirely. It was nauseatingly ornate, from the sculpted glass and marble to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the forgotten city below it.

  Everything was white, she noticed; even Crowley himself was wearing white. As was the bodyguard next to him. Male.

  “I couldn’t resist,” Crowley said to her, gesturing to the massive television behind him, which was showing the same news story that had been playing downstairs. “They were running a Siren special.” He smiled a coy smile, flashing too-white teeth. Everything about him was too much: his shiny, silver hair; his fit, trim physique; his sharp, birdlike black eyes. She instantly felt shivers run down her spine.

  “That’s alright,” she said, forcing her voice to feign collection. “I was having a good hair day.”

  Crowley laughed out loud, and it shook her. He was too comfortable. Too unafraid. What was he thinking? Hadn’t he read the articles, seen the segments? Didn’t he know what she was capable of?

  “Do you like the place?” he asked her, gesturing to his office. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, but we’ve certainly made some improvements these last few years.”

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” she asked him through gritted teeth. “How the rest of the country has barely begun to recover from the worst depression in its history, and yet here you are, basking in your billions?”

  He smirked. Not ashamed in the slightest. “I’m a businessman, my dear. Timing is everything. Besides, it’s not as if I caused the depression. Was it not a resistance of deviants who caused the terror and devastation that led to it?”

  She wanted to defend the resistance, a movement she had been too young to be a part of, led by a woman they called Blackout—the one deviant more famous than her. But Blackout was dead, and the resistance had all but been forgotten. Quinn wasn’t there to defend its lost cause. The last thing she was going to do was let him stall; it was only a matter of time before whatever made this man as comfortable as he was revealed itself.

  “I’m here for the money you stole from Jeff Rhodes,” she said, deciding not to waste another second. “Clearly you know who I am and what I can do. Give me the money and you’ll never hear from me again.”

  “I know why you’re here. Why do you think I stole the money in the first place?”

  Her heart began to pound in a way it hadn’t in a very long time.

  The building began to shake and rumble, and the thick smell of smoke began to overtake the room. Her doing, of course. But still, Crowley didn’t look afraid.

  “I could kill you,” she hissed at him. “Right here. Right now.”

  “You probably could. But you won’t.”

  She glared at him, taking a step toward him, and another. Just because she hadn’t killed before didn’t mean she wouldn’t. Especially when it came to someone like him.

  “I could make you do whatever I want,” she said, locking her eyes onto his, hating every second of it. “I could make you give me the money… right… now.”

  She waited. Waited for him to obey. Waited for him to call up one of his employees to fetch the money from some safe somewhere down below.

  But he didn’t. He didn’t even blink.

  “Miss Harper, might I have the pleasure of introducing you to my associate? His real name is Parker Harris, but around here we like to call him Shield.”

  Quinn’s eyes slowly made their way back to the bodyguard, who was smirking at her with eyes almost as hateful as Crowley’s. Shield…

  “Normally,” Crowley continued, “I am passionately against the allowance of deviants to coexist in our community, even when they are properly tamed. Shield, of course, is my one exception.”

  She swallowed. Tried to keep her breathing even. Flames began to lick at the edges of the room. Somehow, Kurt was the only one who seemed to notice them.

  How was this possible? How did Crowley have a deviant employee? Sure, he was rich and powerful, but deviants, in his control? He was a CEO, not a king.

  “He’s not stopping me from using all of my abilities,” she warned him. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “Your physical abilities, no.” He tapped a finger to his temple. “But you’re not getting in here, are you, Miss Harper?”

  And before she could send the flames where she really wanted, the elevator gave another jovial ding and in came a horde of men and women in the red windbreakers that she recognized all too well: DCA. Deviant Collection Agency.

  There was only one place you went once the DCA had you, she mused grimly.

  Devil’s Island.

  That, or Hell.

  And that was when she realized it—the reason Crowley was able to have a deviant as a pet—the reason he had lured her here. Crowley wasn’t just a CEO. He was the director of the DCA—the man who had led the hunt against her for years.

  He may as well have been a king.

  How was this possible? How had the leaders of the free world agreed to put a Fortune 500 CEO in charge of hundreds of peoples’ lives?

  She didn’t have to linger on that question long; she already knew the answer. They weren’t ‘people.’ Not to regulars. They were just weapons—weapons that needed to be collected and stowed away. Or, in Shield’s case, used to their advantage.

  “Kurt,” Quinn whispered, her voice reverberating in an entirely unnatural way. She reached for her dear friend and pushed him sharply behind her. She backed slowly toward the wall opposite Crowley, silver eyes flickering from him to the officers and back.

  “Quinn,” Kurt whispered back, and his voice was so truly human, so soft, that she almost couldn’t hear him. “We don’t need the money. We should just—”

  But she didn’t give him the chance to finish. She was afraid, certainly, but giving up? Running away? After all Crowley had taken from Kurt’s family? Not a chance.

  “You call me the criminal,” she spat at Crowley. “Gather the whole militia up against me. But you’re the one who’s committed the crime here. We’re just asking for what you owe Kurt’s father. Give us the money, and we’ll leave you all in peace.”

  She found herself hoping, praying, that someone in that room, someone who had just gotten off that elevator, even the deranged deviant bodyguard in front of her, would sympathize with this statement. Maybe they would wonder, is her story true? Did he steal from the boy? Would it really surprise any of them? She found it hard to believe anyone could respect or trust a man like Crowley.

  “I’m sure you would,” Crowley said, crooked smile spreading. “But surely you must realize by now that that’s the last thing I want.”

  Her voice was even when she responded, but her eyes were sad. She had already put together the pieces; she already knew Crowley’s plan. Still, the part of her clinging to some semblance of hope asked. “Then what do you want?”

  �
�You.”

  Kurt reached out, gripping Quinn’s arm with all of his strength.

  “You’re not the one with the bargaining power here,” Quinn growled at Crowley. “You think their bullets can hurt me? You think I can’t kill them all, with or without your Shield? You think I’m afraid right now?”

  “No—I suppose you aren’t.”

  She put it together the rest of his plan without him having to say a word. This time, she didn’t ask.

  It suddenly became so cold, she could see her short, uneven breaths in front of her. The flames did not subside.

  Crowley lifted a hand, and all the guns were pointed. Toward Quinn, but not at her… At Kurt.

  “Sure, you’re protecting him,” Crowley said to Quinn. “Even if I have all fifteen of these officers shoot, you’ll probably take every last bullet for him. But what about when you leave? What about when you get home, use the bathroom, hop in the shower, run out to the supermarket? What about a few months from now when he gets sick of the chase and goes out to Hunts Point for some action on the streets? You think you’ll always be there, at his side, to take the bullets for him? One hundred percent of the time?”

  “He’s not a deviant,” she told him, voice more full of hatred than it ever had been. “He’s innocent.”

  “He’s joined forces with the Siren—the number one most wanted deviant in the world and the biggest threat to humanity since the resistance. No one would bat an eyelash.”

  The flames were stronger now, the smoke more overpowering, the fire fighting its way through the cold and creating a stinging, icy-hot sensation everywhere. And yet no one seemed afraid, and to her, that was the scariest thing. They knew she wouldn’t kill them. They knew she would give in.

  “What do I have to do?” she whispered.

  Crowley gestured for one of the armed men to step forward. He did, pulling out a syringe full of a strange, glowing liquid she recognized as some sort of enhanced tranquilizer—one that had come out after the event. The man approached her, not waiting for a final word.