And she knew it wasn’t enough—no matter how many monsters she slayed, it wouldn’t undo the one she’d made, wouldn’t erase the red from her soul—but life only moved forward.

And here in Prosperity, Kate had found a purpose, a point, and now when she met her gaze in the mirror, she didn’t see a girl who was sad or lonely or lost. She saw a girl who wasn’t afraid of the dark.

She saw a girl who hunted monsters.

And she was damn good at it.

Hunger gnawed at Kate’s bones, but she was too tired to go in search of food. She turned the radio up and slumped onto the couch, sighing at the simple comfort of clean hair and a soft sweatshirt.

She’d never been all that sentimental, but living out of a duffel bag taught you to value the things you had. The sweatshirt was from Leighton, the third of her six boarding schools. She had no fondness for the school itself, but the sweatshirt was worn and warm, a little piece of a past life. She didn’t let herself cling to these pieces, holding on just tight enough that they wouldn’t slip away. Besides, the Leighton colors were forest green and cool gray, way better than St. Agnes’s horror show of red and purple and brown.

She booted up her tablet and logged into the private chat space Bea had carved out in the infinite world of Prosperity’s opendrive.

Welcome to the Wardens, said the screen.

That was the name they’d chosen for themselves—Liam and Bea and Teo—before Kate ever showed up. Riley hadn’t been a part of it, either—not until she brought him in.

LiamonMe: hahahahahahaha wolves

TeoMuchtoHandle: it’s a cover-up. everyone knows what happened in verity.

Beatch: See no evil → hear no evil → tell yourself there’s no evil

LiamonMe: dunno I had a mean-ass cat once

For a moment, Kate just stared at the screen and asked herself for the hundredth time what she was doing here, talking to these people. Letting them in. She hated that part of her craved this simple contact, even looked forward to it.

RiledUp: Did you guys catch that headline about the explosion on Broad?

Kate hadn’t gone looking for friends—she’d never played well with others, never stayed in a school long enough to make any real connections.

RiledUp: Guy walked into his apartment, pulled the gas line straight out of the wall.

Sure, Kate understood the value of friends, the social currency of being part of a group, but she’d never gotten the emotional appeal. Friends wanted you to be honest. Friends wanted you to share. Friends wanted you to listen and care and worry and do a dozen other things Kate had no time for.

All she’d wanted was a lead.

RiledUp: Roommate was home when it happened.

Kate had landed in Prosperity six months ago with that one duffel, five hundred in cash, and a bad feeling that got worse with every piece of news. Dog attacks. Gang violence. Suspicious activity. Brutal acts. Suspects at large. Crime scenes disturbed. Weapons missing.

LiamonMe: Creepy.

Beatch: Downer, Riley.

A dozen stories all sporting the telltale signs—the kind made by teeth and claws—and then there were the whispers on the opendrive, referencing the same place, the name scraping over skin: Verity.

But short of putting an EAT ME sign on her back and wandering the streets at night, Kate wasn’t exactly sure where to start. Finding monsters had never been a problem in Verity, but here, for every actual sighting there were a hundred trolls and conspiracy theorists co-opting the threads. It was a needle in a haystack where a bunch of idiots were shouting, SOMETHING POKED ME.

But there, threaded through the static, she noticed them. The same voices showing up over and over, trying to be heard. They called themselves the Wardens, and they weren’t hunters, but hackers—hacktivists, according to Liam—convinced that the authorities were either incompetent or determined to bury the news.

The Wardens scoured sites and dug through footage, flagging anything that looked suspicious, then leaked the data to the press and plastered it on the threads, trying to get someone to listen.

And Kate had.

She’d taken one of their leads and run with it, and when it had panned out, she’d gone to the source for more. And that’s when she’d learned that the Wardens were just a couple of college students and a fourteen-year-old who never slept.

TeoMuchtoHandle: yeah, that’s sad. but what does that have to do with Heart Eaters?

Beatch: Since when are we calling them Heart Eaters?

LiamonMe: Since they started eating hearts duh.

She still didn’t want friends. But despite her best efforts, she was getting to know them. Bea, who was addicted to dark chocolate and wanted to be a research scientist. Teo, who never sat still, even had a treadmill desk in his dorm. Liam, who lived with his grandparents and cared too much for his own good. Riley, whose family would kill him if they knew where he spent his nights.

And what did they know about her?

Nothing but a name, and even that was only half true.

To the Wardens, she was Kate Gallagher, a runaway with a knack for hunting monsters. She kept her first name even though the sound of that one syllable made her jump every time, sure that someone from her past had caught up. But it was all she had left. Her mother was dead. Her father was dead. Sloan was dead. The only one who’d say her name with any sense of knowing was August, and he was hundreds of miles away in Verity, at the center of a city on fire.

Beatch: Makes a hell of a lot more sense than Corsai, Malchai, Sunai. Who named those?

TeoMuchtoHandle: no idea.

Beatch: Your lack of professional curiosity is maddening.

The Wardens had nagged Kate for months to meet up in person, and when the time came she’d almost bailed. She’d watched them from across the street, all looking so . . . normal. Not that they blended in—Teo had short blue hair and Bea had a full sleeve of tattoos and Liam, in his giant orange glasses, looked like he was twelve—but they didn’t look like something spit out of Verity. They weren’t Flynn Task Force soldiers. Or coddled Colton kids. They were just—normal. They had lives outside this one. Things to lose.

LiamonMe: Why not just call them what they are, what they do? Body Eaters, Blood Eaters, and Soul Eaters. BAM.

Kate pictured August down in the subway, dark lashes fluttering as he raised his violin, the music pouring out where bow met strings, transfigured into threads of burning light. Calling him a Soul Eater was like calling the sun bright. Technically accurate, but only a fraction of the truth.

RiledUp: Any sign of Kate?

She switched from incognito to public.

HunterK has joined the chat.

Beatch: Heyo!

TeoMuchToHandle: stalker.

RiledUp: I was getting worried.

LiamOnMe: Not me!

Beatch: Yeah right, Mr. I-know-karate.

Kate’s fingers danced over the screen.

HunterK: No need. Still standing.

RiledUp: You really shouldn’t go dark without properly signing off.

TeoMuchToHandle: oooh, riley’s in dad mode.

Dad mode.