“We are going to hurt no one!”
His voice lashes out like a thunderstorm, and Julie stumbles backward, clamping her hands over her ears. The monster from Mrs. Sudek’s house dives off Aldraa’s arm and disappears into the green darkness, and the plants rustle and sway around her, despite the absolute stillness of the air.
“We’ve done nothing wrong,” Aldraa says, softer this time, even though she can still feel his voice inside her bones.
“I’ll go to the mayor,” Julie spits out.
“We’ve done nothing wrong,” he says again, and Julie knows she can’t be in the building with him much longer, that if she keeps hearing him and seeing him, her mind’s going to shatter.
“You better not hurt her!” Julie says before she turns and bolts out of the power plant.
Outside, the air is as hot as it was inside, but the sea breeze is up, whistling forlornly through the pipes and smokestacks of the power plant. Julie collapses on the asphalt, sucking in deep breaths of air, trying to calm her racing heart. With trembling fingers she takes out the earplugs. Her eardrums ache, but being out in the bright sun, away from Aldraa, is already starting to soothe her migraine.
Her van’s still in its parking place, the cockroach bobbing in the wind.
The power plant looks empty, but Julie knows she’s not alone. The monsters are in the shadows; they’re hiding up in the windows. Watching. Planning, maybe. She doesn’t know what.
Julie climbs in the van and turns on the engine. The air-conditioning blasts across her sweaty skin. Girl, the monster had said, in the yard of a house where a new girl lives. They’re interested in her.
Aldraa may not have answered her questions, but Julie is determined to find answers anyway.
The sheriff’s office is at the edge of town, a brown building emerging out of an empty field. Julie pulls into the lot and shuts off the van engine. She’s still sticky from the power plant, and the smell of the place clings to her skin, that smoky burning-metal scent. But at least she’s not there now.
Julie climbs out of the van and goes inside, the arctic air chilling her as she walks through the door. It’s like crossing a force field. Inside, the office is as shabby and worn-out as always. The yellow fluorescent lights make everything look brown.
Lawrence is sitting at the front desk, scribbling notes in the margins of a textbook. He sighs when he sees her.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“Hey, cuz, that’s no way to treat me.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m on duty.”
Julie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but it’s from Shakespeare. It’s in Romeo and Juliet, cuz.”
“I don’t care. I’m on duty and the only way you’re supposed to address me is ‘officer.’ Or ‘deputy.’”
“I’m not doing that.” Julie grabs a chair from the waiting area and drags it over the floor so that she can sit across the counter from Lawrence. He sets his pen down and watches her, his brow drawn tight, the way it gets whenever he’s angry. Lawrence never shows his anger in the usual ways. He doesn’t yell or stomp around, just lets the anger seep through his skin and manifest as weird tics in his face. Julie knows it’s because he’s trying his hardest not to be like his father.
She arranges the chair to face him and sits down.
“I see you’ve got the van out there,” Lawrence says. “I take it you’re supposed to be working.”
Julie shrugs. The truth is she doesn’t want to go back to the exterminators, doesn’t want to risk getting called out to trap another monster.
“So maybe camping out at the sheriff’s office isn’t the best way to spend your time right now? Uncle Victor isn’t paying you to distract me.”
“Distract you?” Julie asks. “You’re reading a freaking book! I bet the sheriff’s not paying you to do that.”
Lawrence scowls at her, an expression that makes him look pouty, like a child. It’s hard to take him seriously. “I’m studying,” he says. “Something you don’t know anything about.”
“Hey, I passed all my classes last year. Even got an A in history.”
Lawrence folds up the book and sets it under the counter. Then he leans forward, steepling his fingers together like a villain in an old Bond movie.
“Do you have a crime to report?” he asks.
“Nope. But I do have a question for you—a real one,” she adds, when he looks like he’s about to start in on some first-class Lawrence nagging. “Related to you being sheriff’s deputy.” She pauses, trying to figure out the best way to ask it. Lawrence’s obsession with rules makes him annoying sometimes, but it can come in handy too. She thinks now is one of those times. “I just picked up a monster at Mrs. Sudek’s house…”
Lawrence rubs his forehead at the mention of Mrs. Sudek’s name.
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t actually have to talk to her, though, it was great. She’s got her granddaughter staying there.”
“So what’s your question?” Lawrence asks.
“Didn’t you hear me? I picked up at a monster! At Mrs. Sudek’s house!” Julie sighs. “In town.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Usually I’m driving out to those empty beach houses in hurricane alley to pick ’em up.”
“Right.” Lawrence frowns. “This still seems more like a matter for Uncle Victor.”
Julie slouches down in her chair. “Dad’ll just tell me not to get involved. You know how he is.”
“He’s trying to protect you.” Lawrence sighs. “Everyone in town keeps our distance from them. It’s the safest thing to do.”
Julie rolls her eyes. It’s true that most of the people in town do their best to pretend the monsters don’t exist. Julie knows why: Because everyone’s scared of them. Scared of the memory lapses, the eerie power plant, the possibility of what they might do to Indianola. But as an exterminator, she has to interact with them. It just sucks that no one will let her find out more about them.
“This town’s full of rednecks. I don’t know why you’d listen to them.”
“They pay my salary.”
“Whatever. Look.” Julie leans onto the counter. “The whole thing was weird. I thought it might be related to Mrs. Sudek’s granddaughter.”
“Why? What would she have to do with it?”
“Because she’s new!” Julie sighs. “You know how this town is. She didn’t even know about the monsters. No one had told her! And then one shows up at her house—” Julie stops, startled by a new possibility. “Oh my God, is that why everybody wants to keep it a secret? Because otherwise the monsters will hurt strangers—”
“Stop right there.” Lawrence lifts up the counter and joins Julie on the other side. He puts his hands on his hips and manages to fake a pretty convincing Stern Adult expression. “The treaties cover all humans within the boundaries of the town. They aren’t coming after Mrs. Sudek’s granddaughter. New or not, she’s protected.”
Julie glares at him. Figures he’d say that. He’s nineteen now, and that makes him officially grown up. And the adults in this town are always doing this—saying you just shouldn’t worry about the monsters, setting up treaties and exterminators to handle them and acting like it’s all so normal.