ME & THE MONSTER

hungriest

It was as the Tube jerked to a stop at Goodge Street station that I saw it.

There it was, at the farthest end of the train. A flicker of black leather, in the corner of my vision.

I tensed. I gripped the lip of the seat, straining my eyes to see. The train chugged on, and the blonde teenager sitting next to me picked at her nose in a leisurely manner.

Nothing happened.

I told myself I was being stupid – my nerves were all over the place lately. A cool, disembodied voice announced the next stop: Leicester Square.

Only one to go. A succession of dark tunnels blurred past. Nose Picker seemed happy at a particularly promising catch. I began to relax again when I heard it, near me. The velvet of a deep voice, apologising to a woman.

Then I knew.

It couldn't be. Was this coincidence? It had to be. He couldn't have been following me, despite his claims the other day – London was too large a city to manage to keep track of someone successfully. At least that was what I thought. What I'd hoped. And maybe – maybe he hadn't even seen me. Maybe he was going on about his life and we'd just happened to be on the same train.

But I knew I was lying to myself.

He'd found me.

The train whistled to a halt at Leicester Square. My heart was beating hard, and as I rummaged inside my bag, my heart sank. How could I be such a prize idiot? I'd left my dagger back at home.

Crap.

Then the doors hissed open, and the crowd inside the carriage surged forward. I stood, abruptly. This was my chance. I had to make a run for it, even if it wasn't my stop. Although it rankled me to admit it, I was powerless without Sebastian against Kal. I wouldn't make it to lunch with Vanessa, but it couldn't be helped. I suspected she preferred a cancelling friend to a dead one.

He'd humiliated me the other day by leaving me curled on the grass. It had hurt more than the white-bright pain that had burst into me at the blow.

I'd make him pay for it.

The crowd swallowed me up as we spilt out into the platform. I hoped that way I'd blend in and he'd lose track of me. If he'd seen me before, that is. I glanced back over my shoulder, even though I knew it was a bad idea.

Among the jostling, sweating mass of people, Kal Mellketh's eyes rose, like a magnet. They met mine. He smiled a small smile, no teeth, all grimness.

I swore. I hurried my steps, shoving people out of the way. Not fast enough. I couldn't move fast enough. He was right there behind me. He was going to get me and I was going to be Forgotten and it would have all been in vain and I loathed him so and I wanted him so and I wouldn't stand a chance against him without my dagger, he was twice as large as me and why did people walk as though they were strolling through a sunlit meadow?

I broke into a trot. I collided with the man immediately before me, making him lose his balance and drop his briefcase. The people behind him slowed. That was good, I figured. That meant Kal got slowed down too.

"Hey, watch where you're going," the man said.

I didn't bother apologising. There's a time and place for niceties, and right now it wasn't.

Then, somewhere behind me, I heard my name.

"That, Rae," Kal said, "was rather rude of you, you know. Tut tut."

This time I didn't look back. I couldn't afford to lose a single second.

So I ran.

I ran out of the platform and into a wide corridor. I could feel people staring at me, but I kept running, not in the calculated way I ran at the Royal Park Station, all steady breathing and measured steps. I ran the way I did at races, the way I loved to run, skin bright, blood buzzing with adrenaline.