Chapter 2

The way I saw it, if the monsters were going to play my family, then this was my house. And nobody tiptoes up to their own bedroom door and whispers, "Excuse me, may I come in?"

The knob turned.

The door swung open, and a wave of cold air hit my face. After thirty flights of stairs, it felt amazing.

A little girl stood in the doorway, hugging a doll to her red dress. Her skin had a greenish tint, her lips were blood-red, and her eyes were two dark hollows. When she smiled, every one of her teeth was perfectly white.

I thought she was adorable. Like a little princess who'd wandered out of one of the castle's paintings.

Then her icy hand closed around my throat.

I scooped her up and squeezed her tight.

"Look at you! You're even cuter up close!"

Then I caught the smell. Blood. I pulled back to get a better look at her.

"Are you hurt, sweetheart? Did somebody hurt you? Give me a name and I'll take care of it. No, wait, first things first. Where's your first-aid kit?"

Live Chat:

NightOwl77: That fae ripped apart half the last party. CUTE???

Lurker_Lou: It's literally strangling her and she's asking about Band-Aids.

None of those messages reached me. All I saw was a child who might be hurt.

I carried her into the bedroom, set her on the bed and started checking her for wounds. Her hand was still wrapped around my neck.

"A little girl like you shouldn't be all alone up here," I told her. "But you're not alone anymore. You've got me. And see these?" I showed her my teeth. "Real wolf fangs. I once took on five grown wolves by myself. Nobody's hurting you on my watch."

Somewhere in the middle of my speech, her grip loosened. I was too busy hunting for the cut to notice when she let go. Maybe it was the lighting, but her eyes didn't look quite so empty anymore.

She looked down and twisted a fold of her skirt between her fingers.

"You really think I'm cute?"

"Are you kidding? You're the cutest little girl I've ever met." I brushed her hair out of her face. "I'd be lucky to have you as family."

Pink crept into her cheeks. She clutched her skirt with both hands.

"Mama," she whispered.

My hands went still.

Mama.

Nobody had ever called me that. Something warm spread through my chest. I smiled at her, and she scooted closer on the bed.

Once I'd tucked her in, the voice came back.

[Players entered: 30. Players alive: 20.]

Ten people. Gone in under an hour.

I pulled out my phone. The game posted a death log for every player to see, so I scrolled through it.

A swordsman and the knight from the hall had fought over the third floor. The knight won. He strode through the doorway, and a dragon shot out of the dark, jaws wide.

He didn't even have time to turn around.

The dragon swallowed him whole, yawned and slunk back into its room like it was going back to bed.

Everyone who saw it, except the two mages, had their fear meters jump past fifty. One older man hit a hundred the second he stepped onto the tenth floor. No monster ever touched him. He died of pure fright.

The other entries weren't much better.

I set my phone down. My meter still read zero.

People were dying here. I knew that. But the things that scared them to death still looked lovely to me, and for once, nobody was flinching away from me for saying so.

Back in the pack, they'd called me a freak. Wolves had avoided me, thrown rocks at me, treated me as if being different were something I'd done to them on purpose.

The little girl was resting beside me.

Maybe staying here wouldn't be so bad.

It was late, and I was tired. I lay down next to her and fell asleep.

When I woke, the room was colder. A figure moved through the darkness. I couldn't make out his face.

Then he spoke.

Oh. That was a very nice voice.