The Monsters we Hide

By Melinda Owens

Rebel Summers watches her best friend Daisy die, suddenly, horrifically, and in the most traumatic way. She's also the only one who knows why she was killed. Her best friend's brother, whom Rebel has had a crush on for a while, is also missing. Rebel suspects he's been taken by the man Daisy was about to blow the whistle on, and she's the only one who can help him now.

 

Unfortunately, Po is in an alternate reality, a constant dream state, and his guards are experimenting on him with a new drug that's about to hit the streets. Po no longer understands what is real and what isn't. He only knows his baser needs and desires. Fighting, f*cking, and food. This new woman who says she's here to help can only be plotting his demise.

 

Trust is tested, pain endured, when the monsters we've been trying to hide eventually come out to play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anne Conley
• Release date: Oct 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781950264285

Book preview

Chapter One

Rebel sat on her front porch, watching the neighborhood wake up after her twelve-hour shift at the ER. Her coffee cup was filled with wine, but she wasn’t trying to hide it, the outside of the cup clearly saying, May be full of wine, in elegant flowing script. Her next-door neighbor, Mr. Johanson, had just left for work, leaving his wife home to take care of their two toddlers. Rebel didn’t envy her. So many cases came into the ER with horrific things happening to toddlers, while the parents moaned about only taking their eyes off them for a minute. Being a mom must be super stressful. Definitely not something Rebel aspired to.

Daisy was walking out to her car, dressed as usual in her business attire for her aide job at the Capitol. It was a low-level position, but as many times as the woman explained it, all Rebel heard was, blah, blah, lunch with so-and-so, blah, blah, meetings, blah, blah, shitty coffee.

Daisy was her best friend, so Rebel waved. Daisy hollered back, We still getting together tomorrow night?

Girl, yes! I need some time! Rebel loved her job, but it was weird, long hours, and stressful. ER nursing was no walk in the park. Any time she got to hang out with her friend was a welcome respite.

They tried to get together once a week or so. They drank wine, smoked a bowl, and gossiped about random happenings in their life. Mostly men they wished they could see more of, and Daisy’s brother, who Rebel had a little crush on, even though she’d never met the man. Neither one of them had time to really go out, so they made the most of their time in Daisy’s garage.

Lately, Daisy had been a little obsessed about something she’d stumbled across at work, a new drug on the streets that was turning out to be absolutely horrific, and she’d found out one of the higher-ups in the state politics she worked so closely in had something to do with it.

She’d told Rebel a little, but no details. Just one name. And it was so huge, Rebel didn’t dare repeat it.

She was still smiling in anticipation of their evening together as Daisy opened her car door and plopped into the seat. Rebel watched as her friend flipped her chestnut-colored hair over her shoulder and tugged the door closed behind her. Then the engine cranked.

And a loud explosion filled the neighborhood. It was no slow-motion kindling of flames licking the metal car or smoke rising. No clues to what was about to happen. No chance to escape.

It was a sudden flash, a round ball of flame where Daisy’s Toyota Camry once sat. Before she registered what she saw, a wave of heat held Rebel back, an impenetrable wall keeping her from her instinct to impart healthcare.

And then there was smoke everywhere.

Rebel stood instinctually, wanting to go to her friend, but her mind told her it was no use. It had all happened so fast.

It reminded her of once, when she was a child, her father had lit a fire in their backyard with gasoline. The overwhelming whoosh of heat had startled all of them, the wall of heat too intense for a suburban brush fire, and had quickly overwhelmed her father, who ended up having to call the fire department before it spread. Her stepmom had been pissed.

The panic had been real. Palpable. It still made her heart race, just remembering the look on her father’s face when he’d realized how quickly it had gotten out of control.

Only now, she wasn’t panicked. Instead, a sense of unreality filled her limbs, making them leaden. She couldn’t move as she took in the scene of destruction her best friend had just died in.

Died.

Another memory tried to filter to the surface, as sparks and hot metal rained down around Rebel. Hot ashes. That tugged at the unwanted memory harder, but she tamped it down. Now that the massive explosion was finished, a tower of flames rose where Daisy’s car had sat. Another explosion sounded, probably something inside her garage combusting.

She was here now and her best friend was dead.

Rebel only stood and stared, her mouth open, catching the acrid smoke. But she couldn’t do anything about it. Shock was very real, goosebumps rising on her arms in spite of the blistering heat surrounding her. The neighbors were shouting, Mrs. Johanson standing on her porch, holding one child, while another clung to her legs.

The explosion had knocked a hole in Daisy’s garage, where they spent their Saturday nights, smoking and getting high and drinking wine and gossiping.

Rebel stood there, watching utter madness, as the feelings of surrealness enveloped her. Surrounded by a war zone in her tiny little gentrified neighborhood, the sound of sirens pierced her consciousness.

Holy shit.

A larger piece of ash rained down, capturing her attention. Weird, how in the midst of sudden chaos, she was captivated by this one little piece of something at her feet.

She looked down and saw Daisy’s brother’s face smiling up at her.

A sign.

He was a tattooed monster, or he had been. Daisy had told her he was going through the painful process of having a lot of the visible ones removed. But in this picture, he had tattoos all on his face and neck; his grinning smile exposed teeth filed into sharp points, with a forked tongue sticking through them. Horns were surgically implanted on his head.

Rebel still felt the heat of the explosion as she bent down and picked up the image, blowing on the charred edges. He was holding his sister, tugged close to her in a familial embrace, the juxtaposition of joy radiating from the madness of his face.

But his eyes were what had always captivated her. They were kind eyes, shadows of sadness in the recesses.

He worked for a securities company now.

Po.

She knew who was behind the explosion.

Po could help her find him.

Rebel had heard Daisy’s suspicions and had inwardly laughed them off because no way could something like that actually be a thing the chairman of the state medical board would be a part of.

But her best friend’s car was in a million pieces and flames were shooting to the sky, taking the rest of her home along with it.

Still, Rebel’s mind was filled only with vengeance for her best friend and the tragedy unfolding in front of her.

As sirens sounded faintly in the background, determination straightened her spine and she clamped her mouth shut.

She needed to visit that securities firm.

Chapter Two

Noise.

All of the noise.

A loud static noise faded in and out, interspersed with the sounds of his mother and her ex-boyfriends yelling, or her johns, or whoever Mom was angry at now. Then the static that rattled his insides, but never silence.

Of course, his mom wasn’t real, was she? Neither was Daisy. Those were some elaborate constructions of his brain to help him cope with this, his reality.

Po slipped in and out of consciousness. His consciousness was a large body of water, a rope pulling him deeper, then going slack and allowing him to float closer to the surface before tugging him back down. He could see the surface, reach out and touch it. The thing was, consciousness didn’t offer any answers, so it didn’t make a difference where he was.

He had no idea how long he’d been here, had no concept of time. It was liquid, time was, like it would fit with any perception he came up with. He’d been here a day, had been born here. It didn’t really matter, did it?

Po knew though. This was his reality. The skin on his lower back ached, like a sore festering and oozing. That was his reality. Everything else was a lie. A dream. He wasn’t sure which was preferable, the dream where he was a bad seed, or this reality, where everything was covered in stark white and noise was everywhere. It was everything.

The static consumed him. He felt it in his bones. They vibrated with it. Sometimes he could hear a pipe dripping somewhere; maybe there was a shower nearby that leaked. That would explain it, but he’d never seen it. That door in the wall had always been closed.

Sometimes he could hear an air conditioner unit click on and start whooshing air through the vents in the ceiling. That suppressed some of the static.

But the noise was always there.

It seemed like he remembered another time in his life when there was static like this, but he couldn’t trust that memory. Everything else was a dream. Daisy wasn’t real. She was the only good thing his brain had come up with to distract him from his reality. But she wasn’t real.

Nope. But he could still watch her smile in his mind’s eye, with the buzz of static as a background. In fact, looking at her smile made the static fade, just a bit. So he thought of that often.

Sister. What a weird thing to come up with to deal with this. He didn’t have a sister. Sisters provided unconditional love, even when you were a monster like he was. Unless he was toxic to her. Maybe that was it? He was surely toxic to himself, so why not others?

Still, he didn’t think he had a sister who loved him unconditionally like his hallucinations told him. He certainly didn’t deserve one.

Not sure if he was awake or not, he allowed his mind to wander, exploring the recesses of his brain, where he’d locked up all the blood and screams while he’d tried to get rid of dreams of being a criminal. His brain was a house, a big one, one with tons of rooms, most of which he’d locked up tightly. But now, doors swung open on squeaky hinges, freeing all the dreams he’d painstakingly locked away, allowing them to finally spill forth.

Boredom did strange things, and he wondered how long he’d been bored. Why had he always been strapped to this bed to have these visions? Were there other people like him here, in this place, spending a lifetime with false dreams?

Po saw the whore he’d brought back for Scorpio. Her blood. He heard her screams for mercy. But right now, he knew he had been the one to inflict the pain. By choosing her and bringing her to his boss, he was the one who had killed her. Her blood was on his hands.

He looked at his hands. Sure enough, they were dark red, glistening with blood. Her blood, the blood of countless others he had brought to his boss.

His boss’ voice echoed in his head. Good boy, son. You did really good.

A sob left his throat. He was definitely conscious. He was back in the hospital room. White walls, sterile, a bed that crinkled with rubber coverings. A lot like the bed Scorpio used for his whores, so the blood wouldn’t ruin the mattress. Strapped down with an IV pumping God knows what into the vein of his arm.

What did the visions mean? Why was he being tortured with them? Are they some sort of yearning? Did he want to be the one to put women out of the misery of their existence? Then why did he deliver them into the hands of a murderer?

Why were these his hallucinations?

The blood climbed up his hands, to his elbows, and he wondered how it had gotten there. With a mounting horror, he watched the blood climb up his arms, knowing that as soon as it got to his heart he was done. There would be no coming back from this.

Nothing could protect his heart from the blood. When the blood reached his heart, he would be completely covered in it. No emotion would be able to get through the horrors and screams of the blood.

Chapter Three

Rebel was exhausted as she walked into the Serpent Executive Protections offices. She had worked a twelve-hour shift, then the explosion, and had given so many statements. But this wasn’t something to put off. She wasn’t sure she could nap if she tried, so she’d just put on some concealer and clothes and headed up there. She needed answers.

The building was neat and nondescript, a tower full of other offices. Once she got to where she was supposed to be, the front office area was equally nondescript.

The nameplate on her desk read Jessica Placket, so Rebel approached the woman with red hair coming out of a bun at the top. A tiny woman, Rebel was taken aback by vivid green eyes that sparkled as she smiled at her. After her morning with the police, fire department, etc., it was surreal to see someone so freaking happy right now.

I need to talk to Po, please. It’s important in regard to his sister. Rebel infused her voice with every ounce of authority she had because she didn’t want to be turned away. She didn’t know his last name because it was so different from his first name. His first name was a nickname Rebel had given him; it stood for Precious Object, something she’d called him when she was a baby. They’d laughed about it a lot on their Friday night get-togethers. Not laughing at Po for using it, but at Daisy for giving the tough guy such a soft name, and the fact he just chose to live with it.

At the thought of Daisy, the back of her throat closed up and she swallowed hard to ease it a bit.

Jessica’s smile faded a fraction, but she held it in place. One moment, please. I’ll be right back.

When she disappeared down a hallway, Rebel took the opportunity to look around the place. It was very professional, classy even. Daisy had said Po had gotten rid of some of his body modifications to work here. The boss had helped pay to have his implanted horns removed and to have caps put on his filed teeth. Yeah, he had looked pretty scary at one point.

A man in a suit strode down the hallway, capturing Rebel’s attention with his authoritative presence. He simply had to walk in the room, and he owned it. A wedding ring flashed on his left hand, and Rebel had the absent thought that someone was lucky to have him.

He held out his hand. Liam Holder. Would you care to join me in my office?

Uh, sure. She followed him, her quick steps those of an emergency room nurse, going along with his efficient stride until they made it to an office that matched the reception area. Classy, masculine, with wood and leather and a few pictures. There was one of him with a blond woman, whom Rebel decided was his wife, on his desk. She had her arms around his neck, and he was smiling down on her, the picture of happiness.

We haven’t seen Po in almost three weeks. I was hoping you could give us an idea of where he might be. It became evident when our head tech guy came up missing, we really don’t know much more about his current life, other than what we can glean from his background. Mr. Holder shrugged, speaking as he motioned for her to sit, and he walked around to the other side of the desk. My other tech guy left to open a new office in Washington State, so I’m a bit at a loss here. Any information you can give me about him would be helpful.

I’ve never met him. His sister was killed this morning in a car explosion. She couldn’t help but wonder if Po’s disappearance was linked to Daisy’s death. It seemed likely.

That was his sister? Liam’s jaw dropped in a quick display of emotion before he clamped it shut. Pushing a button on his phone, he barked, Jessica, get everyone in here now.

In a matter of seconds, the office was crammed full of more enormous guys like Liam, tall, handsome, and very, very fit. Sheesh. Did you have to pass a minimum height requirement to work here?

That car bombing Alex was talking about this morning? That was Po’s sister. I’m thinking they’re mixed up in something and we owe it to him to get to the bottom of it. Turning to Rebel, Liam focused piercing gray eyes on her. What is your relationship in all this?

Starting from the beginning, Rebel took a deep breath. I’m Rebel Summers, Daisy’s neighbor across the street. She is my best friend. She refused to refer to her in the past tense. This would be hard enough without acknowledging her death, even if she had to talk about it. She would not internalize it. This morning, I watched her car explode, right after she got in it. I remembered she talked about her brother a lot, and that he worked here. That’s why I came here to tell him about Daisy. I wanted to see if he would work with me to take down the guy behind the date-rape drug.

One of the guys who’d come in spoke up. What date-rape drug? Wearing a gray t-shirt, he was tall, built like the rest, and had a toothpick in his mouth. She’d noticed him working it with his tongue, but at the mention of the drug, he’d stilled, his body tense, the toothpick clamped between his teeth.

Daisy worked at the Capitol. There’s a lot of buzz on the hill about some new drug hitting the streets. It’s supposed to be a date-rape drug that makes the person ingesting it enjoy what’s happening. Like an aphrodisiac? Anyway, she heard some things and started digging around. She told me last Saturday she had evidence Dr. Anthony Pedigrew was involved in a big way. She paused for effect, to see if anyone recognized the name. Sure enough, a low whistle sounded from behind her.

Dr. Pedigrew is a head honcho up on the hill, isn’t he?

Liam straightened at his desk. Miss Summers, let me introduce you to everyone. That’s Alex Wright. He motioned to the man who had just spoken. Next to him is Levi and Mateo. Over here is Jessica, whom you’ve met. He pointed to the corner. And over there is Jameson. Levi was the guy with the toothpick, and Mateo was a man who looked so damned scary, she