The Monsters in Your Neighborhood Read Free Page A

later. For now, she had to get to the morgue. Hopefully there she could just work and forget about her worries when it came to monsters. After all, they weren’t there. Most of the time.

    Alec didn’t have class that night, but he still arrived at Manhattan Four Corners Community College. His first semester of training was coming to an end and they were going to have an exam and a skill test in a few weeks, so a few of the guys he had classes with were doing some studying in one of the common rooms.
    It felt a little like a sitcom, really. A bunch of guys, all ages, sitting in a room studying, but what they didn’t know . . .
    Their new friend was a Wolf Man! Cue the fun music and “coming this fall” logos.
    Except if they knew what he was, if they believed what he was, they probably wouldn’t laugh.
    The double doors to the study room opened and a guy named Greg burst in. Alec didn’t like him. Greg was a total frat boy reject, boasting and loud and kind of an asshole. In truth, maybe they were too alike. Except Alec dressed better.
    “You’re late,” Alec said as he made a few notes from his manuals to review later.
    “Dude, seriously, I have a great reason.” Greg flopped down at the table and pulled a laptop from his bag. “Have you guys seen the video?”
    Alec shut his eyes and took a few breaths. Shit, it was hard enough staying focused without people creating distractions.
    “I’ve seen lots of videos, Greg. Specifically?” he asked, and he could hear the barest hint of a growl in his voice. Damn, he could usually control that better as the calendar moved further away from the full moon.
    Greg turned the laptop toward Darren and the others in the group and Alec bit back a gasp. It was a YouTube video that already had over a million hits.
    Its title?
    Real Monster Attack in New York City.

3
    Natalie’s phone kept buzzing with texts from Alec, and each one made her jump. She glanced down at the latest.
    Almost there.
    Thank God, because she was only just barely holding it together. She scrolled through the previous messages between them, which had started with hers after arriving at the morgue.
    Something happening. Monster related.
    Her hands had been shaking when she wrote it.
    He’d responded almost immediately.
    I know.
    The messages scrolled on, with few details (just in case anyone was intercepting the messages or might find their phones later or something), but with a lot of freaking out. And Alec hardly ever freaked out unless it was PMS (Pre-Moon Syndrome)-related. This time, it wasn’t.
    She heard his key jangle at the door and rushed to open it first. He set his bag down and hugged her without a word. She clung to his shoulders, sucking in his strength like she was the vampire, not Drake. She felt better as they parted, but not a lot.
    “You know?” he asked, his mouth a thin line as they stepped into the apartment they shared and he shut and locked the door behind them.
    She nodded.
    “How? Monster telepathy?” he asked with a wry smile. They always joked about that, though the only monsters she’d ever known with a psychic connection were Jekyll and Hyde.
    Until Jekyll died, that is.
    “No,” she said as she moved into the living room and sat cross-legged on the futon. “Morgue.”
    He nodded. “I should have known.”
    “Wait, how do you know?” she asked.
    He grabbed for a computer from his bag and started fiddling with it. “YouTube,” he said with a frown as he sat down next to her and pressed play on the video he’d queued up.
    “Do I want to see this?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
    He shook his head. “No, but you need to.”
    She shuddered and put her focus on the screen. It depicted a game of soccer between four friends at dusk in Central Park. Even though it was the middle of winter, there was no snow on the ground, so people were playing soccer in the park all bundled up. The person holding the camera was shouting out directions and bawdy