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Chapters (79)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Praise for Destroy All Monsters
  77. Books by Sam J. Miller
  78. Back Ad
  79. About the Publisher

A long serpentine neck rose up out of the water, capped with the beautiful, terrifying head of a water dragon. Blue metal scales glistened in the weak winter sunlight.

“Pretty,” Solomon said, pointing.

“It really is,” I said.

What a gift that sight was. Solomon had taught me how to see a whole other world, but it had nothing to do with our trauma or our brain chemistry. The things he felt—he could make other people feel them too. That was his gift. His magic. It would serve him well in his life as a musician. As an artist. Like me.

I still got glimpses of her, that other Ash. Sometimes she showed me things. Futures, that might or might not be mine. Sometimes she told me things, when I was on the border between waking life and dreams.

We’re all a little bit magic.

The world tries very hard to break us.

Sometimes it succeeds.

We can be broken and still survive.

“This place gets the best sunsets,” I said, pointing across the river. The sky above the Catskill Mountains was painted in broad, messy strokes of mauve and orange and blue gray.

“It does,” he said, and reached out his hand. I took it, and I held it. High overhead, the lights of the bridge came on. Ms. Jackson spoke softly through the open windows of my car. She played old songs we loved. New ones we hated, and would one day discover to our great surprise that we loved.

“It’s okay,” I said, and it was not a lie. “We’re okay.”

Solomon nodded.

I wanted certainty. Clarity. The belief that everything would be fine. That we’d be strong enough to survive whatever the future hit us with.

But I knew I couldn’t have any of those things. I knew nothing in life was promised. Nothing was truly ours. Everything would be taken from us. All we really ever have is the moment we are in—and in that moment, we had each other.

Seventy

Solomon

A month passed, before I could see Ash again. She was busy, of course. Meetings and trainings and lessons and long-delayed quality time with her mother. Which was mostly spent arguing, according to the stories Niv was not supposed to be telling me.

High overhead, the lights of the bridge came on. Ash sat beside the riversea. Soldiers on ankylosauruses were stationed all around her, and they tried to block me and Maraud when we rode up, but Ash barked “Let them through” and the line parted for us.

They had put me on her schedule between meditation time and history reading. She’d missed out on all her basic education from the age of twelve on, so there was a lot of general stuff to catch up on—at the same time as she was learning the very specific family business.