Chapters (79)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Praise for Destroy All Monsters
- Books by Sam J. Miller
- Back Ad
- About the Publisher
Maraud stepped forward, lowered her head to lick my hair. And then she licked Niv’s. And I felt safe, even though I knew we were not.
Twenty-Seven
Ash
“Ash!” said Mr. Barrett, when he opened the front door. He wore an olive green polo shirt and blue seersucker shorts. They fit him way too well.
“Connor around?”
“Football practice,” his father said, putting his hands on his hips in a way that showed off the muscles in his biceps. This was probably not intentional. He just had a lot of biceps. Everything he did showed them off.
“Shoot,” I said, even though I’d known damn well that Connor wouldn’t be there. I’d jogged over, so I’d arrive out of breath and get invited in for a drink of water.
He smiled, the kind, generous smile he’d always favored me with. “You look exhausted. Do you want to come in for a glass of water?”
“Sure,” I said.
I was there for information. Whatever had happened between Mr. Barrett and Solomon’s mother, maybe it could help me figure out the roots of Solomon’s current crisis. We are our damage, at the end of the day. And if I knew the truth, I could help Solomon confront it. Learn from it. Move on from it.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Solomon’s eyes, when he remembered something, in the instant before he ran off into the darkness along the river.
I followed Mr. Barrett into the house. He smelled like cedar and eucalyptus.
“Here,” he said, handing me a bottle of water from the fridge. “Do you want some electrolytes?” He opened a cabinet, full of canisters of whey protein and bags of pills and PowerBars and who knew what else. He and Connor are both super-health-obsessed.
“Sure,” I said.
“Good answer,” he said, and squeezed something from a tiny plastic bottle into my glass. Dark red swirled in the water like blood. “This stuff is really good for you.” In seconds, the whole thing was crimson. I took a sip: fruit punch.
“Glad to see you’re exercising,” he said, and I wondered if the sentence carried an unspoken follow-up—because you’re so chunky—or whatever. Mr. Barrett could be rough like that. It was something I felt sorry for Connor about.
“How are your mom and dad?” he asked, continuing the sandwich assembly I had evidently interrupted. A whole stack of ham and cheese on whole grain bread, cut diagonally.
“Fine,” I said, draining most of my punch and deciding to dive right in. “I saw Solomon yesterday.”
Mr. Barrett shook his head. “Such a sad case, that kid. I tried, you know. To help him. I would gladly have let him stay here, after she got locked up. But he wanted nothing to do with me.”
“What happened, exactly?” I said, all innocence. “My mom said something about a fire?”