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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

I thought about calling out to him. Yelling his name. But fear paralyzed me. Fear and a little voice that said, Stay hidden. Don’t let them capture you.

Thunder burst overhead, like God knocking at my door.

Thirty-Eight

Solomon

Thunder burst. Rain began to fall. We did not stop running. Through crowded, noisy streets, down narrow, lonely alleys. Long after we knew we lost them. I’d never run so far before in my life, and although Ash had gotten a ton of bad-ass warrior training once upon a time, she’d also spent four years sitting still. So I don’t know where all that stamina came from. Fear, partly, but more than that. From our clasped hands, I think.

Ash and me, we made each other better.

Finally, we arrived at the stable where we’d left Maraud. The place had the sweet coffee stink of dragon droppings, and under that the smell of bleach.

“Cops stood by and watched,” the attendant said, talking to her coworker, when she handed me the reins.

“Watched what?” I asked, wishing immediately that I hadn’t.

“Attack on the Underbridge,” the woman said. “Biggest one in ten years, they’re saying.”

Radha. Connor.

“Hundreds of Destroyers,” the stranger continued.

She looked at me. I looked back. Both our faces were rigid masks.

We didn’t know each other. Maybe she was an othersider; maybe I was a Destroyer or a sympathizer. Maybe we would have been friends; maybe we hated each other. But we were both scared.

“Thank you,” I said, and smiled, and she smiled back.

Ash switched on the little radio the woman had given us. Steered the dial through a sea of static until we arrived at a polished voice saying—

Multiple eyewitnesses report hearing the attackers call out for the Refugee Princess, who they believe was in hiding at the shantytown, and who may have been the target of the raid. . . .

All the air went out of me.

“We abandoned them,” I croaked.

I tried to say something, and couldn’t. Tried to take a breath, and couldn’t. Collapsed into coughing.

“Let’s go,” Ash said. “Solomon, let’s go.”

Thirty-Nine

Ash

Solomon stopped and began to cough, and somehow that helped me regain control. Shook me out of my paralysis. I took a step forward through the rain, and then another. I still didn’t know what I was going to do, but I had to do something.

Mr. Barrett came down the steps, into the rain, and Solomon followed. Looking for all the world like a pig going to slaughter, one who knew exactly what was waiting for him. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. He wasn’t cuffed. That had to mean something. He was free. Neither one of them seemed to notice the rain. Neither of them had noticed me, in the darkened parking lot.