Chapters (52)
- Copyright
- Dedication
- 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
- Acknowledgments
- Read More from the Market of Monsters Series
- More Books from HMH Teen
- About the Author
- Connect with HMH on Social Media
Kovit came out a few minutes later, looking much calmer and more put together. He was wearing the sunglasses, and he’d used water to slick his hair into a smooth part that made him look older. It wasn’t the best disguise Nita had ever seen, but it hit the main points. Kovit was shorter and darker, so he might be able to pass as Latin American with his eyes covered. Definitely not Argentinian, though—he moved through the world in a different way. Nita did too. It was like the city had a rhythm, and she and Kovit were walking to a different song, always a step off beat.
But the hairstyle aged him, as did his serious expression, making him easily able to pass for late twenties instead of the twenty and a few months he actually was. She was hopeful that even if he couldn’t blend in, at least it wouldn’t be obvious who he really was.
“Are we ready?” he asked.
Nita sighed, tying her hair back in a more mature style so that she could look older than her nearly eighteen years. She didn’t want to ruin Kovit’s disguise by looking too young. Though, older men with younger women wasn’t that uncommon, just gross.
“As we’ll ever be,” she said, adding a few age lines to her face for good measure. There. Now they looked like a pair of late-twentysomething tourists.
It was time to get some answers.
Twenty-Four
IT WAS ALMOST eleven in the evening when Zebra-stripes finally came.
Nita nearly missed him, she’d been sitting so long on the couch in the hotel lobby staring vacantly at the entrance. She knew he’d arrive today based on his message when she sold him her mother’s location, sometime after sunset, but she hadn’t known what time, which meant a lot of waiting.
He entered quietly, unassuming in brown slacks and a thin beige coat. He’d tried to cover the distinctive white stripes in his brown hair with an old-fashioned-looking hat, the kind she expected on people who dramatically swept it off and bowed when introduced, kissing a lady’s hand in greeting. Despite the fact that all his clothes looked a little out of date, they all looked newly made and clean, and the effect was less that he’d walked out of a period drama of 1930s Chicago and more that he was young with a bit of a retro, quirky style.
His movements were slowed down, so that they looked almost human, not the too-fast, impossible actions she remembered. It still made her shudder when she recalled how he’d moved, like she’d blinked and missed something.
But he wasn’t trying to scare her now. He was trying to pass as human, and it seemed to be working.