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Back When Villains Rise Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. Copyright
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Forty-Four
  47. Forty-Five
  48. Acknowledgments
  49. Read More from the Market of Monsters Series
  50. More Books from HMH Teen
  51. About the Author
  52. Connect with HMH on Social Media

Her hand made Y incisions with an invisible scalpel as she slowly walked back toward the subway stop, mind whirling. The fresh spring air blew her frizzy curls in the wind a little, and the bright sunlight made the brown of them seem almost orange.

Blackmail was always risky. Especially with INHUP, which could, for example, add her to the Dangerous Unnaturals List. Or put out an arrest warrant.

The black market could assassinate her in a dark alley at night. But in the light of day, there wasn’t as much they could do without the authorities getting too involved. She supposed they could pay off the authorities. So could Nita, in theory.

Once she had that information.

But INHUP was a problem. Would continue to be a problem. Not just the Dangerous Unnaturals List, which was questionable at best.

She used to be a fan of the list. She’d thought it was a good thing to make it legal to kill monsters without repercussions. No vampires getting off on legal technicalities or unicorns escaping murder charges for lack of sufficient evidence.

Of course, in practice, the list hadn’t worked that way. Her father’s killer should by all rights have been on the list, but he wasn’t. INHUP knew who and what Zebra-stripes was, and whether by blackmail or something else—something Nita intended to find out when she caught him—he still hadn’t gone up on the list. She couldn’t keep Kovit off the list, but her father’s murderer was going to get away.

She thought of Kovit, living with a sword of Damocles above his head his whole life, one wrong move away from being found and murdered by INHUP, whether he’d committed a crime or not. Adair’s words from yesterday haunted her. What if there hadn’t been a list? Would there be zannie doctors who could diagnose your pain instantly? Just because zannies could get their food from torture didn’t mean they had to. An emergency room would suffice. But they chose to. Kovit chose to hurt people.

Would he still if the list was gone?

She didn’t ask herself what could have been, because Kovit was right. Asking what-ifs about people stole their agency for the choices they made in this life. But what could be. That was another question. If the list went away and Kovit was absolved of any crimes he’d committed under it, what would he do? Would he continue to hurt people or would he walk within the lines of the law? If there were stakes, real stakes, real consequences for his actions, would he change?

She didn’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.

But as long as INHUP and its list were there, neither of them would ever find out. INHUP had destroyed Kovit’s life as surely as the mafia family he’d worked for had.