Page 26 of Monsters Within (The Creatures We Crave 1)
Alexandra
Icould hardly believe my eyes with what I was seeing, but truly, how could I be surprised? They were doing exactly what I had created them to do, helping rid the world of terrible people.
I was torn between being proud of them and also wanting to drag them out of the room by their ears like scolded children. What a conundrum.
Lucien knew exactly what had occurred between the dean and myself, and it seemed like now so did my other monsters. A pang of shame shot through me at them knowing how defenseless I truly had been. Until now, they’d only known a version of me that was brave and able to handle my own shit.
But that wasn’t me all the time, and I couldn’t help the uncertainty that crawled through me that perhaps they wouldn’t like the real me.
Hannah pushed through the crowd to cut me off before I could reach them and gripped my hand. “The cops will be here to take him. We have his confession recorded.”
She seemed thoroughly spooked by the situation, but I knew it couldn’t be because of the dean’s admission. She already knew about him because of her BFF putting me into that exact situation with him. So it had to be because of my monsters.
How ridiculous was that? The man sexually abuses students and uses his power at the school to silence them, yet she was afraid of the three men that were clearly standing up for justice.
Someone make it make sense, please.
Tugging my hand out of her grip, I nodded. “I know. I saw it being live streamed on everyone’s phones on Instagram in my class.”
At first I had ignored it. It wouldn’t be the first fight recorded at the school, and it wouldn’t be the last, but when I heard the rumble of Lucien’s voice, my head had jerked up. I’d pushed from my desk to the nearest student to watch over her shoulder, confirming what I thought I’d heard.
Hannah’s head dipped close to me as her eyes flicked to my men and back to me. “Alexandra, they don’t seem like the right type of people to be around. They’re violent.”
The audacity of this chick was really blowing my mind.
Taking a step back, I gestured at her. “And you think that you are someone I should be around? After what you did to me?”
She ran her tongue along her teeth for a second before biting back, “I’m trying to make up for it now!”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I huffed out a breath. “At least with those men, I know what I’m getting. Sure, maybe they’re a little violent,” I admitted and glanced over at them, immediately breaking out into a smile at their adoring looks sent my way. “But at least their actions are meant to protect me and help others. You can’t say the same.”
She could go repent for her sins in a church. I wasn’t the one to do it with.
Leaving her behind, I advanced towards my unruly monsters and prepared to give them a mouthful for putting themselves out here for the public to see. It was one thing to wander around a campus you weren’t enrolled in, but to then get into a physical altercation that the cops were being called for?
This was going to be an absolute disaster when they got arrested for assault and battery and had no form of ID to identify themselves.
Kylo was the first to step forward and place his hands on my shoulders, rubbing them soothingly. “I know this looks bad,” he started and winced, likely understanding he couldn’t talk his way out of this one.
“You have no idea!” I hissed out. “I can’t just make this go away like I can in my stories. Authorities are coming, and you guys could seriously get in trouble!” Hitting my hands against his chest lightly, I bit my bottom lip before leaning my head back to stare into his blue eyes. “You guys could be taken from me, and that can’t happen, Kylo. It just can’t.”
A part of me was starting to freak the fuck out as the potential ramifications really sunk in. There was nowhere I could hide them with the cameras around campus, and I had no money to get us out of here. Anger and sadness coursed through me, bringing frustrated tears to the surface.
As his hands moved up to cup my face, Kylo leaned down to touch our foreheads together. “It’s us until the end, darling. We’re not going anywhere. We will figure this out.”
Elwin joined us at that moment, and I pulled back from Kylo to glare at him with my hands on my hips. “You’re supposed to be on my side!” I exclaimed. “The level-headed logical one.” As he closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms around me, I rubbed my temples and muttered, "I don’t know how to get us out of this, Elwin.”
His lips pressed to my forehead, washing my body in a moment of peace. “We will figure this out, love.”
But it was at that moment that shouts began, and we glanced over to see two hulking, tatted and scarred men coming through the doors with eyes pinned on Lucien and then shifting over to us. Twin manic grins graced their faces, and my heart about dropped into my ass.
My ‘oh shit’ alarm bells were going off at the sight of them, and I yelled, “Lucien! We have to go, now!”
Thankfully he didn’t wait to be told again, giving the dean a final shove into the ground before the four of us began to book it down the hallway with the two men running after us, the chains on their pants signaling that they were hot on our trail.
Fuck, think, Alexandra. Where can we hide from them at school? The guys could obviously switch forms and decimate these two men, but I couldn’t risk exposing them further. They would become science experiments if the police captured them after that. My skin crawled at the thought.
Students scurried out of our way, flattening themselves against lockers and walls as the men behind us yelled, “Stop! There are so many fucking bounties on your head from different factions. You can’t escape being captured, but at least with us we won’t hurt you unless we have to!”
