Free The Monsters in Your Neighborhood by Jesse Petersen Page B

asshole he was.
    “Look, Nat,” he finally said with a sigh. “I don’t know why you’ve lost your mind, maybe it’s this whole Creature thing getting to you, but—”
    “Lost my mind?” she interrupted, pivoting toward him with a twisted, angry look on her face that he hardly recognized. It was monster rage mixed with scorned-woman rage. “You are the king of the assholes.”
    He lifted his hands in surrender. There was no use arguing if she was going to insist on her crazy talk.
    “Natalie, I left the house fifteen minutes ago, I’m sorry, I guess it’s been twenty minutes ago. I don’t know why you’re so pissed.”
    She stared. “Are you saying you really think you left the house less than half an hour ago?”
    He nodded. “I don’t think it, I know it.”
    “What day do you think it is?” she asked.
    “Friday,” he said. “It’s Friday, January eleventh.”
    She swallowed, and some of the anger bled from her stare and was replaced by something fearful and frozen. She removed her phone from her pocket and turned it on. Setting it in front of him, she pointed to the screen.
    He looked down and blinked. It read Sunday, January 13, 8:14 a.m.
    “What?” He yanked his own phone from his pocket and turned it on, but it said the exact same thing.
    “But . . . but it’s Friday,” he said, his voice weak as he staggered to the couch and sat down. His phone slipped from his fingers onto the area rug. “It’s Friday,” he repeated.
    She shook her head and took a place on the other side of the couch, not touching him, not near him. She stared.
    “I don’t know whether you’re full of shit, or really don’t know what’s going on,” she whispered.
    He looked at her. “So you really think I’ve been out for a day and a half, fucking around on you?”
    That fact hurt him, confused him almost as much as his lost weekend did. Almost.
    She sighed. “I don’t know what to believe. But why don’t you tell me what you remember and we’ll figure out where the truth diverges.”
    He rubbed his eyes and tried to think. His mind was . . . cloudy, actually. It was hard to remember what had happened and when it had happened. What was the last thing he recalled before standing at their apartment door, keys in hand?
    “We got home from Drake’s this morning and you and Kai decided to go see Van Helsing,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “And then we went to pick up Igor.”
    Natalie stared. “Is that the last thing you remember?”
    He searched his mind, trying to filter through events and memories that seemed very muddy. “You left?”
    She nodded, but didn’t elaborate or help him along.
    “Then I went to Drake’s and—” He stopped talking because a harsh, heavy pain shot through his head. He covered his temples and growled in agony.
    Natalie slid over and touched his hand. “Are you okay?”
    He flinched away from the warmth of her fingers and barely contained the urge to snap at her, literally.
    “Migraine,” he barked.
    She frowned. “That’s a pretty sudden migraine.”
    “Oh, you’re the expert now?” he said, turning toward her.
    His tongue brushed his teeth and he was shocked to discover that his canines were . . . growing. But that wasn’t possible. It was two weeks until a full moon.
    She stood up and backed away. “I’m not an expert on anything. All I know is that I left and you guys went to Drake’s. Once you got there, Rehu says you got a phone call, started acting all weird, and left. That was thirty-six hours ago. You haven’t answered your phone, you haven’t been seen, and no one knows where you went.”
    “It doesn’t make sense,” he groaned, clutching his aching head.
    “I agree. We searched for you the entire first night until finally everyone went home. Me so I could wait around for you to show up, and I guess everyone else so they could wait for the call that you were dead or ran out on me. So excuse me if I’m a little concerned.”
    Tears sparkled