Prey (The Shade Chronicles Book 1)

by T. K. Bradley

  Brent and I sit stunned, unmoving. Dozens of possible scenarios run through my head, including technical failure, entire compound coup, or perhaps they’re just trying to pinch a few pennies by shutting off the electricity for a couple minutes. But we both know what is most likely. Dad is causing trouble.

  My father has always been dissatisfied with the status quo. He resents having to walk the straight and narrow; he stands with his toes right on the line. He yearns to push back. And that is why he has become a thorn in the side of the military pricks running this gong show. In all honesty, my father is a natural-born leader, and he's well-loved by his peers, so they can’t just make him disappear. His death could trigger a compound-wide riot. They need him to help keep the peace. Brent and I, however? They see us as leverage.

  “Did you hear that?” Brent has gone tense beside me. I hear it. Gunfire. The sharp reports are coming in short bursts at first. Then, as we sit in shocked stasis, they stop, making the truck’s engine appear that much louder in the menacing pause.

  When the gunfire starts up again, it’s closer. Too close. I make the call. “We’ve gotta go.” I throw the car into gear and push down the gas pedal. The truck inches forward and pushes into the Impala. The rusted car rolls ahead, skidding to the left. With a metallic crunch, the muscle car wedges itself at an angle into the doorway.

  “Seriously?!” I look over to Brent for suggestions, but I can tell by his imitation of a guppy that he’s not going to be of any help.

  “You’re just lucky the airbags didn’t go off,” Brent mutters, and I throw a glare his way.

  I’m not going down. Not today. I pop the truck into reverse and back up as far as I can go. Deep breath in… and GO!

  In a cascade of sparks and the wrenching of metal, the solid grate guarding the front of the truck makes contact. We jerk against the seatbelts. The surprisingly sturdy car ahead of us shudders, the solid body staying largely intact, but the front corner buckles, just barely nudging through the doorway.

  “Third time’s the charm?” I pant.

  Brent groans through clenched teeth. “Oh, god. Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure, yeah.” Just to punctuate my point, I give the truck a little gas. We go absolutely nowhere.

  Shouting comes from the hallway. I guess our demolition derby finally drew some attention. “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better hurry!” Brent’s eyes are strained and sweat drips off his jaw. He’s just barely holding himself together.

  My adrenaline spikes, my pulse rushing in my ears. I gun the engine and reverse straight into the car behind us. “Oof!” The air is punched from my lungs. Dazed, I get ready to make a final attempt at our great escape.

  The sound of squealing tires echo from the concrete walls, but it can’t cover up the crack of gunfire. The blasts resound right outside the garage door just as the truck lurches forward. They’re too late, I think disbelievingly as we barrel through the door, deflecting the Impala off to the side. Hope flutters to the surface, and a smile just barely touches my lips. The truck roars down the short tunnel towards the scalding light. I had thought the sunshine was bright before, but now as we clear the tunnel, the intense heat from the sun burns my eyes, even with the added protection of the tinted windows.

  “STOP!” Brent’s hand clamps down on my arm, nearly causing me to careen off the road.

  “What the hell, Brent!” I hiss.

  “We have to go back!” He’s looking frantically over his shoulder, through the back window.

  “What are you—” I glance at the rear-view mirror and see Dad, running through the shadowed garage behind us. I pound my foot to the floor, the brakes locking. “Get ready, Brent. I’m going to need you to grab him.”

  “Me?” His eyebrows raise up into his bangs. He gulps. “Right. Okay.” He undoes his seatbelt and sets his hand on the door handle.

  The tires grip the pavement, and once again, we burn rubber, only now in reverse. The tires are going to be bald after all this punishment. The sunlight dims as we pass back into the opening of the tunnel, and I can’t help but feel like we’re giving up our last chance.

  Dad has reached the tunnel now, though I can see silhouettes darting through the garage behind him. Bullets ricochet off the truck, and I duck down, driving blindly. The truck pinballs back and forth between the concrete walls. We’re getting close enough that I can hear Dad shouting something. “What is he saying?”

  Brent pops his head up to peek back at him. “Keep going… he says to keep going!”

  I stop the truck and wait as long as I can, counting the seconds as I watch Dad’s reflection getting closer in the side-view mirror. More bullets ping off the truck, and I see Dad stumble. Is he hit? He regains his footing and dashes the last distance to the truck. Behind him, I can see the outline of the guards, guns raised. There's one guard, however, who isn't shooting.

  Major Ellis Hill stands rigidly at the back of the garage, cloaked in shadows. Though his gun is raised like the others, the muzzle does not flash. I whisper a silent thanks to him for giving us a fighting chance.

  Brent opens his door, and as soon as he locks hands with our father, I drive. I start off slow, Dad running alongside the truck, one hand in Brent’s, the other clamped onto the doorframe. I allow myself a breath of relief.

  Relief quickly turns to panic when the back window shatters. Glass rains down on me, nicking the bare skin of my neck. “GO GO GO!” Dad’s shouting at me, still hanging half out the door. I hit the gas, leaving our pursuers far behind.

  As we speed out of the tunnel into freedom for the second time, there is no relief, no calm. Only searing pain. With the back window missing, we’re left exposed. It feels like a hot iron being pushed onto the back of my neck, and I can’t contain my scream. I try to focus on the road in front of me, my foot on the pedal. I can hear Dad and Brent beside me, shouting in anguish. Dad pushes Brent to the floor, shielding him as best he can. The car swerves from side to side as I try to huddle forward against the steering wheel. Anything to get away from the blinding pain. The sun is too high in the sky for the buildings to create any kind of shade. We’re so screwed.

  Finally, Dad manages to clumsily barricade the window with a worn blanket. There are still patches of light shining through tears and thin spots, but it’s enough to allow a soothing break from the heat. I look over at them and gasp. Dad took the brunt of the damage, his left arm and the side of his face and neck already blistered. Whole patches of skin seem to have been incinerated, leaving nothing behind but blackened flakes. I swallow back the bile building up in my throat. Brent’s blisters are mostly on his arm where he shielded his face.

  I reach for my own neck, afraid of what I’ll find there. The pain isn’t as bad as it had been in the first moments, now a dull ache, which is almost more worrisome. I can’t bring myself to touch it, though. Some things are better left unknown.

  We need to find shelter. Fast. Somewhere in the shade, where we can tend to these wounds. These open sores will get infected if they’re not treated. I scan our surroundings for the first time, looking for somewhere we can lay low for a few hours. At least until the sun starts to go down. The road itself is clear of debris, the wrecks of abandoned cars long ago pushed up onto the sidewalks, like a bulky, metal fence. The military came through with their tanks and dozers in one of the first waves of restructuring. Scavenging crews need to be able to get in and out quickly.

  Beyond the wrecked cars are the buildings. Or what used to pass as buildings. Windows shattered, doors hanging off their hinges, the very concrete of their foundations cracking and falling under extreme heat and more than a decade of abandonment. All of this, I expected. What I wasn’t prepared for was the sheer starkness of it all. Everything is bathed in shades of grey and beige. No green trees or grass. The signs hanging above stores, which must have once beckoned shoppers in with bright colors and flashing lights, have all been bleached out to an empty white. Even the blue sky of my memories is now hazy a
nd dull.

  A heaviness settles into my body. This is not how it’s supposed to be. The hope I felt a few moments ago, and even the panic and fear from the escape, is gone. I grope for an emotion that describes how I feel, but I’m just empty. A shell, like this new world. There is nothing left.

  The adrenaline that kept me going this far is apparently also what was keeping the pain at bay. A sharp throbbing begins in my neck, and it reminds me that we have more urgent matters than my pity party.

  “Lori? Lori!” I can tell that Brent has been calling my name for a while. I raise my eyebrows at him. It’s all I have the energy for. “Are you okay?”

  I heave my shoulder up in a shrug. “I don’t know. Better than Dad, I guess.” Our father is slumped over in the seat, passed out from the pain. “What do we do, Brent? Where do we go?” Dad’s always the one with all the answers, and even then, it was always Mom who held the final veto power.

  “I… I’m open to suggestions.” So, he doesn’t know either. Fair enough.

  “How about we just drive for a bit? Get off the main stretch. They’ll be coming to look for us as soon as the sun gets down below the skyline.” Only now do I think about how I should've tampered with the other vehicles to stop them from following us. A feeling of dread settles over me, but it's not like we can turn back now, just apologize for leaving. Oops, sorry, take us back and don't throw us into jail? Or worse?

  Brent gives a firm nod, trying to look confident but failing miserably. “Sounds like a plan.”

  And so that’s what we do. We drive.

  13

  Kenzo

  A sheen of sweat beads across Jose’s forehead and into his thinning hair. I almost feel bad for him. His eyes are darting back and forth to the empty corners of the room; he seems determined not to look up at the panel in the ceiling, ready to open to the blistering sun at the push of a button. He’s been waiting in there for hours, no food or water. He’s wringing his hands, and I look down to see that I’m mirroring his actions.

  I shake out my hands and turn away.

  Ellis comes up behind me, and together, we stand in front of the two-way mirror, watching Jose sweat. “Is he talking?” Ellis asks.

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “To who? Nobody’s stepped foot in the room to even ask him a question.”

  Ellis nods as if that’s all according to plan.

  Just as the silence between us is getting unbearable, Ellis answers the question I’ve been dying to ask. “She got out.”

  I sag against the glass, relief spilling over. “You’re sure? She wasn’t shot on the way out?” I’m not sure what I would do if she’d been hurt. It’s not like I can just stroll out after her with my first-aid kit and patch her up.

  “She looked all right to me,” he confirms, and I try not to think about what a convincing liar he is. “She’s tough, she’ll be okay.”

  “M’hm,” I mutter, biting on my thumbnail, brows furrowed. I didn’t like it when Lori was here, living under this regime, but I don’t like it much better with her out there, when I can’t see that she’s okay with my own eyes.

  “I’d better get in there,” Ellis says, moving to the door. “This will all be on the record, so… are there any questions I shouldn’t ask him?”

  “What?” I ask, confused.

  “About the jailbreak,” he says, and then elaborates when I still come up short. “Does he know about your role in Lori’s escape? Should I steer him away from revealing anything to the general?”

  “What? No, I—” My first instinct is to deny everything; I mean, it’s my daily reality, being under careful scrutiny, my life constantly in the balance. In the end, however, I know that Ellis is far more in tune with everything going on. And while I didn’t directly help them with their escape, I didn’t do anything to stop them. And in this place, that means I’m accountable. It’s almost a relief to admit it, to slough off the suspicion and doubt and just say, “No, I don’t think he knows anything about me.”

  Ellis nods and slips into the room. Jose’s eyes follow every movement as Ellis pulls out the chair at the table, adjacent from him. “Sorry for the wait,” Ellis says calmly, almost conversational. “I do appreciate your patience. We’ve had a busy day today, haven’t we?”

  Ellis sits there with his hands gently folded on the table, staring at Jose, waiting for an answer. Jose looks like he’s in pain as he tries to decide if this is a trick question. Finally, he nods, acknowledging that it has indeed been a busy day.

  Satisfied, Ellis asks, “Would you like a drink of water? Something to eat?”

  Again, Jose analyzes the words, trying to decide if there’s some kind of trap. “Um, sure. Water and some food would be nice. Thank you,” he tacks on at the end.

  Ellis looks over his shoulder at the camera in the corner and gives a signal. Only seconds later, the door behind me opens, and a teenaged girl in a faded uniform comes through bearing a tray.

  The aroma hits me first. I was expecting his food to be a protein-paste sandwich made from sawdusty bread. Or maybe porridge with grain beetles. But no, I never could have expected this.

  Jose’s eyes get round as they take in the plate that’s placed before him. There’s a slab of steak an inch thick, cooked to juicy perfection. Green beans in a pool of melted butter. There’s even a small raisin tart for dessert.

  Now Jose looks like he’s ready to bolt. He’s already shaking his head, leaning away from the food as far as his chair will allow, as if it’s toxic waste rather than the best meal he’s been offered in years. “I don’t want it,” he whines. “Take it away.”

  “What’s the matter, Jose? That isn’t any way to act when I’ve gone to all this trouble. Is it?” Ellis nudges the tray, sliding it a little closer to Jose’s trembling form. “It’s not like it’s your… last meal or anything.”

  And just like that, the threat has been issued. Before he’s even asked a single question, the line has been drawn. Whether Jose takes a bite of the food or not, he’s committed.

  Jose gnaws on his lip, quieting his gasping breath, and takes in Ellis’s military uniform, his military buzz cut, his military posture. Ellis is loyal to the bone, and there is no doubt that he will follow his orders to the letter.

  Jose gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and he gives a resigned nod. He pulls the tray closer and cuts himself a bite of steak. His hand shakes as he lifts the fork, pries open his clenched teeth long enough to force the greasy meat into his mouth, and he maintains eye contact with Ellis while he chews.

  He’s got guts, I’ll give him that.

  I’m gnawing my poor nails down to the quick; sweat is dripping down the inside of my shirt. And yet, Ellis and Jose remain in their silent standoff. I actually check to make sure the speaker is still turned on, since I can’t hear a single sound from the other side of the glass. They sit like that until every morsel of food has been consumed. As brave as Jose has proven himself to be, he looks like he’s about to hurl that steak right back up all over the floor. What a waste that would be, I think to myself.

  Finally, Ellis seems satisfied, whatever point he had to make has been proven. He nods over his shoulder to the young girl, and she takes the tray and makes her exit.

  “Now what?” Jose asks.

  “Now you answer a couple easy questions. Nothing too complicated.” Ellis holds his hands out in a gesture that’s supposed to look welcoming, but it’s like a shark in a party hat. And Jose is appropriately nervous to accept Ellis’s smile.

  “What do you need to know?” Jose asks glumly. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “Of course not, I never said you did.” Ellis waves away his worry. “I just wanted to know about the Fishers.”

  Jose’s eyes narrow, and while his anxiety has calmed down, he’s still vibrating, right down to his tapping toes. “What about the Fishers?”

  “Well, they’re gone, for starters.”

  “What do you mean… gone? Are they… dead?” Jose’s eyes bulge a l
ittle, a new kind of panic taking over.

  For the first time, Ellis tenses. It’s such a small change that not many people would notice, but I’ve spent a lot of time around this man, analyzing his moves and motives for years. Jose’s reaction wasn’t what he was expecting.

  Instead of answering Jose’s question, Ellis asks, “Does Magnus often send for you?”

  “What? Uh, no, not often.”

  “And you didn’t think it was strange when Lori told you to go see him?”

  Jose is starting to work things out, I can see it in his eyes. “Sure, I suppose it was a bit odd, but I didn’t have any reason to doubt her.”

  “Hmm,” Ellis agrees wordlessly. He then lets the silence hang between them.

  And in typical style, the detained citizen yearns to fill that silence. What better thing to fill it with than words, any words will do. “Look, Lori’s worked for me for years, she’s been nothing but reliable and trustworthy, I had no reason to doubt her.” He fidgets for a minute in the silence. “I should’ve questioned it, but it was a long day and I was tired. Are you sure that Lori wasn’t coerced? Maybe someone forced her to go? Please,” he sobs, “just tell me what you want from me. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  When Ellis finally speaks, I wish he hadn’t. “You have a daughter, don’t you, Jose?”

  Jose’s hands grip onto the edge of the table, skin tight and bloodless, and his voice comes out in a croak. “Yes…”

  “What’s her name again?” He knows her name.

  “Rosa.”

  “Ah yes, Rosa. She’s a sweet child, looks just like her mother,” Ellis drones on, and Jose is nodding, his expression guarded. “You’ve done a great job raising her. You work so hard to provide for her, and we appreciate your work, as an active member of our society, doing your part to keep us up and running.”

  I’m just as confused as Jose is at this point, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Ellis leans forward, propping his chip in his hand in a rehearsed relaxed gesture, made to make him more relatable, just one of the guys. “I work hard too, you know. I started at the bottom, scrubbing floors. You can’t get much lower than that,” he says with a chuckle, and Jose forces a laugh to join him. “Do you know what I’m doing now? Besides interrogations, I mean.”