The shadow was from the same place as the thing in the chapel. They didn’t belong here. They were the opposite of here. They were wrong, an abhorrence, an abomination in the universe. The cold spot on my stomach burned. Whatever this evil was, I was connected to it. It had marked me, and the mark was calling to its maker.
The tunnel felt infinitely smaller. Where once it had only pressed on me, now it crushed. In the dark, I saw black, throaty tendrils reaching out towards me, grabbing my skin and pulling at my clothes. I swallowed hard. It was all in my head. Perhaps.
We were moving faster this time, and I scuffed my legs and hands. My knee stung, and I reached down to check it. It was bleeding. Could the shadow smell blood?
The tunnel opened out, and I sensed we were close to the end. I breathed deeply; even the musty cave air felt fresh after my panic in the darkness. Rachel was comfortable enough to talk now, but we didn’t lose pace. The conversation was breathless. “I don’t think it saw us.”
“It turned towards me,” I panted.
“It’s not as perceptive as you’d think.”
I hadn’t asked about the shadows before. Keeping them to myself made them feel like just a bad dream, so I’d been too scared to ask. If someone answered, I would know they were definitely real, that the cold spot on my stomach was real. Something else had stopped me too, a strange impulse that seemed to come from deep inside. But now that Rachel and I had encountered one together, I couldn’t pretend anymore, I couldn’t keep up the fantasy that I was losing it. I had to ask. “What is it?”
“It’s bad. Those things are the worst kind of bad you could imagine.”
“Those? You mean there’s more than one shadow?”
“Far more. The most anyone has ever seen at once is twelve. One of our units stumbled across a cluster of them by accident and radioed back to let us know. They went missing after that. The Shadows work with the enemy, maybe lead them. We’ve never seen enough of them to know for sure. I should probably tell you —” She paused. “You called it a Shadow. Where did you hear that name?”
“I didn’t. It just came to me. It seemed right.”
Rachel frowned. “We call them that, too. It’s odd you picked the same name.” She furrowed her brow, studying me intently.
“I’ve seen them before,” I said, changing the subject. “Those Shadow things. One came to my house. It took hold of Skye.”
Rachel stopped. “It took her?”
“It talked through her.”
“They’ve never talked before,” Rachel said, her voice tense.
“They weren’t real words, at least not a language I know. It was different.” I stepped over a large rock in the middle of the tunnel. “That was the second one I saw. Maybe the third, but I can’t be certain.”
Rachel grabbed my shoulders. “You’ve seen three?” Her tone scared me.
I took a deep breath, which was difficult in the musty air around us. “After we went to the crash site, the one the cops faked—I think it followed me home. It was above my bed.”
Rachel swore. “What did it do?”
I wanted to tell her how it had grabbed me. How it changed me. I wanted so much to tell her of the sickness taking root in my stomach. I opened my mouth to speak, but stopped. The same force inside me that kept the chapel a secret wanted this a secret too. I could feel it tugging at the edges of my mind, pulling me from the truth. “Nothing,” I lied. “It left. Probably scared it off. I’m tough like that.”
My joke fell flat, and I was thankful for the dark blanket around us. Before she could press me further, I changed the subject. “What was it doing out there?”
“Who knows? Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was looking for us. Maybe it was hunting.”
“Hunting?”
“Everything’s got to eat.”
I remembered the teens who had gone missing. The people who’d disappeared up here over the years. Nobody from town ever came to the mountains, and now I knew the urban legends were anything but myth. Those hikers had been hunted.
We reached the end of the tunnel and lowered our voices, not wanting anyone in the training ground to hear us. It was unlikely to be occupied, not in the early hours of the morning, but we didn’t want to take the risk.
“We should tell someone about it,” I whispered.
She shook her head. “If we do, we’ll have to explain how we saw it and where we were. Heading out there is a pretty big breach of protocol. No one else can know. It was probably a coincidence, it being there the same time as us. Let’s keep it to ourselves for now. Actually, maybe don’t tell anyone you even know they exist.”
I wasn’t sure why she wanted me to lie, but I nodded. I felt connected to her now. We could trust each other. I didn’t want to wreck that, especially considering that, right now, she was probably the only person I could truly say that about. Except Josh, and he didn’t know half the stuff going on with me.
As scared as I was, I thought we should at least wait around to see if it had followed us. I didn’t want to be the one to jeopardise the security of the entire Kindred. Rachel agreed, and we found a spot behind a log in the training ground that gave us enough cover and let us comfortably see the crack in the wall.
After an hour, nothing had come through. We were home free.
We moved far away from the training ground entrance before we stepped into the patrols’ eyeline, in case they got suspicious about where we’d been. They looked pretty tired anyway, and their heads were starting to droop, so it was unlikely they were alert enough to wonder why we were in the training ground this late at night.
It was a quiet walk back to the east wing, and when we got to our hallway, Rachel said, “If you see one again, you need to tell me.”
Nodding, I closed the door of my room. I’d been borrowing some of Rachel’s pyjamas, and while they didn’t fit properly, it was better than sleeping in my clothes.
I stripped the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around myself to change, facing away from the security camera and whoever might be watching. That’s when I took a moment to inspect the black spot on my stomach.
It had grown. It had started the size of a fingernail, but now looked like I’d been hit by a baseball. The mark blurred, and I blinked, certain I was just overtired. The blur didn’t clear, and I bent over to get a closer look.
There were tiny dots moving around the outside of the spot, and the mark pulsed like an ink blot on a wet sheet of paper. I placed a finger on my skin. It was slimy and wet, like mould.
I’d known it for a while now: I was marked. A target. Prey. But something had changed tonight.
The Shadow had called, and something in me had answered.
Now, we were connected.
TWENTY-FOUR
Josh sat in the corner of his room, bouncing a ball he’d managed to scam off one of the guards. “I’m going crazy. I’m honestly going to crack and just scream or something.”
“Me too.” I paced around the room. I was tense, and bored, and stressed, and exhausted.
“Plus, I’m sick of these bloody cameras!” he yelled at the security dome above him.
I stopped pacing. “They really are everywhere, aren’t they? The only place I haven’t seen them is in the Apex and the training ground. Couldn’t have a private conversation in here even if I wanted to.”
“There’s none in the showers, either,” he said.
“Yeah, but those are all creepy and open. You never know who might walk in.”
Josh stood. “I’ve only used them late at night when it’s quiet. The whole mixed gender thing is super weird. I’ve always hated public bathrooms at the pool, and this is so much worse. Also, Hackman was in there yesterday.”
“Oh, gross!” I laughed. “I was going to use the showers last night, but I was too tired. Thank the Lord! I don’t think I would have ever recovered from that mental scarring.”
Josh stared into the distance, looking sick. “I don’t think I ever will. It’s a
good thing you didn’t come back anyway, ‘cause I went in there after he left.”
My face flushed at the possibility. “If we’re both going late at night, it’s lucky we haven’t crossed paths yet. Maybe we need a signal just in case, like leave a shoe at the door or something so we don’t accidentally run into each other.”
“Sure,” Josh nodded. “Shower shoe. Good plan.” He was red, too. We both stood awkwardly for a moment.
“So about the other day,” I said.
He raised one eyebrow.
“When you said there’s something you don’t want to erase. You meant our kiss, right?”
Josh nodded.
“Thing is, I’m not sure if I — I mean, with everything that’s happening and all …”
“It’s okay,” Josh said quietly. “You’re dealing with so much right now. I keep trying to put myself in your position, feel what you’re feeling, but I can’t. I — I just want to feel you, you know?”
I snorted, and Josh went bright red. “That’s not what I meant! I was… oh for …” He looked at his feet, downcast, and my laugh subsided. His words were careful this time. “I was trying to say, I know you’re having a worse time than me, and I get that it’s complicated, and that’s okay.”
My laugh subsided, and I held his hand in mine. “You’re sweet. And thank you.”
He smiled.
“I’ve got to go,” I said. “Training starts early again today.”
“All good. And shower shoe?”
I nodded, grinning. “Shower shoe.”
We had been training every day, tuning faster and faster, and I even felt I had flaring under control. I could now create a small flare anywhere within about ten steps of myself, which wasn’t hugely useful, but I was able to shut it on and off at will. It only ever worked when I thought about Noah, but I could switch those emotions off inside now, which brought the flare back under control. I didn’t feel so much like a loose cannon anymore. I was starting to feel like a weapon. A blunt one, but a weapon nonetheless.
We reached the end of our training mid-morning, and Hackman called us all together to make an announcement.
“Ten days ago,” Hackman began, “Ari’s family were taken hostage by the Unseen. So far, the Unseen have made no demands, but we have it on good authority that if something does not happen soon, they will most likely get bored with them and do something drastic.”
I glared at him. “You told me they’d be safe. Either you were wrong, or you lied to me, but if anything happens to them I —”
“No plan survives a battle, Ari,” he snapped. “Things change. Intelligence changes. The point is, we intend to take action by the end of the week.”
“But you —”
“This will be a highly coordinated, highly planned attack focused on the clean extraction of Ari’s family.” He ignored me now, speaking to the group. “Many of our units are currently deeply embedded in key positions, and several others are engaged ... elsewhere. The remainder of our units are devoted to keeping this facility safe and will need to stay to continue that defence. This means we only have three units to deploy.
“Considering Ari’s connection to the mission, this unit will be involved. It will be the first field experience for some of you, but it is a critical one, and the most experienced of us will take the lead. Our first task will be reconnaissance before the main action, which should take place tomorrow evening. Tonight, several of us will head out to the suspected safe house and review the lay of the land, as well as confirm the presence of Ari’s family before we attack.”
Finally, something was going to happen. Relief and nerves hit me at the same time.
“The reconnaissance team will be led by myself,” Hackman continued, “and it will be made up of the following: James, Rachel, Vicki, and Ari.”
Frank and Nareem looked crushed, but they had been struggling to work as a team over the past few sessions as Frank had grown progressively more arrogant. Maybe Hackman was trying to teach him a lesson.
“We will meet in the Apex this evening at five. That will give us enough time to prepare before sunset.”
Late that afternoon, before it was time to go, I ventured back to see Josh.
When I walked in he was lazing on his bed, reading another newspaper he’d borrowed from one of the Kindred. He put it down as I entered. “Hey there sunshine.”
I smiled. “Hey. You know you look about fifty years old reading that?”
“That’s cool. I heard you like older men.”
“Ew!” I punched him in the arm, and he laughed.
“How go the superpowers?”
“You know me, I’ve saved the world already.”
“We can go home then?”
“Yeah, done and dusted.” I grinned. “Seriously though, I’m heading out tonight. We might have found Skye and Mum.”
Josh smiled, and then frowned. “That’s great news about your family, but they’re actually sending you out there?”
“I want to go.”
“I don’t like it. You’re not a soldier.”
“You don’t have to like it. And you’d be surprised what I’m capable of.”
There was an awkward silence.
I sat down next to him on the bed, and he sat upright. “I don’t want to lose you,” he said, slipping his hand over mine.
I laid my head on his shoulder. “You won’t.”
He gently kissed my neck, just below my ear, sending tingles down my back. I closed my eyes and leaned into him. He kissed me again, and I kissed him back, trying to forget about the danger I was walking into. I was still so confused from Noah, but I didn’t care despite our last conversation. Josh was like a drug, a way to forget all the darkness inside me. I needed him.
He slid his hand around my waist, brushing my skin with his fingers. I realised too late, and he pulled his hand back in shock. “You’re so cold!” He gently lifted my shirt up a bit to look at my stomach.
The black mess was still there, still pulsing, still growing.
“Ari,” he breathed. “What happened to you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“You need to get that looked at! You’re injured.”
“It’s not an injury,” I said.
He froze. “What is it?” he asked quietly.
Josh seeing the mark somehow broke the spell that had stopped me talking so many times before. Facing away from the camera in the corner, I told him—in whispers, so they wouldn’t hear me—about that night in my room with the Shadow and the ice. The chapel stayed a secret, though. I had a feeling it wouldn’t let me speak about it even if I wanted to.
Josh listened intently, his eyes as dark as his voice had been. When I finished, he sat in silence for a while. Finally, he said, “You have to tell them.”
“What?”
“The Kindred,” he explained. “If that’s some sort of tracking signal or a predator’s mark, you might be in more danger tonight than you think. What if the Shadow can smell it, or track it down like a GPS locator? It’s too dangerous. You can’t go out tonight.”
I frowned. “You can’t tell me what to do, Josh.”
“I think I’ve got a right. I’ve been stuck in here for two weeks because of you, and you’ve come to see me what, three times?” As soon as he said it, I knew he wanted to take it back. My face burned, and my eyes narrowed into slits as I stood. He tried to recover. “I didn’t mean that. I wasn’t—”
I slammed the door on the end of his sentence.
TWENTY-FIVE
That evening, we gathered in the Apex. Vicki sat on the ground, leaning against James’s knees. He looked nervous, and I didn’t blame him; I was freaking out myself and trying desperately not to let it show. Hackman was his usual calm, unnerving self, and he maintained his weird smile as he began the briefing.
“We’re heading into the heart of Unseen territory tonight. They are not as centralised as we are—instead, their facilities are scattered across t
he region. Their safe houses are generally smaller and easier to hide, which is why pinpointing the location of one is nothing short of a miracle.
“Tonight, we’re heading to an old farmhouse which has been, for all appearances, abandoned for some time. Three days ago, one of our Sisters in deep cover was on her way to work and drove past the entrance to the property. Fresh tire tracks and a newly broken window suggested squatters, and when she tried to tune, the interference was enormous. That level of interference is only present in large crowds or Unseen facilities due to their awareness training. She saw a woman and child through a window, and they matched the description of Ari’s mother and sister. Our job is to get close to the property and ascertain defensive positions, as well as any entrances. We will also work out the best approach for tomorrow night. The two other units involved will stay back and enter only if conflict occurs. We don’t expect any need for them, but they’re our backup tonight.”
Hackman gave us our entry plan, showing us a map and a few photos of the property. There was a long driveway and several large silos off to one side of the house, across a big dirt clearing. The only cover for our approach would be a set of trees along the driveway, and a few closer to the house. As the farm was derelict, one of the paddocks had waist-high grass, but the rest was barren—ploughed but left unplanted. That happened a lot in our region, especially since the drought. So many farmers had left, trading their work boots for jobs in the city driving trucks and working in supermarkets. The neglect would make it tough for us to get close without being seen. Our best shot would be coming across the paddock of the farm on the opposite side of the road to our target, a big field of corn that would give us cover to the fence line.
We donned grey-green khaki jumpsuits, not the traditional robes the guards wore. These were more practical and would keep us hidden. We didn’t wear the blinker-style masks and hoods worn by the trainers and advanced combat units, either. We needed the widest field of vision possible; after all, this was meant to be a recon mission. In and out.
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