Paper Tigers

by Meg Collett

  Her attention snaked to her fallen dagger. Half its blade lay in shadows. Before she could move, I barreled forward and rammed my shoulder into her chest. Together, we tumbled back, close enough to a patch of darkness by the border of the light circle that her body rippled against me, her focus on the shadows near her knife. I lurched sideways and slung her away from the shadows with a twist of my hips. She blinked her vision back into focus, a snarl on her lips. Her hand swiped out, but the strike was sloppy and exposed her side. I ducked in and landed a blow to her ribs with my silver knuckles.

  She was bones. Bones and darkness. And when the breath wheezed out of her, my heart stuttered. It felt like I was striking a wounded animal. She had no weapons, and her weak fists landed against me in useless slaps. She had no clue how to fight.

  I wrapped my arm around her neck and flung her to the ground. Her head lolled to the side, toward her knife. I stepped on her wrist and crouched beside her, the knuckles’ blade against her throat. Only then did she look up at me.

  “You feel no pain,” she whispered, her voice a raw scratch.

  “Not that kind. Who are you? Who sent you?” When she didn’t answer, I pressed my blade tighter against her midnight skin, drawing a swell of blood. “Let the hunters go, or I’ll kill you.”

  “Did he create you too?”

  I frowned. “Who—”

  I heard her before I saw her. I felt her. She was a blistering, blinding surge of light in my peripheral. A comet slamming into Earth would have felt softer than Sunny racing into the shadows between the circular floodlight patches. My head jerked to her, my focus ripped from the girl beneath my blade. Sunny moved on silent feet, her hair streaming behind her, her eyes wide and white-rimmed, her mouth hanging open and practically foaming with bloodlust.

  Sunny. On saliva. The only explanation, my brain told me a second later when the image refused to compute.

  “No—” I started before the world exploded around me, leaving me clenching its tatters.

  The girl beneath me surged into the shadow cast by my body. One minute she was there, the next she simply wasn’t. I hit the ground with an inexplicable thump, my blade digging into the frozen soil and sticking. I had to yank it up as I spun around and stood, ready to slash if Sunny hadn’t been right there in my face.

  For a tiny second—and I would always hate myself for this moment of doubt—I thought she might kill me. Might latch her jaw around my throat and rip my jugular straight from my neck. But she blinked and stilled, searching my face for the moment it took her to recognize me.

  Her face was slack and impassive. Her glasses were gone. A terrifying blankness had replaced the quirks that made her Sunny. Even more than the shadow girl, there was no one home in Sunny’s eyes, and it was so, so much worse than facing down a killer because I knew who’d I’d lost to that empty gaze.

  “Don’t,” I whispered. “Stop.”

  She swerved around me and disappeared into the darkness, ready to kill whatever she found there at whatever cost.

  We were the only two people in the entire university who could fight this girl of shadows and bone. Sunny was fearless, and I couldn’t feel pain. A perfect team from the outside, but murder and violence wasn’t in Sunny’s blood.

  She was the one good thing in this war. She was the bright spot. The best of us.

  If it were up to me, there would be no blood on her hands that she wasn’t ready to accept as justified. And this girl, this creature, might not be justified—even though she’d killed guards and slit Dean’s throat, or tried to. She deserved death, didn’t she? But hadn’t I done worse?

  I darted after Sunny, but I moved with a better purpose. I waited for the thicker, more liquid darkness. I closed my eyes and breathed while Sunny moved like a berserker around me.

  She slammed into the barbed-wire patch with no regard for her body; she tore her flesh from the barbs and shot back into the fray. I tried not to focus on the way the blood was dripping across my best friend’s skin because her crazed methods were herding the girl closer to me.

  Above us, twilight slipped into nighttime and the pools of shadows thickened. I went into the thickest one and waited, one eye tracking Sunny, the other on the surrounding darkness. Ready. Waiting. Breathing. Closing my eyes, I tried to forget my best friend was tearing herself apart just feet away.

  The shadows liquefied. Something rippled across my eyelids, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. The tips of my blonde locks danced in the air. Electricity. Then the smell of lightning. A summer storm brewed up right in front of me. I opened my eyes and saw the edges of her silhouette and the shine of her skin.

  I struck.

  The blunt, silver-encrusted end of my knuckles slammed into her temple before she fully materialized from the darkness. I hit mostly shadows, but the shadows were corporeal enough to gasp. To fumble onto the ground. To falter.

  I pounced on her.

  I kicked her materializing legs out from under her and flipped her into a pool of light. I landed on top of her, knocking the wind out of both of us.

  The girl’s head flopped to the side, and I thought I might have hit her too hard until she stirred. Slowly, she brought her head up, strands of dark hair tangling across her face. She blinked up at me.

  I stared down at bright gray eyes. Not black. Not empty. She stared at me like she’d never seen me before.

  Her eyes were wide and scared and far, far too young.

  Long lashes fluttered, and a tear trembled at the corner of her eye as she took in the blasted-apart wall beside her, the tall rook’s nest, and the chaos behind us.

  Somewhere to the side, Sunny screamed. Banshee-like. Killer-like.

  The girl looked back at me. “Where am I?” she whispered.

  The tear tumbled down her cheek, and I sat back, withdrawing my knife into its silver sheath.

  I wanted to ask her who she was and what had happened to her because I recognized that look in her eye. I’d seen it in mine once, with my eyelashes dripping blood and a shovel clutched in my shaking hands. Something bad had happened—was happening to her, and it went beyond the four walls of this school.

  She was hurting. Someone was hurting her.

  But Sunny hit my back, and we spun heel over head. My father’s silver knuckles slipped off my fingers, and I dropped the whip. Sunny’s grip on me tightened as she howled in my ear. I had nothing to protect myself with against my friend.

  “It’s me!” I screamed. “It’s Ollie!”

  Sunny’s grip on my jaw loosened right before I thought my spine might snap. She released me without pause, without even a glance, and spun back on the girl on the ground behind us.

  From on my back, I whipped my legs out and landed on my feet, balancing on my heels. I leaped at Sunny and clamped my arm around her throat, my left hand grabbing my right wrist, my right forearm a barrier against her throat.

  She stumbled back, gasping.

  “Sunny!” My voice cracked with desperation. “Stop!”

  She flailed against my hold, her eyes locked on the shadow girl. The girl had come to her senses and was scrambling away. I tightened my arm around Sunny’s throat. She was a small girl, but with the saliva in her system, she was a raging hurricane I couldn’t hope to contain.

  “Please stop,” I whispered in Sunny’s ear, tightening my grip ever so.

  Sunny gurgled. Her nails clawed at my arm. Spit flew from her mouth. This wasn’t my best friend. This wasn’t human.

  This was fearlessness incarnate, and it was wrong.

  Sunny would kill that girl on the ground a few feet away, and she would never forgive herself when she came around.

  “Run!” I shouted at the girl.

  The girl stood on trembling legs, and she looked around once more as if she couldn’t remember how to leave or how she’d gotten here. Her gaze skittered across the dead guards, and she shuddered. With a hand clapped across her mouth, she ghosted into the night’s shadows and disappeared.

&
nbsp; The moment she vanished, the air around the university lightened, the shadows thinned, and the hunters’ screams fell silent behind me. But in my arms, Sunny railed against me. Her choked war cry pierced my ears. Angered that I’d given the girl time to escape, Sunny thrashed against me, using her weight to drag me onto the cold, hard ground.

  Even with the girl gone, I couldn’t let Sunny loose; I didn’t know what she would do or who she would do it too. The fearlessness had stolen something from her, and it terrified me.

  “Sunny,” I begged, my feet digging into the ground for purchase against her as we rolled.

  Her head cracked backward, connecting with my mouth. Blood burst from my lip and filled my mouth. I spat it onto the ground as we thrashed.

  “Please stop. Please stop.” My breathing grew ragged, but I stayed on top of her, using my body to pin her down as I kept my arm around her throat. “Don’t do this.”

  The side of her face pressed into the frozen ground. We were cheek to cheek as she fought. Salty wetness slicked the contact between our skin. It tasted like tears. Mine.

  “Ollie!” Hatter shouted.

  I kept my hold on Sunny, not looking back at him. I heard him and the others running over, their boots striking the ground behind us. Hands descended around us and faces came into focus in the darkness. Luke crouched at my side, his face pale and drawn, and Hatter kneeled next to him. They helped me restrain Sunny as I stood.

  Hatter held a syringe in one hand, and with his other, he grasped Sunny’s arm tight, bruising her. She made garbled yelling sounds, but Luke helped Hatter hold her still enough for Hatter to jab the needle into the tender crook of her elbow. Hatter pushed the liquid into the vein, and over her shoulder, I met his eyes.

  He shook his head, a lank piece of red hair falling across his forehead.

  Beneath my arm, I felt Sunny’s breathing level out as she settled down.

  “I’ve got her,” Hatter said, his voice hushed.

  I stepped back as he scooped her into his arms. Her head flopped back, her wide eyes staring up at the night sky. Her mouth hung open in a silent scream. I had to look away.

  The hunters were gathered all around us, their faces shining with sweat and fear. My attention slid past them and landed on Luke.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “A halfling,” I said. The others started murmuring as soon as I’d spoken the word. “She could move through shadows. Listen up!” I commanded before I lost them to their fears of the unknown. How did you protect yourself against a shadow? “Turn on every light in this place. Pull out all the floodlights. I don’t want one ounce of darkness left in any corners. She’s wounded, so I doubt she’ll be back tonight, but I want every able-bodied guard on the fence until morning.”

  Once they’d rushed off to set the school ablaze with light, I focused on Luke and brushed the dirt from my clothes. “We need the students to pull shifts too.”

  “The first-years can’t. Not after the attack.”

  “Let’s keep them inside. The second-years too. But put the thirds, fourths, and fifths on the wall. Get Eve and Haze in charge of the rotation.”

  He nodded, his eyes hooded beneath his lowered brows. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Is Dean alive?” Part of me hoped he wasn’t.

  “He’s down in the medical ward. I don’t know if he made it.”

  I raked my fingers through my ponytail and hoped Luke didn’t spot how my hand shook. “I think that girl knew him. Someone named the Commander sent her here to kill him. If Dean makes it, we’ll need to talk to him as soon as possible.”

  Bit by bit, the students lit the university’s interior lights. The school came to life with a jack-o-lantern smile. Above us, the floodlights brightened and more turned on, bathing the courtyard in light.

  “Did she feed off you? What did it feel like?” I asked.

  Luke’s gaze slid away, the muscle in his jaw working for a while before he said, “It wasn’t a normal feeding. She slipped a finger in my brain and pressed the pain button. I’ve never felt anything like it in my life. She had more control than an aswang. You’re sure she’s a halfling?”

  I considered all the hunters she’d brought down within seconds by only using a fraction of her mind. To control so many bodies while moving through shadows … If she was a halfling, then she was the most powerful one I’d ever met or heard about. But my knowledge on halflings was limited.

  “The only person I can ask is missing.”

  Where are you, Thad?

  F O U R

  Zero

  I collapsed into the shadows and sagged to the floor, blood flowing from wounds and breaths escaping my lungs in shallow pants. “Commander,” I gasped, fumbling for the words to save me.

  Maybe this time he would piece me back together. Stitch up the cuts and kiss my forehead and say everything would be okay. Hold me like he used to in the white place.

  But the Commander was in the freezer with the blond man again. His attention never wavered from the young man’s flesh, which featured a road map of agony. The man’s eyes rolled toward me.

  “You remember me,” he mumbled.

  The Commander turned around, following the young man’s attention to find me slumped on the floor, my hands pressed to my deeper wounds. The Commander frowned. “What in the world happened to you?”

  “There was a girl with him …”

  The blond man’s eyes stretched wide as he soaked in my words like the cracks in the floor soaked in his blood.

  The Commander sighed and set aside his tools. He arranged them on the tray so all the sharp edges lay perfectly parallel to one another. I knew better than to speak before he was done. Creating perfection in chaos soothed the Commander; things would go better for me if I waited. But the blond man didn’t know, and he only looked at me, his jaw clenching and releasing in a rhythm that made the muscles in his face twitch.

  “You remember,” he repeated. “You have to. I can help—”

  The back of the Commander’s hand cracked across the man’s cheek. I cringed at the impact, and a cascade of shivers rolled over my body in uncontrollable spasms. The man’s eyes were still on me as if he could pull memories from my skin. I had no clue what he was talking about. I looked up at the Commander.

  “I take it,” the Commander drawled, returning to his tools and their alignment, “that your task didn’t go as planned.”

  I swallowed the thick lump of fear in my throat. “There were more guards—”

  “Excuses!” the Commander bellowed.

  The room’s walls trembled under the impact of his voice.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” he said, abandoning his tools and rounding on me. The wait was over. He’d find no perfection today. “Tell me more excuses. Let me hear them all.”

  “I failed.” The words were as painful as the brightest sun on my skin. The words were all the brightest places in the world and none of the safe, comforting shadows. They killed me to say. Killing Dean Bogrov had been a dream of mine since I was tiny and shoved into a cage. It had kept me alive more times than I could remember. When all I wanted to do was fade into the darkness forever, the dream of vengeance had saved me. And I’d failed.

  I’d failed.

  “Why? Why did you fail, Zero?”

  The blond man’s attention snapped to me at the mention of my name. “Listen,” he said, talking fast. I mentally pleaded with him to shut up. “We don’t have to be here. I—”

  “Silence!” The Commander reached for a sharp knife to punish the man.

  “The girl,” I said to draw his attention back to me. “She felt no pain.”

  “No.” The man was trembling. “Stop.”

  I gritted my teeth and kept my focus on the Commander, who was paying complete attention to me, his tools forgotten. “I couldn’t touch her mind.”

  The Commander tilted his head. “At all?”

  “No, and there was one more. She felt no fe
ar. The other girl pulled her off me.” Saved me, I mentally added. Let me get away. But I kept that from the Commander. He did not believe in mercy, especially from Fear University hunters.

  “A girl who can feel no pain and another who feels no fear. At the university. More of Bogrov’s creations, perhaps?”

  I nodded jerkily, but the Commander’s thoughts were far away from this room.

  While he was distracted, the blond man met my eyes and carefully shook his head. He pursed his cracked lips and silently shushed me. I looked away.

  “He must have perfected the fear switch.”

  My skin prickled at the name.

  The Commander spoke again, mostly to himself. “And the pain? Has he found a switch for the pain?”

  The Commander walked to the door, passing me on the floor, and opened it. A warm rush of air flowed into the chilled room, making me shiver. Before he left, he glanced back at me, suddenly remembering me. He jutted his chin toward the man. “Get more information out of him about these girls. Don’t stop until you know it all, even if it kills him.”

  He hit the light switch beside the door, flooding the room in blinding light from the four fluorescent lamps clamped into the corners of the room. I hadn’t seen them until now. The door slammed shut, and rusted metal scraped into place with a resounding thump. He’d locked me inside and taken every sliver of darkness from the freezer, sensing I might try hiding.

  Now, as I hurt the man, he would have to stare at my face.

  “Zero, listen,” he said, anticipating what was about to happen. “We can figure this out.”

  “You shouldn’t talk when he’s here.”

  “Who is he? Why are you so afraid of him?”

  I pressed my palms into the biting cold floor and pushed onto my heels. My body moved with aching slowness as I stood. Without the shadows, I had to move the normal way. The way that hurt. It was a small torture the Commander had left me with, but a purposeful one. He’d known the small detail of taking the darkness away would deal me pain. He knew everything.

  “Zero.”

  “You shouldn’t be begging already.” I lifted my eyes to his. Even with their exhausted, bloodshot quality, his eyes were the color of muted sea glass, like they might change colors in the light. Don’t look at him. You don’t have to look at him. “Who are the girls?”