Night Whispers: ShadowLands, Book 1

by Alisha Rai

  And some were meant to be the wizards behind the curtain, watching them and gathering information. It didn’t mean he wasn’t useful.

  Quit your defensiveness.

  “Rider, I want to speak with you about the militiamen.”

  Marc widened his eyes and turned to look at the doctor. “Why, Dr. Gupta. I’d love to. But I’m late for something. Would you care to join me?”

  Hema shrugged. “Fine, fine. But let’s make this fast.”

  Marc turned and mouthed to him, Told you so.

  James gave them both a quick smile. “I’m off. I’ll catch you later.”

  As he strode out, his hand dropped to his belt. Should he call Jules now? Maybe tomorrow morning, first thing, would be better. By then, he might be able to formulate a solid argument as to why she should stop chasing rumors and return home. Besides, he hated to wake her if she was already asleep. She slept lightly and only managed a few hours every night.

  You’re thinking like a man about a woman, not an impartial handler about their agent.

  Screw it. He touched his hand briefly to the monitoring device as he walked to the lab. She was his agent.

  And his woman.

  Chapter Three

  Jules woke up with a start, a heavy weight pressing down on her chest. She concentrated on her breathing. This wasn’t the first time she had woken up like this, nor would it be her last.

  During the first couple of months working with James, she’d been flush with her new mission in life and the nightmares had receded. Funny how giving someone a title, a boss and some toys could boost one’s sense of security.

  Lately, the bad dreams had come back with a vengeance. She shuddered and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling. She didn’t like to sleep in her van, unless she could find a good hiding spot for it. It was a nice-sized traveling fortress, great for hauling people she found or the supplies she needed, but it was no stronger than any other van.

  Finding a safe place in some abandoned building was sometimes even more difficult, particularly in areas with large populations of Shadows. The creatures were mobile during the night, which meant they could also stumble upon her playing Goldilocks in someone’s bed. In her experience, the Shadows instinctively sought shelter, either to escape the sun they knew was coming or to drag the carcass of some poor animal to pick clean.

  Attics were her preferred choice to sleep in because odds were, even if a Shadow broke in, they weren’t likely to come running upstairs to a hidden attic. Yes, their olfactory senses were heightened, but they wouldn’t be able to smell her from so far away. She shifted on the convenient air mattress she carried with her, which had been rigged to inflate and deflate in thirty seconds.

  “Jules? Are you well?”

  James’s sleep-roughened voice caused an unfamiliar but not unwelcome jolt through her system. She didn’t know why she was surprised. He always reached out to her after a nightmare. No doubt her vitals went off the charts.

  He didn’t pester for details, which she was grateful for. Usually he talked to her about lighthearted matters, like what he had done during the day, until she was tired enough to be sleepy again. More than once, she’d fallen asleep with his breathing in her ear.

  “I’m fine.” God, did that teeny voice belong to her?

  “You had a bad dream?”

  His first question, probably to make sure she wasn’t being attacked in the middle of the night. “Yes.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Always his next question, measured and nonthreatening. “Nah. No need.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll tell you what I was dreaming about.” There was a smile in his voice, and it skated across her spine, smoothing away the depression from her dream.

  “Oh really?”

  “Mmmhmm. It was a good one too.” The playful coaxing in his voice was a relatively new addition to their nighttime script.

  “Sorry to wake you up, then.”

  He gave a muffled yawn. “Waking up to you is never a hardship.”

  “I bet you say that to all your agents.”

  “Nah. Just you.”

  A flirtatious sally, a polite reassurance to a colleague or something more? It was all so…so damned ambiguous. Sometimes she spoke with him and she could forget that he had a bunker full of friends, that she wasn’t the main person in his life the way he was in hers. During the day, when she was scouting or walking down the street with him teasing her, she could ride that high, could almost pretend he was her secret boyfriend or whatever. But at night, when her defenses were lowered, reality pressed upon her, staring her in the face with the unalterable fact that she was in love with a man who was probably just doing his job. “I’m sure you’d rather be sleeping.”

  If her voice was overly sharp, he ignored it. “I’d always rather be talking to you.”

  She wanted to scream at him to stop. Stop…being nice to her. Stop making her wish they weren’t across the country from each other. “So is your team still on track to meet around noon?” When in doubt, go back to business.

  “Ah. Yes. I was going to let you sleep tonight, but there is no mission tomorrow.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  “Some of the soldiers coming out there got ill, so we have to postpone things.”

  A part of her, the part that was darn tired of the adrenaline rush of entering new, unexplored places, was relieved.

  But the part that recalled her duty to Erik was more than a little dismayed. “So I’m supposed to…what? Turn around and drive right back to California?” After coming all this way? After risking her life traversing into uncharted territory?

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “I thought it was important to check out what happened at the Mountain.”

  “It is. But we’ve waited this long, we can wait to get another team together.”

  “I could go alon—”

  “No. No, you cannot go alone. You will turn around and go back home.” His tone brooked no nonsense.

  Sharp disappointment lanced through her. “I have to find out what happened to Erik.”

  “Look, I understand and appreciate your sense of loyalty. But let’s think about this rationally, will you? You can’t walk into a place where the threat level is unknown solely because a dying man muttered a name. I know you can’t stand the idea of giving up on someone—”

  “Stop it!” Filled with restless energy, she sat up and looped her arms around her knees. “Stop talking about me like I’m some amazing person. I’m not.”

  “Jules—”

  “I was a drug addict.”

  She waited, chest tight, for him to respond with shock or surprise or disdain. Any of those would have shut her up. But all that came was his quiet, “Is that right?”

  “That’s right.” The words tumbled over each other in the darkness, eager to get out and prove to him that he was so utterly wrong about her. She wasn’t worth even a shred of his admiration. “My mother was too. Hell, I have no idea who my father was, but he probably was a junkie too. I started smoking her weed when I was eleven. Shot up heroin for the first time when I was thirteen. By that time I was already running with a gang. All I can say in my favor was that I didn’t deal, but that was only because my specialty was carving up our rivals. Getting in stupid street fights over meaningless territory lines. I try to tell myself I wasn’t an assassin, that I always left them alive, but—” She stopped and swallowed, but it needed to be said. For her sins, she deserved to confess them. “Who knows. I was out of control and desperate for the other girls to keep me around.”

  “I’m sorry that you had to go through any of that.”

  He sounded sincere. She closed her eyes and lay back on the bed, suddenly tired. “Yeah. Still think I’m such a superwoman?”

  “No.”

  Well. That was what she had wanted. She would not get emo over the loss of his respect. And hell, that had just been a bare-bone
s summary of her life. How would he feel if she got into real detail?

  So why did she feel like she had lost something incredibly precious? She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “I told you.”

  “I never thought you were Superwoman, because Superwoman is a fictional creature who was, sadly, never fully fleshed out and stood in Superman’s shadow for most of her existence. You? I think you’re an awesome woman who overcame the crap hand dealt to her.”

  Kill that germ of hope in your heart. He wasn’t serious. “Did you even listen to me? Do you need me to give you a debriefing of all the bad shit I’ve done in my life?”

  “No.” He paused. “Do you need me to give you a debriefing of all the good shit you’ve done? Mind you, I can only go back to when I met you, but I heard some stories of the rescue missions you were practically leading since Erik disappeared…”

  Her teeth came together. “The good can’t cancel out the bad.” No matter how much she wished it could. If she could get rid of the fact that she’d been an utter waste of a human being for the first twenty years or so of her life, she’d be incredibly happy.

  “Maybe not. But the bad also doesn’t cancel out the good.”

  She shook her head, ready to give up. Happy to give up, if she was being honest with herself. So what if he wanted to keep his rose-covered glasses on when he was around her? She shut her eyes, though she knew she wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon. She rarely did after one of her dreams. “Fine. Whatever.”

  “Is that what you dream about? Things that you were forced to do in your past?”

  He was like a pit bull sometimes. A very gentle, persistent pit bull. “I was never forced to do anything. And I don’t remember much about my dreams when I wake up.”

  As always, he knew when she was lying. “Are they about Shadows?”

  Not exactly. She could sharply tell him to back off. He probably would, but then he’d also probably leave her.

  She wasn’t ready to be left alone. She’d already opened one vein tonight, why not a few more? Let him see all the ugliness inside of her. Even if he never flirted with her again, at least he’d stay with her tonight.

  “I’m alone. In the dream. That’s all it is.”

  “That’s the whole nightmare? That you’re alone?”

  “Isn’t that bad enough?”

  “There’s nothing worse than being alone.”

  The sincerity in his voice told her he wasn’t humoring her, that he knew firsthand. “Sing it, sista.”

  “When does the dream take place?”

  “About a month or so after the Illness spread and the chaos started.”

  “That’s very specific. A scary time for everyone.”

  That was around when part of Raven blew up, if Jules recalled correctly. “Yeah. Scary for me because I’d used up my last stash and had no idea how to go about getting more.” Contempt thickened her voice. “I’m alone, in the attic of some stranger’s house. Before the TV went dead, I remembered that they’d said that was the best place to hide from the Shadows. I’m aware for the first time in years of my surroundings. All I can hear are people dying and bombs and guns and the Shadows scraping around downstairs. I have food, I have water, which I had stockpiled in a moment of sobriety, and instead of staying put, I go wandering out in the middle of the night for a fix to cure my damn withdrawal shakes.”

  She fell silent, and he prompted her. “What happens next?”

  “I die. In the street.”

  “Alone.”

  “Yeah. That’s usually when I wake up, after I get bitten or shot or knifed—it’s different every time.”

  “But that’s not what really happened,” he said gently.

  “It is, up to a point. I didn’t die, obviously, but that’s only because an Iranian ex-soldier found me slumped in a gutter. He picked me up, cleaned me off and took us both to a safe place he’d heard rumors about.”

  James sighed. “Jafari.”

  Years after his disappearance and hearing his name still cut like a knife into her heart. She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “He could have left me behind, and he didn’t. I tried to convince myself that it was enough that I keep my ears open for news about him, that I keep my eyes open back home, but if there’s any possibility he’s anywhere, I have to check it out. Do you get it now?” She didn’t know if she could verbalize all that Erik had been to her in the short period of time she’d known him. He’d been her savior, her brother, her father. Until she’d met him, she’d never known a person who was so intrinsically good, who believed she had any kind of potential as a human being.

  “Yes. Damn it, but I do.” Frustration rang in his words. “I wish I didn’t. But I can empathize with wanting to do anything for the ones you love.”

  Who is it that you love? He was probably speaking of his family.

  “I didn’t love him, not like that,” she felt compelled to explain. “It was more of a familial thing. Neither one of us had anyone.” But for a brief period of time, they’d had each other.

  “Then don’t you think he wouldn’t want you to wander into a potentially dangerous situation for his sake?”

  She opened her mouth but closed it again. “Well played, Bennett.”

  “Please, Jules. I promise you, next time I will get you back out here. If, at that time, Sanctuary can spare a few soldiers, maybe we can even get someone to accompany you out. I won’t cut you out of this.”

  Intellectually, she knew that was a better tactic to take. It was her heart that ached at the thought of returning to her lonely life with nothing to show for the risk she’d taken. For a moment there she’d actually believed her world might change. It had been a heady thought.

  She probably wouldn’t have found Erik there, she consoled herself. Seeing her reasoning through James’s eyes made her realize how crazy it had been to drop everything because she’d heard what a dying man had said secondhand. Tim hadn’t even confessed that Erik had gone to Cheyenne Mountain. For all she knew, his dying brain had been stringing words together.

  Though if there was any place Erik would go and not tell you for fear you would follow him into a dangerous situation, it would be here.

  Regardless, there were too many unanswered questions, and James was ultimately right. She needed to think with her head. “You promise you’ll let me tag along next time? And that it’ll be soon?”

  “Promise. As soon as we can get a large enough troop together again.”

  Jules closed her eyes. “Fine. I’ll head back tomorrow.”

  His breath rushed out. “Thank God. I thought it would take a lot longer than that to change your mind.”

  “I’m not completely unreasonable. Might be stupid sometimes, but I’m ultimately decent at looking out for myself.”

  “You’re not stupid. Not in the slightest.”

  Her smile was without humor. “Yeah, okay.”

  “You aren’t.” The certainty in his voice nearly convinced her.

  “Please. I’d almost rather go running into certain danger than head home because I’d be less lonely. If that doesn’t make me stupid, what does it make me?” She regretted the bleating, overly introspective words as soon as she uttered them.

  “Human. We’re social creatures, Jules.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, forget I said anything.”

  “You know I’m always here. You don’t have to be lonely.”

  So selfish: it wasn’t enough that he was on call around the clock for her, accessible at the touch of a button. She wanted to be able to reach out and tap him on the back whenever she needed him. Grab his arm. Run her fingers over his lips—

  You need to stop those fantasies, kiddo. If there had been a hope in hell that he’d fall for her the way she had for him, she’d made it even slimmer tonight with all her bleating. “I know.”

  “I didn’t know you were so unhappy.”

  “I’m not.” Why would she be unhappy? She had food in her belly and a really fulfilling
job. To be unhappy would be monumentally ungrateful. It wasn’t like she deserved anything more than what she had.

  “Tell me what would make you happy.”

  You. Someone of my own. “I am happy.”

  “I’m not.”

  She blinked.

  “I should be,” he continued huskily. “But I’m not.”

  “Why not?” He had everything. Family. Friends. Sure, they lived in a bunker, but at least he lived with them.

  “For the same reason I guess anyone’s unhappy. Something’s missing.”

  She drew her knees up to her chest. “Do you know what’s missing for you?”

  He paused. “Yes.”

  “What is it? Can’t you fix it?”

  “Sometimes it’s easier to know what’s causing the void than to go about fixing it.”

  He was absolutely right—those were two entirely different beasts.

  She could, of course, tell him. Go past their constant flirtation and make it clear that somewhere along the line she’d developed feelings for her long-distance colleague.

  Like a movie, she could see a split screen in her head of the two scenarios that would result: A) he would fall to her feet in worship or B) he would rebuff her. Gently, because that was his style. She wouldn’t lose him because he had no choice but to interact with her, but she’d lose this—these late-night conversations, the thrill of flirtation, his friendship.

  The risk of B was too great to conquer the reward of A.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” she murmured. It was still dark outside, and her internal clock told her there were hours to go before travel was safe. She lay back in her bed, unsure of what else to say to her handler.

  She should hang up with him. But it felt nice to talk to him like this, in the dark, when the world was so quiet and uncertain all around her. A chill ran through her, and she wished she had a blanket. She’d been tempted to grab a comforter from one of the rooms in the house she’d broken into. They’d felt like silk and hadn’t been too dusty. Since the owners of them had probably died or been turned, Jules felt skeevy about using the belongings she found in her temporary abodes, though occasionally needs won out.