The Burning Shadow (Origin Series)

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “To meet up with Zoe to grab supplies,” Luc answered, turning me around. “He’ll be back. Both of them.”

  Would they?

  “Yes,” Luc answered, picking up on my thoughts as he led me across a gravel driveway and then into a small yard.

  Grayson was up ahead, unlocking and opening a door. We followed in silence, entering a small kitchen that smelled like spiced apples. They moved ahead. A lamp came on, casting buttery light over well-worn furniture sporadically placed throughout the closed-in room.

  Grayson went to the window, stopping to stand with his back to us. He was as still as a statue, almost as if he were a part of the room, a piece of furniture.

  “Why don’t you sit?” Luc offered.

  For once, I didn’t argue. I sat and then realized how weak my legs felt. I looked down at my hands. Covered with blood. Again.

  Mom’s blood.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Where are we?”

  “We’re in a safe house for the time being.”

  “A safe house…” Opening my eyes, I let my gaze sweep the room again. My brain was full of fuzzies, like it had rubbed up against a towel. “What are Kent and Zoe getting?”

  Grayson sighed so heavily it could’ve rattled the walls, and then he finally faced us. “Hopefully some really strong alcohol.”

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see a drunk Grayson.

  My gaze snagged on a framed photo on the end table next to me. Reaching over, I picked it up. It was a picture of a family—a mom and dad, and two little kids smiling with their cherub faces.

  Safe house? Or did we just break into someone’s home?

  “I need to know what, if anything, Sylvia said to you.” Luc sat in front of me on the edge of a scratched, wooden coffee table. “Can you tell me?”

  The back of my throat burned, but I nodded. “I waited up for you to get back. I was worried and all, but I ended up falling asleep. The next thing I knew, she was there, shaking me awake. It was a little after two.”

  “So, probably not even thirty minutes before we got there,” Grayson stated.

  “Then what?” Luc rubbed the heel of his palm against his chest.

  I stared up him, breath catching. “She told me that we needed to go, that they were coming, and that she was sorry. That things had gotten out of hand.”

  His gaze collided with mine, and then he knelt so we were eye level. “Did she say what had gotten out of hand?”

  I shook my head. “No, but she said that this has been the plan all along. She was kind of rambling. I’ve never seen her like that. She was scared.” I noticed that Grayson had turned to us. “She said that they let this happen, but they lost control. She never said who ‘they’ were, and I told her I…”

  I saw my hands again. They were more rust-colored than pink. So much blood. The next breath I took got stuck as I lowered my hands to my lap. Luc’s gaze followed my movements. I was vaguely aware of him standing and walking away, leaving me in the room with Grayson.

  Which was like being left alone.

  Grayson was back to staring out the window again, and he looked calm at the moment, laid-back, but tension poured from him. Air sawed in and out of my lungs. I half expected the family that owned this house to walk in any minute and freak out. They’d call the cops, and then Grayson would turn into an alien lightbulb and people would get hurt again.

  People would die.

  More people would die tonight.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, squeezed them until I started to see white flecks of light. Maybe this was some kind of nightmare.

  I was still in bed, and I was going to wake up. Life would be the new normal. Mom would be downstairs, getting ready for work in her goofy slippers, and I would ask about the serum and the Cassio Wave, and she would have a logical explanation for it. She always did.

  But this wasn’t a nightmare, and it was foolish to even entertain the thought, because reality was coming fast, in the amount of time it took to pull a trigger on an unseen gun.

  There would be no waking up from this.

  This was life.

  It was happening.

  Too many thoughts were racing, all of them competing for attention. Slowly, I opened my eyes. The room blurred a little as Mom’s words came back to me.

  She’d apologized to me.

  The last thing she ever said to me was that she was sorry. My chest constricted.

  I tried to empty my head, because I needed to prove that what Luc had said earlier was right. I was strong. I was brave. I would deal. But a horrible thought occurred to me, stealing my breath. Was Mom still lying on the bedroom floor? Had anyone found her? I had no idea how much time had passed. Or did no one know, no one care yet?

  I shut down.

  Right there.

  Right then.

  It was like a cord connected to my emotions had been snipped in two. My shoulders slumped, and the breath parting my lips was empty.

  “Here.”

  Dumbly, I looked up. Luc had returned, and he held a damp washcloth.

  A muscle thrummed along his jaw, and then he sat down on the edge of a coffee table. He was directly in front of me, close enough that our knees touched.

  “We’ve got to stop doing this,” I said, motioning to the towel. “It’s becoming a habit.”

  He arched a brow.

  I don’t know why I said what I did next. The words just blurted out of me. “I should’ve listened to her. She told me to get up and get dressed, but I took too long. I asked too many questions. Maybe if I hadn’t, we would’ve gotten out of the house before—”

  “I don’t think so, Peaches.” The cloth dangled from his fingers. “I think if you hadn’t stalled, they would’ve captured you outside, before we could get to you.”

  “Before she…” I took a deep, slow breath to ease the suffocating weight in my chest and throat. “She said she tried, but he was coming for me. She didn’t get to say who it was.”

  Luc took my hand, folding the warm cloth over my fingers as he lifted his gaze to mine. “No one is going to take you. No one, Evie.”

  I believed him.

  I did.

  “You said she called you. I think she was talking about you,” I said, and that made sense, that she was trying to assure me. “I can do it myself—clean my hands.”

  Several long moments passed as we stared at each other.

  “I know you can, but I need to do this.”

  Letting out a shaky breath, I nodded. Brief silence fell between us. “Luc?”

  Those thick lashes lifted as his hand stilled over mine.

  “I told her I didn’t trust her,” I whispered. “When she asked for me to just trust her, I said I didn’t.”

  He leaned in, getting eye level with me again. “Don’t do this to yourself.” His voice was just as low as mine.

  “I said to her…” My gaze strayed from his face, back to my hands. My hands were clean, spotless except for under my fingernails. I swallowed the knot in my throat, but it got stuck. “I told her she took my life from me.”

  His forehead came to rest against mine. “Evie—”

  “And she said she was trying to give me back my life. That’s what she said before she was shot.”

  The towel disappeared in a flicker of Source and ash, then he was moving and pulling me toward him, and we ended up tangled together on the couch. The strange, curt distance in the SUV was no longer there. He held me, and I held him, because we’d both lost tonight.

  We’d lost a lot.

  Some time passed before Grayson spoke. “She said things were getting out of hand? At Fort Detrick?”

  “She didn’t say that, but I know she’d just come from work,” I said, and Grayson turned from the window. “She said things were going to start happening and that they would happen fast. I don’t know if she was talking about the people who came to the house or something else.”

  Rubbing my hands over my thighs, I tried to remember her words more clear
ly, but the panic and confusion of those moments made it hard. “She’d packed a bag with this fake ID and money—” I realized it was still in the SUV. “She had a lot of money. Thousands, probably.”

  “She was prepared,” Luc said, sliding his arm away from my waist. “Unless she normally has thousands lying around, she was prepared.”

  “Which means she knew this could happen,” I whispered. “This whole time…”

  Luc looked away for a moment, and then his eyes found mine. “I’m sorry, Evie, for what happened to her, for what you had to witness.”

  Now I was the one who couldn’t look at him. I dipped my chin, weary. “Thank you,” I whispered, clearing my throat. “Do you know why they killed her? Like, they had to know she was unregistered. She worked for them.”

  “Seems to me that she was trying to get you out. She knew they were coming, and she wasn’t going to let them take you.” Sliding his hands over his face, he shook his head. “Which leaves us with a hell of a lot of questions.”

  I sucked in a shaky breath. “She knew what happened to me at school—with April and the Cassio Wave—but if she was in on whatever was given to me, then why would she try to stop them from taking me?”

  “There’s no way she didn’t know what was given to you,” Luc said, his gaze sweeping over my face. “She’s the one who administered the serum.”

  “That doesn’t mean she knew exactly what was in it,” I reasoned desperately.

  A muscle flexed in Luc’s jaw as he focused on the scratches along the surface of the coffee table.

  “Either way, she was trying to get you out of there before they got there,” Grayson said. “They must have known that.”

  “And the Daedalus would see that as a betrayal,” Luc added. “It wouldn’t matter what she did for them in the past or the present; they would see her as a traitor, and they do not tolerate those they see as an enemy.”

  I closed my eyes. Could it be that she knew what was given to me, had gone along with it, but then had a change of heart? And if that were the case, did it make what she did any less horrible? If she knew at any point what was done to me, did that make her death any less hard to process?

  No.

  It didn’t.

  I pressed my palms into my eyes. “I tried to … I don’t know, summon whatever happened to me earlier with April. I wanted to fight back, but I didn’t feel any different. Not like I did when I went after April.”

  “Maybe that was a one-time-only thing,” Grayson suggested.

  “Or maybe you just don’t know how to use … whatever is in you,” Luc said, and when I lowered my hands, he’d stood. I hadn’t even heard him move.

  I lowered my gaze. “I can’t believe she called you.”

  Luc faced me. “Because she hated me?”

  The breath I took got stuck. “I don’t think she hated you.”

  “She didn’t like me. It’s okay.” A wry grin appeared. “When she pulled a shotgun on me, it was a good indication of where we stood with each other.”

  “She pulled a shotgun on you?” Grayson demanded.

  “Yes.”

  The Luxen laughed. “Wow. I wish I could’ve met her.”

  I stared at him and then shook my head. “After the whole grilled cheese—” My voice cracked. “I think she was trying to trust you.”

  “She had no reason not to trust me,” he said, and I recoiled at the truth in that and what it meant. We had no reason to trust her. “Sylvia knew if you were in danger, I would come. No matter how we felt about each other, she knew that.”

  * * *

  Minutes ticked by as we waited for Zoe and Kent to return, and each minute felt like an hour in that living room. Grayson had returned to staring out the window, and he didn’t speak. Neither did Luc.

  But at some point, Luc returned to where I sat on the couch, and he was quiet as he pulled me over into his lap and folded his arms around me. There were no words as he guided my cheek to his chest and rested his chin on top of my head.

  All that he could offer me in these moments were the same things I could offer him. To be there. Comfort. Closeness. It didn’t change anything that happened, didn’t lessen the raw grief or the confusion or anger coursing through my veins like battery acid, but it helped. I wasn’t alone. Neither was he.

  A tremor coursed through me, rolling from my fingertips to my toes. My throat seemed to shrink. Keep it together. I repeated that over and over until I felt like I could breathe again. I needed to prioritize and focus. Things had to be done.

  The breath I took felt as frail as glass. “We have to call someone to take care of Mom.” I lifted my cheek. “I can’t just leave her there. We have to call someone.”

  “Okay.” Grayson’s hands were on his hips. “This is probably a rhetorical question, but are you an idiot?”

  “Careful,” Luc warned, his gaze narrowing on the Luxen. “I am not in the mood to explain how unwise it would be for you to irritate me right now.”

  Grayson’s nostrils flared.

  “I’m not an idiot.” I twisted toward him. “I cannot leave my mother just lying there. I know it sounds insane, but you don’t understand. She was—”

  “You think I don’t understand what it’s like to leave the bodies of my loved ones behind to rot?” A whitish glow surrounded Grayson, and I sucked in a breath. “That you’re the only one to have ever had to live knowing that you could do nothing to give your family the barest of respects? Hate to break it to you, but you’re not the first or the last to go through that.”

  “That’s enough.” Within a second, I was dumped on the couch, and Luc was in front of me. “You know firsthand what it is like to watch the light go out. She just went through that.”

  I couldn’t see Grayson, but I knew he turned from Luc, because he was by the window again, and I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t know.”

  Silence greeted me.

  Straightening out my hands, I pressed the tips of my fingers into my knees. I was going to have to leave her there. No one who loved her to take care of her. No funeral. Nothing. That was a lot to deal with. Even for me.

  “It is.” Luc was by my side again. “But think of it this way. Sylvia wanted you safe. She wouldn’t want you to do anything to jeopardize that.”

  Before I could respond, Luc turned, eyeing the back of the house. Grayson stepped forward. I tensed as I heard a door close and relaxed when I saw it was Zoe and Kent.

  “How are you feeling?” She immediately came to where I sat while Kent went to Luc, speaking to him in a voice that was too low for me to hear. Concern filled her expression as she placed her hands on my shoulders. “Evie?”

  I could feel it, this crumbling inside me. I caught it in time, putting all those pieces back together. “I’m okay.”

  She didn’t look like she believed that at all.

  “Are you?” I asked. “Were you hurt when they showed up at the club?”

  Zoe shook her head. “No. I’m okay. I got out, but…”

  “Have you seen Heidi? Emery? They’re okay?”

  “Yes. They are. Heidi’s scared, but she’s okay.” She glanced over at Grayson, who had returned to staring out the window like a dog waiting on the mailman. “I went into your bedroom…”

  Air lodged in my throat.

  “I am so sorry, Evie. If we had gotten there quicker…”

  If they had gotten there sooner, would anything have changed? I didn’t know. I would never know.

  “Where are we going now?” I asked, looking around the room. Kent sat on the arm of the couch.

  “We’re going to Zone 3,” Zoe answered, and honestly, if she’d said we were going to the moon, I wouldn’t have been more surprised.

  A dry laugh escaped me. “What?”

  “We’re going to Houston.” Luc stepped forward. “That is the safest place I know. There are people there that can help us figure out what has happened.”

  Confusion took hold. “Zon
e 3 is nothing. It’s a wasteland,” I said. Houston was one of the cities absolutely destroyed by the nonnuclear pulse bombs. They were evacuated and walled up. “Why in the hell would we be going there?”

  “You have no idea what is beyond the walls, in those cities.” Luc tilted his head. “It’s where we take the unregistered Luxen. Well, one of the places. It’s also where Daemon and Dawson live.”

  I didn’t understand. “How? They said—”

  The entire front room window exploded, sending glass shards flying. Zoe yelped as she was knocked backward.

  Blinding terror roared through me as I shot forward. “Zoe!”

  Out of nowhere, an arm snagged me around the waist and hauled me back against a hard chest. Luc. I hadn’t even seen him move.

  I strained, gripping his arm. “Let me go! Zoe’s been—”

  “She’s okay,” he said, holding me tightly to him. “Look, she’s okay.”

  I was looking, but it took me long seconds for everything to visually make sense. Zoe was crouched down. Grayson was holding something in his hand. She was peering over the coffee table, rubbing her shoulder.

  “A rock,” Grayson said, sounding bewildered. “A rock?”

  Kent was on his belly, on the floor. His gaze darted from Grayson to us. “I’m so confused.”

  “That stung,” Zoe said, and my legs almost gave out.

  “Well…” Luc’s arm was like a steel band around my waist. His thumb moved along the side of my rib in a slow, calming circle. “That’s unexpected.”

  I was still gripping his arm. “You think?”

  Grayson stood slowly, and then he was nothing more than a blur. He ended up at the front door, most of his body hidden as he peered out the small window. “I don’t see any— Oh, shit!” He slipped into his Luxen form, becoming a human-shaped lightbulb at the exact moment the door exploded off its hinges.

  Luc cursed as he grabbed me, pressing me down to the floor. A second later, another blast rocked the house—the entire house. A burst of heated air slammed into us. I felt my feet leave the floor as a scream got stuck in my throat. Walls shook. Dust plumed into the air. Windows blew out, and I could no longer feel Luc behind me.