The Burning Shadow

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

  “Only because I can’t be kept or forced to do anything I don’t want to do,” I added. “That goes for you, too.”

  “Never would imagine it didn’t.” He was closer, moving toward me as silently as a ghost.

  Drawing in a shallow breath, I faced Mom. Her face was pale, but beyond that, I couldn’t read anything in her expression. “And I know you don’t want to try to force Luc and me apart, not now and not after everything. You were mad. You guys have a messy history. I get that, and I know you two may never like each other, but I really need you guys to pretend that you do. Just a little.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mom said, clearing her throat. “He might’ve been willing to argue with me, but this was on me. I invited him for lunch, and then I was unnecessarily rude. He obviously has reasons to not trust me or accept any of my actions in good faith. If it were the other way around, I would feel the same as he does.” She drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Luc.”

  Shock splashed through me as my eyes widened, and I wasn’t the only one staring at her like I didn’t understand the words coming out of her mouth.

  “I know you and I are never going to like each other,” Mom continued. “But we need to try to get along. For Evie.”

  Luc was as still as a statue in one of the few museums that had survived the alien invasion. Then he nodded. “For her.”

  * * *

  In my bedroom later that evening, I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the corkboard tacked full of pictures of my friends and me. I didn’t even know when I started looking at them, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

  Luc had left shortly after #grilledcheesegate, which was for the best. Even if they sort of smoothed things over, it was best if they got some space between them. Probably a whole zip code worth of space. I wanted to be hopeful that they could get along, but I also knew that may be expecting too much from both of them.

  I sighed, my gaze crawling over the photos. Some of them were photos of us just chilling or goofing off. Others showed us in Halloween costumes or dressed up in fancy dresses, hair and makeup on point. Me. Heidi. James. Zoe.

  Zoe.

  She’d been the first friend I’d made at Centennial High four years ago. We’d hit it off immediately, both of us having suffered—or at least thinking we had—unimaginable loss after the invasion. Our little party of two quickly expanded to include Heidi and then, eventually, James. The four of us had been thick as thieves, but Zoe had been lying, too. Just like Luc. Just like Mom. Zoe had been ordered to be my friend, to watch over me because Luc couldn’t, and maybe Luc had been right earlier. Maybe she was made to become my friend, but we’d become best friends all on our own. Who knew? I didn’t. And we’d never know.

  My stomach grumbled once more, and I knew it was time to go downstairs, because my stomach felt like it wanted to eat itself. Part of me hoped Mom had holed herself up in her bedroom. I felt terrible for thinking that, but things were always super-uncomfortable after a fight, and I didn’t have the brain space to deal with it. The moment I hit the foyer and heard the TV on, I knew I wasn’t that lucky.

  Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and entered the living room. An episode of Hoarders was playing on the TV, and I shook my head as I continued into the living room.

  She was at the island, a bottle of mustard, loaf of bread, and a packet of deli meat spread out before her. There was even a bag of sour cream and cheddar chips, my favorite. Roast beef. She was making roast beef sandwiches, and it was apparent, based on the fact there was only mustard on the bread, that she’d just started.

  Mom looked up as she picked up the packet of meat. “Hoping you’re hungry.”

  My steps slowed. “How did you know I was coming down? Were you listening for sounds of life outside my bedroom door?”

  “Maybe.” A sheepish look crossed her face. “I was planning to coax you out with this if you didn’t.”

  I stopped to stand behind the barstool that I’d knocked over earlier. “I am hungry.”

  “Perfect.” She motioned at the barstool. “It’ll be ready in a few moments.”

  “Thanks.” I sat down, letting my hands fall to my lap as I watched her drape a slice of roast beef over the bread and then another. I had no idea what to say as the silence stretched out between us. Luckily or unluckily, she knew exactly what to say.

  “If you’re still upset with me, I completely understand,” she said, cutting right to the point in typical Colonel Dasher fashion. Another slice of roast beef went onto the sandwich. “I apologized, but I know I said things today to Luc that I shouldn’t have, and you were right. After everything, you didn’t need that today.”

  I loosely folded my arms in my lap as I looked around the kitchen. “Luc … He did sort of start it. I mean, he didn’t need to bring up the whole pulling-a-gun-on-him thing, and I know you two are probably never going to get along, but—”

  “You need him,” she answered for me, placing the bread on the meat.

  Warmth hit my cheeks. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

  A faint smile tugged at her lips as she looked up at me. “You are as much a part of him as he is a part of you.” Her smile faded as she shook her head. “Luc thinks he knows everything. He doesn’t.”

  Thank God Luc wasn’t here to hear her say that.

  “And he especially thinks he knows why I did what I did when I decided to … help you become Evie, but he doesn’t. He’s not in my head,” she said, and I wondered if she realized that Luc could read thoughts. She had to. “And I know he doesn’t trust me. I can’t blame him for that.”

  “But you stopped my fath— You stopped Jason from trying to shoot him,” I pointed out. “And you weren’t the only one keeping secrets. So was he. It’s not like you’ve given him any other reason to not trust you. The same goes for him.”

  She nodded as she reached for the bag of chips. “You’re right. Maybe we’ll try it again, and next time, we’ll have better results.”

  “Maybe,” I murmured.

  “You don’t sound too certain.”

  “I’m not,” I admitted with a laugh.

  A wry grin appeared as she dumped some chips onto the paper plate, next to the sandwich. “But something you can be certain of is that I am your mother. I may not be her by blood or by certificate, and I may have only been in your life for these last four years, but you are my daughter and I love you. I would do anything to make sure you’re safe and happy, just like any mother out there would.”

  My lower lip trembled as my chest and throat burned. Daughter. Mother. Simple words. Powerful ones. Words I wanted to own.

  “I know you’re mad about how I kept everything from you, and I understand that. I suspect it will take a long time for you to get over that. I don’t blame you. I wish I had been more up front with you about him and who you were. The first time he showed up here, I should’ve told you the truth.”

  “Yeah, you should have, but you didn’t. We can’t change any of that, right? It is what it is.”

  Mom looked away then, smoothing her hand over the front of her shirt. She’d changed out of the blouse and into a pale blue cotton shirt. “I just wish I’d made different choices so that you could have made different ones.”

  I lifted my gaze and looked at her—really saw her. Something about her seemed off. Mom looked at least a decade or so younger than her age, but she seemed paler than normal. Her features were drawn, and there were faint lines around the corners of her eyes and deeper grooves in her forehead that I’d sworn hadn’t been there two weeks before.

  Despite all the lies and all the million things I still didn’t understand, concern blossomed. “Are you okay? You look tired.”

  “I am a little tired.” She reached up, lightly touching her shoulder. “It’s been a while since I tapped into the Source.”

  A tremor coursed through my entire body. She’d used the Source when fighting Micah. “Is that normal?”

  “It can be w
hen you haven’t used the Source in a while, but I’ll be fine.” She smiled then, a faint but real one. “Eat up.”

  Feeling a little bit better about everything and almost normal, I scarfed down the sandwich and chips so fast it was amazing I didn’t choke. Once I was done, I was still hungry. Dumping my paper plate in the garbage, I went to the fridge and stared inside, debating if I wanted to go to the trouble of cutting up the strawberries I spotted and smothering them in sugar or if I wanted something easier.

  “When you’re done cooling yourself off standing in front of the fridge, there’s something I want to show you,” Mom announced.

  I snorted as I grabbed a packet of string cheese. Walking over to the trash can, I pulled off the wrapper and tossed it into the trash. “What?”

  “Follow me.” She turned, and I followed her to the front of the house, to the French doors that led to her office. She opened the doors, and my steps slowed.

  A tiny part of me didn’t want to go into the office.

  I’d found pictures of her in there, the real Evie, hidden away in a photo album. I’d always been told that we didn’t have any old photo albums. That Mom hadn’t had the chance to grab any of them during the invasion. I’d blindly believed in that, but now I knew the truth, and I knew why there could be no photo albums.

  I wouldn’t have been in them. The real Evie would’ve been.

  “You remember the night you called me while I was at work because you thought someone was in the house?” she asked.

  The question caught me off guard. She was talking about the night I’d been here alone and had heard someone downstairs. “Yeah, I’m probably not going to forget that until I’m eighty. You thought I imagined it.”

  “You didn’t.” She turned to her desk. “Someone was in here, and they did take something.”

  I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t get any of the words out. That was probably a good thing, because most of the words building on my tongue were curses. Finally, I found my voice. “You said nothing was taken.”

  “I was wrong. I wasn’t hiding anything from you. I just didn’t realize until this afternoon. I was organizing my office when I discovered it,” she said.

  I had no idea how she could organize her office any more than she normally had. For Pete’s sake, her office was already more organized than a monthly planner.

  Unease surfaced as I stared at her. “What was taken?”

  She reached into the desk drawer and pulled out that damn photo album, placing it down on the desk. She opened it to the blank pages. “When I was in here straightening up, I happened to open up the album. I hadn’t looked through it in a while, but I noticed it then. There were pictures of Jason’s daughter here. Other birthday pictures and a few candid ones.” Her fingers lingered on the blank pages. “Those were taken.”

  Confused, I lifted my gaze to hers as my thoughts whirled. “It had to be Micah. He’d been…”

  “He’d been what?”

  He’d been in this house before, while I’d been sleeping. He’d scratched me—choked me. I’d thought it had been a nightmare until he’d admitted to me what he’d done. A shudder rolled through me. Mom didn’t know about that. Crossing my arms, I stared down at my bare feet. The purple nail polish had begun to chip on my big toe.

  Micah hadn’t admitted to taking the photos, and he also claimed that he hadn’t killed Andy, one of my classmates, or that poor family in the city. He’d owned up to Colleen’s and Amanda’s deaths, and Luc and I had just assumed he’d been lying.

  What if he wasn’t?

  And why would he take pictures of the real Evie? He knew who I was from the beginning. He didn’t need picture proof. Knots twisted up my stomach as I lifted my gaze to hers. “What if it wasn’t Micah? Why would someone take them?”

  The line of her mouth thinned until the upper lip was nearly gone. “I don’t know.”

  2

  “We will not be silenced! We will not live in fear!” April Collins’s voice carried from the front of the school Monday morning, the sound like rusted nails on my nerve endings. “No more Luxen! No more fear!”

  My steps slowed as I squinted against the glare of the sun. April was lifting a bright pink poster, shaking it as the small group of classmates behind her continued to chant, “No more Luxen! No more fear!”

  A teacher was trying to usher April and the others in through the front door, but the young woman wasn’t having much luck. She looked like she needed about two more large cups of coffee to deal with this.

  It was way too early for this nonsense.

  I should’ve stayed home like Mom had wanted, just to avoid seeing April riling up the students. Then again, I would’ve been bored out of my mind, and Mom would’ve stayed home. If I wanted to see my friends and if I wanted to see Luc, like I planned to later, that meant I had to go to school.

  And apparently deal with April.

  Good news was I hadn’t had any more dizzy spells even though I hadn’t gotten a whole lot of sleep the night before. First, I couldn’t stop thinking about the missing pictures even though it had to have been Micah who had taken them, and when I did finally fall asleep, a nightmare had woken me hours later.

  I’d been back in the woods with Micah and Luc … he had been hurt badly and—

  Cutting those thoughts off as a chill swept down my spine, I powered forward. April had taken to protesting outside, at the front entrance in the mornings and the parking lot after school let out, both places where she was bound to be seen by the registered Luxen who attended our school.

  Looking around, I didn’t see Connor or any of the other Luxen, and I hoped that meant they’d made it into the school before April started. Most people were ignoring them. Only a few others stood around, watching. A girl I didn’t recognize, possibly a freshman or sophomore, was yelling back at them, but whatever she was saying was drowned out by April and her group’s chants.

  My fists tightened as I picked up my pace, hurrying down the steps that led into the front of Centennial High. As I neared the group, April spun toward me, her long, blond hair reminding me of a tail as it whipped along with her. She lowered her stupid poster that literally had NO LUXEN written in large block letters with an actual glitter pen.

  Shaking my head, I focused on the RAC drone hovering by the doors, scanning the eyes of the students to ensure that no unregistered Luxen were present. What the creators of the drone didn’t realize was that Luxen and Origins had figured out a way around them with the contacts they wore. Sometimes I wondered how long it would last, the safety the contacts afforded. The government would have to figure it out eventually, but then again, look at how long most of the Luxen had been here without a lot of the branches of the government or the general populace knowing they were here. Decades and decades, if not longer.

  “Hey, Evie!” April called out. “Want to join us?”

  Without even looking at her, I extended my right hand and my middle finger as I kept walking toward the glass doors.

  “That’s not nice.” April fell into step beside me. “You shouldn’t treat friends like that, but I’ll forgive you. Because I’m nice like that.”

  I stopped, facing her. Things were tense between us. April and I had never been all that close, but she was someone I’d once considered a friend even though she’d always been abrasive. “We’re not friends, April. Not anymore.”

  Her brows lifted. “How are we not friends?”

  “Are you serious right now?” I demanded.

  The poster tapped off her thigh. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  “You look like a bigot who’s pulled her hair back a little too tightly,” I snapped, and her cheeks flushed pink. Maybe it was the almost dying thing this weekend, but I had absolutely no filter. “I’ve tried talking to you about the horrible stuff you’re saying and doing, but that was like talking to a brick wall. I don’t know what’s happened to you, April, who didn’t hug you enough as a child, but whatever it is, it’s no excuse
for this crap.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And I don’t know how you can stand there and defend Luxen—”

  “We’ve already had this conversation.” I cut her off before she could bring up my supposed father. “I’m not having it again, April.”

  She gave a small shake of her head and then inhaled deeply through her nose. Determination pinched her features. “They can kill us, Evie. With a snap of their fingers, you and I both could be dead before we took our next breath. They’re dangerous.”

  “They’re wearing Disablers,” I told her even though I knew that only registered Luxen wore them. “And while you’re right, they can be dangerous and they could kill us, so could any person around us. We’re just as dangerous, and yet you don’t see anyone out here protesting us.”

  “Not the same thing,” she argued. “This is our planet—”

  “Oh, come on, we don’t own this planet, April. It’s a freaking planet, with more than enough room for all the aliens in the world. The Luxen here have done nothing to you—”

  “How do you know that? You don’t know what has or hasn’t been done to me,” she fired back, and my brows lifted. I doubted she’d been dragged through the woods recently. “Look, I get we have different opinions, but you don’t have to be rude to me just because we don’t agree on this. You just need to respect how I feel.”

  “Respect how you feel?” I laughed dryly.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. Don’t know what’s so funny about that.”

  “What’s so funny is that you’re wrong, April. This isn’t just about having different opinions and respecting that. I don’t like pizza. You think pizza is great. We can agree to disagree, but this is about right and wrong, and what you’re doing is wrong.” I took a step back from her, having no idea how she couldn’t understand what I was saying. April had always been difficult to deal with and often had opinions that made me want to throat punch her, but this? “I hope you see that someday.”

  April’s chest rose with a deep breath. “You think I’m going to be on the wrong side of history, don’t you? That’s where you’re wrong, Evie.”