The Burning Shadow

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

  The chest, covered in a dark button-down shirt, scattered. His entire body broke apart in a puff of inky-black smoke that rose several feet off the ground. Thick tendrils of midnight mist pulsed as the thing drew back several feet.

  Pure terror exploded in my stomach as my mouth opened but no sound came out. I stared up at the creature.

  Oh my God, I knew what this was. Emery and Kent had described this to me before.

  An Arum stood in front of me.

  They were archenemies of the Luxen, another alien race that had battled Luxen for eons before both of their planets were destroyed in their war, forcing them to seek shelter on Earth. They were just as deadly as Luxen could be, but for very different reasons.

  I’d never seen one, but I knew this was what I was staring up at, and that meant I needed to get the hell out of here.

  The shadowy mass pieced back together, rapidly taking the shape and form of a man. For the briefest second, he was nothing but sleek obsidian, an opaque darkness, and then he looked like a man once more.

  He took a step, lips peeling back to reveal straight, oddly sharp-looking teeth. “What are you?”

  15

  Did he seriously ask me what I was when he’d just turned into a freaking blob of pulsing smoke?

  “I’m human,” I said, clenching my keys. I was prepared to shove them deep into his face if he moved one inch toward me.

  The Arum’s pale gaze flickered over me. “Are you sure?”

  I gaped at him. Was I sure? “Yes, I’m totally, 100 percent…”

  Wait.

  I wasn’t 100 percent human, now was I? I did have a little bit of alien DNA in me, thanks to the Andromeda serum. Could the Arum sense that? That kind of made sense since I’d been told that they could sense the Luxen, and there was a teeny, tiny bit of that in me.

  But if he could pick that up in me, wouldn’t the RAC drone have hit on the DNA? Or were the Arum more sensitive?

  “Hey,” Grayson called out from the direction of the club, and the Arum turned around. “Is that you, Lore?”

  Lore?

  That was a name?

  “Yeah,” Lore responded, stepping to the side.

  “Who are you talking—?” Grayson appeared a few feet behind the Arum, the Blow Pop’s white stick poking out from the corner of his mouth. “Oh, it’s you.”

  He said you like it was a brand-new STD.

  My eyes narrowed at him. I was guessing he hadn’t found Sarah since he was out here lollygagging around.

  “You know her?” Lore looked over his shoulder at me.

  “Unfortunately,” Grayson replied. “She belongs to Luc.”

  “Excuse me?” I blinked once, twice. “I do not belong to anyone.”

  Lore lifted his hands, taking another wide step away from me. “I didn’t touch a single hair on her head. All I did was startle her. Accidentally. Not on purpose. I am on my best behavior.”

  My eyes narrowed.

  Grayson snorted. “If you’re looking for him, he’s inside. Let Clyde know, and he’ll call Luc down.”

  I had so many questions, starting with what the hell were a Luxen and an Arum doing talking all amicable-like when they were, like, mortal enemies? And why in this world did Grayson say I belonged to Luc?

  “I’ll meet you in there,” Grayson said, speaking to the Arum.

  Lore nodded and turned to continue to the club, stopping to briefly look over his shoulder at me, his pale face marked with uncertainty.

  I was still standing there under streetlamps that were no longer flickering, thinking of the night I’d found Andy’s body. It had been after I’d learned that I wasn’t Evie. I’d gone to Coop’s party and hung out with James just to get some distance from everything that had been falling apart. And that was when I’d learned that Zoe was also an Origin. It was when I was leaving the party that I stumbled across Andy. I hadn’t been close to him, and he had been bullying the younger Luxen Daniel, but the way he died …

  Slowly, I lifted my gaze to the buttery yellow light. Lights had flickered and gone out, and the temperature had dropped significantly the night of Coop’s party, just like it had done now. I thought once again about how Micah had denied killing Andy and that family.

  What if it had been an Arum?

  But I didn’t think an Arum could kill like that, making it look like the person had been struck by lightning or burned from the inside.

  Shivering, I lowered my chin and glanced around the dark, empty street. What if Micah had been telling the truth and there was another killer among us?

  Those thoughts faded to the background as I realized I wasn’t exactly alone. “Did you find Sarah?”

  Grayson faced me. We were several feet away, and he stood outside the reach of the streetlamp, but when he spoke, I could hear the smile in his voice. “Does it look like I did?”

  My hand curled so tightly the keys dug into my palm. “You’re such an asshole.”

  “Been called worse.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you have.”

  Grayson was suddenly right in front of me. He was nearly as tall as Luc, and he towered over me. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to take a step back, and I think he sensed that based on his smirk.

  I held my ground. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Now, you and I both know that’s not true. Well, unless I overestimated your intelligence, which is possible.”

  My entire being burned with the desire to smack that smirk all the way back to whatever galaxy he came from.

  “Humans should be afraid of us even if we come in peace and mean no harm.” Derision dripped from his tone. “After all, we are the higher life-form on this planet.”

  “Wow,” I said. “And here I thought no one could ever surpass Luc’s ego.”

  “And here I am wondering why in the hell he’s so obsessed with you,” he retorted. “You remind him of someone he used to know. I get that.”

  My heart stuttered. Grayson didn’t know who I was, but he knew about Nadia?

  “But I’ve spent an ungodly amount of time over the last three years or so keeping an eye on you. You’re so boringly and pathetically human, it’s actually laughable to think that Luc would be interested in you,” he continued, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “And while there are humans who are surprisingly interesting, there’s nothing unique or special about you.”

  His words stung like a hornet, more than they should have, but I refused to show it. “Tell me how you really feel, Grayson. Don’t hold back.”

  The smirk on his face faded. “You’re a risk to Luc and to what we’re doing here. We’re saving lives, Evie. You know what will happen if your president gets his way? Wholesale genocide of my people. That’s what we’re trying to prevent here while you’re running around, doing what? Going to school? Parties? Taking photos or hanging out with your friends and maybe, every once in a while, standing up for some poor, helpless Luxen? You do nothing but put us at risk.”

  I flinched at the harsh truth in what he said. What was I doing? Big fat nothing most days.

  Grayson wasn’t done. “You’re not just a threat because of who Sylvia Dasher is but because you’re the weakest link that can and will be exploited,” he said, and each word he spoke was like a slap. “Despite popular opinion, Luc is not indestructible. The longer you’re in his life, the more likely you’re going to get him killed … or worse.”

  * * *

  “Brunch is kind of stupid when you think about it,” I muttered as I watched Zoe pick a chunk of walnut out of her chocolate muffin. “Like, why not just have lunch? And why don’t you just order a plain chocolate muffin like me instead of sitting there, picking out the nuts?”

  Zoe looked up, grinning. “You’re in a wonderful mood this morning.”

  I was in a terrible, no good, really bad mood.

  I didn’t even know why I’d agreed to meet Zoe late Sunday morning. I was not fit for company. Obviously. Grayson’s words still burned through
me like a wildfire. What he’d said to me the night before had been harsh, but it also had been true. I wasn’t … strong. Not like Zoe. Not like any of them. Even if I were a badass with a katana, which I wasn’t, I’d still be the weakest link among them. That was a bitter pill to swallow.

  And as much as I hated to admit it, I’d lain awake last night after returning home, expecting Luc to show up at my bedroom window, and he hadn’t. No visit. No text.

  Not even after I managed to fall asleep and woke up, gasping for air from a nightmare.

  I was guessing he was still ticked off, and I didn’t know how to feel about that. I was also still mad, but I wasn’t used to Luc being mad at me. Not at all. I’d always gotten the impression that even when he was getting irritated with me, he was happy to be able to be irritated with me, which was kind of weird but, given our history, also made sense.

  “And I like just a sprinkling of walnuts in my muffins. Not chunks. It’s just too much nut.” She dropped the nut on a napkin while I wrinkled my nose. “Are you not feeling well? Usually you’ve already swallowed your muffin whole by this point. I hope you’re not getting sick.” Her eyes widened. “Or coming down with what that girl had.”

  “Well if I am, I can at least throw myself out of windows and survive, so there’s that.”

  “Look at you, being positive and stuff.”

  I snorted as I toyed with a straw. “I can’t believe she’s just missing. Like, where in the hell did she go?”

  “I don’t know.” Zoe sighed as she shook her head. “She could be anywhere. Maybe she went somewhere and died.”

  Heaviness settled on me. “God, I know there was something very badly wrong with her, but I hate the idea of anyone dying by themselves like that. She was scared, Zoe. She had no idea what was happening to her.”

  “I know.”

  “Emery seemed to think that she caught that weird virus that we saw on TV, but if Luxen can’t make humans sick, and even if it were some unrelated thing—”

  “It doesn’t make y’all do that.” Zoe nodded. “Unless it’s something totally crazy. I mean, something that someone created, but with the Daedalus being gone, that doesn’t make sense.”

  Which meant all we had was a lot of questions and absolutely no answers.

  I flicked my muffin onto its side. “I saw the strangest thing when I left last night—not as strange as what happened to Sarah, but weird.”

  “Since you were around Foretoken, that could literally be anything.”

  “True, but I saw an Arum. Actually, I talked to him.”

  “Lore? You ran into him?”

  I blinked as my fingers stilled around the straw. “You know him?”

  “Not really well or anything, but I’ve seen him and his brother a time or two—his brother Hunter. Not the legit psychotic other brother,” she explained. “He was there when I got back.”

  “I’m a little confused. I thought Arum were, like, the bad guys. The Luxen’s archnemesis.”

  “Most are, but not all Arum are out to murder people and feed off unwilling Luxen. Some are just like the Luxen, trying to find a place in this world and eke out an existence.”

  “There are Luxen willing to be fed off of? That sounds … kinky. And Lore is one of them?”

  “If he weren’t, he wouldn’t be alive right now.” Zoe smiled tightly. “Luc wouldn’t tolerate him if he harmed people.”

  All righty then.

  “Lore helps us every so often,” she explained. “Moving packages and stuff. He was there to help Dawson move the rest of the group, since they ran into problems.”

  I took a quick sip. “Do you help them move packages, or are you just on Evie duty all the time?”

  “I’m not on Evie duty. More like best friend duty,” she said, resting her arms on the table. “But I have helped them in the past.”

  “Does that … scare you?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “I mean, people think you’re human, but if you get caught moving unregistered Luxen, it wouldn’t matter even if you were.”

  “It’s … worrisome, but doing nothing to help these people is worse,” she said. “Here’s the thing, Evie. No one really knows where these unregistered Luxen go when they’re captured. Are they locked up somewhere? Kept in facilities? Killed? We don’t know, but what we do know is they’re not registered and released back into society. They’re never seen again.”

  There was a naïve part of me that wanted to believe that the Luxen who’d been captured were out there, somewhere safe, because that was easier to live with. But naïveté didn’t equal stupidity. After all that I’d learned, I knew better.

  I sat back, glancing over at the glass case of baked goodies as a man with two small kids entered. You do nothing but put us at risk. I squeezed my eyes shut briefly as Grayson’s words haunted me. “Can I help? I mean, with the packages?”

  Zoe smiled at me as a curl fell across her cheek. “You already are helping.”

  “How?”

  “By being my best friend.”

  “That is not helping.” Sighing, I tucked my hair back behind my ear. “I’m sure I can actually do something.”

  Zoe leaned forward. “Being my best friend is helping. You have no idea what it means to be normal.”

  Actually, I knew exactly what it was like to be normal.

  “I grew up in a lab, Evie. My classrooms were white rooms with kids who were bred and designed to be the perfect soldiers. No family to speak of. I didn’t have friends to go to brunch with, because we couldn’t be friends—not when we had to fight against one another to prove that we were the best. And you had to be the best. If not, the consequences were … extreme.”

  “Zoe,” I whispered, chest aching for her, for all of them.

  “When Luc freed me, my life began, but I really didn’t know what life was until I met you and Heidi and James,” she said. Tears pricked my eyes as she continued, “When I’m at school or hanging out with you guys, I feel normal. I feel like I’m more than just whatever the hell I was created to be. You have no idea how much that helps.”

  I reached across the oval table and placed my hand on her arm. “I know, and I’m glad I can give you that. It’s just that I don’t want to be a risk or useless, you know? I just want to be useful.”

  Her gaze searched mine. “Why would you think you were useless or a risk? You’re one of the strongest people I know.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but there is no way I’m one of the strongest people you know.”

  “You found out the truth about who you are, your mother and me—and Luc. You dealt with a psychotic Origin, and you picked yourself up, dusted off your ass, and dealt with it. Most people, including my kind, would be rocking in the corner somewhere. Not only that, when you thought I could be hurt, you didn’t think twice before making sure I got out of harm’s way,” she reminded me. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. You know why? Let me tell you.”

  Oh no. Zoe was about to rant.

  “It’s all the bullshit ideals of strength being shoved in our faces. Movies. Books. Television. Magazines. You’d think that after the world almost ended, people would’ve gotten their lives right, but oh no. We still operate by the broke-ass ideology of girl power, but it’s only girl power if you’re an assassin.”

  I sat back.

  “What is that teaching us ladies? That if you’re not physically strong, if you can’t kick ass, you’re weak? That if you feel overwhelmed or emotional, you’re not strong? Or that if you aren’t emotional, something is wrong with you? That’s bullshit, and it’s unrealistic.” Her shoulders tensed. “Real strength does not exist in muscles or deadly skill. It exists in your ability to pick yourself up and keep going after the shit hits the fan. That’s strength.”

  “It’s okay, Zoe. I completely agree.”

  She exhaled heavily. “God, I’m superhuman, and even I’m like, can I just read a book or watch a movie where the girl is actually, I don’t know, a normal human being? An
d don’t even get me started on the whole ‘boy crazy’ or ‘girl crazy’ shit, because I will rant until the day I die about the internalized misogyny behind all of that.”

  “Okay. Simmer down.” I patted her arm and then picked up my soda, taking a huge gulp. “People are starting to look at us.”

  “Whatever.” She leaned back in her chair. “I just can’t stand the idea of you feeling this way about yourself.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that … I don’t know.” I smiled tightly. “There’s nothing we can do to figure out what happened to Coop, and how can I help look for Sarah? I guess … I’m just in a weird mood, so you shouldn’t pay attention to me right now.”

  Zoe watched me as she knocked a stray curl out of her face. “Does your strange mood have anything to do with you and Luc having an epic throwdown last night?”

  I shrugged half-heartedly.

  “I heard you wanted to go to Sylvia about Sarah.” She continued picking at her muffin. “And Luc was none too pleased about that.”

  “That would be the understatement of the year,” I replied dryly.

  “A little.” She picked up her muffin. “You do understand why, though? Right?”

  A whooshing motion filled my stomach. The why behind Luc’s demand was all I’d thought about the night before. “I do understand, and at the same time I don’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  My gazed dropped to my own chocolate goodness. “I get why Luc wouldn’t trust her. I do. But I have to believe what she told me, Zoe. That she wasn’t a part of the horrible things the Daedalus did.”

  Zoe said nothing as she popped a piece of the muffin into her mouth, chewing slowly.

  “What?” I said, reading the hesitation in her features. I tipped forward, lowering my voice. “You know Luc said she wasn’t my mother.”

  “And he was a dick for saying that. Totally.”

  “You know she’s the one who killed Jason, right? It was her. Not Luc. Their entire marriage fell apart when she learned what he was a part of.”

  She was slow to respond. “I know all of that, Evie, but…”

  “But what?”