The Shadow Men were everywhere, looking for them, and AJ didn’t know how to avoid them in the long run. Those and other thoughts plagued him for a while, but eventually, he lost consciousness, too. It felt like someone had unplugged him.
* * *
Paige woke up stiff as a board and with a full bladder. She felt like she’d slept for a few hours. AJ was fast asleep behind her, leaning against the wardrobe wall, but he still held her protectively. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep in his arms. That made her smile, but unfortunately, this was no time for little girl crushes.
She had to leave that wardrobe ASAP and go to the bathroom.
Paige didn’t want to wet her pants right there with AJ and Dave sleeping next to her. Dave was pressing against her from the front, making her stomach practically pulse in despair.
That particular feeling made her remember when she’d wet her pants as a kid while spending the night in the wardrobe with Willow. They were locked away by their mother, and Paige hadn’t been able to hold it anymore.
She couldn’t let that happen again, and it certainly wouldn’t happen in the company of these guys. They would tease her to no end. She blushed thinking about it. Not seeing another way, she started to gently rock Dave, urging him to wake up.
“What?” Dave asked suddenly.
“Shh,” she shushed him, not wanting to wake AJ up. “I need to get out,” she whispered in his ear.
“Oh, right,” he said, yawning so loudly she wanted to smack him on the head.
Dave fiddled with the key to unlock the wardrobe door, and he wasn’t trying to be silent at all. Paige could tell there wasn’t any sunlight in the bedroom. It wasn’t morning yet.
Dave stood first and cursed. “Damn, I can’t feel my legs at all,” he complained, jumping around.
Paige looked around, trying to see if everything was ok. The bedroom looked clear of the creepy black wave, so she breathed a sigh of relief and tried to be quiet as she followed him out.
Her legs were still asleep, and her knees buckled, but luckily, Dave held her upright.
“By the way, you snore,” he deadpanned, and she smacked him.
“I do not,” she replied, outraged.
“Oh, yes, you do,” he replied stubbornly. “You sound like this.” He then proceeded to mimic her. He inhaled loudly than let out a sigh that sounded more like. “Mimi mimi mimi.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, which reminded her she needed to pee and now.
“Stop making me laugh,” she complained, moving away from him. “I need to pee.”
“Give me the key first,” Dave said. She looked at him with confusion. “To free the family. Maybe they need a bathroom break as well.”
“Good point,” she said, fishing the key out of her pocket.
Once she handed it over, she dashed off to do her business. Paige didn’t quite know where the bathroom was, but she made a guess she was grateful had been correct.
She silently entered the bathroom. She wasn’t sure why she bothered with stealth after all the noise she and Dave just made. She was amazed AJ slept through all that.
It seemed to take an eternity to empty her bladder with how full it was. Subconsciously, her hand went to flush the toilet, and it was rather noisy.
“Oh, crap!” Paige whispered.
It was one thing to make a little noise, but this was something else entirely. Water running would be able to be heard through the whole apartment building. It was like she wanted them to get caught.
She blamed it on being tired, and she definitely knew she was hungry. So maybe that was why her brain wouldn’t operate normally.
Sanitizing her hands, Paige wondered what life would be like on Earth now that aliens had arrived. She had no idea, and it was hard to imagine. All poor people who had survived the virus now had aliens to deal with.
Aliens must have sent the virus down to reduce the population, so the planet would be easier to take over.
Either way, she was glad they were going to leave Earth. Witnessing the worst humanity had to offer on top of an alien invasion made Earth a sad place to be, to say the least.
She hoped they would get to her dad in time to leave the planet. Also, she couldn’t help but wonder if there were other aliens out there. What did they look like? What did they do?
She brushes her hair with her hand, Paige listened carefully. She couldn’t hear anything, so she decided to go to the kitchen and see if she could find something to eat before returning to the wardrobe.
If AJ hadn’t been sleeping in there, Paige probably wouldn’t go back at all. Dave already beat her to the kitchen, and the scared Ota family was with him.
“Hey, Paige, you look like a human being again,” he said, referring to her washed face and semi-brushed hair.
“Haha,” she replied, but it was all for show. Paige couldn’t quite take offense since he was right.
“You should try it yourself,” she countered. “Oh, wait, you can’t wash that,” she gestured toward him. “That’s just your face.”
He grinned in return.
Paige was really glad to see the family still here and was about to say something when Mrs. Ota beat her to the punch.
“Thank you, Paige,” Mrs. Ota said emotionally as she rushed toward her to embrace her.
Paige was too stunned for a second to do anything.
“We heard everything,” Mr. Ota added. “You saved our lives.”
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Mrs. Ota added.
“It was my pleasure,” Paige replied a bit sheepishly.
The woman released her and returned to her son and husband.
“We should go now,” Mr. Ota said.
At that moment, Paige noticed the parents were fully dressed. “You can’t leave yet. It’s not safe until morning,” Paige said, panic in her voice.
“My brother lives one floor below with his family. I have to see what happened to them,” Mr. Ota explained.
Paige could relate to that. Her family was everything to her as well.
“I see,” Paige replied. “But please be careful. Stay hidden until morning. I don’t think they like the sun very much.”
After another round of thank-you’s, they sprung to action. In less than two minutes, Kaito was dressed, and Mr. Ota had packed a few belongings while Mrs. Ota gathered the food.
“You’re welcome to help yourself to anything you like,” Mrs. Ota gestured toward the refrigerator.
“Thank you,” Dave and Paige replied in unison.
Mrs. Ota gave her another quick hug, and just like that, they were gone.
I hope they’ll make it, Paige thought to herself.
“Hungry?” Dave inquired, snapping her from her reverie.
“Starving,” she confessed.
They opened the cupboards and searched for something to eat and drink. Dave made them sandwiches, and Paige cheered when she scrounged up a pack of cookies for dessert. They completed the meal with a few bottles of water Dave had found before walking back towards the wardrobe.
Suddenly, they heard a mild rushing sound, and both of them froze.
Is that the wave, or is my mind playing tricks on me? Paige panicked.
If there was nothing wrong with her hearing, then they had a very limited time before being discovered.
“Do you—” Dave started, but she shushed him.
Paige strained to hear and became certain she heard the calm swishing sound, typical of the black wave.
The wave is moving towards us!
She reached for the small of her back, but there was no gun there. It must have dropped in the wardrobe while she slept, not that it would do her any good. It was without bullets, and it had proven useless when Dave tried to shoot one of them.
Panic took over as Paige realized she had no weapons other than a pack of cookies.
The black mass entered the apartment. It crept slowly, under the doors like a fine mist, but it grew rapidly, solidifying befo
re finding them in the kitchen. Dave came to stand next to her.
In fear and desperation, Paige threw the water bottle Dave gave her at the fast-approaching black mass, but it did nothing. She turned toward Dave, snatched his and repeated the motion, but to no avail. The black mass kept moving, and the water bottles bobbed on the top of the wave, carried with the current.
“Paige, what should we do?” Dave asked in a hushed voice, freaked out as much as she was.
Paige shook her head. She didn’t know what else to do. She threw everything on the counter in front of her, all the utensils, as well as the box of the cookies, even though she knew it wouldn’t do them any good.
“Great, now we’re going to be captured and hungry,” Dave snapped.
Then she remembered they were in the kitchen, so she moved them quickly toward the cupboards.
“Look for a big knife,” she instructed.
It was becoming exponentially difficult to move in any direction since the mass was closing in on them. Before either one of them could move to find anything useful, it was too late.
The mass reached Paige’s feet. She squawked and tried to move away, but there was nowhere to run.
The wave gripped her tightly around the feet, shocking her at how strong it was. The illusion of the mass being a wave of shadow was just that, an illusion. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get out of it.
“I can’t move!” She panicked.
“Me neither,” Dave replied, panic in his voice as well.
“What will happen to us now?” Paige wondered out loud.
Did all the people who’d been captured before them felt the same way? She gripped the counter and tried to drag her feet into the air, but they felt like they were dipped in a concrete, and the mass didn’t stop there.
It continued to swallow her, surrounding her ankles, then moving upwards while she struggled fruitlessly with her whole body.
It worked up towards her throat, almost drowning her. Her heart pounded like crazy, and her old fear of feeling trapped resurfaced with a vengeance. She felt like screaming, crying, and pleading all at the same time.
“Dave!” she cried out, trying to reach toward him, but she felt paralyzed to do anything. The mass was much stronger than she was, and she couldn’t move any part of her body.
“Paige,” he replied, his body being swallowed just like hers.
Suddenly, Paige felt her feet being lifted off the ground as the wave started to slowly drag her out of the kitchen.
“AJ!” Paige screamed as the wave pulled her toward the hallway.
Dave was a couple of feet in front of her, struggling fruitlessly. He was trying to grab hold of something, anything that would prevent the wave from taking him away, but the mass was relentless. No matter how hard Dave fought back, it slowly, steadily moved him toward the front door.
Paige fought frantically, trying to get free, but the wave continued toward the exit. Paige grew increasingly fatigued without accomplishing anything.
Her struggles did nothing as the wave gripped her like quicksand. The more Paige fought, the less control she had of herself, and as she’d already noted, she’d become weaker by the second.
Suddenly, the wave took an even firmer grip on her body. Even though the being seemed cloud-like, it was powerful.
“AJ!” Paige pleaded. He was their only hope.
AJ was still asleep. If only he hadn’t been sleeping deep inside the wardrobe with the doors tightly closed, maybe he would have heard her and come to their rescue.
The mass broke the front door off its hinges. There was nothing stopping it now as it carried them out. Over the roaring wave, Paige heard the most wonderful sound. The wardrobe had been opened.
“AJ! We’re here. Help us!” she shouted with all her might.
“The wave got us! Over here, AJ!” Dave cried out.
Dave was at the door, gripping the frame, but the mass moved upward, capturing his arms and forcing his grip to loosen.
“Dave!” Paige yelled as he was carried out.
“Paige! Dave! I’m coming!” AJ shouted back. His words were followed with a bang as if he’d practically torn off the wardrobe door to reach them.
In a few seconds which felt like hours, AJ appeared, making her both panic for his well-being and hopeful for herself and Dave. Paige started to fear the black wave would embrace him as well, but it didn’t.
In fact, the black mass avoided AJ altogether, parting to each side and moving around him.
What. The. Hell. What am I seeing?
“AJ, why is it moving away from you?” Paige asked looking at him in wonder.
He seemed to have a negative effect on the wave, as if it was afraid of him.
How was he able to do that? Paige always suspected there was something different about AJ, but this showed her how dead on the mark she really was.
It wasn’t like she’d suspected he had superpowers or something like that, but he was definitely different. Paige and her sisters were different, too, but this was on a whole new level.
As AJ got closer to Paige, the black mass weakened its grip more and more, eventually freeing her enough, so she could run towards AJ. He embraced her at once.
A circle began to form around them like a secret protective sphere or a trap they couldn’t escape, she couldn’t decide which. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Grateful AJ had saved her, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. As she held him, she thought of Dave.
“Dave!” she exclaimed. “We have to help him! The black wave has him, too.” She turned to look for him, but he was nowhere in sight.
“Dave!” she screamed.
“Paige, don’t move, or they’ll come,” AJ whispered to her.
“What? But Dave... Who will come?” she asked, realizing what he said. Paige, loosening her grip on him, moved away slightly from him so she could look into his eyes—but AJ remained silent.
“What do you know about this? Why do you know what will happen next?” Paige bombarded him with questions, getting more and more agitated by the second.
Her heartbeat increased in speed as she struggled to catch her breath. Anxiety rose inside of her. Paige was suddenly afraid to hear what he was going to say.
“The Shadow Men will come, Paige. The ones we saw on the street,” he said, looking away from her, seemingly ashamed. “I know that because I’m one of them.”
Chapter Fourteen
Paige wanted to run away from AJ at that moment, but there was nowhere for her to run. She was trapped, surrounded by the mass.
Her heart felt as though it had stopped beating for a second. Did I hear AJ right? He’s one of them?
Swiftly, Paige backed away from him, regardless of the danger. Her eyes widened in shock as she tried to process the unexpected information.
The boy who was her school crush for so long, someone who held her so tenderly only hours ago, suddenly looked like a stranger. The same guy she’d trusted above all and refused to listen to her mother about—he was one of them?
Them! The enemy.
AJ was one of the Shadow Men Paige feared all her life. Even when she grew up and stopped believing in her mother’s crazy delusions, that fear stayed with her. Haunting her in her dreams, never allowing her to be fully comfortable in the dark.
AJ was one of them.
How can that be?
Her mind raced, trying to figure out what was happening. Terror filled her as she looked at AJ, who silently looked back at her.
This can’t be happening! Her mind tried to deny the truth that was literally biting her in the ass. This is unbelievable.
AJ didn’t look like the Shadow Men they saw on the streets. They all had black holes instead of eyes and a big black gaping hole as a mouth.
The stranger standing in front of her was still AJ, just a kid who made her blush every time she saw him. The way he made her feel when he smiled… He did that a lot in her presence. He always looked at her like she
was the only girl in the world for him.
Was she really ready to let all of that go?
“You lied to me,” Paige accused suddenly.
Paige’s mother warned her to stay away from him. She didn’t listen, and she was starting to realize that she should have.
“I’m sorry, Paige...” he started, but then paused as if he didn’t know what to say.
That made her angry, which was easier for her. Being angry was way better than being afraid. Paige moved another step away from him, but still stared at him with wide-open eyes. Seeing him in a different light, unable to look away. Truth be told, she was rendered stupid by this revelation and didn’t know what to say or do. AJ didn’t hurt her or anyone around her in any way while they were running away from the aliens. He’d even helped them escape, made sure Willow and Peter were alright while she tried to rescue her mom. He was still helping her right this second.
The contradictory thoughts inside her head gave her a massive headache. As Paige backed away from him again, the black wave immediately engulfed her legs, capturing her again.
“Paige, you need to stay close to me,” AJ pleaded in a rush, taking a step toward her. “Please don’t be afraid. I would never hurt you. I only want to keep you safe.”
It was hard not to believe him when he was looking at her with those big, sincere eyes.
As the black mass tightened around her feet, Paige reluctantly had to admit he had a point. She needed to stay close to him so she wouldn’t be carried away by it. If she moved away from him again, this thing would embrace her completely and take her away for sure.
Just like Dave.
“Dave!” Paige exclaimed suddenly, making AJ jerk in response. “I need to find him. We need to help him!”
“Paige, stop. You can’t even help yourself,” AJ snapped, and Paige recoiled instantly, even more pissed off.
“Excuse me? I can’t help myself? If it weren’t for me, you’d still be all by yourself in some military base.”
AJ frowned. “I’m sorry, I misspoke,” he apologized, but Paige wasn’t ready to release him off the hook just yet.
Inhabitable (Invasion Survivor Book 2) Page 15
