The Shade Chronicles | Book 2 | Predator

by Bradley, T. K.

  “My dad… he tried his best to help us remember where we came from.”

  “And is he…?” She looks back over the small group we brought with us, searching for my father and coming up empty.

  “Gone.” She doesn’t need me to elaborate. So many of us are gone; there isn’t a single soul left on earth who hasn’t lost someone. It’s a bond we all share, and yet it doesn’t seem to make us feel any less alone in our grief.

  Uki nods sadly, and I’m grateful she doesn’t ask for the story behind his death. She has every right to ask. She doesn’t know whether we can be trusted or not, and secrets and untold stories certainly won’t help her learn, but I’d like to keep my dad all to myself if I can.

  Our short walk from the dock brings us to the front door. It looks solid and imposing, which I get is kinda the point, but I’m disappointed by how small it is. I guess I’d been expecting a massive group of survivors, another bunker like the one we just left. But this place? It can’t possibly hold more than a few dozen people, at most.

  I try to stifle my letdown. I should be grateful. I mean, it’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to be, right? I’ll just consider this the gift horse, and here I am, not looking it in the mouth. Wait… isn’t the front door kinda like its mouth? Oh. Okay, let’s just look at these lovely walls instead. Yep. Fine construction. Very firm. The walls aren’t overly tall, though, now that I’m staring up at them from this angle. Anyone with motivation could find a way over it, but then the door cracks open and I see that nothing is that simple.

  A thick-set woman steps through, one of those bolt guns aimed straight at my face. I freeze in my tracks and slowly raise my hands in the air. I haven’t seen one of those weapons in action yet, but I have a feeling they’re more effective than I would like.

  Uki slides herself in front of me. “Watch your finger, Deb. Wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “Speak for yourself,” the second woman hisses.

  She’s hard to look at—and I mean that in the nicest way possible, considering I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. She’s obviously lived a hard life, with scars crisscrossing every inch of her visible skin and disappearing under the collar of her shirt. Her flesh appears shiny, melted, in places. I almost feel sorry for whatever pain she’s suffered through—but then she snarls at me, and I realize my first impression of her had nothing to do with her appearance. Scars are proof of courage, a map of her life, visible evidence that she’s a survivor. No, she’s not ugly because of how she looks, but because of who she is on in the inside. Her winning personality shines through no matter her appearance.

  Deb, as Uki called her, seems to be the primary deterrent around here. She obviously has no qualms about shooting with an intent to kill. I wouldn’t even put it past her to shoot her own people. Am I being unfair, judging her before I know her? Maybe, but my gut instinct says I’m right.

  If it didn’t involve moving and possibly spooking this woman into killing me, I would look over my shoulder at Ellis, but as it is, I can feel the vibration of his own emotions, mirroring mine. This crazy lady is one to watch out for.

  “They’re not stepping foot inside,” Deb barks out with a gravelly voice. “Not on my watch.”

  “The risk is low,” Uki insists, and with one hand, she tentatively reaches out and pushes the barrel of the bolt gun down. “This is what we’ve been waiting for, Deb. We need this.”

  The heat in Deb’s eyes doesn’t fade, but there’s a waver of defeat. The cure. It’s within reach. All she has to do is reach out and grab it.

  “Fine,” she snaps finally. There’d been no doubt that she would give in eventually, but she could’ve just killed us all except for Kenzo, so I guess I’m grateful.

  Except, when she steps out of the way and Uki gestures for me to step inside, I feel anything but grateful. This is not a comfortable place for me to be. A caged animal yet again, but at least this time, the hunger isn’t pulsing inside me. I’m in control of myself—for the time being, anyway. One last glance outside, and I can’t help but notice the distinct lack of anything on this island. There’s just the fort and nothing else. No animals to hunt, no sources of blood.

  Except for Kenzo. And the other humans… of course.

  I take a tentative step into the gloom inside, half expecting to feel a bolt penetrate my chest. But there’s nothing. No pain, no death. I take a deep breath and can taste the adrenaline on the air, the fear radiating from the humans in the hallway opening ahead of me. Humans, plural, as in more than one. I get a sense of four more hearts beating, pumping their wet, thick blood through their veins. My awareness of them is purely instinctive, not out of hunger. Yet.

  It’s dark in the hallway, but my eyes have no trouble adjusting. It’s when the lights are flicked on that I find myself completely blind.

  I hiss and dart my hand up in reflex, and I hear the clatter of guns being raised.

  “Hold!” Uki shouts. I’m not sure how much authority she has here, but I hope it’s enough.

  I’m eternally grateful for my allies at my back, and I know we’re all being measured by Deb and her other guards.

  I blink my eyes clear. My pupils are dilating to mere pinpricks, and when I can finally take stock of my surroundings, I’m more impressed than I would like to admit. It turns out that getting over the walls isn’t the problem. I guess I’d had some ill-conceived notion of castles being open on the inside. Duh, obviously their fortress isn’t some open space, exposed to the sun. The walls and ceiling around me look extra sturdy.

  The halls extending in three directions are narrow, but then again, why would they need to be wide? Space is likely tight in here, so it makes sense to use it sparingly. Logically, the halls only need to be wide enough for a single person to pass through. Plus… I peek at Trey, with his monstrously broad physique. If Rippers were trying to break into this place, these halls would create a bottleneck, easier for the guards to pick them off, one by one.

  Us, I remind myself. Pick us off one by one.

  “Nice place you’ve got here.” I try to say it nicely, I swear I do, but it comes out antagonizing all the same. I wince and try to offer an apology with my eyes. The humans here, however, are avoiding looking directly into my eyes. Geez, it’s not like I’m a vampire, I can’t hypnotize them or anything.

  There’s one young woman who’s brave enough to gaze back at me in curiosity. Her eyes are large, a deep liquid blue, lined with long lashes. She stares unabashedly at our group, but it’s Ellis who seems to catch her interest most. When I glance back at Ellis, I see that he’s staring back at her, his own look of interest.

  Deb hisses a breath through her teeth and the girl quickly looks down at her feet, but there’s a blush rising on her cheeks, and I’m not sure if it’s because of Deb’s chastisement or from Ellis’s intense gaze.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Deb growls.

  She marches down the main hall, leaving the rest of us to trail after her. I’m shocked she’s willing to turn her back to us, but I hear the click of a gun behind me. I look over my shoulder quickly to see that the human guards are alternating themselves between us, splitting up our band of merry travelers. I catch a glimpse of Trey and Ellis, my mother far back behind them. I assume they’re keeping Kenzo and Bob at the back; they wouldn’t want the humans to get stuck in the crossfire if anything goes wrong.

  How the hell did I get stuck at the front of this parade? If someone were to guess, they might say I’m the leader, but I’m the furthest thing from it. I’m just some girl who was turned into a monster against her will. I’m the youngest of all of us, the most conflicted. I’m hardly the kind of person who would instill confidence in others. Ellis would be the obvious choice in my mind. He’s military, accustomed to making tough decisions, but maybe he’s caught following Howell’s orders. Okay, fine, I can get that. Why not my mom, then, who’s been at this monster thing the longest, who made this change of her own free will? Or Trey, who is brave an
d bold and has had practice at this kind of thing? Hell, even Kelly was leading her own little ragtag group of Rippers. But nobody in their right mind would follow me!

  I’m distracted from my self-loathing by a faint smell on the recycled-air breeze, getting stronger by the second. It’s fresh, it’s green… and it’s familiar. It smells like home. A garden. Of course they have a garden, they would need to grow food. I try to peek around Deb, but she’s too wide and the hallway too narrow for me to see more than a glimpse of… you guessed it, more hallway!

  Deb’s gait is clunky, and I imagine it’s painful for her to move. There’s a limp to her left leg, and her fingers show signs of arthritis. Behind her stomping boots, I hear the scurry of other feet, rushing to get out of the way, doors closing. I get the impression that we’re not going to get the grand tour. It’s more like they’re closing off the hall ahead of us, funneling us through without giving us any impression of what we’re getting into.

  Left, right, left again. We must be headed to the back corner of the compound. “Here you are,” Deb growls, stepping to one side and sweeping her arm wide. “Your accommodations. I do hope you’ll find them adequate.” There’s a wicked gleam in her eye, and my stomach drops.

  Ahead of her in an open door. Nothing about the pit says comfort. It reeks of damp rot, mold, and salt.

  Deb gives a jerk of her head, gesturing for me to head through the door. She doesn’t seem impressed by my reluctance. “Did you think we would roll out the welcome mat for you?”

  “We would’ve shown you a little courtesy at our compound,” I say, but then I think of Kelly’s treatment—how she was experimented on, turned into a monster, with the intention of killing her when they were through—and I know what I said was a lie.

  The smirk on Deb’s thin, scarred lips says she can see straight through me. “Sure. You would’ve let us in the door and then flayed us in our beds. I think I’d rather not take the risk.” She gives another jerk of her chin and raises the bolt gun. “Don’t make this difficult.”

  18

  Lori

  I grind my teeth together, feeling my canines pressing into my lips, and step down into the pit. Deb calls down, “All the rooms are vacant right now, so you can take your pick.” How kind of her.

  Room is a loose term for these boxes. Uki told me this wasn’t a prison, but I find that hard to believe looking at these cells. The hall has been dug down into the soil, and once I reach the bottom of the metal steps, the ground beneath my feet gives a squish, bringing a breath of salty air to my nose. I look back up at Deb, but she just shrugs.

  “What can I say? It’s high tide.” Her lip curls, and she gives me a jab with her bolt gun. Its tip snags on my rags.

  “Hey, I’ve only got the one shirt. Would you mind being careful with it?” In response, Deb gives me another jab, and a tearing sound tells me I’d better get moving or I’ll soon find myself naked. My bravado only goes so far.

  I walk right down to the end. Sure, why not. This cell is as good as the next, right? My throat feels tight as I stare into the tiny cubicle. I step into the stone-walled room, my feet squelching into the mud. There’s a small cot and a bucket—I think it’s safe to guess what that’s for. I think back to what Uki told me, that this fortress was used hundreds of years ago. Was this a holding cell then too? How many people have been locked within this room? Or maybe it was just storage, once upon a time.

  I breathe in and try to imagine I can still smell the remnants of the past—bags of grain, barrels of gunpowder, fox pelts or maybe bear. Nope. Nothing in the air now but muck and mold. My lungs clamp shut against the odor and against my own building panic.

  “Sleep tight,” Deb says. Her smirk is the last thing I see before the solid door closes behind me. I hear her slide a bolt across the gap. The door is obviously a new addition to the structure, a metal panel probably several inches thick.

  On the plus side, I feel like this cell was designed for human prisoners, maybe people in their compound who break the law, and I am anything but human. I honestly don’t think that door will hold if I really set my mind to it. For now… I just have to convince myself that I don’t want to get out.

  I hear the doors closing, one by one down the hall, as the rest of my group is settled into their containment.

  “You can’t just leave them in there,” I hear Kenzo saying. “They’re not a threat, I swear it.” If only there wasn’t a tiny quiver in his voice, I would almost believe what he’s saying.

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Deb snaps.

  It seems to be left up to Uki to smooth over any conflict. “It’s just a precaution,” she says gently. “We’ll find something for them to eat; I think we can all agree it would be dangerous to let them get too hungry.” Kenzo mumbles something incoherent, but it must be a grudging agreement, because Uki continues. “We’ll show you around, get you settled into a room, and then, if you don’t mind, we would like to get started straight away on running some blood tests. The sooner we find a cure, the better for everyone.”

  Bob, ever the optimist chimes in, “Do we get to share a room? I get the top bunk!”

  Howell, however, is predictably less than agreeable. “I’m a general, and I expect the treatment befitting someone of my rank. There’s no way in hell I’m sleeping in the same room as this wacko.”

  I listen with an overwhelming sense of desperation as their voices drift down the hall and out of earshot. I press my ear to the cool metal, straining to hear Kenzo’s voice for as long as possible. They’ll take care of him, of course they will, because he’s the cure, right? They wouldn’t hurt him. He’ll cooperate! We all want the same thing!

  The voices fade away until I’m left with silence. Except that’s not quite right, is it…

  Down the hall from me are more cells, now housing my would-be allies. I can hear the air passing through their lungs, the blood in their veins. Every single movement of their bodies—the brush of fabric against their skin, the creak of the cots—it all sounds more like a marching band when I’m this tuned in, like I’ve got the volume control dialed up to full.

  I grit my teeth against the cacophony, slamming my hands down over my ears. I must make a sound, some small whimper maybe, because my mom’s voice from the next cell over cuts through my panic. “Breathe, Lori.” Even at a whisper, her words are too much. “Focus on your heartbeat. Deep breath in… slow breath out…”

  I try to follow her instructions… but the texture of the air scratches at the sides of my throat, the acrid taste of my own panic coating my tongue. “I need to get out,” I moan. I press my hand into the door. My claws leave indents in the thick steel, but when it gives a sharp squeal, the hinges threatening to pop, it’s enough to shock my senses.

  “No!” I pant. I can’t leave, I know that. What would happen to Kenzo if I walked out this door? He’s counting on me. He believes in me.

  I drop down to my knees in the mud and wrap my arms over my head, creating a little cocoon. Within my tented arms, all I can hear is the sound of my own breath, and I focus all my attention on that panicked rasping. I ignore how tightly my chest is squeezing into my lungs, how my heart feels like a helicopter inside my chest, the beat like rotors pounding against my ribs.

  I’m dimly aware of Ellis in the distance, calling me back. “Lori…”

  Eventually, everyone settles into silence, waiting for me to emerge from whatever black pit I’ve disappeared into.

  I wish I could say that it’s like a switch being flipped, like I can suddenly rationalize my own panic and bob up to the surface like a cork. But that’s not the way it works. It is a long, arduous process. I’m strung so tight that I nearly crack my own teeth. And inch by agonizing inch, I claw my way out of that bottomless hole.

  I’m nearly at the surface when I realize I’m able to breathe again, pull a full breath into my lungs, feel my chest expand more freely.

  “That’s my girl,” Trey purrs.

  “I
’m not your girl,” I snap in reply, and he laughs.

  “Yep, Lori is definitely back.”

  When I pull my arms back and rise up, my spine gives a series of pops. It’s so dark inside this cell, with only a dim glow beneath the door, and time has lost all meaning. “How long?” I ask. How long was I drowning in my panic? How much time have I wasted?

  But then think to myself, Did you have somewhere you needed to be?

  Mom says, “It’s been maybe ten minutes.”

  “Seriously? It felt more like a week.” I try for a laugh but it’s dry and tapers off quickly.

  “If you need me, Lori,” Ellis says carefully, “just say the word. You know I can get in there, right?” Trey snorts out a scoff at the offer.

  “Yeah, I know. Thanks.” I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m glad he thought to stay where he was. Our position here is precarious at best. At worst…? Well, I suppose the ocean could serve as a giant unmarked grave for us if we step out of line.

  “Do you hear that?” Kelly’s hiss interrupts my own introspection about floating for eternity in a watery abyss.

  I’m reluctant to turn up that dial on my senses again, so I wait a moment, and Trey lets out a low growl that sends shivers down my spine. “Brace yourselves.”

  “For what?” I choke out. My shiver is now a full-blown chill.

  “What did you think they were going to do? Give us warm beds to sleep in, soft pillows, a hot meal? No way are they going to act the host for the likes of us.”

  “But… why not? We’re helping them! We brought them the cure to the disease, we haven’t even shown the slightest sign of being a threat,” I whine. I know there’s truth to his words—it’s how we would’ve acted in our own compound, after all—but I don’t want to believe it. Is it so much to ask for a little hope? I’m a nice girl, I swear! It just so happens that I’m trapped within a hideous monster. Whatever happened to don’t judge a book by its cover?