by E Kathryn
Two or three sets of hands moved him from the gurney into his own bed, and what were indistinguishably Kimberly’s hands tucked him in to let him sleep. “Listen, guys,” Kimberly’s voice soothed his ears, calming his nerves, “he needs to keep this IV in for at least another two hours. Please don’t mess with it.” Kip could hear her footsteps trailing away.
“Where’s Mark?” Sil demanded, an anger in his voice that Kip had heard so many times before. Kip managed to open his eyes a peek, and dazedly looked about the room. The Shadows were restless, unable to stay seated in their beds as they were told when Kimberly came down to them.
Kimberly stood outside the elevator solemnly, her bitter frown visible from across the room. “Keller put him in a detention room.”
“What did Keller do to him?” Rita shrieked, jumping forward and only now getting her ability to teleport back.
“Don’t worry about him,” Kimberly insisted, levelheaded and mechanical. “Keller just inhibited his life functions. That’s what his Shadow does, inhibits Shadows primarily, but if he wants, he can inhibit everything. I’m sure Mark will be fine. He’s probably waking up now.”
“How could you be on his side?” The Scottish Shadow rushed toward Kimberly, finding it awkward to walk the distance when she could have teleported.
Kimberly didn’t bother explaining and scurried into the elevator, locking their access to it promptly. Kip moaned and shifted, finding the strength to draw the covers up closer to his neck. He was cold, but he liked the feeling of the fresh, crisp air on his face. It was helping.
“Kip, are you okay? Can you hear me?” Elise’s voice pled, rushing to kneel by his bed and wake him. Already mostly awake, Kip’s eyes opened a crack, and he groaned. He tried to inhale voluntarily and to fill his lungs, but the muscles in his chest protested and he coughed. Elise, Rita, and Sil crowded him with more coming, and they all reeled when they saw the blood on his lips.
“How do you feel?” Elise asked.
Hugging his blanket, and loving his own bed, Kip created a fake and forced smile accompanied by a thumbs-up. “Better…” his hoarse voice croaked. He coughed again, now attempting with all his strength to raise his torso and get the blood out of his lungs. “What’d I miss?” he got out softly.
“Apparently, Keller is a Shadow,” Elise answered promptly, followed by Sil’s snark.
“And Ocie has been snitching to him this whole time!”
Kip raised his eyes to Sil, a little shocked by how close he was. He still had a little fear that Sil was about to turn a cold shoulder to him, and he couldn’t rationally explain the change in Sil.
Managing to sit up with Rita’s hands guiding him, he gagged again, blood filled his mouth and he got a good long look at the tube attached to his arm. With his eyes, he followed up the line to the IV drip standing by his bed. The blue fluid filled the plastic, sending Keller’s power directly into his blood, affecting the element in Kip’s heart and neutralizing his Shadow.
Giving it a little thought, Kip looked at his hand making the effort to create a soft light. It was his Shadow’s simplest form, but he still couldn’t summon it. “Don’t worry.” Sil’s voice broke into his thoughts. “It’ll wear off, most of us have our powers back already. I just got mine back first by touching Mark.”
“Which is unfair!” Rita blared. “I was right there beside him when they injected me with Inhibitor.”
Kip let his hand fall, with half a mind to lie back. He was so exhausted, with a bitter taste in his mouth, his stomach felt queasy. Elise sat on his bed with him, allowing him to lay his head on her shoulder, panting slightly. “Where’s Emilie?” His voice caught, and he coughed a few more times, coating his palm with blood.
Kneeling, Sil crossed his arms, drawing his brows. “Who knows where the great infiltrator got off to. She went into the Realm while we were still in the van. I didn’t say anything, and she probably gave the ASOs the slip when we arrived.”
“She could be all the way in Scotland by now,” Rita groaned, also taking a seat on the floor. “It’s not like she’ll come back. At least one of us got free.”
Kip could see the irritation in Sil’s eyes, the jealousy. His closest friend had abandoned him, leaving him in the ASH, and it wasn’t like her to form any sort of plan to free him. She was selfish; she always had been, and it wasn’t hard to see the resentment Sil felt. “So, what now?” Kip asked, coughing painfully.
“What do you mean, ‘what now?’” Sil snapped, sulking. “Nothing! Everything goes back to normal…” Crossing his arms, Kip sank back into his bed, resting on his side and waiting for sleep to come over him again. Everything was uncomfortable, not just breathing, but being back in this room, his home, their prison.
Emilie loved being a pain in Keller’s side, and the man had devised many ways of subduing her. As it was, there was little hope that she could get free. And she wasn’t. Among the confusion of the evening, and Kimberly’s desperation to save Kip’s life, Emilie had slipped in behind Keller, following him as he carried Mark to a detention cell alone.
Knowing Keller was a Shadow made it hard for her to hide her presence from him in the Realm, but she used that invisibility to hide in the darkest corner of the evenly lit, white room. With the ASI on all sides of the room, the dead silence in the Realm encroaching on her, the only other presence near her was Mark. The hard, stone floor couldn’t have been comfortable, but Mark was left there unconscious, curled up and unmoving.
He groaned, fighting off the effects of Inhibitor, and pushing himself to regain some semblance of consciousness. Mark dreamt deeply, pulling his knees up to his chest.
What if none of this had happened? What if he’d never discovered his Shadow five days ago? What if he didn’t have the power to defy the ASH and he had fallen in line like the rest of the Shadows?
In the end it was all a knotted mess that made him feel like a failure, not just on his own part, but on the Shadows’, who promised to guide him. In a day, he had been transformed into a creature who was no longer human, in another, he formed relationships with similar beings he was beginning to love, and in the third, he had committed the greatest blunder of all.
Mark formed a fist, stretching out his arm on the floor where he laid. His anger grew as he pressed his fist on the floor trying to get up, but he didn’t have the will. What was his future supposed to be if trying to escape led to this?
“I can’t…” Mark whispered coarsely, drawing himself up on uncoordinated feet.
Emilie tensed behind him, watching him as he got up and ran forward at the door. Igniting his hands instantly, Mark banged his fists on the door and the fire on his hands spread over the white stone repelled merely by its surface temperature. The ASI protecting the wall sparked golden-bronze and dissipated, burning away like paper.
“Keller!” Mark screamed up at the mirror on the door, knowing it was a window. “If you can hear me…” he shouted only briefly, contemplating his words. “Let my people go!” Banging his fists on the door again, he repeated, “Let them go! Free the Shadows!” he begged, sinking to the floor as he couldn’t even burn through the thick stone.
Hesitating, Emilie sighed and left the Realm. She was stuck in there like Mark and she might as well show herself. She approached him and laid her hands on his shoulders to comfort him. Tensing a little, Mark jumped and whirled about, but he extinguished the fire on his hands to gently touch hers, accepting the embrace. “It’s all right…” She held her hands over his chest, consoling him silently.
Mark felt her fingers press over his heart and he allowed her as she discovered in the Realm how to take his Shadow from him. Meeting eyes with her, Mark felt his Shadow leave him in Emilie’s hands. While still embracing him around his shoulders, Emilie held Mark’s Shadow before their eyes.
“It’s so heavy…” Emilie whispered, somewhat distraught. “It’s like I’m holding your heart… but it’s heavy and cold…” Gazing then into Mark’s eyes, Emilie frowned. “I d
idn’t realize when you took my Shadow what a burden it must have been to even hold my heart in your hands. I can only imagine what it felt like.”
Mark whirled about and embraced Emilie which forced his Shadow to return to him. “You are light, Emilie, so different from any Shadow. Your Shadow is an easy burden while mine is like a weight on my chest. You’re full of emotion and life. I can’t let the ASH keep that from you.”
Emilie smiled as Mark released her and knelt on the floor, staring at him for a while. Until now, she had never thought of wanting family, but seeing Mark before her, her cousin, made her realize how she badly needed it. “Will you promise me something, Mark?”
Hesitating, Mark nodded, dulling the color of his eyes from crimson. Emilie clenched a hand over her heart. “When all this is over… can you and I always be together?” she asked, knowing Mark could probably never live up to the task.
All his despair clouded the room, tears in the corners of his eyes, and Emilie’s heart softened. For one time in her life, she never felt so comfortable with a person to reach out and touch his cheek.
Mark shuddered at her touch, gravitating into it and grasping the back of her palm. Emilie floated up and drew her arms around him. “I believe in you, you hear me!” she whispered at his ear, holding him tightly. “We’re gonna get out of here!” He nodded within her embrace, trembling and holding back tears.
Abruptly, they heard a rattling sound at the locked door and they thrust apart from each other. Mark jumped to his feet, keeping his eyes on the door while Emilie went into the Realm. The first thing he noticed was a key card in the dainty hands of Ocie Keller, then he saw her face, determined and soft as the day he had met her.
“What do you want?” Mark growled at her, quelling the flames already forming in his palms.
Ocie seemed startled, taking a glance about the rest of the room then her shoulders dropped. “Emilie… I know you’re in here. You might as well come out.” She slammed the door shut, pocketing the key card securely before Emilie left the Realm. “Do you know why the ASH was built?” she muttered wearily before flashing her blue eyes at him.
Mark clenched his fists tighter, still shaking with rage, but he stood and nodded grimly without a word.
Ocie pressed her lips together and frowned. She shook her head slightly and strode deeper into the room. “My father grew up in a Shadow settlement west of here, a close-knit community where the Shadows all lived and worked together. They never really had much, but he saw how the Shadows could do so much more when they came together.
“He created the ASI to protect that settlement, to give them a safe place to grow and focus on their powers, and from the stories he told me, there were some especially powerful Shadows living there.
“Unfortunately, some of them saw what the ASI was capable of and feared it was a way to trap the Shadows. This panic caused them to scatter, no one trusted each other, and many Shadows left and went into hiding. He acted fast, and with a handful of Shadows rallying with him, he fought to preserve the Shadows’ unity, keeping them together.
“He was rash, and the settlement was destroyed within the ASI. With the Shadows who stayed beside him, and the few who reluctantly stayed, he built the ASH, and moved them here, a building that can’t be damaged no matter what battles go on inside it.
“But that wasn’t the only reason the ASH was built, and you know it. My father’s best friend was like Kip, dying! And he didn’t support my Dad. After his home was destroyed, his best friend disappeared, and probably died soon after!” Ocie’s tone rose harshly.
“It wasn’t until five years later that he learned his Shadow could have saved his friend! And that was through the Recluse! The Shadow that he raised like a son, a boy who urged my Dad to use him to find a cure! A boy so smart, he helped him come up with the medicine that saved Kip’s life last night!”
Taken aback, Mark’s footing quivered at the sound of Ocie screaming. Tears welled in Ocie’s eyes as she stood up to Mark, fully believing and trusting in her father. “I have watched my dad suffer. He just wanted to heal him, and after fourteen years, he still died, and then you come along, identical to him, and fighting to destroy everything my dad created! Yes, my dad has made mistakes, and yes… the Shadows must be free. But he can’t accept that this coincides with the Exodus.”
Tears streaming, Ocie covered her eyes, desperately trying to hold Mark’s gaze. “I know you’re Nova Liberanti! I know the Shadows have to be free! But please! Don’t destroy the ASH! He’s not ready to let it go!”
Gulping hard, Mark’s hands felt cold for the first time in a while, the fire completely dead inside him. “Okay…” He panted, his heart raging in his chest. “Okay!” He shook off the wariness. “All right, what do you want to do?” He startled her, causing her to stare red-faced across the pale white room in surprise. Mark remained firmed, adapting his plan. “You’re Shadow Hope, aren’t you? You know what has to happen. Just tell me!”
Tearfully, Ocie’s eyes shimmered and she managed a slight nod. “The shield…” she whispered. “That’s what scares the Shadows. My dad needs to know it’s not necessary for the Shadows to be safe. The walls are protected by the ASI. That can stay. That’s all we need.”
“Are you seriously—” Emilie gaped, her feet hovering off the floor. “I’ve been trying to hack into the shield forever. Are you telling me you know how to disable it?”
Chuckling, Ocie shook her head, drying away the last of her tears. “Not a clue.”
Able to laugh as well, Mark ignited his hand in scarlet flames. “I think I have an idea of how to deal with it.” Inhaling sharply, he put out the flames and looked to Emilie with a grin. “I’ll go to the courtyard. You go to all the rooms and let the Shadows out. This is still their home, but they need to know it’s not a prison. Sound good?”
With only the slightest hint of reluctance in her eyes, Emilie forgot about her need to escape and fly away. She nodded. “Got it!”
“What would you have me do?” Ocie asked.
Reaching out, Mark dropped a warm hand on her shoulder. “Stand by me.” His assurance filled his soul with confidence, an excitement he had never known before. “You’ve given the Shadows hope. I need to give them their freedom.”
“All right!” Emilie cheered, taking to the air, “Let’s do this!” She couldn’t wait for Ocie to open the door, tempted to take the key card out of her hand until the locks released and she zipped out like a comet, entering the Realm as she flew.
The shadows were long as the morning light streamed in the front window, and Mark could easily see the dark figure across the balcony as Emilie disappeared above them. Entering the Realm was just about pointless. In this light, it was impossible to hide. ASOs were in the halls, and thus far they hadn’t been noticed.
“Get in the Realm!” Ocie snapped, grabbing Mark’s hand tightly.
“They’ll see my shadow,” he protested.
“Just do it! I have clearance to be in the halls right now. You’re supposed to be locked up.” She winked, gently assuring him. He finally complied, and she let go of his hand. The Realm seemed different. He felt like he could see the light of morning, but he was mystified by all the light coming from Ocie’s watery form, glistening, spreading hope everywhere she walked. Mark followed her closely, keeping himself in her shadow.
She rushed straight to the courtyard, passing two ASOs on the way, neither of whom spoke to her. She unlocked the door to the courtyard with her key, pushing it open to a flood of frigid October air. Mark left the Realm on the stairs. There was no one outside to catch him. At least, he was pretty sure. She didn’t react when she saw he had reappeared, but looked up over the huge stone building and sent a powerful tone through the Realm.
She called the Shadows, and Mark knew when he heard her voice in his head, that they had all been able to hear the wave she sent out. She was incredibly powerful in the Realm, more experienced than Mark felt he would ever be. Taking his hand once more, Ocie d
ragged him along to the middle of the courtyard under the huge oak tree. They waited, and gradually, the confused Shadows appeared, streaming out of the small opening.
With the ASI still functioning, the courtyard was a dead end for them and vaguely, Mark could hear the outnumbered ASOs struggling to grab each of the Shadows. Mark stood as surely as he could, putting his hope in Ocie and his trust where it belonged. To the Shadows entering the courtyard, he looked strong. A powerful Shadow meant to save them, the perfect Shadow.
Mark couldn’t hide his fears when he saw Kip in the little doorway. Rita supported him because he could barely stand on his own, and she had teleported him outside, carrying the IV stand with her. Mark panicked a little before the Shadows spread out enough to get close to him.
“Kip’s going to be okay, right?” he murmured to Ocie.
She nodded surely. “He’ll have to stay here, but my father will take care of him.”
Still nervous, Mark winced hard, letting go of Ocie’s hand as well as his fear. He didn’t want to hurt Kip, but he wanted to know the secrets of the Shadows. He wanted to know who the Recluse was, and the reason why his mother grieved the Shadows. It was a vast ocean before him of questions and secrets that was dark like the Shadows and red like fears, and in the red sea was the gateway to freedom.
Mark gulped, hoping no one was looking as he swallowed down the last of his fears, accepting what was to come. “I’m ready,” he said to fully convince himself.
Ocie laid her soft hand on his arm, hearing him and seeing his fears. “We are all Shadows,” she whispered surely. Meaning together, as one, unified and perfect, the Shadow supported Mark. They did more than that—they believed in him.
On his right, Sil stepped closer to him, and from behind him in the air, Emilie readily watched after him. A calmness filled Mark, and in his heart, he felt the truth—this was his family, right here, whether it was in the past, present, or future, he would always be with them. Around him, many of the Shadows were unaware of what was going on, some were afraid, some were excited, but all of them trusted Mark.