The question stumps me. It’s hard to think of life beyond the moment. A month ago my answer might have hinged on those that were around me, but for all I know everyone I cared about is dead. The outbreak happened at a point in my life where I wasn’t thinking about what I wanted to be or to do. I was just living my life, living in the moment—not much different than how I’m forced to live in this greyskin world.
“I don’t know,” I say. My answer depresses even me. If my hope is simply to survive, that isn’t much of a hope.
“There is more to surviving than simply staying alive,” Amber says to me. “I want to be a journalist.”
I turn my head a bit, confused. “A journalist?”
She nods. “That’s what I’ve always wanted to be, and soon, there will be a need for news more than ever. People will need to know what is happening in the rebuilding process. News from other towns and settlements will encourage others to continue the rebuilding process as well. Now, we have no way of transmitting information. But everyone needs it.” She shrugs as she cuts into the runny egg and takes a bite. “That’s my dream anyway. You should be thinking about what you want to do when this is all over.”
Having seen the way Amber is supposed to die, it’s difficult for me to hear about what she dreams of doing. Though I know I can see into the future and change it, sometimes change comes with the ultimate sacrifice. From what I’ve seen of her getting shot in the pool of water, it would seem that the only way I could change it would be if I took the bullets for her. I don’t want her to die, but I can’t say that I would sacrifice myself for her. I don’t like these thoughts. I feel so selfish, and they only add to the guilt that I already have.
We finish our breakfast in silence and it’s already time for me to take a short glimpse into her future. Before I reach out to touch her hand, I prepare my mind to look at her future specifically for 10:00 PM. I hate wondering what I’m going to see. It makes me want to kill the monsters that run this place.
My hand is in the air just above the table. Amber looks at it for a second, and the short grin returns. I’m pretty sure that I’m the only one that can notice it. Peter won’t see it behind the two-way mirror, but it’s like she’s trying to tell me something.
She reaches for my hand, and just before the familiar white light flashes in front of my eyes, I feel a small piece of metal placed against my palm.
It’s 10:00 PM and Amber waits in her room patiently. A guard walks in and he’s holding a club in his hands.
“I’ve been given free reign tonight,” the guard says. “You know it will be worse if you fight it.” He starts to unbuckle his belt as Amber stares at him nervously.
When he gets closer to her, she doesn’t look afraid. She doesn’t look anxious. She seems ready for something. She sits on the bed, one hand resting in her lap, the other behind her back.
“I won’t struggle if you promise not to hurt me tonight,” she says.
The guard hesitates for a moment, probably not expecting her to be willing.
“This doesn’t have to be a night of pain,” Amber continues.
The guard takes a step closer, his eyes narrowing and his mouth curving into a wide smile.
When he gets to the side of the bed, he grabs Amber by the shirt and forces her to her feet. He brings his face closer to hers. “Then kiss me,” he says.
“Okay,” Amber replies.
Her left hand goes to his neck gently, but her right remains behind her back. Her fingers clutch around a piece of sharp metal—not a knife, but a jagged piece from her metal bed it seems.
The guard closes his eye briefly to accept her kiss, but it never comes. With a tight grip, she swings the metal shard into the guard’s throat. Blood squirts all down the front of Amber’s shirt and arm as she takes a step back. The guard’s eyes are wide and he’s unable to scream out, producing only gargling noises as he drops to his knees. Amber sits back on the bed briefly, waiting for him to be still. Finally, within a few seconds, the guard is dead on the floor, his eyes staring into the ceiling.
Amber bends down next to his body and takes his club from him. Clipped to his belt is a taser, and she grabs that too. As she walks to the bedroom door, she tries to wipe the blood from her arms but quickly gives up. She takes one last look at the dead body on the floor before leaving the room into the dark hallway beyond.
When I let go of Amber’s hand, I grip the small piece of metal that she placed in my palm. At first, I think she’s giving me something to do my own stabbing with, but as I feel it under the table with my fingers, it’s just small and flat. It feels thin like I could bend it. I want to know what it is but I can’t look down at it. Not with them watching me.
“I know not to ask you what you saw,” Amber says. “But I hope it’s good.”
I stare at her with no words to say.
“With the look you’re giving me, I might rather swim in sewage than experience whatever it is you saw,” she says. “I don’t even know how I’d get there. Maybe the second hallway? The third door on the left?” She shrugs, looking away.
Peter’s voice calls out over the intercom. “Amber that’s not the kind of conversation we need to be making. If you’re having trouble, stick to the card.”
“Sorry,” Amber says, looking at the mirror. She taps the side of her head. “Sometimes I forget to lock my mind and all sorts of words are free to flow out. Guess I need to make sure nothing is wedged in the latch.”
I feel for the metal in my fingers. She’s not really talking to the person behind the mirror. She’s still talking to me. That’s what the metal is for. She plans to escape tonight, though she doesn’t know how it’s going to play out exactly like I do. She also doesn’t know that she will be shot while swimming through a pool of muck, though I bet she would rather that happen than experience what the guard plans to do to her.
I can feel my pulse quicken as the doors open behind us and it is time to go. I know I won’t see Amber again until it’s time to try and escape. Perhaps I’ve gained enough skill in my ability that changing Amber’s future of getting shot won’t be as difficult as I think. I will just have to see when I get there.
As I’m led to my room, I think about the words Amber spoke to me after the vision. Sewage. Second hallway. Third door on the left. She was trying to tell me to meet her there. At 10:00 PM, she will have killed the guard. I need to be ready.
The guard in front of me isn’t really paying attention as we walk forward. He’s talking to someone on the radio. He’s distracted. He unlocks the door to my room and I know I only have one shot it this.
I look behind me briefly and notice that the other guard starts talking to the one that was in front of me, and the door standing wide open. I stop in the doorway and lift my hand just enough to slip the piece of metal in to keep the latch from locking in place all the way. The guards don’t notice me until they realize that I’m just standing in the doorway, staring at them.
The one closest to me scowls. “Get in your room.”
I take a step back and he closes the door. Immediately, I squat and look at the latch. With a little prodding, I’ll be able to get this door open without any problem. I don’t think this place was initially intended to be a prison. I’ve got my way out. Now Amber has to do her part.
I sit in my room and wait for Peter. I haven’t thought of what lie I’m going to tell him when he asks me what I saw. I suppose that I will just say that the guard plans to rape Amber—that he goes through with it. I suppose it doesn’t matter what I tell him. As I sit at the table, waiting, I think about the past month and how strange it has been. I’ve hated it worse than anything. Of course, when I allow myself time to think, my mind drifts to how I got here, and the sacrifices that were made. They weren’t voluntary sacrifices. The day Mitch made me shoot Ethan… I shake my head at the thought. I haven’t cried about that day much. At first I did. But not lately. Lately I’ve felt numb—tired. Right now I can’t help but wonder if Mitch is still out there terrori
zing others with his mind control. I think back to a month ago and I feel sad.
Chapter 3 - Waverly
One Month Ago
My hands shook and I dropped the rifle to the floor. I couldn’t pull away from the window or tear my eyes from Ethan who was lying on the ground in the street below us.
I was the shooter. I could feel my hands trembling at the thought. I had never seen myself in this scene of Ethan’s future, but it was because I was so far away from him. I tried to see if he was breathing, but I couldn’t tell from that distance. Blood pooled out from under him. If he wasn’t dead already, then he would be soon.
If I hadn’t still been under Mitch’s control, I would have picked the rifle back up and shot him with it. But it took only a word from him for me to lose control of myself.
We should have never taken that vial of blood from Scarecrow’s car, I thought. I wish we had never gone through that small town. Back then it was just me, Ethan, Gilbert, and Lucas. If we hadn’t stopped there, Lucas and Gilbert would probably still be alive. And now, Ethan was as good as dead, too. I was the last of our group, and I didn’t foresee living much longer.
Part of me didn’t hate the thought.
Mitch walked away from me like nothing even happened—as if shooting Ethan was so insignificant to him that there was no reason to give it another thought. I finally turned and looked at him. His brown eyes looked angry. His hooked nose and clenched teeth makes him seem half insane. Of course, he may have been on the brink.
I tried not to look at the floor where Lydia, Evie’s caretaker, was. She wasn’t supposed to get mixed in with all of this. She had been at the wrong place at the wrong time. If we hadn’t brought this mess to Elkhorn, she might have still been alive. Next to her was the body of Mitch’s girlfriend, Ashley. Both of them had been killed by Samuel, who stood like a statue up against the wall, per Mitch’s command.
All it took was a spoken word from Mitch and one was forced to obey him. It’s what the Starborn blood must have done to him. Within him, Mitch carried the power to control anyone’s mind or action. If he turned and asked me to jump, I wouldn’t say how high. I would have jumped as best as I could.
He sat on his knees next to Ashley, weeping. I didn’t know how long I stood next to the window, watching him. He was unarmed, but he needed no weapon. He was a powerful Starborn. My life was in his hands.
I looked back and forth between Mitch and Ethan. I couldn’t help but hope that I had missed his heart and that he would be okay. All I needed was a wave of the arm and I would have known he was alive. I squinted through my watery eyes to see if he was breathing, but my sight failed me. I looked away from Ethan and glanced in Samuel’s direction. He stood motionless against the wall and his eyes caught mine.
I didn’t know much about the man. All I knew was what I saw in the visions and then in real life only a few moments before. His ruthless, murderous actions were cold and terrible. I had already judged Shadowface by the company she kept, and now I judged her even worse. Whoever she was, she needed to be stopped. I just feared that I would have no part in it.
Mitch was going to kill me.
Many thoughts passed through my mind in those few seconds as I watched Mitch cry. One of the thoughts was that I somehow deserved what I was going to get from him. Though I had not pulled the final trigger to end Ashley’s life, I had meant to. But apparently she had been planning to meet with Samuel all along. It seemed that she was supposed to meet Shadowface. That was all part of their plan.
Mitch’s angry eyes found mine. “You ruined everything,” he said.
“She was going to kill you,” I said, though I know now it wasn’t true. What I had seen in the vision seemed different than when I was there in real life. In the vision, I saw her pointing a gun at Mitch’s back when, in reality, she was probably aiming past Mitch at the greyskins or enemies outside the window. But in the vision, she had said she killed everyone. “She even told Samuel that she killed my sister. She killed Jeremiah.”
“She was lying,” Mitch said. “I saw my father last night.”
“What about my sister?”
Mitch shook his head. “It wasn’t part of the plan. Ashley didn’t kill anyone. She was going after Shadowface, but she needed the blood first.”
“Then why didn’t you just include me in your little plan? None of this would have happened if you hadn’t have been so secretive.” I wasn’t sure if pointing the blame at Mitch was such a good idea, but his expression stayed the same and he remained at Ashley’s side.
“It was between me and her,” he said. “We didn’t trust anyone else.” He looked down at her body. “It has always been just me and her.” He stroked her arm up and down with his knuckles as if she was sleeping soundly while he admired her. But the bullet hole in her forehead allowed for no such illusion. He looked away from her and back at me. “The plan was to steal the blood from you in the last moment to keep you out of the loop for as long as possible. We didn’t want any loose threads. But Shadowface’s attack was much more difficult to predict than we thought. More…explosive.” He set Ashley’s arm on the floor gently and stood to his feet. His eyes went to Samuel who stiffened slightly. “You told her that Shadowface would meet with her today. You said that she would be here, but you already planned to stop using Ashley, didn’t you?”
“We knew her time was up,” Samuel answered involuntarily. “We’ve suspected all along that she was playing both sides to see which would come out ahead, but we found that to be even more useful than trusting her completely. It made her predictable. Today Shadowface decided that she was finished with Ashley.”
Mitch stood only a foot from Samuel, his teeth grinding against each other. “Do you know how badly I want to kill you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to have to use you to get close to Shadowface.” A slight smile formed at the corner of Mitch’s mouth. “I might even make you kill her.”
Samuel swallowed hard.
“Did you know that Shadowface’s real name is Olivia?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know that Olivia is my mother?”
“No.”
As I listened to them go back and forth, I thought about what Remi had told me about the woman she had seen at the university on the day of the outbreak. Remi suspected that she knew who Shadowface was, and now it seemed that my sister was right. But knowing that Olivia was Mitch’s mother brought a brand new perspective to everything. So, Jeremiah and Shadowface were once romantically involved? I shook my head at the thought. This whole conflict—the dead bodies on the ground, the war among us—seemed to have spawned from some twisted family dispute that was at least twenty years old.
I looked back at Ethan who hadn’t yet moved. The more seconds that passed, the less likely it would be that he was still alive. It made me hate Mitch all the more. It made me want to kill him. I wished more than anything that I could have found some way to thwart his hold over me, but I could think of nothing. I could only stand there, waiting for him to kill me.
“How many people know the identity of Shadowface?” Mitch asked Samuel.
“Your father,” Samuel said, “myself, and you.” He nodded at me. “And I assume Waverly too.”
Mitch shook his head and started walking toward me. He stood by me and looked out the window at Ethan’s body on the ground. I studied Mitch’s expression for a brief moment and saw a change in his eyes. I don’t know what it was, but it seemed for a second that he felt like he shouldn’t have done what he did, that it had been wrong to take his anger out on me like he did. But when his eyes met mine again, any emotion of guilt he might have felt disappeared, and was replaced with anger.
“Do you know about Miss Waverly’s power?” Mitch asked Samuel.
“She can see the future by a simple touch,” he answered. “Paxton informed Shadowface of this.”
“Does
my mother want her blood?”
“She wants to test Waverly, yes. She has been interested in her for some time. First, for the blood that you apparently drank, and second for her own ability. She wants to take Waverly alive.”
Mitch only stared at me when Samuel explained this to him. He looked at me from head to toe as if to study me, to take me in fully. He shook his head. “She’s not going to get that chance.”
“Are you going to kill me?” I was asking out of desperation. I didn’t want to die because I felt like there were too many loose ends. I still wanted to know where my sister was. I wanted to see if she made it out of this terrible place. And there was still that vision of she and I giving Evie away to someone named Jenna. Had something changed that brought me out of that line of futures, or was Mitch going to let me live? I looked away from Mitch and toward Ethan again, noting that his body still hadn’t moved. I didn’t see Ethan in the vision with Remi and myself. Gabe was there too, so I didn’t see why Ethan wouldn’t have been. Unless he was dead.
“Yes,” Mitch said. “I am going to kill you. But first, I have to keep you alive in case Olivia wants to hear your voice.”
“What?”
“Do you have a radio?” Mitch asked Samuel.
“Yes.”
“Turn it on and call out to Shadowface,” Mitch commanded. “Tell her that you’ve got the cylinder and you have Waverly in custody. And tell her that she will want to see it for herself.”
Samuel grabbed for his radio at his belt and turned it on, giving Mitch a scowl. “Eight-three-nine, eight-three-nine, come in this is eight-three-eight. Again, eight-three-nine, eight-three-nine, do you copy?”
Samuel released the button on the radio, never letting his eyes leave Mitch. All of us waited several seconds for a response, and at first, we weren’t sure there would be one, but finally a voice came over the radio. The sound was deep and gravelly like Olivia was using a machine to mask her voice.
Go ahead eight-three-eight,” the voice said.
Into the Shadows Page 3