Hunting Shadows (Shadow Series #3)

by S. H. Kolee

  “I fucking hate it when you do that!” she screamed and I knew the vardoger was back in control. My father ignored her as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “There’s your proof,” he said. “Now what’s your decision?”

  I felt like I was going crazy. I didn’t know what to do, but doing nothing wouldn’t solve anything either. “Get rid of the vardoger inside her first and then we’ll talk.”

  My father shook his head as if he were disappointed in me. “Do you really think I would do that? It would be too easy for you to go back on the agreement. I’ll guess we’ll have to do this the hard way then.”

  The next thing I knew, the house exploded with bodiless vardogers. They seemed to come crashing through every window, pouring into the house in a constant stream. As dozens came rushing towards me, I saw Simon run towards my father and slam into him and they both fell onto the ground. I had no time to pay attention to what happened next as the vardogers hit me like a ton of bricks. They attacked in an endless stream. As soon as I had destroyed the ones clamoring to enter me, there were more behind them waiting for their turn. I felt myself growing weaker with each attack but I powered through, telling myself there was no way I was going to let my father win, especially now that I knew my mother was alive.

  When I finally destroyed the last vardoger, my body felt like it had been through the wringer. I felt like collapsing but my adrenaline kept me standing. I wasn’t prepared for the scene before me. Simon was lying on the floor and I felt sickened when I saw blood streaming from his head. My father had my mother in front of him, shielding his body, as Ryan stood opposite him with his gun raised. Philip was standing behind my father like he was a small boy.

  My father looked at me in amazement. “You’re even more powerful than I thought. No other seer could have destroyed all those vardogers.” He nodded towards Ryan. “He shoots and your mother dies too.”

  Ryan glanced at me. “We can’t let him get away.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t shoot my mother.” That didn’t mean that I couldn’t destroy my father’s vardoger. He had stupidly told me how to destroy the vardoger inside my mother and all I needed was Philip. There was no need to spare my father’s life.

  My father’s expression darkened when he realized what I was doing. What he didn’t realize was that I was starting to panic. I had used up all my energy destroying the vardogers and my powers were barely a flicker even though I was trying as hard as possible to summon them. My powers dissipated completely when my father pulled out a gun from his waistband and held it against my mother’s head.

  “You won’t be able to destroy me before I blow her brains out. I can feel you gathering your power to use against me. Do it again and I’ll shoot her.”

  I held my hands up in surrender since he didn’t realize I didn’t have enough strength to use my powers against him. “Okay, I won’t use them. Just put the gun down.”

  My father’s jaw tightened to the point where a muscle started twitching. “I’m offering this for the last time. Trade places with her. Otherwise, I’ll take the situation into my own hands.”

  Before I could respond, I heard a sharp crack. My father doubled over, howling in pain as he gripped his thigh which was spurting with blood.

  “Shoot him again!” I screamed at Ryan but my father had already straightened and my mother was still between him and Ryan’s gun. His pant leg was soaked with blood and he was grimacing with pain, but his eyes were still bright with hate. “You’ll regret not taking my offer.” He turned to Philip. “Summon the rest of them!”

  I watched horrified as more vardogers started streaming through the broken windows. They rushed me with such force that I was thrown back onto the ground. I tried to gather my powers but they were nothing but a whisper. I heard screaming and then realized it was coming from me as pain seared through every part of my body. I didn’t have the strength to fight back and I felt my body start to shake as if I was having a seizure. Instead of my soul being pushed out, it felt as if it were being pushed down and being buried deep inside me. The pain was too much to bear. It felt as though fingers were actually digging into my heart, stopping it from beating and ripping out all my humanity.

  I was on the edge of consciousness when I suddenly felt the pressure lighten, incrementally at first, but then it started pulling back more rapidly. My eyes fluttered open and I gasped as I tried to take a full breath. Ryan was kneeling over me, his teeth bared as sweat poured down his tense face.

  “Fight them,” he bit out. “I’m trying to pull them out but I need your help.”

  I tried to do as he asked but I was too weak to do anything. Despite my lack of strength, I felt them releasing their grip on me. A shudder wracked my body when the last vardoger dissipated into nothingness and finally I was the only one left in my body.

  Ryan was breathing harshly, trying to catch his breath. I struggled to sit up. Now that the vardogers were gone, my only thought was to destroy my father before it was too late. Fear propelled me to stand, my heart almost stopping when I realized the room was empty except for me and Ryan.

  “Where are they?” I cried, panic setting in.

  “I’m sorry,” Ryan said as he stood up. “I couldn’t stop them without letting you die. Your father left and took your mother and Simon.”

  Desperation clawed at me. The idea of finding my mother only to lose her again was unthinkable. But now Simon… he had warned me not to be fooled by my father, and my stubbornness had resulted in him being taken. I should have just destroyed my father when I had the chance instead of listening to his empty promises. I had no idea if he would just kill Simon or take pleasure in torturing him. I had a feeling it would be the latter since he seemed to have an affinity for “experimentation.” I almost got physically sick at the idea of my father hurting Simon. My hate, anger and fear threatened to consume me and I felt something break inside of me. I had vowed to not let my father hurt another person close to me, but I had allowed him to hurt the person I loved most in the world. The hatred for my father was only rivaled by my hatred for myself.

  “We’ll find your father. We’ll save them,” Ryan said, but his words were an empty promise. We would be able to find them due to his tracking skills, but he couldn’t guarantee that we could save them.

  But I would die trying.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was pitch black outside as we pursued them. Ryan drove fast but they were moving quickly.

  “How strong is my father’s energy?” I asked, staring out into the night, not trying to think of what could be happening to Simon and my mother. I felt an odd mixture of numbness and shattering emotion. I would feel nothing until a sharp slice of emotion would gut me, forcing me to push back the feelings so that I could concentrate on the task at hand. Otherwise I would fall apart.

  “They’re moving fast but I still have a strong hold of your father’s energy. Don’t worry, we won’t lose them.”

  Despite everything, I was grateful to have Ryan with me. Not only had he saved me from the vardogers, but with his tracking ability I would be able to catch up to my father.

  “I never thanked you for saving me,” I said quietly. We were on a country road with no other cars, and it felt as if no one else existed in the world besides us.

  “You don’t need to thank me,” Ryan answered, looking straight ahead at the road. “I would do it a million times again if I had to.”

  “You must be incredibly strong. I couldn’t even count the number of vardogers that attacked me, yet you were able to destroy them all.”

  “It helped that your energy was fighting them back as well. It wasn’t all me.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t have anything left to fight with. It was all your doing.”

  Ryan didn’t answer and I didn’t push him. I knew he was a strong seer, but I didn’t realize he was strong enough to destroy so many vardogers at once, especially since he had seemed amazed when I had been able to do it. I wanted to
question him further about it but I refrained, wanting to respect his privacy. I said nothing as I went back to staring out the window.

  “We have to be careful of Philip,” he said, breaking the silence. “He’s shown that he’s an incredibly powerful vardoger. He must be the one that’s able to sustain other vardogers that are unattached to bodies.”

  “Like Claudia,” I whispered. “But he’s even stronger. We need to capture him alive because he’s the key to saving my mother.”

  Ryan’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “You need to be prepared for the worst. Even if your father is telling the truth, that your mother’s soul is still inside her body, we don’t know the state of her mind. A person’s sanity can only take so much before it breaks.”

  “I don’t care.” I clenched my hands into fists, sickened by the thought of what my mother had endured for all these years. “All that matters is that my mother is still alive. I saw her, she looked straight at me and I recognized her. I’m going to save her and I’m going to save Simon. There’s no other alternative.”

  Ryan’s jaw tightened but he didn’t say anything as he continued to drive. I wished that we were driving on a more populated road. The one we were on was poorly lit and the lack of other headlights made it seem even more desolate.

  I glanced at Ryan and noticed that his grip on the steering wheel had tightened so severely that his knuckles were white and his arms were trembling. Beads of sweat were trickling down his face, which had turned ashen.

  “Are you okay?” I asked concerned. I wondered if fighting all those vardogers had taken too much of a toll on him.

  Ryan nodded his head almost imperceptibly but kept his gaze forward, not looking at me. My concern deepened when his whole body started to tremble, making the steering wheel shake. The car started swerving from his erratic movements and I swallowed a scream when we narrowly missed hitting a guardrail.

  “Ryan, pull over!” There was something seriously wrong with him. As much as I needed to catch up to my father, getting into an accident would make it much more difficult. Ryan seemed to be suffering through some sort of seizure and we needed to stop the car before it was too late.

  I was relieved when he was able to follow my direction and pulled off onto the shoulder. He was still gripping the steering wheel and shaking. I grabbed one of his arms to pull his hand off the steering wheel, but he recoiled as if my touch were painful and flung my hand forcefully away. I stared at him, shocked by his behavior. Shock turned into fear when he turned towards me. His face had drained of all blood but his eyes were bloodshot, dozens of angry veins stark red against the whites of his eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I whispered shakily, instinctively moving back closer to the car door to put more distance between us. His lips were devoid of all color and were trembling when they opened, but there was no mistaking the one word he uttered.

  “Run.”

  It was the second time someone had told me to run in the span of a couple of days and although my body tensed in preparation to follow the direction, my mind rebelled at what was happening. I didn’t understand what was going on and I needed Ryan to track my father.

  “What the hell is happening? What’s going on?” I wanted to shriek the words at him, but I forced myself to stay calm. I put my hand on the car door handle in preparation to flee, but I couldn’t run without knowing what was happening. And I couldn’t get past the fact that I needed Ryan. I was also worried that he might need my help with whatever was happening to him.

  I saw the panic in his eyes, which fueled my fear even more. In that instant, I decided I needed to put some distance between us first and ask questions later. I had no idea if he was possessed by a vardoger or if it was some other affliction, but now wasn’t the time to ponder it.

  But it was too late. The second I pulled the handle to open the car door, my head was slammed against the glove compartment. I heard a sickening thud and felt wetness running down my face as pain exploded in my head. Despite the pain, my hand still scrambled for the door handle as all my instincts went into survival mode. My attempt to escape was futile as Ryan jerked me towards him by my hair, forcing me to lose my grip on the door handle.

  He had a maniacal look on his face, far crazier than any expression I had seen on any vardoger. He bared his teeth and I couldn’t help wondering if he was going to sink them into me and tear me apart. He looked feral and out of control and I realized I was in a fight for my life.

  I immediately started gathering my energy. There was no way I could beat Ryan on a physical level, but if there was a vardoger inside him I would destroy it. I felt a rush of relief when I felt the familiar humming of my powers growing and I slammed it into Ryan with all the strength I had in me. I was horrified when he just grinned at me like a madman.

  “Sorry, that’s not going to work on me,” he said in a ghoulish sing-songy voice that sounded nothing like him. “You’ll have to try something else.”

  I cried out as his hand twisted my hair, wrapping it around his fingers so tightly that it felt like my scalp was going to rip off.

  “Ryan, please! I know you’re in there somewhere! Take control!”

  “You bitch.” White foam was forming at the corners of his mouth like he was a rabid animal and his expression of fury had no hint of sanity. “You’re fucking going to die now.”

  His words fueled me like nothing else could. I couldn’t die. If I died there would be no one to save my mother and Simon. I wasn’t scared of my own death, but I was terrified by the prospect of theirs.

  I lashed out with everything I had in me, screaming and flailing my arms, trying to sink my nails into any soft flesh I could come into contact with. I raked them across his face, satisfaction surging in me when I saw angry red blood streaming down from the scratches I had inflicted. I reached out again, desperately trying to gouge his eyes out, to hurt him severely enough to be able to escape. I was in survival mode and I would do anything to make it out of this alive.

  I wanted to scream in frustration when he grabbed my wrists and slammed them above my head against the car window. I bucked my body, trying to get free, but he reacted by holding my wrists against the window with one hand and punching me in the face with the other. I moaned in pain as I felt my lip split open and my mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood. The pain in my head from his fist and the earlier slam against the glove compartment was unbearable and I saw black spots start to crowd my vision. I forced myself to stay conscious. If I blacked out, everything would be over.

  “I’m going to make this as painful as possible and I’m going to make sure you’re going to stay awake for it,” he sneered. He was stretched across the console with his gruesome face close to mine. I raised my leg and shoved my foot towards him with all the strength I had left. My foot made contact with his groin and I kicked him again as hard as I could.

  He released my wrists, doubling over in pain with a shriek of agony. I took the opportunity to grab the door handle and pulled it, opening the car door. I could hear him yelling but I blocked it all out as I ran. The only thought pounding in my mind was to get as far away from him as possible.

  I jumped over the guard rail and ran into the woods alongside the road. The trees were close together and I was having a hard time navigating in the dark. I wanted to look behind me to see if he was pursuing me, but I forced myself to keep moving forward. I didn’t have a split second to waste and I needed as much of a head start as possible.

  Soon, it became apparent that I didn’t need to turn around to see if he was following because I heard his footsteps and heavy breathing. I tried to run as swiftly as possible without making too much noise but I was constantly running into tree limbs. I was sure my face was bleeding profusely from Ryan’s attack and all the branches that were scraping against it, but I was oblivious to the pain. There was so much adrenaline pumping through me that I doubted I could feel much of anything.

  I silently cursed myself when I tripped over a t
ree root and froze when I heard movement close by. I could hear twigs snapping underfoot and I tried to stay as still as possible so that I made no noise. My heart was pounding against my ribcage so hard that I was scared Ryan would hear it.

  I could hear him just a few feet away and I prayed that the cloak of darkness would protect me. I felt vulnerable being on my hands and knees on the ground but I didn’t want to risk making any noise by standing up. I couldn’t stop myself from shivering when he spoke in that awful sing-songy voice again.

  “Caitlin, do you really want to prolong this? You’re not going to escape so you might as well give up. I might be willing to make it less painful for you if you cooperate.” He laughed hysterically and I began to wonder if Ryan was just plain crazy, having nothing to do with a vardoger. His voice sounded closer when he spoke again. “Who am I kidding? I’m going to make this as painful as possible, no matter what. What do you think it feels like to have your fingers cut off one by one? Maybe I’ll try ripping the nails off first. I hear that’s excruciating.”

  I caught sight of his silhouette in the darkness just a few feet away from me and I inched to my right so I was completely behind a tree trunk. I covered my mouth with my hand, trying to stop myself from breathing heavily. I heard his footsteps again and I wanted to weep in relief when I heard them getting farther away. I waited until I could barely hear them in the distance and then rose and started making my way in the opposite direction as quietly as I could. Hope was just starting to blossom when I was pulled back violently by my hair. His breath was close to my ear when he spoke.

  “Stupid bitch. Did you really think you were going to escape?”

  He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me to the ground, pinning my legs with his knees and holding my wrists prisoner above my head with one hand. He reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a knife, taking off the protective sheath with his teeth. The blade gleamed in the moonlight and I reacted instinctively, bucking wildly and screaming as loudly as I could. Instead of looking alarmed, Ryan laughed and pinned me against the ground harder.