Shadows of Ourselves

by Blake, Apollo

  “Alright, get out of here.” Ursa sighed. “I’ll close this up and make sure none of us left a trace. You should get back behind your wards before they’re back out on the streets looking for you.”

  “Thank you,” Hunter said. “I owe you one.”

  “You owe me a million, you nerd.”

  Hunter nodded for me to follow, and I trailed after him, down the alley. We were just coming out onto the street across from the outside of Brunswick Square when he spoke. “We can head around the outside back to the hotel and get some rest,” he said casually.

  A burst of anger claimed me. I pulled to a stop and took a step away from him, balled my fists against the urge to smack him.

  “Are you serious right now?” I asked, “Or have you lost your damn mind?”

  He half-turned. “What?”

  “Every time I follow you somewhere I end up getting attacked!” As the adrenaline drained from my system, the fear and shock had started to set in. “You’ve nearly gotten me killed twice now, Hunter. We just got jumped by a fucking Vampire, and you left your grandmother to fight them on her own—”

  “Althea will be fine. She’s one of the most skilled Charmers I know, even without the abilities Crayton stole from her.”

  “And that,” I said, “what you used to do for Crayton.”

  His shoulders stiffened, and he looked past me, focusing on something over my head as he spoke through clenched teeth. “What about it?” he asked.

  What he meant: I dare you to fucking ask about it.

  Everything about his tone shouted at me to leave it alone, and the possibilities danced through my mind—was he a killer? A thief? I tried to picture him running around in some lame black outfit, doing villainous, douchey bad guy stuff, but the image was so ridiculous it didn’t seem possible.

  I had no idea who he was, why I should trust him, and I was too in over my head to care, because it was really the only option I had.

  But I deserved to fucking know.

  I wasn’t going into this blind, and if it hurt his feelings or pissed him off to have to deign to give my a god damn explanation, so be it. I wasn’t here to coddle him and hold his hand and be easy to deal with. I was here to get shit done, and I was kind of sick of being kept out of the loop.

  “You’re going to give me answers.” I said, instead of asking a question. “Even if I have hold you down and choke them out of you, but you will give me some.”

  His eyes narrowed with malice, and suddenly he was inches from me.

  It wasn’t enticing: It was a challenge.

  “Is that so?”

  “You owe me the truth. This involves me now.”

  “That doesn’t.”

  I shoved him, and he stumbled back, more from surprise than anything. Steadying himself, he came closer and just stared at me. Waiting to see if I would try to hit him again, maybe.

  I met his gaze, unflinching. “It does, you fucking creeper. It has since the moment my own survival came into play. You don’t get to put my life at risk because of your own shit twice in a row and say it doesn’t involve me.” I shook my head in disbelief. “This world, these places—it’s like something out of a movie, or a hallucination. Like I’m dreaming or going insane. And now there are people trying to kill me? And you don’t think you’re gonna have to take five minutes of your precious fucking time to at least tell me why?”

  His eyes flashed. “Did you just call me a creeper?” he asked.

  “The last time I went somewhere with you, you literally kidnapped me, you creepy fucking dude! Do you have any idea how alarming that is? You’re problematic.” I pointed at him, jabbing him on the chest. “I want an explanation, and I want something to eat. I want to stop getting attacked by Vampires who look like they shop at GapKids!”

  Finished, I fell back on the heels of my feet. My outburst had left me breathless.

  Hunter stood in a shocked silence, nearly black eyes fixed on my face like he’d just watched me pull the pin from a grenade. His jaw ticked. It looked like he was struggling not to smile.

  I was going to hit him.

  A nice kick on the shin, I thought.

  “Maybe,” he said quietly. “I was planning to explain more to you in the morning when we got up—except, oh, wait—you weren’t there.”

  Oh. So not about to smile.

  He looked like it was all he could do not to wrap his hands around my neck and strangle me. His gaze was intense, trailing over my throat and parted lips.

  Feelings. Gross.

  “Oh, my God!” I threw my hands up in the air. “I’m not your boyfriend, Hunter! I’m not with you! You don’t get to hold a grudge against me just because I didn’t stick around your hotel room the morning after we screwed so you could cook me eggs and bacon and we could pretend that we actually give two fucks about each other! It was a one-night stand! Stop holding it against me.”

  Hunter was was silent. He watched me, maybe waiting for more, but I crossed my arms and matched his silence. I was done arguing—he could either act like an adult or not, but I wasn’t letting him make me feel guilty just because I didn’t want to play boyfriend.

  Fuck you and fuck your ego, buddy. I’m not here to play, and I’m not your date.

  I needed him focused on breaking this bond thing so I could get lost.

  I was here because I had to be, and I wasn’t going anywhere with him, danger or no, without the promise of an explanation and a part in forming our game plan. This was my life, too.

  “Tell me whats going on and let me help, or I’m leaving. And hey, maybe this asshole boss of yours who keeps trying to kill us will be more help than you.”

  Hunter winced. “Ex-boss,” he corrected. I watched his hands clench at his sides as he tried to fight down his aggression.

  I’d said something to set him off again.

  Who was this ex-boss, really? What had Hunter done for him?

  “I want answers. Real ones.”

  He looked away, squinting into the distance. When he faced me again, he looked resigned, but softer. “I’ve been an asshole.” He admitted. “I probably could have handled this better.”

  “Probably?”

  “I am sorry,” he said, “and I’ll answer some of your questions. But I’m not telling you what I did for Crayton—I don’t owe you my past. And I’m not going to stop flirting with you.”

  “Christ’s sake—”

  He grinned wildly, holding up his hands in surrender. “Let me take you to get some food, and we’ll talk. I can tell you everything—on one condition.”

  I frowned. “What’s the condition?”

  Now he was outright beaming. “I get to pick where we eat.”

  HEARING THEM BEG

  The minute he didn’t need them anymore, he was going to make sure the bloodsucker and the brute died the most painful deaths he could give them.

  The only thing that would be better than watching them burn would be hearing their screams.

  Hearing them beg.

  No. The only thing better would be not having to suffer their incompetence any longer.

  FIFTEEN

  AN EXPANSION OF WORLDS

  Hunter chose to expand my world over Chinese food, so we ended up in a dimly lit restaurant, sitting across from each other at a table, trying to keep our voices down while he told me about the magik world. Nothing makes up for your entire universe collapsing like fried rice and lo mien, I guess.

  I got a coffee with my food and hung onto it for dear life. Caffeine is magik.

  I felt zapped from the fight, but it was better with someone here to distract me with their talking and moving and breathing. When my own existence freaks me out too much, I focus on someone else’s for a minute to calm me down.

  Plus, he was useful. He’d put up wards to mask our signatures and shroud us in darkness, so to anyone who looked our way, we would appear slightly distorted, hard to remember. That eased a lot of my anxiety over potentially being found again. As far
as the wards went, I still didn’t entirely understand. He said they worked in different ways; mentally, visually, and physically. A ward could be a disguise just as easily as it was a wall or a shield, but it depended on the way you wove it—according to Hunter. Apparently he was better with them than most people, but just because he practiced more.

  All of the information felt like a balancing act, and I knew he’d have to repeat some of it, if not most.

  I was an anxious mess.

  But at least the restaurant was warm, and dimly lit. I felt relaxed here, toasty, despite the frost and falling snow outside. I could still see the flakes drifting down, gently hitting the ground outside the front windows and sticking. The ground was coated in the cold white powder.

  It was growing really dark, and I had missed texts from my mom and Riley, but I was ignoring them at the moment in favour of food and answers.

  “So it’s all real?” I asked. “All of it?”

  He nodded, chewing, then swallowed. “Most of it.” He took a drink of his water, each second like torture. “Some things are just pure legend—like leprechauns—and some are just really rare, like Banshees.”

  This was all a lot to process.

  It was like I was having a conversation with one of Kent’s D&D guidebooks come to life.

  When he said he’d explain, I thought Hunter would tell me a bit about Charmers in general, or what magik was, and I figured he’d mention the existence of a few creepy-crawlies, beings like Destiny—I didn’t think there’d be hundreds. thousands.

  I didn’t think he’d be telling me there was a bit of truth behind almost all human mythology.

  “Some stories contradict each other,” he continued, “those are usually a mix of two types of creature, or a combination of different sightings strung together into one encounter. So you’ve got people that think Faeries are tiny little sprites fluttering around, or that Werewolves just turn into regular wolves, like shape shifters. . . .”

  “Wait, Werewolves?” I set my fork down on the table. “Fairies?”

  “Overwhelmed?” he asked, grinning wide.

  I nodded, slowly. I was going to be out-drinking my mother in no time at all, if things kept up like this.

  I leaned back in my chair, looking around the restaurant. Beneath the warm shine of the twinkle lights strung along the walls and the low glow of the overheads, a few couples sat around making gooey eyes at each other—a pair of older women holding hands over the table, a guy and a girl about our age looking like they were about to jump on top of each other right here—and in one corner a woman sat with her two young sons, who were both laughing and playing with their food while she watched them with a warm smile.

  The girl at the front counter sat with her chin in her hand, flipping through a textbook with a bored expression.

  Safe, normal, ordinary. Non-lethal.

  Oblivious.

  All of these people lived completely unaware of what went on all around them, what sat beneath their feet—an entire world of magik beneath the surface like a corpse buried in a flowerbed.

  When I looked back and met Hunter’s eyes, he simply raised his eyebrows as if to say, Right?

  We went on like that for a while, me asking questions and him answering them. Sometimes he would laugh, when he found my misconceptions so absurd he couldn’t even help himself, and when I got angry and blushed he just laughed that much harder. And, like a brushstroke being put down on a canvas again and again, layers over layers, his personality began to emerge, to form concrete outlines. He didn’t waste words when he didn’t have to, but I wouldn’t call him stoic. At times he was playful and teasing, but he could switch to serious and direct like the flash of a camera. Mostly, he just seemed happy to have some company.

  I felt him growing on me. Like a freaky alley cat or a pair of thrift store jeans I hadn’t been too sure about at first. At least I didn’t want to wring his neck anymore.

  By the time Hunter paid for the meal (I made a move for my wallet and he knocked it back into my pocket with a wave his hand) and stepped out into the cold, my spirits were lifting. I wasn’t as clueless as I’d been before.

  It was still an odd weight to carry—but at least now I felt like after this was over, after we’d broken the bond, I might be able to protect myself.

  Unless we don’t break the bond. . . .

  I shoved the thought away, but it swung back in my direction like a pendulum, impossible to be rid of for long. What if we didn’t break the bond? What if we failed, and we were linked forever? I looked at Hunter and wondered if I would be okay sharing everything with him for the rest of my life—my emotions, my powers, my secrets.

  I couldn’t decide, one way or another. We hadn’t even started to display the signs of the thing, yet.

  Objectively, he seemed like a nice guy. But nice didn’t really matter in the end, for me. We had to do this.

  Hunter stood on the sidewalk next to me, looking at the sky. His head swiveled in my direction, and a grin tugged at the corners of his mouth when he caught me staring.

  “Coming?” he asked.

  I titled my chin up. Yes, Houdini, I was checking you out. Deal.

  “I was considering it,” I said. “I mean, I was also considering robbing a bank and experimenting with hard drugs, but hey, we’ve got time, right?”

  He stared at me.

  Time was the one thing we didn’t have if we wanted to sever the bond. According to him, it was settling to place inside us like a dog making circles on its bed, getting nice and comfy before lowering itself in for a long, long sleep.

  But my clothes were nasty and I kind of wanted to check in on my mother and make sure she wasn’t, like, dead. Or running kitchen knives through my paintings.

  Vindictive runs in the family.

  “Right,” I said. “So do you think we could stop at my place so I can grab some new clothes?” I pointed at my jeans, jacket, and the double T-shirts worn on top of each other. “These are sort of gross now.”

  “You’re sort of gross.”

  “You’re very gross,” I shot back. Genius material. “Grotesque, even.”

  “Is that so?”

  Hunter pursed his lips thoughtfully, grin fading. I felt his hesitation filter through the bond and jolted in place. I’d felt that.

  The emotion was distinctly not mine, like there was some pattern that was his and his only running beneath the thoughts, a shade that belonged solely to him. And the emotion was. . .more real, somehow. Like it overwhelmed me for a second, pushing my own out to make room until I had to blink and shove it away, focusing on the cold air to drag myself back from the head rush.

  Was the bond growing stronger? Before I could figure it out, Hunter relented.

  “Fine, but I want to be in and out, really fast, okay? And at the first sign of trouble, we run. No matter what.”

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  Ignore it. I thought. Not useful information. Focus on the task at hand.

  Brushing past Hunter, I started in the direction of—and I call it this very, very grudgingly—home. I was honestly just hoping my mom didn’t puke on him or something.

  SIXTEEN

  LEFTOVER NIGHTMARES

  If I knew anything, it was that the minute I saw my mother complications would arise. She had that affect on me. And on herself.

  Chaos clung to Melissa Davenport like soot on chimney stones, spots on a cow.

  Like booze and vomit to the ends of her hair.

  God, please don’t be walking around wearing nothing but vodka stains and a bad attitude, I prayed silently. Nothing screams fun like walking in on your naked, drunk mom chasing a mosquito around the apartment to the haunting strains of Fleetwood Mac.

  It had happened more than once, and frankly, my eyes still hurt.

  Our building was on the corner of Horsfield, down the street from the Admiral Beatty. The frost clung to the red bricks and the brown sandstone of the window ledges, which were a warm gold on th
e edges but turned coal black on their sides. The few trees lining the street were barren, naked branches twisting desperately into the cold dark sky above, hopelessly reaching hands.

  We were quiet as I let us in. Hunter followed me up the stairs noiselessly, too graceful for someone so giant, and I wondered what he must think of the place.

  It wasn’t a five star hotel suite, that was for sure. The ugly brown hallway carpets had burn marks in places, and most of the steel apartment doors were streaked with deep black scratches in the metal. The walls were stained in several spots. I didn’t feel anything judgemental through the bond, but—wait. Since when did I care what Hunter thought? I shoved the topic out of my head.