by Jeff Sampson
Jared and I walked side by side over the lawn. I opened the door and let him slide in, then awkwardly set Dawn’s torso on his lap. Squeezing beneath her legs, I got in as well.
Dawn let out a soft whimper, then went still, silent.
Still breathing, though. That was good.
As soon as I slammed the door shut, a click echoed through the car as each door locked.
“Who are they?” Patrick asked. “Is that girl all right?”
“I don’t know what Megan did to her, Patrick,” I said. “I don’t know what all she can do. You’re the one who’s been hanging around Megan lately, not me. How are you involved in all this? Why are you helping her?”
“W-we’re mates,” he stammered. “And she told me all about you and showed me things she could do. She said I could learn how to pop around like she does. I—”
Megan stirred in the passenger seat, then snapped awake. Patrick clammed up and turned his attention to the road. Putting the car in drive, he pulled away from the curb and started heading down the road.
Megan—the real, solid Megan this time—leaned over the seat to face me and Jared. Grim-faced, Jared stared back at her. He cradled his dead hands in his lap, beneath Dawn’s head.
“Sorry, Jared,” Megan said. “I didn’t want to involve any of you normal people in this.” She shrugged. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
“That’s all you have to say, Megan?” I said, seething. “You hurt Jared and Dawn, and it’s just, ‘Whoops’?”
She glared at me, not saying anything for a long moment. Then, finally, “Yeah. Whoops. Guess I’m just as evil as all the idiots at school say I am.” Sighing, she turned away to sit back in her chair. “Can we not talk anymore? I don’t want to talk.”
We rode in silence, my mind racing. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. I was supposed to be on my way to stopping BioZenith and the Akhakhu, not being kidnapped to help one of the creepy shadowmen come across.
For a moment I thought about trying to surreptitiously text Spencer and the others. Until I remembered our phones were now a bunch of plastic and glass shards scattered across a mall parking lot.
Feeling my pocket, I did find the hard nub of the thumb drive, at least. Despite the commotion, I’d managed to not leave it behind. Not that it would do me much good if I couldn’t get to the meeting place in time.
I briefly considered going hybrid or even full wolf and busting myself out of the car. But that would just lead to an accident, or let Megan go free to cause even more trouble. No, I decided in that moment that I’d just have to sit it out and try and figure something out on the fly.
It didn’t take us long to get to the McKinney house. Patrick pressed on the brake hard as he pulled into the driveway, and we all jerked forward. As he and Megan opened their doors and came to open mine and Jared’s from the outside, I peered over the car seats at the front door of the mansion, hoping that Mr. McKinney would be there with his team of guards.
I couldn’t believe I actually wanted to see that man.
But I didn’t have that much luck.
“Emily, what’s happening?” Jared whispered in the few moments we had before our doors opened. “What I saw Megan do…That was impossible.”
“I’ll explain later,” I whispered. “Just make a break for it when I say. Okay?”
“But what about Dawn and—”
“Just do it,” I interrupted. “You’ve helped me a lot. Now let me help you.”
He didn’t get a chance to answer. Both of our doors opened at the same time. Megan’s hand gripped me around the bicep and she yanked me out. Dawn’s feet plopped heavy on the backseat.
“You know the way,” Megan said, shoving me off the driveway and onto the mansion’s front lawn. “And don’t try anything, Emily. Even if you take me down, I can pop somewhere else and…” She raised her hand and wiggled her fingers. “Got it?”
“Yeah, Reedy,” I said, using my old nickname for her. “I got it.”
She snorted. “Reedy. Whatever. Go.”
I did as she asked. Leaving Dawn unconscious in the backseat of the car, I led confused Jared, jittery Patrick, and determined Megan around the side of the house and toward the woods at the back of the property. We passed the pool, covered for the cold months, and a fenced-in area where Dalton’s dog was usually kept.
My mind kept searching for some solution. I didn’t want Jared to get hurt. Not Patrick, either, even if I didn’t know how he fit in with all this. My only plan was to tackle and knock out Megan, but she was right that she could pop out—astral project or whatever it was that she did. I actually had no idea what the extent of her abilities were now that she was connected to an Akhakhu.
So I made a choice I hoped I wouldn’t regret.
I decided to do exactly as she asked and hope that she would let me go.
We reached the tree line where a week before I’d chased wolf-Dalton as he’d dragged a screaming Megan into the brush. The bushes were still trampled, branches still broken and scattered. I followed the makeshift path, the others behind me in a line, until we were there.
The clearing.
The last place I’d seen Megan as herself.
It was just how I remembered. A small, treeless space covered with fallen leaves in red and orange and brown. It would have been a lovely place for a picnic or something when it was warmer out.
That is, if it weren’t for the rippling, oval distortion that I knew was hovering in the air to my left. The one I’d seen a shadowman crawl through toward Megan while others dragged Dalton away. It was awfully convenient that there was a portal right behind Mr. McKinney’s house, but I got the feeling there were probably rifts everywhere—it’s just no one could see them.
Focusing, I let my eyes shift from Nighttime’s strong human vision to the gray-tinted vision of the wolf.
And the rift came into view.
The distortion was larger than I remembered, having grown from the size of a window to that of a door. I could see through it, too, those same spindly dark cities I was familiar with by now.
A shadowy figure stepped into view just on the other side of the portal. I knew right away that it was Megan’s Akhakhu. She’d been waiting.
The shadowwoman tilted her head at me, watching me.
Megan came to my side, spinning to take in the clearing. Her hands were shaking, and a crazed grin spread across her face. “Where is it?” she asked me. “I can feel her, she’s so close!” Grabbing my shoulders and staring into my eyes, she shook me. “Where?”
Last chance. I could point her in the wrong direction and, when she was distracted, try to take her down and risk ending up like Dawn.
Or I could point her toward the awaiting Akhakhu and hope that the thing would let me finish my plans for BioZenith. Which could mean losing Megan forever.
I raised my left hand. And I pointed at the distortion.
Crossing her arms, Megan turned from me and walked slowly across the clearing. As she did, the portal expanded and contracted, like a pupil with a light flashing on and off in front of it. The shadow figure on the other side trembled with excitement.
Megan stopped a foot away from the portal. Strands of her long blond hair wisped away from her face in the breeze. Closing her eyes, she raised her hands like a woman at church.
“I can hear you,” she said. Then, louder, “I hear you! Come into me! Take me! Please!”
With Megan focused on her possession, I turned to Patrick and Jared. “Run,” I hissed.
Still cradling his dead hands, Jared looked at Megan, then back to me. “What about you? I can’t just leave you with her.”
I grinned wryly at him. “Yes you can, Boy Scout. Go get medical help. Save Dawn and get your hands fixed so I can hear you play drums again. And get the police to find my stepmom and my dad.” I swallowed, realizing I didn’t know if my dad ever made it out of BioZenith.
The wind had picked up more now and Megan’s hair was a streamer of white beh
ind her. Face so full of joy that she looked like another girl altogether, Megan raised her head toward the sky.
“H-hey,” Patrick said, stepping toward me and Jared. “I’m with Megan. I’m not supposed to…”
“Then stay,” I snapped at him. “But you don’t need a hostage anymore. Megan got what she wanted. You won’t get in trouble.” I raised my right hand and tensed my fingers. Dark claws shot from my nail beds. “At least not with her.”
“Emily,” Jared said, wide-eyed.
“Go!” I said.
He didn’t need to be told again. He disappeared through the underbrush.
Patrick took a few steps away from me, but he didn’t leave.
Megan moaned, half pleasure, half pain, and I turned to see what was happening.
The Akhakhu was halfway through the portal. Her dark, wispy hands connected with Megan’s own, and Megan shivered.
The shadowwoman stepped one foot out of the portal and onto Megan’s, then another. As I watched, horrified, the creature slowly pulled its inky blackness into Megan’s chest, her hips, her legs, and finally, her head.
Megan convulsed and dropped to the ground. With my wolf vision I could see a wispy, smoky aura surrounding her. Tendrils of darkness wrapped around her limbs like creeping vines. As the girl gasped for air, the shadows disappeared into her nose and mouth.
Finally Megan lay still.
“Is it done?” Patrick asked me.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know.
Snapping back to Nighttime vision, I crept forward, slowly, not sure what to expect. Hunching down, Patrick followed me.
When I was not two feet from Megan, her eyes snapped open. I stiffened, seeing them. The iris was gone altogether. All that remained were engorged black pupils.
Megan—ShadowMegan, at least—smiled.
Flexing her fingers, ShadowMegan raised her hands to look at them. She twisted her hands this way and that, studying her palms, her knuckles, her nails. Then, pressing her hands into the dirt, she pushed herself to stand up.
“Megan?” I whispered.
ShadowMegan looked at me as though seeing me for the first time. Then, tilting her head and biting her lip, she glanced away.
“Hmm,” she said, her voice deeper than normal. “Megan. Yes, I will be called this.”
So, not Megan.
“Is she still in there?” I asked.
ShadowMegan laughed, then patted me on the cheek like I was an adorable child asking silly questions. I jerked away.
“She must be here somewhere, I suppose,” ShadowMegan said. “I’m not sure. This is all quite new to me.”
“Why are you here?” I asked. “What do you want?”
Sighing, ShadowMegan stepped past me, stretching her legs with each step. “So many questions. Everyone has so many questions.” Looking at me, she smiled, her lips spreading farther and farther until Megan’s face no longer looked human.
“I am here to stake my claim first, child,” she said. “You know not what we fight on the other side. But I made it here first. I shall be the one who is bowed down to.” She tapped her index finger against her cheek. “But first, of course, I need an army.”
And then she was gone.
I blinked and took a step back.
There was no poof. No wisp of smoke or other wild particle effect. Just there one moment, gone the next.
Rounding on Patrick, I shoved him in the chest. Even though I was much shorter than the boy, he cowered as though I towered above him.
“Tell me where she’s going,” I demanded.
“I don’t know,” he stammered. “This isn’t what she said it would be like. She said we’d have superpowers like you, not get taken over by some spirit and hurt people! We were supposed to—”
Letting out an exasperated sigh, I shoved past him and started to race through the broken brush toward the McKinneys’ backyard. “Come on!” I called over my shoulder. “You get to be my chauffeur.”
“Where are we going?” Patrick huffed as he raced to keep pace with me.
There was only one place ShadowMegan would be going if her goal was to raise an army. The same place where Mr. McKinney and Evan’s mom and all the other scientists-turned-fanatics would go to bring the Akhakhu over if they could.
“We’re going to BioZenith.”
19
YOU WANT ME TO DRIVE TOWARD THE GUNSHOTS?
When Patrick and I reached the car, we found Jared struggling to open the back door with his limp hands. I could see his fingers moving—life was coming back into them—but they were slow, uncontrolled. Just as I ran across the lawn to meet him, he kicked the car door in frustration.
“Hey,” I said softly. I placed a hand on his shoulder, but he jerked away, angry.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “All of this is crazy. And my hands.” Meeting my eyes, I could see the fear distorting his face. “My hands!”
Brushing past him gently, I opened the backseat door. Dawn still lay there, but she was squirming now, moaning louder and louder. I let out a deep, relieved breath.
“I think you guys are going to be okay,” I said as I looped my arms under Dawn’s shoulders and dragged her out of the backseat. “She’s coming to, and your hands are starting to work again. Whatever Megan did to you, she wasn’t strong enough to be fatal.”
Jared blinked, gaping at me. “Megan did this. She waved her hands…and she teleported…. I swear, she teleported. I’m going crazy.”
I laid Dawn out on the cool, manicured lawn. As I did, Patrick ran up, gasping for air.
“You can sure run fast,” he said, leaning on his knees.
“Yeah,” I said. “Get in the driver’s seat. Don’t forget.” I showed him my nails. They were still normal—but he remembered.
A second later, he was in the front seat, slamming the door shut behind him.
Jared crouched down next to Dawn, caressing her hair as best he could. “You promise to explain all this to me one day?” he asked quietly.
“I promise. But I need to go. Ask the woman who lives here to call an ambulance. She’ll help you.”
He looked up at me. “Whatever you’re doing, Emily, be careful.”
I shook my head. “Always so worried about me. I’m just some teen girl you barely know.”
He shrugged. “You’re certainly not like any girl I’ve ever met.”
I offered him a grin. “Thanks. But when Dawn wakes up? Make sure you tell her that.”
Rounding the car, I opened the passenger door. Jared stood to go call the police and try to get ahold of my dad and stepmom.
“Good luck!” he called to me as I climbed inside the car.
Luck. I could certainly use it.
I only just had an evil corporation to bring down and a possessed best friend to stop, after all.
Patrick rambled next to me in his lilting English accent, one hand waving to express himself while he spoke, the other on the wheel as he followed my directions and drove me toward the industrial district.
“See, and she showed me the things she could do, and I thought it was neat, yeah? But I didn’t know she would hurt anybody, or that—”
I gathered he only got involved in this through Megan. That his showing up when I was searching for another werewolf was literally just a confirmation-biased coincidence—I had been paying extra-special attention to him since I thought he was cute, and therefore I saw him everywhere. Not the most astounding answer to that little mystery, but I guess not all of them can be.
I didn’t care.
I sat in the passenger seat of Patrick’s car, knees to chest, my brain ping-ponging back and forth.
Ping. Need to get to BioZenith. Need to meet up with my pack and the cheerleaders. Need to storm into the facility, stop ShadowMegan from bringing over an Akhakhu army, and destroy the portal.
Pong. Dawn and Jared had been hurt. And it was all my fault because I was at the center of this madness, I was the one who let Megan get possessed by s
ome otherworldly being, I was the one who had disappeared and she decided to look for.
Ping. I needed to stop the scientists and shadowmen who were trying to control me.
Pong. If half-possessed Megan could almost kill people with a flick of her hand, what was full ShadowMegan capable of? How many more of my friends would be hurt before the night was done?
Ping.
It was dark by the time Patrick turned onto the street where we would find BioZenith. I glanced at the dashboard clock. It was almost ten p.m. The day was gone. The time for me to put my plan into action was here.
I was supposed to be the alpha, the leader. But I didn’t know if I was ready. Seeing Dawn on the verge of death…it had suddenly made things much more real.
Patrick had stopped talking by then. I guess he figured out I wasn’t listening to his life story.
Putting my feet back down on the ground, I leaned over the dash and pointed at the building opposite BioZenith.
“There,” I said. “And turn your headlights off.”
He nodded and did as he was told.
Quietly he veered the car into the parking lot of the other office building. Following my directions, he drove down the side of the building, past big air-conditioning vents and closed Dumpsters. He parked at the edge of the lot, just in front of the woods.
“Come on,” I said, opening the passenger door and leaping out.
Leaning from his side of the car over the passenger seat, Patrick looked out the open door and asked, “Why do I have to go? I don’t want any more part of this. I just want to go home.”
“You should have thought about that before you teamed up with Megan,” I spat. “Out of the car. Now.”
Turning off the ignition and pocketing the key, Patrick did as he was told. Slouching, he came to my side and then followed a half step behind me as I took him into the woods.
I darted through the grass and bushes to where Spencer and I had had our little practice fight a few nights before. I expected him to have taken the others there.