The boy couldn’t have been more than twelve. He had stationed himself in front of his mother who was crouched against the wall with a heavy fog enveloping her. The boy’s fists were clenched and he scowled at his dad. But underneath all that toughness, his body trembled. He must have been scared out of his mind but had no choice. He needed to protect her.
The mother glanced at us but kept her focus on her husband. Or what she could see of him through the frail human shield that was her son.
Something glimmered beside the boy. How had I not noticed earlier? A light figure barely taller than the boy stood behind him with one hand resting on his shoulder. Light radiated over the boy’s small frame, providing a glow of protection he couldn’t see. The same light must have filled his heart with courage, too. Because the boy stood tall, even as his lip quivered before this violent man who undeservedly claimed the title “father.”
Gregory broke the silence, speaking quietly through gritted teeth. “Get the mother and kids out. Now.”
Wait. There was supposed to be more than one kid. Where was the other one? I scanned the room. A young girl about four years old stood in the doorway of a bedroom that opened to the living room. With wide, innocent eyes, she surveyed the scene wearing only a stained, white men’s T-shirt that swallowed her tiny body. She held a tattered blanket close to her chest.
My heart poured out to her. She shouldn’t be seeing this.
Patrick must’ve been thinking the same thing. He headed straight for her and scooped her up as Kyra rushed to the mother and son.
Gregory held the shadow’s gaze, but its head was near enough to the father’s that Gregory appeared to be staring down the father instead of the space behind him.
I stood by the doorway. What could I do to help but the one thing that seemed far beyond my capability? I closed my eyes anyway and did my best to concentrate so I could open the sound tunnel to the creepy shadow. But my efforts were futile. It was like trying to lift the heavy door of a scary, dark cellar filled with spiders. I didn’t really want to open it, so my efforts were half-hearted at best. Which wasn’t enough to break through.
I sighed heavily and opened my eyes. Patrick and Kyra were already hustling the family out the front door beside me.
I turned to follow them, but stopped with my hand on the doorframe. The sky was pitch-black. Only a distant street lamp and my friends’ auras provided any light to help me see. But I swore an even darker entity fluctuated along the fence. The form looked achingly familiar.
I strained to get a better look until something clicked in my memory. I didn’t need to look anymore. My eyes flew wide open and my pulse throbbed in my ears. In shock I braced myself on both sides of the door but gradually lost my grip. My hands slid slowly down the old wooden frame as paint chips fluttered to the ground. Everything else around me blurred.
One more movement, a dash behind a tree, and I snapped out of it. I flung myself inside, pressing my back and hands against the wall by the door. I gasped for air.
Was that? It couldn’t have been. But what other shadow could be so oppressive and intimidating to me? What other shadow could I so easily recognize than the one that had been bound to me for three years, and, more recently, the one that had helped torment my family and friends? Flash after flash of images burst like exploding light bulbs in my mind. Jenny’s tears-stained face after her miscarriage. My mother bent over howling after discovering her boyfriend was married. Hanna’s pale, weakened body limp on a hospital bed. I cringed at the memories.
What was Lucas doing here?
My back was still against the wall, so I had no choice but to watch Gregory. He calmly approached the drunk father and his domineering master, and I completely forgot what I’d seen outside.
“Let him go,” Gregory demanded.
The shadow released the man’s arm and pivoted to meet his opponent. The father immediately dropped his arm and looked around, bewildered. “What?”
Gregory ignored him and took off in a sprint. He made only two long strides before his human shape disappeared and blinding light burst forth. The flash of light filled the entire room for a split second and then concentrated back into one potent form just in time to clash with the darkness in mid-air. The battle had begun.
The father stumbled to the wall in shock, but on his way, smacked his head on the only artificial light in the room—a tall floor lamp. He fell flat on his back, unconscious, as the lamp tipped over and shattered into tiny pieces around him.
Gregory’s turbulent blaze shone more brilliantly in the darkness. As he fought in a writhing battle, twisting himself around and sometimes through the murky figure, I could hardly tell who was winning. The shadow blended so well with the blackness and gloom of the room.
Nonetheless, the fight was captivating. All the flashes of light tangled around fluid shadow. My mind raced back to a similar vision, and déjà vu struck me like a physical blow to my chest.
A fourteen-year-old girl sat on the floor of her bedroom with bloodstains on her jeans. Hopeless. Desperate. Razor blade in hand. Above her, an epic battle for her soul. Protecting her, a caring father-like figure who would tear to pieces anything that threatened to harm his child.
I shut my eyes and opened them again. The vision was over. Gregory was still fighting the shadow, but my eyes drifted to the drunken father who was still passed out on the floor. His mouth gaped open at an awkward angle and his shirt had managed to twist itself up as he’d fallen, exposing his repulsive beer belly.
I narrowed my eyes. This worthless excuse for a human being, much less a father, was nothing like me. He didn’t deserve such a passionate fight as I did. Did he?
“Iris?”
I blinked. My hands were balled into fists and I was still staring at the father on the floor. I glanced up. Gregory was in human form again but glowing as he stepped toward me. The shadow was nowhere in sight.
“Come on. The cops will be here soon.” He extinguished his light completely and the room fell dark.
“Right.” I shook my head on my way out to the porch, feeling removed and distant. I had done nothing to help, and our mission was already over.
I stood motionless on the porch and listened to Gregory’s steps change and grow quieter from squeaking on rickety wood planks to soft thumps on grass.
Gregory went to Patrick and the two kids, but Kyra led the mother to the side. As Kyra talked to her, she held the mother’s arms and looked her straight in the eyes. But the mother didn’t return her gaze. In fact, she looked anywhere but Kyra’s steady, brilliantly-blue eyes—the source of a hope she didn’t have and knew nothing about.
Kyra’s aura flowed heavily around her, as though charged by a steady source of energy. The light overflowed to the mother’s arms and her face suddenly began to brighten. The change was slow but amazing to watch. It reminded me of sunlight spilling over into a dim canyon in the morning. The mother’s shadowy emotional fog remained but grew smaller. I frowned. Such a vast chasm would take a lot of time and a lot of light to fill.
“Cops are almost here.” Patrick must’ve had an acute sense of hearing, because I hadn’t heard anything.
He pointed to the west. Sure enough, headlights flashed out of nowhere and grew larger as if trying to search us out. Unless we wanted to have our names taken as witnesses and explain what we were all doing there, we wouldn’t be able to stay longer.
After a brief goodbye, we headed out the back way toward a parallel street behind the house. We’d have to take the long way to Gregory’s car.
A momentary thought made me freeze in my tracks and shiver. I twisted my torso around and scanned the moonlit yard near the tree where I’d seen Lucas earlier. Nothing.
No one had noticed I’d fallen back, so I hurried to catch up. Kyra and Patrick were weary and heavy with the emotions of the night and Gregory was weary from his fight, but I had to tell them. If it really was Lucas, the whole team needed to know.
“Hey, um…” I wasn’t sure how to say it,
but they all stopped and looked at me so I went for the blunt approach. “I’m pretty sure I saw Lucas. Outside the house by a tree.”
I studied Gregory’s face, hoping he’d tell me I was crazy and that there was no way I could’ve seen Lucas. But all I saw was worry in his eyes mixed with a fatherly type of pity.
“Iris, I’m so sorry. Don’t you worry, though. We’re all here for you. We’ll protect you.”
Patrick squeezed my shoulder and Kyra gave me a look similar to Gregory’s. Then we trudged on to the car in silence as I pondered what Lucas’s presence could mean for me. And for everyone I cared about.
Chapter 8
The moment I woke up the next day and knew I’d have some free time, I texted Lexi to see if she wanted to hang out. Despite her short, curt replies, she agreed to meet Kyra and me at the coffee shop later. I was determined to mend our relationship. And I had my newfound ability to help. Well, I assumed I could use it to help. Trying to listen to the guy’s shadow the night before was a complete disaster, but that was with a horrible man that was extremely hard to empathize with. This was one of my best friends.
Still…I probably needed to test my skill out on a few guinea pigs before she got there.
I glanced around, looking for a good candidate, and found one in a middle-school girl a few booths over. As she sat across from two other girls who were giggling to themselves over a phone, having a conversation that didn’t seem to include her, a charcoal-gray cloud wavered over the girl’s head and close to her ear. She peered out the window and seemed disconnected from what was going on around her.
My first thought was that she needed better friends who actually acknowledged her presence. But there had to be more going on with her.
As the charcoal-gray cloud wavered close to her ear, she put her hands in her lap and looked down at them. This poor girl deserved to be free from her leech and the lies it was, no doubt, telling her. I had to help this girl. I closed my eyes and focused.
All the noise of the coffee shop dwindled away to a low din, and the chilling sound of one long, heavy breath brushed my ears. Then silence again. When the breath came a second time, the drawn-out exhalation of air ended with a hiss. The girl and her parasite were at least ten feet away, but the disturbing noise seemed to be right beside me. Or perhaps inside my mind. It was as though the voice and I were in a thick tunnel together.
The sound seemed so close that I opened my eyes to make sure the shadow was still on the girl and not by my ear. I kept my eyes open and zeroed in on the dark, eerie being that produced an even creepier sound—a string of phrases that echoed in my ear. Some hissed and sizzled, some snapped and crunched like the breaking of a brittle tree branch, and some sent me swimming in deep heaviness. So many sounds. So overwhelming. So many disturbing emotions and reactions in my mind and body.
I gritted my teeth. I had to concentrate on the words. Not how they made me feel.
“You don’t deserve friends like this,” the voice drawled and hissed like a snake. “You’re too ugly and definitely not cool enough.” The words snapped. “Don’t even try to be good enough…” the tone dipped into a terrifyingly low pitch that made me dizzy, “…because you never will be.”
Listening to the shadows was seriously going to take some getting used to. I didn’t want the shadows in my head. To say their words were unsettling would’ve been the ultimate understatement. I had to remind myself that the words weren’t meant for me so I didn’t get sucked into believing the lies myself. But that took strength and the effort was exhausting.
I slumped in my seat both emotionally and physically spent. But now that I knew what was wrong, I had to do something. Though I wasn’t used to “working” on my own, surely I could help her.
I grabbed what little trash I had on my table and casually strolled by their table on my way to the trashcan. “Hey,” I said to the girl, twisting myself so that my back effectively blocked out the other girls from our conversation. “Don’t I know you from school?”
“Um, probably not.” She shrank back a little, probably not used to random strangers talking to her. “I’m just an 8th grader.”
“Really?” I switched on my aura and leaned in so the warmth could reach her. “Man, you look old enough to be a sophomore. I like your hair by the way.”
“Thanks.” As the girl grinned shyly, the dark fog cleared almost completely.
“What did you say your name was?”
She glanced behind me for a second, probably at her friends, and then looked at me again with a full-fledged smile. “Kelly.”
“Well, Kelly, next year when you’re at the high school, I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for you. Maybe we’ll even have the same lunch.”
She beamed and the last little patch of gray dissipated.
“See ya around.” I pivoted on my heel and sauntered off right past the other two girls, barely giving them a sideways glance. If they weren’t going to pay attention to their friend, I wasn’t going to pay attention to them. Maybe they’d learn their lesson.
But after I threw away my trash and turned to go back to my seat, I found the two girls still staring at the phone that had them pre-occupied early. Worse still, some strange, slowly swirling shadow had formed over them, more defined than a normal lustful funnel cloud but swirling nonetheless.
Thankfully, Kelly was still shadow-free and had gone to happily sipping her drink, but her friends hadn’t changed. On my way to my seat, I was able to glimpse over their shoulders and see what the girls were looking at it. Some online catalogue of clothes that were way too revealing for a middle-school girl. Hmm.
I sat back down in my seat and sighed. Okay. If I was ever going to be able to use my skill on someone like that drunk, abusive father, I would have to learn how to empathize with people I didn’t easily feel sorry for. These girls seemed like a good start.
Thinking about their ignorance of the shadow helped. Sure, they were being crappy friends and were perhaps considering purchasing clothing too inappropriate for them to wear anywhere, but they were at least ignorant of the dark figure flitting around them, whispering in one ear and then another. They were the victims here.
I concentrated on the tunnel that would connect me to the shadow and, more importantly, to the people who needed my help. I barely had any empathy going, but I let my passion feed the flames and finally began to hear something.
The voice that reached my ears was quieter than the last. I figured, logically, the more empathy I had for the person, the stronger the connection and louder the voice would be. Still, the little empathy I had was enough.
The voice was higher pitched than the other, although I wouldn’t necessarily call it female, or male. Either way, the sound was as smooth as silk. If a sound could have a taste, it would’ve tasted like chocolate melting on my tongue.
“You would look hot in that outfit. Your friends would be so jealous.” The voice swam around inside my head and melted over my skin. “Not to mention every guy would be drooling at your feet. That deep V-neck and short, tight skirt? You could have any guy you wanted.”
Great, I thought. Another Lila in the making.
And instantly, the connection was gone. I blinked several times. Wait. I wasn’t done yet.
I closed my eyes, determined to fight through my prejudice and regain my empathy for these girls. I couldn’t compare them to Lila. That wasn’t fair. Lila knew what she was doing to boys and didn’t care. Actually, she enjoyed the attention. These girls had a shadow feeding them this stuff to manipulate and use them. They weren’t aware of the fact that they were hostages, and they deserved to be free just like anybody else.
A faint whisper. Then nothing. I opened my eyes again and the girls were nowhere to be found.
I slammed my fist on the table. Dang it!
But then something red and bouncy, glistening in the soft lighting, caught my attention and I forgot all about the girls. I would know Lexi’s hair anywhere.
I smiled at her
, but she looked away, pretending she hadn’t seen me. She stared at the floor as she shuffled to get in line for her drink. The same shadowy cloud that had been gracing her side lately hovered behind her.
I checked the time on my phone. She was ten minutes late. I’d known Kyra would be late, but it wasn’t like Lexi to show up somewhere even a few minutes late. Had that been on purpose to spite me?
As Lexi finally got her drink and wormed her way through the tables to get to mine, I reached for the light within me and pushed my aura outward. The glow warmed my skin. “Hey.” I tucked a stray hair behind my ear and tried to focus on my friend instead of the dark mass that hung on her back.
“Hey.” She took a seat as she regarded me with a twitch of her mouth. The Lexi I used to know would’ve greeted me with bright eyes and a huge grin. I missed her.
I set my elbows on the table, crossed my arms, and leaned forward. “How are you?”
She brushed off my loaded question with a shrug. “I’m fine. Where’s Kyra?”
“She told me she was going to be a little bit late. Let me try to text her and see how close she is.”
I pulled out my phone and pretended to text Kyra——the perfect cover for me to listen to Lexi’s shadow without interruption. In the silence, I focused on how much I cared about my friend. How much I wanted her to be free of the leech that had been sucking the joy and life out of her.
The echoing tunnel came quickly with hardly any effort.
“You’re all alone...” The words were a loud whisper. Hauntingly hollow. They moved about in my head like a vacuum, sucking up everything, leaving only empty space.
“She doesn’t care about you anymore.” A raw iciness dripped down my throat and hardened into a rock. “Neither of them do. You’re not good enough for them.” My throat ached as though I were choking. “You’re alone. Alone. Alone.”
“Hey, girls.” Kyra’s greeting shattered my tunnel. I glanced around, shaken.
Realization spread across Kyra’s apologetic face. She must’ve realized what I’d been doing. “Sorry.” She cringed as she lowered herself to her seat.
Luminous Spirits (Shadow Eyes Series Book 2) Page 7