My throat burns as if the air between us is charged with fire. With his head bowed low, he reminds me of a lost child, and I wish I hadn’t asked him anything. Then he looks up from the floor and gives me a quick sideways glance that makes my body tense. His eyes flick quickly away, like he was just trying to figure out what I thought of his story, to see if I was buying it. Is he lying? I bite my bottom lip. I dare not ask and can only hope I’m wrong. Who am I to pry? We all have secrets and mine are big enough to rival half the world’s.
I steady myself with a deep breath. “I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have … Look, about your proposition, maybe you and Mom should decide.” I can’t think straight anymore.
“I disagree. Don’t take this the wrong way, but your opinion matters more to me than anyone else’s.”
My eyes must betray my surprise. Luke’s fair face blushes. His golden lashes fall over his eyes, disguising his embarrassment.
“I’ve known you since pre-school, Marci. And ever since I first saw you, I’ve felt this …” he chooses his next word carefully, “affinity to you.”
“Humph, and you showed it by being an ass to me half the time?” I cringe at my own comment. He’s opening up and this is what I tell him?
Luke chuckles. “What can I say, I’m only human.” He puts a hand on his chest and smiles that disarming smile of his.
I straighten my already straight mouse pad and smile a little.
“I know Karen is supposed to be my mom, and how could anyone deny it? It’s creepy how alike we look.” His eyebrows meet above his nose in a puzzled expression, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way about their resemblance. “But I don’t really know her and she … makes me uncomfortable. Please don’t tell her I said that.”
“I won’t.”
“You, on the other hand, it’s like you were always there. Even when you weren’t. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s like I could … sense you.”
“Yeah,” I say in a quick exhale of breath. If he only knew how many times I guessed he was about to walk into the gym, the classroom, the cafeteria. “Must be that twin link people talk about,” I offer lamely. I flinch. God, he’s being so open, so honest, and I’m so used to giving people scraps, hiding who I really am for fear of being dubbed insane. I wish I could do better by him. But who am I kidding? It’ll never get better than this with me. Surely monsters are no more articulate than the mentally imbalanced. Funny how I always thought I was simply crazy—“lock her up, hide the key, bring the electroshock” kind of crazy—and, now, it turns out it’s way worse.
How, with this knowledge, could I ever allow anyone to get close to me? How, when I could end up hurting them, the way that monster at Elliot’s was about to hurt that poor woman?
I put a hand on my chest, feeling a strange lump there, fearing my ribcage might split open the second the shadows overtake me.
My hands begin to tingle. I need to get out of here.
Outside.
Rain.
Splashing my face.
I walk to the closet, take out a jacket and slip it on. Luke’s eyes follow my every move. Under the bed, I find my ankle boots, zip them up and buckle them securely to my feet.
“Look,” I say, pocketing the keys to my motorcycle, “whatever you and Mom decide is fine by me.” I’m trying very hard to keep my voice level, uncaring. It’s not easy. I can still hear a tremor and a trace of regret in my words. I’d like to get to know my brother, try to have a real family. Maybe he could give us that much. But what else am I supposed to do? I never knew the nightmare I was keeping at bay. And now that I do, I can’t risk hurting anyone if it finally manages to overwhelm me. “It’s not like it’ll affect things all that much. Mom already loves you. You’re perfect in her eyes. I’m still the same screw-up. That’s not gonna change—”
“Marci.” He says my name in a don’t-call-yourself-that tone.
“It’s fine. Mom and I have never gotten along. I was never … enough for her, especially after Dad died.”
A shadow falls over Luke’s blue eyes, and I wonder if he’s thinking about Ernest Dunn or if he’s struggling to reconcile himself to the idea that his real father is also dead.
“Anyway, I have other plans for breakfast. I’m sure you and Mom will get along fine without me.” I turn the door knob, knowing I should just walk out without a backward glance, but I can’t help it. I look over my shoulder and the expression in Luke’s eyes makes it infinitely harder to walk away. It’s an expression I’m very familiar with: the perfect picture of someone I’ve just let down.
What else is new? Welcome to my world.
Chapter 20
Under the light rain, I walk across the street and around the back of Xave’s house. I have to tap on the glass three times before he peeks through the curtain and slides the window open. I climb in. He’s wearing nothing but flannel pants and a deep frown. His pectoral muscles flex when he shuts the window. I stare, trying to figure out when the scrawny kid I used to know turned into such a sculpted boy. Something strange flutters in my stomach.
He turns to me. His hazel eyes are dark and he looks ten years older. I look away, embarrassed at the untimely stirrings. I stand there, avoiding his gaze for a long time, thinking of his weariness. I wonder if I’ve changed, too. Whatever innocence was left in Xave is now gone. I can tell.
“That water James gave me had something in it, didn’t it?” I ask, reclining against his dresser.
Xave sighs, breaks eye contact, and finds a t-shirt riddled with holes. As he lifts his arms to slip it over his head, the flames of the tattoo on his back ripple and lap his toned muscles.
“Yeah, probably,” he answers, facing me. “You feel okay?”
I lower my gaze and shake my head.
Xave walks up to me and—for the second time this week—I find myself in his arms. My head is on his chest. The dampness on my cheek soaks his t-shirt. His hand smooths the hair down my back, and his heart taps a rhythm along with the headache between my temples. Before this week, we hadn’t hugged since kindergarten and it feels so good, I wonder why we waited this long. It feels safe. Right. A home in the storm.
His warmth seeps into me. Or is that me? My own body responding to this closeness? My head swims, so I focus on the posters on the wall. There are muscle cars, motorcycles and even an engine block.
God, I’m so glad he’s here.
“I think they would’ve killed you. I’m sorry,” I whisper. “It was so hard to …”
“Shhh, I know. You did what you had to do.”
“I bit my tongue. I tried …” I can’t finish. The image of those tentacles reaching for the woman plays in full color before my eyes. “It’s a nightmare.”
“It’s worse,” Xave says, resting his cheek on my head. “James explained everything.”
I pull away, look into Xave’s eyes. “You mean, he told you …”
“Everything. He has a name for what they are.”
“A name?”
“Yes, he calls them Eklyptors. He said it was up to you whether you wanted me to explain everything, or whether you wanted to hear it from him.”
I walk away and sit on the unmade bed. “Neither. I think I’d rather have some more of that drugged-up water,” I joke, desperately trying to hide my panic.
For once James has given me a choice, though it isn’t much of one. He’s trying to protect me, pretending to know what’s best for me. He thinks it’s better if I hear this from a friend, but I don’t see the difference. Whether a doctor or your own father tells you that you have a brain tumor, it’s still a brain tumor.
Slow, deep inhale.
“Rip the Band-Aid off, Xave.”
“Okay. Well … the party was crawling with their kind,” he begins with a gravity I’ve never heard in his voice before.
Tell me something I don’t know.
“But half of them were just regular people. You might’ve noticed that all the couples had something in commo
n.”
I think back to last night and shiver as the image of that huge hall appears in my mind. The only pattern I noticed had to do with the buzzing in my head, but—since James is keeping secrets from his crew—that’s something Xave can’t know about. I didn’t pick up any other patterns and didn’t need to. One was enough to send me into a tailspin.
Using this puzzle as a way to make my mind busy, I think back to all the couples there, then it hits me. “Their age differences,” I say.
Xave’s mouth quirks in a knowing smile. “I figured you would’ve noticed. I never did.”
“I didn’t then, but now that you mention it. So the … Eklyptors were the oldest ones in each couple, right?”
“Yeah.” He raises one eyebrow. “How did you know that?”
“Um, you know …” I can hardly tell him I feel their presence in the form of a droning in the back of my head, so I offer the next, most logical explanation. “That man with the … tentacle things.” I put a hand on my chest, both to contain the rising bile and to make sure I haven’t grown my own set yet.
“Not tentacles. They’re something else,” Xave says with a shiver.
I imagine those hairy appendages with their bony, sharp ends. My hand makes a fist against my stomach.
Swallow. Hard.
So glad I didn’t have any breakfast.
“What are they, then?” I ask, not really wishing to know. “What do they do? And why is the age relevant?” I squeeze my eyes and tell myself to be strong.
“Um, maybe let’s start from the beginning, with Elliot.” Xave sits beside me and rubs nervous hands on his flannel pajamas.
Elliot. Yes, I guess it all begins with him. “Why does he let them use his house? Is he one of them?” I ask, knowing the answer full well.
“Do you have to ask that?” Xave shakes his head. “He’s a creep. James says he holds those parties often. Yeah, he’s one of them all right.”
“And what exactly is that? What they are?”
“No one’s sure, but James says Eklyptors have been with us for a long time. They could be another species that has been evolving for millions of years into what they are, just like we have. Or they could be aliens brought in a spaceship. Or demon spawn.”
I choke at the words.
“You sure you’re okay?” Xave rubs my back. “We don’t have to—”
“No. Go ahead. I need to hear this.”
“Okay, so that dude we saw. Underneath it all, he’s basically human, but he’s been taken over by an Eklyptor. James said that as soon as they’re in you, they start learning your patterns and within days they can be in control of everything you do. Your speech, your movements, your whole body.”
My lungs are paralyzed.
Patterns.
I have none.
Xave continues. “You know how people say we only use a fraction of our brain power?”
I nod.
“Well, Eklyptors can tap into all of it. And with the extra brain power, they gain higher control over body functions, down to the atomic level. That’s how they’re able to change the appearance of their host. Like that freak and the scales on his back and those fucked-up eyes. They can do whatever they want. Some grow cat eyes, so they can see in the night. Others grow fangs and have poisonous bites. That dude started growing scales just for the heck of it, just … just to look different.
“James said some of them live hidden away, because they don’t even look human anymore. But the process takes time. They can’t just change overnight. That’s why at the party the Eklyptors were the older ones in each couple, ’cause it takes them a long time to transform themselves and to grow those things. You remember how that guy’s back looked half-finished?”
I remember all too well.
“Well, he’s in the process of … transmuting. That’s how James put it, anyway. So growing those tentacle things took him years. But it’s their most important transformation, because of what they do with them.”
My need to scream is strong, but I clench my fists and armor myself.
Xave’s Adam’s apple moves up and down and he runs a hand across tense lips. “Those things are their … birth canals.”
At his words, my stomach roils. I cover my mouth with both hands, making gagging sounds, and manage to keep from vomiting.
Xave presses forward. “They drive those fang-looking things into your spine, like a lumbar puncture, then they inject …” He trails off and swallows audibly.
“A—an egg?” I dare ask.
“No. It’s not an egg. It’s some sort of adult parasite.”
I shoot up to my feet, electrified. “Wait a minute, a parasite? So there could be a cure, a vaccine maybe?”
“Uh, James didn’t mention anything like that, but I guess.”
A bit of hope returns. There is something in my brain, something that—ever since I can remember—has been trying to replace me. But it’s something separate. It doesn’t belong there. It could be taken out and killed. I could really be cured.
Cured!
Unaware of my inner revelation, Xave goes on. “Marci, the damn things go up through the spinal fluid and into your brain.” Xave’s gone pale and finishes in a broken voice. “Then—in a matter of days—they take over and become you. James says we don’t stand a chance against them once they’re inside.”
I frown. This last part is a lie. Why would James say that? I’ve had one of them inside me for sixteen years. Or at least eleven. I was five the first time I became aware that something was wrong with me. I remember that day as if it was yesterday. It was my fifth birthday, the first one where I had a real party, a princess party with tiaras, pink tutus and all the girls from my kindergarten class.
We were playing “pin the scepter on the queen.” Mom blindfolded me and, after only a few steps, shadows seemed to crawl up my eyes and into my brain. I started screaming, pulling at my hair, cursing with words I’d only heard grown-ups say. Dad scooped me up in his arms, tore the blindfold from my face and asked what was wrong.
When I saw all those pink tutus running away, ushered by their mothers, I lost it. I started crying, gasping for air. Dad stuck his face in front of mine. He steadied me with his eyes and calm, reassuring words.
“Breathe, breathe, breathe,” he repeated over and over again. And as I did what he said, I noticed shadows all around me, trying to strip my mind of every conscious thought I was able to conjure.
I was so angry at them for ruining my party. For the spectacle they made of me. For the fear and repulsion in the retreating eyes of all those little girls and their mothers. I had to fight back, so I did. With all the fury of a betrayed five-year-old, with all the love and concern brimming in my father’s eyes and the hurt and embarrassment twisting my mother’s face, I fought and won. From then on, I remembered each battle I waged not to lose myself.
Dad stood by me more than once, aware of my affliction. He hid it from Mom most times. I don’t know why—maybe because he didn’t want to worry her. I didn’t care. I was just glad I didn’t have to face her shame. Dad was trying to figure out what caused it when that freak car accident took him away. Since then, all I can remember are all the times when I had to fight alone.
I worry at a hole in my jeans, lost in my memories and what they could mean. It’s true that sometimes I’ve felt possessed by a foreign entity, by shadows. But mostly, I thought that whatever was wrong with me was genetic. I figured I’d been crazy since I was born and that all it took to unleash it was a hideous princess-themed party. Now it turns out I was infected.
But how? When?
Who?!
Who would do that to a little girl?
Xave stands and paces the room. “James said the hosts have to be young to give the Eklyptors time to grow the tentacles to reproduce. No one knows exactly how many people have been infected, but it’s no small number. Most of them look like normal people, just … walking around.” He’s getting agitated, his words shooting at a rapid rate.
“Others are like that man, they’ve been in their hosts long enough to change them, to grow the tentacles, so they can multiply.
“Then they change their appearance because they think humans are boring and useless. They hate us and want to take over the world. How crazy is that? They think we’re weak and don’t deserve our elevated status on Earth, ’cause we don’t even know how to exploit all the things our bodies and minds can do.”
Xave’s eyes are full of a combination of fear and anger.
“They’re everywhere, all over the world.” He shakes his head. “And few people know they exist. James has been recruiting here and in a few other cities, but he says it may already be too late. Marci, he says he thinks senators, congressmen and even the president may be infected. They have leaders, too. That Elliot guy is one of them. According to James, he’s been infected for a long time. Apparently, he has people here and in Europe, all working to increase their numbers.”
Xave slumps on the bed again, arms drooping, back curved. His energy seems spent and his crumpled shape makes me want to scream in rage. I kneel on the floor in front of him, put a hand on his knee. He slides to the floor and takes me in his arms. I take in his scent, so familiar and yet so new. I allow my hands to wrap around his neck and rest my head on his shoulder. The tip of my nose grazes his neck.
“What are we gonna do?” he asks.
I pull away, clear my thoughts. There’s only one thing I know to do, only one thing that’s kept me free all this time. “We have to fight, Xave. We have to fight.”
Chapter 21
Lake View Cemetery is a peculiar place for a meeting. Before coming, I had to read James’s text message several times to make sure I understood correctly. Now I stand by the virgin statue he gave me as a marker, wondering if I got it right. It’s Monday, right after school. The place is eerie, cold and empty. Only the rustle of leaves teased by a light wind disturbs the silence, along with the cawing crows that stand starkly on white tombstones.
Ignite the Shadows Page 12