The Burning Shadow

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

  “Does she look like water will help her?” Grayson retorted, shooting me a look that showed just how dumb he thought I was. “I don’t think a bucketload of penicillin will help her.”

  I hated to admit it, but Grayson sort of had a point. “You really didn’t need to say that out loud.”

  “What?” he replied. “I’m just being honest.”

  “How about you try being tactful?”

  Grayson opened his mouth, but Luc looked over his shoulder at him. The Luxen quieted. Finally. I focused on Luc. It was hard not to recognize the way he stood with his shoulders squared and his legs spread widely as if he were blocking Sarah from me, like he’d done with Dawson earlier.

  Was he worried she was going to sneeze on me?

  I peered around Luc.

  The girl’s thin arms were folded across her stomach. “Where is Richie?”

  “You know he’s not here anymore, but I’m here. So are Kent and Dawson. We’re friends. Even Grayson. Remember?” Luc asked, and I guessed Richie must have been the poor girl’s boyfriend. “I’m taking care of you, Sarah, and I think it’s best if—”

  Sarah doubled over and heaved violently. Bluish-black bile spewed, splattering the floor, and it looked like it almost … shimmered.

  I clasped my hand over my mouth, because that did look familiar.

  Grayson pulled a Blow Pop—Sour Apple—out of his pocket and slowly began to unwrap it. “That’s disgusting.”

  Sarah vomited again, and the stuff that came out of her did not look normal. It was like she’d swallowed a gallon of oil and blue paint, and it was coming back up.

  Braver than I ever would be when someone was throwing up something that looked like that, Luc started toward her, but halted when Sarah threw her head back. Whatever substance was coming out of her trailed down her chin and covered the front of her wrinkled shirt.

  “They … did sssomething to me,” the girl gasped, heaving. “They did sssomething to me—”

  Her back bowed at a deep, unnatural angle. Something cracked, reminding me of a dry twig being snapped. I gasped as Sarah fell forward, dropping onto her knees and palms. Her arms popped from their sockets. Her hips spread. More oily, thick liquid hit the floor.

  Her bones kept snapping, just like Coop’s had.

  Dawson had stopped moving. “What the hell is—?”

  Sarah’s head wrenched back as her mouth stretched into a silent scream that seemed like it would tear her cheeks apart. Those inky veins rose from her skin—from her face, throat, and arms.

  Luc was suddenly in front of me as he threw out his arm, thrusting me back. Horror swamped me as her body contorted in a series of snaps that reminded me of milk being added to Rice Krispies.

  I would never eat cereal again.

  Sarah collapsed, sank into herself, her upper body meeting her bent legs. She didn’t move. Didn’t seem like she even breathed. The veins retracted, disappearing under the skin.

  Sarah’s shoulders lifted as she dragged in a deep breath and then kept lifting with several more breaths. She was alive. How was she alive?

  “I think she might be a zombie,” Kent whispered. “Get ready. Head shot, guys. Head. Shot.”

  Luc’s exhale was audible. “Seriously?”

  Kent nodded. “I’ve seen this in movies. I’m telling you, if she gets up after that, this is some kind of zombie thing, and she’s going to be fast and she’s going to want to eat my face, because I’m the cutest, and the cutest always get their faces eaten off first.”

  “You know, he might have a point,” Dawson said, one eyebrow raised. “I like to consider myself a zombie expert.”

  Luc turned to him. “A zombie expert?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, and I’m sure I’ve seen this in—”

  Sarah rose.

  Like, lifted straight up off the floor without standing as if a hidden puppeteer pulled her strings. Within a second, she was on her feet, and then she was off the floor.

  Holy crap, she hovered off the floor, and yeah, Coop hadn’t done that.

  My mouth dropped open, and I blinked once and then twice, thinking I was seeing things, but nope, the chick was suspended in air.

  “That is not a zombie,” Grayson said, the pupils of his eyes turning white. “I don’t know what in the hell that is, but that is also not a human.”

  Curiosity etched into Luc’s face as he stared up at the girl. “This is … different. Unexpected.”

  My heart was pounding against my ribs like it was going to beat its way out while Luc was staring at her like she were an interesting science fair project.

  Sarah lifted her head. Her eyes—whoa, her eyes were black orbs with a center that was …

  I looked at Grayson.

  Sarah’s pupils were like that of a Luxen’s, like Grayson’s, when they were about to take on their true form. Her pupils were like two stars in a dark night.

  Dawson and Luc had just said she was human, and while I might not be a doctor or scientist, I knew they weren’t human eyes and that humans didn’t levitate.

  The fine hair all along my arms stood up.

  She came back to the floor, those weird eyes scanning the room. Her lips peeled back when Luc moved forward. A low snarl reverberated.

  Was she growling at Luc?

  Her head turned sharply, and I sucked in a breath as our gazes connected. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air. She took a step toward me. Her head cocked to the side, and a low, eerie trilling sound came from her.

  I pressed back against the wall, flattening myself. I had no idea what was going on, but I so did not want to be the center of her attention.

  Luc sidestepped, blocking me once more. “Easy there, Sarah. I don’t want to hurt you.” The smell of burned ozone filled the air as a faint whitish hue surrounded his body. “But I will.”

  Sarah’s head jerked toward Luc. A moment passed, and then she moved—and she moved fast. She darted past Luc, rushing past the bed and the chair that had been sitting there, toward the square window.

  She didn’t stop.

  I tensed. “She’s going—”

  Racing across the room, she jumped. Glass shattered, sending shards to the floor. A curtain came down, and then Sarah was gone—gone out the window and down to the alley below.

  All of us were stuck in place, standing in silence until Luc sighed heavily and said, “Well, I was thinking about replacing that window, anyway.”

  14

  “So, we’re just going to pretend like that didn’t happen?” I asked, sitting in one of the common rooms on the third floor. Luc had left with Grayson and Dawson, who were also joined by Zoe … in her Wonder Woman outfit … to try to locate the girl since she wasn’t sprawled in the alley, a mess of broken bones and tissues like a normal human would’ve been if they’d pitched themselves out the window.

  Kent placed a fresh Coke on the coffee table in front of me. “Welcome to my world. Just a regular Halloween here at Foretoken.”

  I stared at him.

  “You said she … levitated?” Emery asked, drawing my attention back to where she sat across from me. Emery was dressed like Catwoman, head to toe, deep blue leather. Heidi was in her red, white, and blue outfit, and Kent was still dressed as Pennywise, so it was really weird to be having this conversation right now.

  I picked up the drink with shaky hands, welcoming the splash of carbonated bubbles against my dry throat. “She totally levitated off the floor.”

  “And this occurred after she spewed black swamp water everywhere.” Kent sat on the arm of my chair. “And something blue. I have no idea what the blue stuff was.”

  Heidi shuddered as she tucked a strand of crimson-colored hair back. “What could’ve made that happen?”

  “Zombie bite?” Kent suggested helpfully. “Because I really think she turned into a zombie. Maybe a vegetarian one since she didn’t try to eat us, but definitely a zombie.”

  I blinked once and then twice.

  “I check
ed in on her earlier, before you got here.” Emery glanced at Heidi. “She had a pretty high fever, but I really thought it was just a flu. I figured she’d caught it somewhere on her travels, and with everything that happened to her boyfriend, she had to be emotionally and physically drained.”

  “That was definitely not the flu,” Kent commented. “Unless a flu now causes your veins to turn black under your skin.”

  “I don’t know anything that causes that,” Heidi said.

  I sat back as my gaze fell to my Coke. That heavy, uncomfortable feeling from before resurfaced. Sarah had said something that kept cycling over and over in my head.

  They did something to me.

  “It was a lot like what happened with Coop,” I said. “But also not the same. Like, he didn’t levitate or have black veins, but he was superstrong.”

  “Whether it was like what happened to that Coop kid or not, I’ve never seen anything like that.” Kent kicked a striped leg up on the couch beside us.

  That was saying something, because I had a feeling he’d seen a lot of things. It was also telling that I wasn’t more freaked out—like running from the building screaming and flailing kind of freaked out. Three months ago? I totally would’ve been. Now? I was disturbed by what I’d seen, but I’d also seen a lot of weird, disturbing stuff since Luc had come … back into my life.

  “Her bones … I could hear them breaking,” I said, almost afraid to close my eyes for any period of time because I was sure I would see her. “How in the world did she jump up and run after that?”

  Kent lifted a shoulder.

  “And she survived the fall, which is insane.” Heidi tucked her legs to her chest. “Are you guys sure she’s human?”

  Emery nodded. “Definitely human.”

  “But we don’t do that,” Heidi replied. “We don’t get sick like that, survive what her body did, launch ourselves out of the window, and survive a fall from five stories to then just scamper off.”

  I wasn’t quite sure Sarah scampered, but that image was now stuck in my head. “But look at Coop. He was completely human, too.”

  Kent crossed his arms. “She was as human as I am, despite what Grayson might claim about me.”

  “I know you guys say mutations don’t look like that, but maybe that’s what it is,” Heidi said. “And no one knows for sure if those serums the Daedalus used are still out there.”

  “We would’ve seen the trace on her.” Emery stretched out her legs. “Just like Zoe would’ve seen the trace on that guy you all went to school with.”

  “Maybe there’s a whole different serum that removes the trace,” Kent tossed out there. “Anything is possible.”

  “Sarah did say something.” I glanced at Kent, tapping my foot on the floor. “You heard her, right? She said, ‘They did something to me.’”

  A frown tugged at his mouth. “I didn’t hear that.”

  “What?” I stared up at him. “She said it right after she vomited and before she turned into something straight from a horror movie. She said it twice.”

  His reddish-brown eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t hear her say anything like that.”

  “How…?” I looked over at the girls, who were staring back at me. How in the world had Kent not heard her?

  Kent’s brow creased. “She did make these weird trilling sounds, though. I heard that.”

  I’d heard them, too, but I’d heard her speak. It had been a little slurred, but she’d spoken. A lot had been going on, so I guessed I couldn’t be that surprised that Kent hadn’t heard her in between the vomiting and snapping bones.

  “What do you think they’ll do with the girl if they find her?” Heidi asked, twisting toward her girlfriend.

  Emery glanced over at Kent, and a long moment passed before she answered. “It’ll depend on what she does. He’s not going to let her hurt anyone, and he’s not going to let her expose what we’re doing here. If it comes down to something like that, Luc will take care of it.” Emery’s tone was blunt. “That’s what he does.”

  That’s what he does.

  I swallowed hard as those words replaced what Sarah had said. Luc would … take care of her, just like he’d had to take care of those Origins the Daedalus had created, those kids that had been more dangerous than any adult Luxen could ever be to humans. He’d take care of Sarah just like Micah had forced him to do that night in the woods.

  He would have to kill this girl if she proved a risk to people or to what they did here.

  My mouth dried, and the drink of soda didn’t help.

  Luc was … he was a guy who, a little over an hour ago, had danced with me and told me I only had to be who I was, not who I used to be. He could make me laugh with his ridiculous surprises or terrible pickup lines, distract me when I got lost in the past I couldn’t remember or the leftover fear from Micah’s attack. He was a guy who wore absurd shirts and took in Luxen and humans alike who were in need, collecting people around him like one would take in and care for stray animals. He helped get Emery clean. Luc was kind.

  And Luc was also a killer.

  I’d seen it with my own eyes, when three Luxen had shown up and one of them had attacked me. I’d seen it when he’d finally ended Micah’s murderous reign. I’d seen the brutally cold precision of his kills, and I’d also seen the haunted look in those stunning amethyst eyes afterward. He hadn’t killed Brandon, but he’d broken the guy’s hand with absolutely no remorse.

  A shudder racked me.

  The contrast of who he was and what he could be, his unending gentleness and unyielding hardness, was startling even though I’d seen both sides of him before, knew exactly what he’d do and how far he’d go to protect others.

  And hearing it now still rattled me.

  “Hey.” Kent nudged my shoulder with his elbow. “He’ll do what’s right, honeybuns. He always does.”

  Surprised that Kent had followed my thoughts, I forced a brittle smile as I placed my glass on the end table. Needing something to do with my hands, I started working out the tangles in my hair with my fingers.

  “And she might’ve just been scared. Who knows what happened to her or why she’s sick,” Kent reasoned. “It doesn’t have to end in the worst possible way. Not always.”

  But didn’t it?

  “I’d do it,” Emery spoke up, drawing my attention. Our gazes met and held. “All of us would do exactly what Luc has to. I’d kill to protect those I care about and those I love without hesitation. I’d do the same to protect this place and what we do here. So would Kent. So would Grayson. It’s not something we want to do; it’s something we have to do. None of us would hesitate. All of us have to live with that.”

  I tried to swallow again, but my throat was like a desert as I nodded in understanding. Daemon had said the same … and then some.

  Heidi leaned into Emery and whispered something to her, then kissed her olive-tone cheek before pulling back.

  “I don’t think what Luc has had to do is wrong. You all talk about killing like it’s nothing, though, but I know it is to Luc—to all of you—and that it’s an everyday part of your lives.” I stopped messing with my hair. “To be honest, I don’t know what to think about it because … all of this is new to me.”

  “And to me.” Heidi threaded her arm through Emery’s as her stare connected with mine. “This isn’t a world we’ve been a part of.”

  This was a world I used to be a part of, back when I’d been Nadia. I had no idea if I’d easily accepted the ruthless nature of survival or if it had distressed me then, too.

  Or if I’d just had a better understanding of it.

  But I’d just demanded of Luc to let me in, to involve me in this world. I didn’t think I wasn’t cut out for it. I just wasn’t expecting this.

  Emery brushed her lips over Heidi’s forehead, and I closed my eyes, rubbing my fingers along my temple. Had I offended Emery? I hoped I hadn’t, but she had to understand that none of this was a normal Halloween to me or to Heidi.
<
br />   We normally bought candy and had a scary movie marathon. We didn’t generally witness some girl turning into God knows what before tossing herself out a window.

  “Well.” Kent drew the word out. “This has taken a turn for the awkward.”

  I snorted.

  The door opened behind us, ending the strained silence. I twisted at the waist, heart skipping a beat when Luc strolled into the room with Dawson behind him. The door swung shut as I clutched the back of the couch. Luc’s gaze immediately connected with mine. There was nothing to be gained from his expression. His features were shut down.

  “Did you find zombie girl?” Kent asked.

  “She’s not a zombie,” Luc said with a sigh as he walked around the couch. I followed his progress, straightening when he sat beside me, close enough that his thigh rested against mine.

  “That’s what people keep saying until someone crashes through a door and starts eating your nose off,” Kent retorted.

  Heidi’s lips curled as she blinked rapidly.

  “We didn’t find her.” Dawson leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. “And we scoured this entire city.”

  “How is that possible?” Heidi’s voice pitched as she bent forward. “The condition she was in, how is she even alive?”

  “Good question.” Luc leaned back, tossing an arm over the couch, behind me. “If she’s still in this city, she’s hiding somewhere. Grayson and Zoe are checking a few places.”

  “Do you think whatever happened to her is the same thing that happened to Coop?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Peaches.” His gaze slid toward me, and I felt his fingers sifting through the strands of my hair, finding the center of my shoulders. Luc was always … touchy, whether it be how close he sat, brushing his hand over mine, or playing with my hair. The act seemed almost unconscious, as if he were unaware of his need to prove that I was, in fact, sitting beside him. I didn’t mind it. If I had, I wouldn’t have let him. To be honest, I liked it because there was this part hidden deep inside me that needed the reminder that he was also there.

  I thought about what Emery and Kent had said. “She said something was done to her.”