The Burning Shadow

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

Luc’s eyes opened and his lips parted, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Is it true?” Wetness gathered on my lashes as I stared at his profile. “No one saw me during that time? Not once?”

  He dragged his teeth over his lower lip, and unease built as several moments passed. “I didn’t see you. No one did. I…” He looked over at me, placing the tips of his fingers against my cheek. “I don’t think you stressing yourself out about this is going to do you any good.”

  “But—”

  “There are a lot of things that are unexplained. Things I don’t know the answers to, but right now, don’t go down that road.”

  My gaze searched his. “What if I want to go down that road? Like, I want to run down that road?”

  “If you want to, you’d have to go down it with her, but I want to be there if you do. Okay?” Luc asked, voice soft as his thumb moved along the line of my jaw. “I need to be there.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, unsettled.

  Feeling him lean in, I tensed and then, a heartbeat later, I felt his lips brush the center of my forehead. “Now, let’s just try to relax and see what’s on the TV.”

  I wasn’t sure how I could ever relax again, but I nodded, watching him pull away, and then I picked up the remote. I turned on the TV and started mindlessly flipping through the blurry channels.

  “Stop,” he said. “It’s Dee.”

  Luc was right.

  She was on the screen, along with Senator Freeman, who looked seconds from blowing a major blood vessel along his temple. “President McHugh is within every right to repeal the Twenty-eighth Amendment.”

  “You’re saying he’s empowered to strip the rights of citizens of America?” Dee challenged. “Once he starts with the Luxen, who’s to say it stops there?”

  “Luxen are not American citizens.”

  “The Twenty-eighth Amendment says differently,” Dee corrected him. “What the president wants to do is unconscionable—”

  “What the Luxen have done to our planet is unconscionable, Ms. Black.” The senator shook his head. “Luxen have killed indiscriminately, and now there is evidence suggesting that your kind is carrying some possible virus that’s not only infecting but killing humans. What do you have to say about that?”

  There was a crack in Dee’s composure, a flushing of olive skin tone. “There is no way a Luxen is responsible for any virus or sickness. None whatsoever.”

  “So, you’re suggesting that not only are our local governments lying but so is the CDC?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, now would it?” Dee replied. “If any report is claiming that Luxen are making humans sick, it’s a lie, one that is biologically impossible. So, what you need to do and what all the viewers at home need to do is ask yourselves why anyone would lie about that.”

  19

  What Dee said clicked things into place for me. I thought about how Heidi had questioned April’s hate of Luxen and fierce defense of human rights. How ironic it was, considering April was obviously not human.

  April had killed Andy and the family that had been local to the area, and while she hadn’t admitted to a motive, it became rather obvious to me as I listened to the senator continue to rant about how violent and scary Luxen were.

  “She wanted people to think it was a Luxen,” I blurted out.

  “What?” Luc looked over at me, brows raised.

  “April! She killed Andy and that family in a way that would make you think a Luxen did it. Or an Origin. But no one knows you guys exist, so whatever,” I continued. “Anyway, she was also out there, turning people against Luxen at school. I mean, she’s amassed quite a following. None of this is coincidental, Luc. She was killing and making people think it was a Luxen. Why?”

  Luc glanced at the TV to where Senator Freeman was now arguing with one of the human Luxen rights advocates.

  “What if that family that the senator was talking about wasn’t killed by a Luxen but by something that can make it look like it was? April can’t be doing this alone. Murdering people and making it look like the Luxen were responsible. Getting people to hate and fear them. More people have to be involved, maybe even her parents.”

  “There are always more people involved.”

  “Then there has to be evidence of that. Maybe there is some evidence at her house. There might be something there that could point us toward whoever is responsible for those murders and maybe tell us what the hell April is.”

  He stared at me. “You’re probably right, but you used the royal we, and we aren’t doing anything. You’re not going anywhere near April’s house.”

  Irritation pricked at my skin. “Luc—”

  “It’s too risky.”

  “Everything is risky!” I nearly shouted as I shifted, rising onto my knees beside him. “Me being alive is freaking risky.”

  “Peaches…”

  “It is! Just like you’ve said before, I’m a walking miracle. A rare example of the serums working for humans without mutating them. I live with an unregistered Luxen and I’m friends with them and you—and Zoe! Every single day is a risk.”

  “You’re right, so let’s not add to those risks.” Those violet eyes flared.

  I smacked my hands down on my thighs. “You just want me to do what? Stay closeted away in my house or school?”

  “Uh.” He frowned. “Yes.”

  “That’s not fair. All of you are out there taking risks while I’m either sitting around doing nothing or getting people hurt—”

  “You didn’t get Heidi hurt.”

  I ignored that. “And I get that there isn’t much I can do. You guys have superpowers. I’m pretty useless nine times out of ten—”

  The frown deepened. “You’re never useless.”

  I also ignored that. “But I can help here. I can look through stuff. This I can do.”

  Shaking his head, he looked away. A muscle along his jaw thrummed.

  “I need to be able to do something,” I reasoned, my gaze searching his face as I reached between us, placing my hand on his arm. “Please understand that I have to do something and help me instead of trying to stop me.”

  Luc tipped his head back, eyes closed as he pressed his lips together. Then he did the oddest thing. He laughed a deep, rumbling laugh.

  Now it was my turn to frown. “What?”

  He shook his head and then opened his eyes, sliding me a long look. “You want to know something about … Nadia?”

  I tensed, not expecting him to say that.

  “She was the only person who could get me to do something I didn’t want to or didn’t think was a good idea. No matter how much I feared it was going to go sideways, she’d get me to do it. In reality, she had me wrapped around her pinkie.” Thick lashes lowered. “We’ll go to April’s house tomorrow, after school.”

  My lips parted on a sharp inhale. Once again, Luc was saying so much while saying so little. I bit down on my lip, but there was really no stopping it.

  I smiled.

  * * *

  A scream lodged in my throat as I shot up, gasping for air, my eyes peeling wide open. For a moment, I didn’t understand where I was as the soft glow from the television shone light on the foot of my bed.

  My heart hammered against its cage as I scanned my surroundings. I was in my bedroom, not in the woods outside the house, this time face-to-face with a bloody April instead of Micah. I was home. Safe. Heidi was safe. Micah was dead, and April … she was somewhere out there, God only—

  “Evie?” The sleep-rough voice came from beside me.

  In bed.

  In my bedroom.

  My head jerked to my left, and I saw the shape of Luc raising up on his elbow. He was still here? My mind was still clogged with sleep and images of April ripping apart—

  “Hey.” Luc sat up swiftly. His face was inches from mine as his hand moved in a slow, soothing circle along my lower back. “You okay?”

  I swallowed the rise of nausea and croaked out, “Yeah.�
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  His other hand came to my cheek. Even though I could barely see his eyes, I could feel his gaze inching over my face. He then carefully eased me back down so that my cheek was resting on his shoulder. There was space between our bodies—several inches, to be exact—but his arm was still around me, his hand balled in a loose fist, resting just above my hip, and my heart was still racing.

  I kept my hands in the space between us. “You’re still here.”

  “Yeah. Sylvia got home a little after midnight, I think. Then I fell asleep. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  His other hand was resting low on his stomach. “Is it?”

  Was it? I’d never hear the end of it if he were caught in my bedroom, sleeping beside me. Not like this was the first time, but neither of us knew where we stood with each other, and sleeping side by side surely wouldn’t help anything.

  Still, I nodded as my heart finally began to slow down.

  Luc was silent for several long moments. “Nightmares?”

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Want me to stay?”

  My legs curled under the soft blanket, pressing against Luc’s leg. The blanket was usually on the floor somewhere, but he must’ve draped it over me at some point. I didn’t speak. I couldn’t.

  I nodded.

  The arm around my waist tightened, and the only sound was the low hum of conversation coming from the television. Luc didn’t speak, but I saw his fingers moving. They were tapping in a slow rhythm against his lower stomach, and as my eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room, I could see that his shirt had ridden up when he’d lain back down, exposing a thin sliver of skin above the jeans he wore. I stared at those long fingers as they continued to move, thinking of the power those fingers could wield.

  Slowly, my gaze lifted, traveling over his stomach to where his chest rose and fell steadily, almost as if he’d fallen back to sleep. I knew he was awake.

  I wondered how many times we’d lain like this that I didn’t remember, side by side with just the tiniest space between us—space that could easily become nonexistent if I just inched closer to him or lifted a hand.

  Warmth flooded my skin, and I had the sudden urge to kick the blanket off. The thermal wasn’t the greatest piece of clothing to wear to bed, but I knew the heat burning through my veins had little to do with the shirt I wore.

  It had everything to do with who was lying beside me and what I felt for him. A confusing mix of yearning and trepidation.

  My gaze found its way to his profile. His eyes were closed, but there was a tenseness to the line of his jaw. Was he as wide awake as I was? Every part of me became hyperaware of him—of each breath he took, how deep his chest sank and then rose, of the rhythm of his fingers. Was he as aware of me as I was of him in this moment?

  I imagined it was countless times we’d lain like this, but I doubted I’d been thinking what I was thinking now. We’d been too young to harbor the images that were flipping through my mind. Memories of the night in his bed, our hands and mouths frantic and greedy. The quick kiss of thanks I’d bestowed upon him after seeing the framed photograph of Harpers Ferry. Us dancing hip to hip on Halloween and then him hovering over me, touching me, his mouth inches from mine.

  If Dawson hadn’t knocked on that door, Luc would’ve kissed me, and I would have reveled in it.

  My pulse picked up, thrumming heavily as my fingers curled into the blanket between us. I needed to push these thoughts aside. It was late, and I’d just woken from a nightmare. Some really horrific stuff had gone down, so my mind wasn’t exactly functioning at its best, but in the wake of a blood-soaked nightmare, there was a sudden sense of clarity that had eluded me at the lake on Sunday, that had eluded me since the first time I’d walked into Foretoken.

  I was still trying to figure out who I was—if I was Nadia or Evie, and if that even mattered at the end of the day. I was struggling to find my place in Luc’s world, to feel useful and less like a burden that needed to be protected. I was wary that after all that Luc had said and promised, he was still in love with who I used to be and not who I was today.

  But knowing all of that didn’t change that I remembered what it felt like to be held by him, or the sense that I was the only person in the entire world he’d move the universe for if need be. The uncertainty I felt didn’t lessen the sweetness of him lying awake and watching funny videos with me or distracting me with terrible pickup lines. The wariness didn’t overshadow his fierce protectiveness or how he understood when I needed space or when I needed to do something that didn’t involve me staying behind. The confusion I felt over my past wasn’t more powerful than how I’d felt the day he had held my hand and shown me Jefferson Rock.

  All those things were when I was Peaches to him. Not Nadia. And what I felt had nothing to do with who I used to be or who I’d become. It had everything to do with who I was right now.

  I wanted Luc.

  I wanted his hands and his mouth on me.

  I wanted to feel his body against mine.

  I wanted to be his.

  I wanted him to be mine.

  I wanted his trust.

  Closing my eyes, I shivered as the realization swept through me like a physical blow. I kept shivering, hands trembling, and as I inhaled deeply, the scent of him, fresh and outdoorsy, caused my breath to hitch. The shivers only increased because I knew what I was feeling, what I was wanting and I knew it was me wanting those things.

  It was like suddenly waking up after years of a deep sleep. There was a swelling in my chest that felt like it could lift me straight to the ceiling were it not for his arm around me. The shivers didn’t go away.

  “Cold?” Luc murmured, his voice breaking the silence.

  “Yes,” I lied. Truthfully, I was burning up so badly that I might have spontaneously combusted.

  In the shadows, I thought I saw him grin as if he knew better. Maybe he did. Maybe he’d been listening in on my thoughts this entire time, but I didn’t care, because the arm around my waist curled, and then the front of my body was pressed against his side and my right leg tangled with his.

  The contact fried my nerve endings. My chest became tight, heavy, and aching, and that fullness, that throbbing, slipped lower, between my legs, centering exactly where his thigh now rested against me.

  The fist at my hip unfolded, and his palm flattened. Under the blanket, the heat of his hand burned through my thin sleep shorts. Then his thumb began to move, a slow circle that was a lot like he’d done against my back when I woke up, but there was nothing soothing about each pass of his thumb.

  It was starting a fire in my blood, and there was a power in what I realized, what I was letting myself feel. Much like dancing on Halloween had made me feel.

  Free.

  I shifted my hips closer, hoping that his hand would move, would wander, but it stayed where it was, the circles getting smaller and smaller.

  Whatever air I was managing to get into my lungs wasn’t nearly enough as I placed my hand on his chest, just below his heart.

  Luc became incredibly still. His thumb stopped, and his fingers were pressing into the flesh of my hip.

  I didn’t even feel his chest move as I dragged my hand down the flat surface of his stomach, to where his fingers had stopped tapping.

  My fingers found his, tracing the elegant lines of his bones and tendons, over his knuckles and then the fine dusting of hair over his forearm.

  “Peaches,” he murmured. “You should be asleep.”

  In the darkness, my hand wandered up his arm, under the sleeve of his shirt. His skin was the most interesting combination of steel and satin. “I’m not sleepy.”

  Then his chest moved, deep and unsteady. “You should try to go to sleep. You have class in the morning. Try to be responsible.”

  The teasing in his tone brought a smile to my lips. “What if I don’t want to be responsible?”
r />   He shifted just the slightest, pressing his hard thigh against the softest part of me. I closed my eyes as he said, “Then you’re a bad influence.”

  “I don’t think anyone can influence you.” I barely recognized my voice.

  His head turned toward me, and when he spoke, I felt his breath on my forehead. “You are so very wrong about that.”

  I dragged my hand back over to his chest, to where I could feel his heart pounding. “Prove it.”

  Luc made this deep, throaty sound that curled my toes. “Evie…”

  I bit down on my lip as I rose up on my elbow and stared down at him. Moving my hand from his chest, I placed my fingers against his jaw. The bristle of hair teased my fingertips as his hand slipped to my lower back. “I’m not sleepy,” I repeated. “Are you?”

  He looked up at me, and I saw a pinprick of white light where his pupils were. “Not even remotely at the moment.”

  “Sorry?”

  One side of his mouth hitched. “There isn’t a tiny part of you that is actually sorry.”

  He was right. “I was thinking…”

  “About?” His hand trailed up my spine, tangling in the strands of hair that had come free during sleep.

  “About something you said to me on Halloween.” I drew my finger over his chin and then up, touching the center of his bottom lip. The hand in my hair formed a fist.

  The pinprick of light grew brighter and wider. “What did I say to you?”

  “You said it … it was only me. That it could only ever be me,” I reminded him.

  “Did I?”

  My head cocked to the side as the corners of my lips started to turn down. “You don’t remember?”

  The hand in my hair loosened. “I do.”

  “Jerk.” My eyes narrowed.

  He responded with a quick nip to the tip of my finger, causing me to gasp as the bite sent a jolt straight through me. Those eyes held mine as I felt his lips close over my finger and the flick of his tongue.

  My entire body tensed.

  He gazed up at me. “What did I say to you? Can you repeat it? I have an incredibly short-term memory right now.”

  “You said it has only ever been me.” Breaths coming out in short, shallow pants, I slid my damp finger on his lower lip. Smugness filled me when he gripped my hair again. “You said there’s been no one else.”