Shadows of Our Society: (Shadow Purgers Series, Book 1.5)

by N. Phillips

  And then there was the standoff between me and Miguel.

  Like yesterday, people began to fill the area with excitement and suspicion. Miguel lunged at me with reckless punches that failed to land due to the contemporary R&B song blessing me with evasiveness and finesse. He continued his pointless aggression until I skipped to the next track in my rotation: a rap song that was gonna turn his lights out.

  With a single blow to his mid-section, Miguel spat out saliva with repeated coughs in attempt to catch his breath. Fueled with rage, he continued to come at me, missing each time until he finally grazed the left side of my head with a fist that knocked off one half of my headphones.

  Angered, I threw a strong punch that rammed into his face, sending him back a few feet before his body dropped to the ground. One of the men Marcus laid out earlier was struggling back to his feet with his gun pulled, pointing it directly at me. Despite my power, the view of the barrel gave me cold feet, but it was Tory who saved my life with a kunai rope that darted out of his hand and pierced the thug’s back, shifting his aim after Tory tugged the rope.

  The gun, however, still went off.

  Everything after was in slow motion. My head turned to place my eyes on a disturbing sight. Marcus had been shot in the chest.

  Blood painted his attire as he looked at me with a petrified expression, his body collapsing in the grass. The splatters of his wound created a crimson garden where he now laid, unable to voice a coherent sentence while knocking on death’s door.

  I did not want to lose a friend.

  My pleads were louder than the horrid hollers of those watching nearby. “Please, fight this. You have to fight through this.” Nothing. No response. Not even a glimmer in his eyes that were glazed over with a focus on the blue sky above.

  I did not want to lose a friend.

  Tory’s voice slithered into the crowd of screams. He was on the phone with 911. It took a minute for me to look away from Marcus, but when I did, the sight of Miguel wobbling through the throng of people to escape made me want to lose all control.

  But no, now was not the time for vengeance. It was the time for mourning.

  CHAPTER 11

  My room had become a dark, quiet space with only the sound of rainfall filling the void. Visions outside my window were foggy with no signs of life except a tainted memory of someone I lost.

  Nightmares do come true.

  At least, that’s what it felt like after Marcus’s death two days ago. He was announced dead on arrival after the ambulance brought us all to the hospital. Both my mom and Darius arrived soon after, with Marcus’s mother running in with tears seconds later. If my heart broke into a million pieces that day, hers shattered into a billion.

  Someone else heavily affected was Tory, who blamed himself for Marcus’s death and vowed to get even. Whenever his anger got the better of him years ago, there were always consequences afterward.

  This time, the consequence could be death.

  “I’m leaving,” I heard my mom say before the house door shut. She wanted to stay with me until I was feeling a little better about what happened, but with it being the first day of her new case, I didn’t want her to take off work and risk getting fired.

  After about ten minutes of listening to the rain crash against my broken AC in the vent, I threw on my royal blue hoodie and stepped out of the house, where Ashanti had already been waiting.

  “You ready?” she asked, pulling the strings of her baby blue hoodie that covered her head.

  “Yeah, we gotta stop Tory before it’s too late.”

  “We will.” She placed my hand in hers. “We’re in this together, Zayn. Let’s go.”

  We ran through the storm out of the complex and into Tory’s building, where we took the stairs to reach his apartment. Just as I was about to knock, the door swung open with him preparing to step out.

  “Tory, where are you—”

  He brushed past us. “I have to fix this. This ain’t about you.”

  “This is about all of us.” My words paused his advance. “We sat in this hallway together and decided we were gonna do somethin’ about the violence goin’ on. Remember?”

  Despite his back turned to me, I knew he reacted to my words. I could feel it.

  Ashanti stepped in the gap between me and Tory. “We should talk about this in the apartment, not the hallway.”

  “Tory, you heard her, bro. Let’s talk.”

  He balled a fist before turning around and opening the apartment door. We walked inside and stood in the living room, with Tory looking to the floor with his hands in his black hoodie.

  “I fucked up,” he said, his body rocking side to side. “You don’t know, the half of it.”

  “Bro, you wasn’t the one who caused what happened. That could have happened at any—”

  “It’s not just that, man,” he shouted with a swing of his arms. “This whole shit got social media ready to cancel me. People blaming me for Marcus’s death because they think I stagged the fight with a real gun. How could they accuse me of some shit like that? I even got sponsors droppin’ me ‘cause of what happened.”

  Both Ashanti and I were stunned. We had no words to say.

  “Everything is my fault, Z. I thought I mastered my powers. I thought I could protect us.” He began to sob. “Marcus should still be here, Z. I messed up and I’m sorry. I—”

  I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, sharing his pain. “It’s not your fault,” I cried with him. “It’s not your fault. Whatever we gotta do to end this cycle of violence, we gon’ do together. It’s all or nothin’.”

  Ashanti joined in on the embrace. We held each other until Tory separated and wiped his tears, revealing, “My brother might be in trouble. I told him everything.”

  I had to take a step back after hearing that. “What?”

  “Yeah. We fought for a minute—tussled and all that—‘cause he wanted to gather up his boys and handle the Cogs without me, even though I told him they were dangerous, and that I should come because I have superpowers. He wouldn’t let me leave the house, so I ended up gettin’ mad and hittin’ him with some of my moves. I didn’t mean to, though.”

  “Don’t stress it,” Ashanti consoled him. “There’s a lot about our abilities we don’t know. Where is Darius now?”

  “Him and his crew are on the way to confront Miguel at the trap house. You’d think the cops would’ve raided that place after what went down when I first got my powers, right? Maybe Mr. Payne got the police workin’ for him, too?”

  Shit, what if he was right?

  Ashanti headed toward the door. “I don’t know but come on. Pray we get there in time to stop this.”

  Heavy rain knocked on the roof of the cab before we hopped out a block away from the trap house. Lightning and gunfire battled for supremacy like the war between both crews, each defeating my body with ease.

  “Zayn, you okay?” Ashanti asked, somehow noticing my stiffness through the downpour.

  “Y-yeah, I’m good. Sorry. Let’s move.”

  Our feet splashed in puddles as we scurried out of the line of fire toward the house. We waited behind another home for the shooting to end before we approached and saw a man laid out in cold blood near the fence.

  “Fuck, are you serious?” Tory fumed. “He’s one of Darius’s boys. Shit.”

  “Someone’s yelling inside,” Ashanti stated. “Come on.”

  The smell went from an earthy scent to sulfur upon entering the house. Inside the molded, worn down and messy place were the bodies of mostly Cog members, with Darius’s crew surprisingly standing tall.

  “Yo, what the fuck y’all doin’ here?” one of Darius’s men in a black tee wanted to know. “Ain’t you D’s lil’ bro?”

  “Yeah. Where he at?”

  “Upstairs. He finna’ take Miguel out on his own.”

  Ashanti and I followed Tory, who sprinted up the creaking stairs and into a large room where Miguel and Darius were facing off. Both me
n looked exhausted, but something was more apparent about Miguel.

  The darkness he carried all this time had formed into a Shadow.

  “I told you to stay the fuck home,” Darius yelled at his brother with hefty breaths. “You brought your friends into this shit, too?”

  “Good,” Miguel sneered before cackling like a maniac. The Shadow, which was standing behind him like a dog on its hind legs, had clear influence on his actions and behavior. “Now I can kill all of you like I should have a long time ago.”

  “Nah, it ain’t goin’ down like that,” Darius retorted. “You shot and killed my homie outside. Yeah, I told all my boys what we finna’ get into here and gave them the option of ridin’ out with me or not, but I’d be damned if I let you get away with takin’ his life. Yo ass done today.”

  Darius and Miguel collided in the middle of the room in a fury, swinging left and right at each other with body shots that connected hard until the tussling battle began. What surprised me most of all, though, was the absence of a wild ability from Miguel. Everyone being controlled by a Shadow had one so far, so why was he different?

  Despite this, he was gaining the upper hand in the fight—which tempted me to step in—but Tory dashed over first, tossing Miguel against the decaying walls. He then mounted over Miguel’s body, delivering a combo of punches to Miguel’s face with a purple glow radiating off his fists.

  Ashanti looked away from the assault. It was starting to get uncomfortable.

  “Tory, maybe chill out,” I suggested. The purple aura now around his body changed to red and black, which seemingly enticed the Shadow judging by its gaze at Tory while moving closer to the beatdown.

  Tory grabbed the gun holstered in Miguel’s jeans and stood up with it aimed down at him. Ashanti and I gasped while Darius inched toward his younger brother.

  “T, put the gun down,” he demanded. “I’m serious. This ain’t—”

  “This ain’t what, huh?” Tory snapped back, his finger ready to squeeze the trigger. Miguel was so battered on the floor, he was almost unrecognizable as he could only plead for his life with mutters of agony. “Why shouldn’t I end him? You were gonna do it anyway.”

  “Nah, I wasn’t,” Darius refuted. “I was gonna make sure he’s put behind bars for life. Mr. Payne won’t be able to bail his sorry ass out this time after killing my boy.”

  Tory didn’t care about none of that. He was ready to end it all with a single pull.

  I had to make sure that didn’t happen.

  “Tory, you stronger than this. You overcame your emotions before, and you can do it again. Right now.”

  “No, fuck that, Z. It’s heartless people like him who make life hard for everyone. They take lives over and over again with the weak ass excuse of ‘this is the streets. This the code we live by.’ No, fuck all of that. If it ain’t the cops killin’ us, it’s him, Z. It’s people like him. I’m too young for this shit, bro. I’m tired of it. I don’t wanna be around it anymore.”

  Darius was now close enough to grab the gun, but he gave me a side glance to signal I had one more chance to talk Tory out of it.

  I wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip away.

  “Can’t you see the light, Tory? Through all that darkness you talkin’ ‘bout, there is one. The second you kill him, it’s goin’ to disappear, and the violence will continue with someone from his crew comin’ after you. This shit is never gonna stop unless we make it stop ourselves. The Shadows know this, and they’re going to keep corruptin’ us until we grab that light and make peace with ourselves and our enemies. The process can start right here, with you.”

  His teeth dug deep into his bottom lip while mumbling an incoherent sentence before letting it all go with a long exhale. He dropped his aim on Miguel, allowing Darius to take the gun out of his hand and pull his little brother into a one-armed hug.

  “You did good, Tory,” I heard Darius say. “I was in a similar situation before, and I can tell you right now, it ain’t worth it. It never will be, you hear me? After I dealt with the shit, I never went back to that life. I regret it ‘til this day, and I refuse to let you go through the same shit. You gon’ be better than me, I promise.”

  With no one else to latch on to, the Shadow disappeared. Darius let go of Tory and stood above Miguel with the gun still in his hand.

  “If you somehow get out of prison,” he pointed the weapon at Miguel’s head—I was doubtful he’d kill him after everything he said to Tory, “I better not ever catch you ‘round my brother, his friends, or anyone on my side again.”

  This…moment.

  It was this moment. The gun. The positioning. Everything. This moment was unnerving before the truth even registered in my mind. But when it did, it hit me like a ton of bricks, knocking me into an unconscious state.

  The nightmare begun, but this time, I could hear my heart pounding and witness a memory once blurred. The silver pistol, my father’s body, and the shooter… Everything was clear to me.

  My father, on the ground at the mercy of the hooded figure who stood above him, stared directly up at the individual and said, “Don’t do this. You don’t have to be another cog in the machine, Darius.”

  The gun went off, ending my father’s life. My vision zoomed in closer before his body was rocked like a cradle. After everything, the person who murdered my father—was in front of me the entire time.

  Darius.

  “Yo, Zayn. Zayn, get up.”

  Tory’s voice freed me from my shackled horror. I rose to my feet and made eye contact with everyone in the room staring at me in concern.

  Including him.

  “You good?” Tory asked. “You just blacked out on us.”

  “Y-yeah, I’m okay. My fault.”

  “Cool, ‘cause we gotta dip before the cops show up. Darius already tied down Miguel, and we found some dude in black locked in a closet. We takin’ him with us for answers.”

  I turned my head to look outside the room and saw a Vietnamese man in a torn-up black suit standing in the doorway. If I recalled correctly, he was the same guy who got body slammed by Mr. Payne outside of the hotel.

  “We need to move. Now,” Darius commanded. “My boys downstairs already folded the rest of Miguel’s crew and bagged’em up nicely for the police. Let’s roll.”

  All of us in the room made our way outside the trap house and into Darius’s car. Hiding from Mr. Payne would be damn near impossible now, but at least the truth of the past had been revealed.

  With more unveiled secrets to come.

  CHAPTER 12

  Back at the apartment, Ashanti and I stood in the middle of the living room and watched the man in black sit on the couch and devour a sandwich Darius had given him. He grabbed the glass of soda off the table in front of him and gulped it down like a desert dweller on his last legs.

  “Damn, did they starve you?” Tory couldn’t resist asking—despite the answer being obvious. He had a three-liter soda bottle in hand to refill the glass.

  The man picked at the breadcrumbs on the small plate in his hand. The brown complexion of his skin was beginning to return as he sat there without saying a word.

  “Aight, we fed you,” Darius said, scrutinizing the man as he sat down on the couch across from him. “Tell us why they had you locked up.”

  His eyes darted to each of us before asking, “Will I be free to go after?” He had a southern accent.

  “Shit, that depends on what you tell us,” Darius replied. “The boys here told me in the ride that you tried to kidnap Ashanti. The fuck was all that about? And why you got beef with Mr. Payne? I wanna know.”

  “We all do,” Ashanti expressed. The man gazed at her; his long, messy black hair fell into her eyes. “Whatever’s goin’ on is related to what’s happening in the city, isn’t it?”

  The man sighed, straightening his body as he pressed his fingers together and focused on everything in the apartment but us. After clearing his throat, he finally said, “My name is Agen
t Quan Dai, and I work for a government organization known as Obsidian. We track down and neutralize individuals known as Dreamers; people who possess abilities from their inner desires.”

  “Shit.” Darius stood up and began pacing back and forth while rubbing the back of his head. “How the fuck is somethin’ like this real?”

  The man looked down at the plate now on the table. I don’t believe he even knew how it was possible.

  “So, that day at the supercenter,” Ashanti began, causing the man to look up, “is that when you started following me?”

  “Not specifically you, no. My partner at the time, Agent Grant and I, were tasked to this location due to it being a potential spot for a marked Dreamer. It is crucial we find and detain this person before they do.”

  I lifted my hand and inquired, “What’s the deal with Shadows?” His left eye twitched from my question. “We know they get in the heads of people and cause them to use their abilities for bad things, but where are they from? How did this all start?”

  He looked away at the black screen of the TV. “That is classified information.”

  His words triggered Ashanti, who slammed her hands on the table to regain his attention. “Bullshit. Fine, answer me this: why do you neutralize people instead of helping them? I know for a fact there are innocent lives your organization took in the past. People are dead because of you.”

  I knew she was talking about her friend Ciara and what happened to her cousin, James, at Ravenvale High School. She flinched after feeling my hand on her arm but eased into my touch after realizing it was me and backed away from the table.

  “I apologize for the strife we have caused,” Dai consoled. “However, we are only following orders. Dreamers—like you children I assume—have untapped power that comes from your innermost self, the part of you that longs and craves a goal in life. That needs to be controlled, or else you could be a danger to others. You can very well end up with a Shadow; the darkest part of yourself that feeds on corruption and negativity. We cannot let that happen. Please understand.”