The Burning Shadow

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “But that doesn’t make sense that she—I mean, that I would think that. The fever took my memories, so I wouldn’t have remembered you. Like, I wouldn’t have thought that you broke a promise at the time.” I tried working that out in my head. “This is so confusing.”

  “Yeah, it is.” He curled his fingers in my hair. “You feeling okay?”

  “Yes. My head doesn’t even hurt,” I told him. “I can’t believe Grayson healed me. Did you threaten him?”

  A half grin appeared. “No. I didn’t.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed that.

  “But I wasn’t talking about hitting your head,” he continued. “More like what’s inside it. These last two days have been … a lot.”

  “I’m fine.” I blinked back the tears. “You are fine. So is Heidi.”

  “Yes.”

  Closing my eyes, I leaned in, pressing my forehead to his. A long moment passed. “I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I felt totally useless seeing you bleeding.”

  His lips brushed mine, and a shudder worked its way through me. “You weren’t useless.”

  “I…” He was right. For once, I wasn’t useless. I’d shot someone in the head, and I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.

  “Better,” he whispered, his grip in my hair tightening as his lips ghosted over mine again. “Because the alternative was you getting hurt, and that is unacceptable.”

  “Did I…?” I drew in a shallow breath. “Did I kill someone before?”

  “What?” He drew back.

  I opened my eyes. “I shot that woman in the head like it was nothing. I picked up the gun, aimed it, and pulled the trigger, and I…”

  He dropped his hands to my knees. “Adrenaline can make people do what seems impossible. It can heighten the senses, even feel like it’s slowing things down.”

  “Maybe, but I … afterward, I heard a voice in my head.”

  Luc became very still. “Heard what?”

  “A man’s voice saying something like, ‘You pick up a gun, you aim to kill.’ The voice was familiar, but I don’t know who I heard say that or … if I maybe heard it on TV or something.” I shook my head. “I’m not even sure it’s real or what it could mean.”

  “We’ll figure it out.” His hands went to my arms, and then he pulled me down beside him, so we were lying face-to-face. “You also did something else.”

  “What?” I asked, distracted.

  He kissed my brow. “You took something from the house. The thing the woman grabbed from the dresser.”

  The white pouch. I’d forgotten. “What was in it?”

  “Syringes,” he answered. “Syringes full of what appear to be serums.”

  * * *

  About an hour later, Luc was up and moving about like nothing had ever happened. We were in one of the common rooms on the third floor.

  The whole crew was there, and I was sitting next to a now fully dressed Luc. His arm was resting on the back of the couch.

  I’d texted Mom letting her know I was studying with Zoe. I didn’t get a response, so I figured that meant she was still at work.

  “They were some kind of law enforcement officers. Well, I’m assuming,” Kent was saying from where he stood behind Emery and Heidi. His arms were crossed over his chest. “They weren’t in uniform, but since they gave chase, we’re going to say they were definitely with some level of the government.”

  “What happened with the car and the people that were in it?” Heidi asked.

  “Poof,” Kent replied. “Chas and I made sure no one will find the wreckage. He lit it up.”

  Zoe smiled, and it was downright creepy. “He used the Source, burned it and everything in it until nothing but ashes remained.”

  Dear God.

  “And the woman in April’s house?” I asked.

  “I’ve heard there was a gas explosion there,” Kent offered, and the grin on his face was just as disturbing as Zoe’s.

  “So, no evidence of anything?” Heidi surmised, and as I glanced over at her, I wondered what the trace looked like to those who could see it. “You guys are all in the clear?”

  “We’re in the clear, but we do have evidence.” Grayson walked forward, placing several cylindrical objects on the coffee table. The bullets that Luc had removed. I tensed. Grayson wasn’t done with his show-and-tell. He then pulled four guns out of thin air, it seemed, and laid them on the table. “These were taken from the occupants of the car before their untimely cremation.”

  I briefly closed my eyes.

  Luc stretched forward, picking up one gun. He unloaded the Glock like a pro. “Bullets are the same.” He showed them to me, and he was right. Their tips were full of something that looked like blue light. He glanced at Kent. “Are they what I think they are?”

  “A newly weaponized form of an EMP? Yes. They are,” he answered, and my stomach dropped.

  EMP stood for electromagnetic pulse, a weapon deadly to Luxen. They had been used over cities during the invasions on a mass scale, frying the electrical grids of those cities and killing the Luxen inside. The ART team used some form of the weapon, but that was more like a Taser.

  “Not just Luxen, Peaches. That will take out a hybrid and an Origin.” Luc picked up my thoughts. “But these bullets are different.” He placed the Glock and chamber on the table. “Something new.”

  “They weren’t designed to kill but to wound.” Grayson picked one up, his brow knitting as he studied it. “Which is fairly interesting, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.” Luc sat back, tossing his arm behind me once more. “Why would they have a weapon that injures instead of killing?”

  “That sounds like a good thing,” Heidi commented, looking at Emery. “Right?”

  “Not necessarily. We don’t know what would have happened if Luc hadn’t been able to get them out.” She was staring at the bizarre display on the table. “Regular ART teams aren’t armed with these. They have the good old-fashioned, kill-on-sight EMP weapons and tasers, and they don’t go for the tasers often. They go for a kill shot. This group, however, has something we’d never seen before.”

  Damn.

  I folded my arms across my waist, feeling like I’d slipped into an old episode of The X-Files. “What about the white pouch? Any idea what kind of serum is in it?”

  Kent shook his head as he sat on the arm of the chair Zoe was sitting in. “No idea. None of us really have a way of figuring that out beyond looking at it, so there’s no way for us to tell if it has anything to do with Sarah or that guy you all went to school with.”

  “Most of the serums looked similar.” Luc threaded his fingers through my hair. “When Dawson or Archer come back around, which should be soon, we’ll give it over to them.”

  “Why?” I asked, toying with the obsidian pendant.

  “They have someone who’d know what it is,” he answered.

  So did I.

  Mom.

  But I knew better than to suggest that. “So, here are the facts. We still have no idea what April is, but she’s obviously working with the woman who was in her house, who had a case full of some kind of serum that may or may not have caused what happened to Sarah and possibly Coop, and whoever you guys … cremated—people who happened to have specially designed EMP weapons.”

  Luc grinned. “Sounds about right.”

  “Which brings us to the question of who these people could be,” Emery said.

  “It has to be the Daedalus.” A muscle flexed in Luc’s jaw as he looked over at me.

  “How?” Zoe’s eyes widened. “You destroyed—”

  “I did destroy every location I could find, and I thought that was the end of them, but obviously I was wrong.”

  No one in the room cracked a joke about Luc being wrong. That was how serious the mere thought of the Daedalus being active was.

  Rising from her chair, Zoe cursed as she stalked toward the window. “They can’t be back. They just can’t.”

  Luc drew hi
s arm off the back of the couch. “I don’t think they’re back,” he said. “I’m beginning to think they never went away.”

  * * *

  Act normal.

  That was what Luc had said last night, before he fell asleep with my cheek resting on his chest, close to one of the healing bullet wounds. He’d come home with me and stayed the night even though there was a good chance Mom would figure out he’d been there.

  But he did use the front door, and there’d been no shenanigans between us, nothing like the night before. He’d kissed me. A lot. Brief brushes of his lips against mine or my cheek or temple. But he’d fallen asleep before I did.

  I thought those modified bullets might’ve taken more out of him than he was letting on, and that terrified me. Which was probably why I lay awake half the night, listening to him breathe.

  Act normal while I was at school. Act normal at home. Act as if I hadn’t shot a woman in the head, that an entire carful of possible officers hadn’t been cremated, and that it wasn’t possible that one of the most powerful and evil government organizations known to man was still functioning.

  And that they wouldn’t love to get their hands on me.

  We were all supposed to lie low. Do nothing that would draw unwanted attention while we figured out what was truly in those syringes and if the Daedalus was really still active.

  That was easier said than done, because every time someone even glanced in my direction, I became confident that they knew everything.

  Like right now.

  Brandon and his group of anti-Luxen bigots were sitting at their table, rather subdued without their ringleader, over there eating their lunch like normal people instead of protesting.

  Except Brandon kept glaring at me about every five seconds. It was probably because of the massive blue-and-white cast on his hand, but what if he knew what April was?

  What if that whole table knew?

  I sounded paranoid.

  Coughing into his elbow, James picked up his water and took a drink. “Ugh. I think I’m getting mono now.”

  Zoe lifted her brows. “Really? Didn’t you say yesterday that mono was fake news?”

  “Apparently, God is proving me wrong.” He sniffled. “I feel like crap.”

  “I don’t think it’s mono,” I told him, resisting the urge to scoot away from him at the same time concern blossomed. “Unless you were making out with Heidi or Emery.”

  “I wish.” He reached over with germ-covered fingers and stole a chip from me. “Just a cold.”

  “You just got your funk on my chips.” I picked the bag up and dropped it on his plate.

  James slid me a grin as he snatched up the bag. “Thanks.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You did that on purpose.”

  “Maybe.” He drew the word out.

  “You’re evil.”

  Zoe’s laugh sounded forced to me, and I looked over at her and saw that she was watching James with concern, too. “But also clever.”

  It was unlikely that James was sick in the same way Coop and Sarah were, or even Ryan, but I worried nonetheless. “Do you have a fever or anything?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. I don’t know why either of you would be worried about catching something. I can’t remember either of you getting sick,” James said, munching away on my chips. “Even when Heidi and I got the flu last year, you two were completely fine.”

  I knew why Zoe hadn’t gotten sick. Origins didn’t catch flus or viruses. Was that the same for me because of the Andromeda serum? Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember being sick at all.

  Huh.

  I checked out the clock on the wall and saw that we had only a few minutes before lunch ended. Rolling up my napkin, I slung my bag over my shoulder and rose.

  “Where are you going?” Zoe asked.

  “To the bathroom.” I picked up my tray. “Want to come?”

  She shot me a look as she picked up her fork. Wiggling my fingers at them, I walked over to the trash and dumped my tray before heading out into the hall. I veered left, making my way toward the bathroom at the front of the school. It was out of the way, but the only other option nearby was the bathroom Colleen had been found in—the one where the confrontation with April had gone down.

  Even knowing that April was something other than human, I couldn’t imagine how she’d used that bathroom.

  Ugh.

  As I walked, I rooted around in the front pocket of my backpack until I found my phone. Pulling it out, I saw I had a text from Luc.

  Meet you in school parking lot after school. I have a surprise for you.

  A smile tugged at my lips as I typed back, Is it a Chia Pet?

  You wish, was the response.

  I laughed as I pushed open the door to the bathroom. The scent of disinfectant about knocked me over, and my smile faded. It felt weird to have a moment of normalcy after … after everything, but it also felt good.

  It really was like an alternate life, I supposed as I went into the stall, and maybe I was getting used to it—used to it quicker than I ever thought I would.

  Or maybe I was really good at compartmentalization.

  I hadn’t told Zoe or Heidi about my change in relationship status yet. Mainly because there really hadn’t been time, and it also felt super-unimportant in the midst of the possible reappearance of the Daedalus and everything else.

  But I wanted to tell them.

  There was a silly part of me that wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

  Flushing the toilet, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and opened the stall door, coming face-to-face with April.

  23

  My skin turned to ice as I stared at April, shocked into immobility. The strangest thought occurred to me as the stall door swung shut behind me.

  She looked so … normal, so April.

  Blond hair pulled back in a sharp, tight ponytail. Lips as red as fresh blood. Her white sweater had these little fluttering cap sleeves. The pale blue gaze locked with mine looked human.

  Did she know I quite possibly killed her mother?

  “Are you going to wash your hands, Evie?” she asked.

  Tiny goose bumps rose over my flesh. “Are you going to let me?”

  “Of course.” She stepped back and to the side. “You and I need to chat, and I’d rather do that hygienically.”

  Unsure if this was some kind of trick, I watched her as I walked over to the sink closest to the window—a window too small to climb out of.

  Not like I’d have a chance if I made a run for it. I’d seen how fast she was.

  “You seem surprised to see me.”

  Hands shaking, I turned on the water as I found her reflection in the water-spotted mirror. “Yeah. I am.”

  “You shouldn’t be.”

  My mind was racing a million miles a second as I struggled to stay calm. I had my Taser in the front pocket of my backpack and the obsidian necklace under my sweater. I wasn’t weaponless. I just had to get to them. Then what? Could I stab April?

  Hell yeah, after what she did to Heidi? I could. But would I get the chance?

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, forcing my voice to remain level. “You almost killed Heidi.”

  “Almost?” She sighed as she crossed her arms. “That’s disappointing. I was hoping she was dead.”

  Fury swamped me as I slowly washed my hands under the warm water. My gaze shot over to the door.

  “No one is coming in. Not until I want them to. It’s just you and me. And I have a question. Heidi shouldn’t have survived that. That means she’s got a Luxen wrapped around her pretty little finger, doesn’t she?”

  I said nothing, swallowing hard.

  “Or an Origin?”

  My heart stopped.

  “You think I don’t know about them—about him. Luc. I know enough to stay away from him. For now,” she continued. “And you think I don’t know what Zoe is? I’ve always known. Was it her that healed Heidi?”

  Like he
ll I was telling her anything.

  April huffed, smiling. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll find out all your secrets very, very soon.”

  I was going to shove the obsidian blade into her eyeballs very, very soon. “What are you?” I asked, turning off the water.

  “We are the alpha and the omega.” Her smile spread, flashing her teeth. “We are the beginning and the end.”

  “Okay. Well, that answered the question of whether or not you’re clinically insane.” I reached for the paper towel. “You’re also a murderous, stupid bit—”

  “Now, now. You don’t want to make me mad, Evie. I have to play nice.”

  Drying my hands, I faced her. “Why do you have to play nice?”

  “Rules.” She rolled her eyes. “Even I have to follow them.”

  Tossing the paper towel into the trash, I shifted my backpack to the front and reached for the front pocket.

  April stepped forward. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m just getting my hand sanitizer,” I told her, slowly unzipping the front pocket. “Who are you working with?”

  Her head cocked to the side.

  “The Daedalus?”

  If she was surprised to hear those words, she didn’t show it.

  “I mean, you were killing people and making it look like the Luxen are doing it. You were turning people against them, and you’re clearly not human.”

  “Of course I’m not human. I mean, duh.” She laughed as if I’d suggested the most ridiculous thing ever. “You know, I first thought it was Heidi.”

  My brows snapped together as my finger stilled on the zipper. “What?”

  “Who I was looking for.” April flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

  My fingers curled around the cool plastic of the stun gun. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “You will. Really soon. I’m not supposed—”

  Pulling the stun gun out as I jerked forward, I swung my arm toward her.

  Her hand shot out, as fast as a cobra striking. She caught me by the wrist and twisted sharply, putting the right amount of pressure to cause a spike of pain. I gasped. “Drop it,” she cooed as if she were talking to a puppy. “Bad girl. Drop it.”