Chasing Shadow (Shadow Puppeteer) (2 page)

My eyes watered from the pain and I dabbed at them with the handkerchief, not wanting to smear my makeup, when movement caught my attention. I glanced back up at the mirror. Starr stood by the door, oddly stiff in the way she held herself. I snorted, trying to keep my laughter in. It hurt to smile.

“Dude Starr, you’re pretty quiet for being trashed. I didn’t even hear you come in.”

She just stood there staring at my reflection as I stared at hers. It could be the lighting, but she looked utterly pale and her curls were gone, leaving straight black strands, clumped together from sweat. When she didn’t answer, I started to worry.

“Starr, what’s wrong?”

I swung around to look at her and the hackles on the back of my neck rose. This wasn’t Starr. It looked like her, but it wasn’t. This thing had been mauled. The neck was torn so deeply that white bone and gristle glistened within the wound. Its gray skin hung on its face and the pupils were completely black. A water puddle took root at its bare feet.

I slipped on the puddle of water I’d made, whacking my elbow against the sink. Pain tingled through the joint making my nerves stand on end. I clamped a hand to my mouth to keep from screaming, but ended up hitting my nose and the pain helped clear my head so I could think.

The lights flickered and went out. Not even light from the hall seeped in from under the crevice in the door. My heart was racing. This fear was mine. It cleared the last of the dancers’ empathy.

The swampy stench of stagnant water seeped past the barriers of my swollen nose and stung the fine nerves, making my eyes water again. My breath caught. It was close. I just knew it.

But if I reached out and it wasn’t there, I’d feel crazy. And if I did feel it…

It was better to know this wasn’t in my head. My fingers were unwilling to extend from the fist I had them in. My bones felt brittle, waiting to snap under the pressure of my clenching muscles. I raised my hand and hesitated.

The air hummed with energy a moment before the lights kicked back on. It leaned inches from my face with red dilated pupils. Eyes don’t dilate in death, but this creature couldn’t be alive with an injury like that. From this angle, I could see all the planes of its disfigured features.

The mirror said:
Don’t Look Away.

I needed to get off the ground, but with the sink at my back, there wasn’t much room to move. My fingers and toes tingled from holding my breath. I’d piss myself if my muscles weren’t clenched so tight. I took a shallow breath and felt the pins and needles of my oxygen-deprived lungs. It was now or never.

I inched sideways, trying to get enough room to stand before I tried running. Its face followed me, lizard-like in its movements. Brackish water streaked down its pale arms. Was it my imagination or was its bruised nails digging into the tile flooring with some success?

This couldn’t be happening. Not now. I took my medicine and it didn’t sedate these nightmares. They were so real. I could practically taste that stench in the back of my throat.

The lights flickered again and I jumped to my feet right as they went out. Adrenaline propelled me forward. I didn’t get far before my ankles were yanked out from under me. My wrists jarred as I caught myself right before my face slammed into the floor.

Its weight squished me painfully into the ground as it started to crawl over me. My skin gave under the pressing force of the prodding nails. A scream ripped from my throat before I could stop it. I couldn’t afford someone coming in and seeing me fighting with myself, if this wasn’t real, but the icy sweat that clung to my body said I wasn’t imagining this.

I tried to bump it off me as the lights flickered back on. There was enough leeway to roll onto my back, but the moment it sat on my stomach, I was pinned. Its touch was clammy, but its skin felt sleek and thin like seaweed. I dug my fingers into its shoulders, but it didn’t break its hold.

Its jaw hung by strands of gristle, sending swampy water pouring from its mouth into my face. I held my breath, but at the angle we fought, the sludge ran up my nose and straight down the back of my throat. I could taste the stagnant water, sour from sitting too long and brackish with nastiness. It triggered my vomit reflex, but I didn’t dare loosen my grip on its shoulders as I fought to push it away. I had to get it off me before I drowned under the constant water flow.

I caught its hands before it could dig its claws into my face. Its slick skin made it difficult to keep a strong hold, so I rolled to my side, jerking it upward enough to throw it off balance. It rolled off and I climbed to my feet, but I couldn’t break free from its clawing fingers.

I kicked hard at its center while blocking its grasping fingers from my face. Its nail caught my shirt and the fabric tore under the force. I kicked again and didn’t stop kicking as my feet found a soft surface. It burst under my frantic kicking and water rushed out, soaking my clothes in gunk. My heart was beating so hard that the pressure in my head threatened to make my ears pop.

It looked like Starr. What if I was kicking my best friend? What if the nightmare lifted and I woke to find I attacked my best friend? My only friend—

I was bleeding and hurting. It wasn’t Starr.

It took two tries to find my footing against the slippery floor. I was covered in filth and even with my nose swollen; I could taste it as strongly as I could smell it. I needed to rinse my mouth, but I wasn’t about to go over to the sink with it still in here.

I staggered through the doorway. My strength was gone. I left my purse in there along with Starr’s flashlight, but I wasn’t going to go back in. I couldn’t. The wall came up hard against my shoulders and I bent over, vomiting the brackish water from my lungs.

All this was real, even if the doctors called it psychotic episodes. I know what I saw. The dark water kept spilling from my lungs as if I were the one coming out of the swamp.

No, I couldn’t think like that. I couldn’t place myself in the others role. It was the empathy that made it so difficult to separate my life from theirs.

“Who are you working for?”

My eyes were blurred with tears, but I recognized him right away. The goat-eyed Raver followed me upstairs. I wonder if he heard the noise in the bathroom. My stomach cramped and more water poured from my lips. I just wanted it to stop.

I glanced back at the bathroom, expecting the nightmare to crawl out at any moment. All the water it felt I waded through didn’t make it past the crevice under the door.

The Raver snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Belen, I asked you a question. Who do you work for?”

I pulled myself upright, once again alert to danger. “How do you know my name?”

My trembling jaw had nothing to do with him. The anxiety was taking itself out on my bones.

Instead of answering my question, he grabbed my wrist with the bracelet and held it between us.

“Did Abigail Sable tell you to wear this? Has she betrayed the organization?”

The piece of jewelry caught my attention the first time I snooped around Ms. Sable’s house. She never wore it and it was too beautiful to be crammed in a drawer. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal if I borrowed it.

The only thoughts that stirred from the word organization were the anarchy groups that harassed all the major cities. Yeah, I read the Daily Dark, though it wasn’t a regulated paper, which made it difficult to find. I got the hand-me-down issues from Starr after she finished reading them. I had no idea where she found them. She was a little less forthcoming with information at times.

“You’re not with the rebels, so I’ll ask you this again, and you will answer. Why are you wearing this bracelet? Has Abigail Sable betrayed the Berserkers?” he asked.

“I don’t know anything about her. She’s private.”

His nostrils flared and I was glad my shields were in place. I couldn’t stand another emotional attack right now, but the guilt got to me. He was angry with Ms. Sable, and that old woman never did anything wrong against me. She didn’t deserve to be in trouble because of me, even if she was with the Berserkers’.

“Ms. Sable didn’t give me permission to wear this. I borrowed it,” I said.

His anger eased into something that looked like amusement. His dark eyebrow arched. “You stole it?”

I felt petty, so I jerked out of his grip and his stare hardened again.

“Do you know what you’ve done? How many people might have already seen this on your arm?”

I had no idea how many people saw the bracelet. Until now, I didn’t know the Berserkers were organized. I had no sympathy for them.

“I hope they do what they’re going to do and World Congress catches the lot of them,” I said.

Anger was good. It was powerful and it was mine. I wasn’t feeding off him. I wasn’t being directed by anyone’s emotions but my own. I liked Ms. Sable, she never hurt me, but I wasn’t going to stand behind her if she was a Berserker.

“You have no idea what you’ve just invited into your life,” he said. The words stung as he grabbed my bruised wrist and pulled the bracelet off.

I wasn’t about to let someone bully me. Heat burst through me as I reached for the bracelet and his arm came up solid against my neck, pushing me back.

“A lot of people want to talk to you, Belen McKnight. You should be happy I kept them at bay,” he said.

“You want a thank you, asshole?”

He chuckled.

“Does she know you’re wearing this?”

I could barely swallow around the pressure of his arm against my neck. “No.”

When he didn’t let up, a new danger presented itself. He could want me dead. I kicked him in the shin and he dropped back, cursing in a foreign language. My throat hurt from his initial thrust, but it didn’t falter my judgment. I didn’t grow up in the safest environments, which was lucky. I knew how to fight dirty.

Anger fueled the little energy I had left. It was dwindling fast, so I put a great deal of weight into my kick and nailed him in the ribs. Surprise swept his face as he doubled over. I grabbed the bracelet and ran.

“Belen!”

I kept running.

The lights flickered around me, but I was on the staircase before they went out. My thigh cramped and I tripped, taking a couple of the steps on my butt. The second I gained my footing and stood, my muscles protested. I probably looked as bad as I felt.

I jumped the last three steps and started towards the bar when arms circled my stomach and flung me up against the wall. My head smacked the tin sheet. It didn’t hurt, but the sudden movement and all my earlier injuries made me nauseous.

“Listen you little good for nothing government controlled sheep, you have no right to that band. By wearing it freely, you are disrupting everything that I’ve been working towards.” His words were hot against my ears.

“And what would that be? Extreme anarchy? Burnt buildings and scattered bodies?”

When he swung me around to face him, I raised my leg to kick him again, but he caught it and pressed it against his side. I couldn’t move with his leg pressed securely between mine. Was that his zipper that was hard against my thigh or was he happy to hate me?

He plucked the bracelet from my hand and stuck it in his pocket. I tried to grab it and he caught my wrists, pinning them above my head with one hand. This could be sexy if I wasn’t so utterly pissed.

“We’re being watched. I don’t know if I can save you now,” he warned.

“Save me from what?” My mouth was dry.

Shadows drifted over his shoulder, completely blocking the light and drowning out all sound for one terrifying moment. I didn’t have to lower my shields to know that it was bad. When it lifted, the music and noise was a familiar welcome, but failed to ease my nerves.

“You should be glad I’m the one that found you first. It’s not safe. You need to get out of here.”

Damn right it wasn’t safe.

He let me go and moved into the crowd. I started after him, but foreboding curled in my gut. I stopped in the middle of the dance floor, looking up at the rafters. Shadowy images were sitting up there among the tangled wires and lights, only visible when the strobe lights rolled away from the metal beams to allow darkness once more.

I needed to count my losses while I was still breathing and find Starr.

I
t could be the pressure in my face or the pain in my joints, but I had no patience for the bodies that surrounded me. Every time someone knocked into me, they hit a bruise. It was frustrating pushing through them.

Starr was at the last bar I checked, surrounded by a small group of girls in strapless cotton candy pink dresses that bellowed around their thighs. The light made every inch of them sparkle with glitter, while Starr’s black clothing absorbed the brightness. They were short, like her, and wore gossamer wings.

They caught me approaching before Starr did and watched with eyes that were far darker and a little more telling than their overall appearance. After the night I had, I wouldn’t be surprised if these were masks. I wanted to hug my shields closer to my body, but they were weak. I was lucky they were still up. At any given moment, my body and shields might both fail.

I stopped directly in front of her. “Starr, we need to go.”

“Belen! This is my best friend, Belen.” She was out of breath.

There was no telling what she inhaled before I showed up. The rave lost its appeal and this was going to be the last one we attended. I wasn’t planning on doing this again.

Up close, I realized what I didn’t like about the girls. Their eyes were inhumanly large. Something like that wasn’t part of a costume. They didn’t blink either.

“You look terrible? Did you get in another fight?”

She took her napkin and stood on her toes to dab at my face with a drunken hand. I caught her wrist to stop her. After what happened in the bathroom, I didn’t really want Starr touching me right now.

“I need to go,” I said.

Starr dropped the napkin on the counter. “Alright, we’re leaving. Come on.”

She swayed and I caught her, but her slight weight nearly knocked me off my feet. I didn’t have the energy to deal with this tonight.