Chasing Shadow (Shadow Puppeteer) (26 page)

People were shot down, but others were still running. D was among the chaos, staying low and trying to get to the other side. This was perfect, I could reach him.

I climbed down the steps, but by the time I made it to the hole in the wall, D was surrounded by patrollers. They were geared up for a war with no one openly trying to fight them. One man held up a camera and the flash was bright, even from where I stood. He gave a signal and they motioned for D to follow them.

I ran out the same time as Katrina, but she was closer and caught their attention. The tips of their guns flared, but I couldn’t hear the firing of their guns over the explosions that rocked nearby buildings. She fell and D was whacked over the back of the head.

Katrina was dead and they had D. If I ran out there, the same would happen to me. Where was Jose? I couldn’t just let them walk off with D.

It wasn’t safe staying and it wasn’t safe leaving. I needed a plan, but the fire that licked along the ceiling clouded my thoughts. I slid back under the cover of the building, just out of reach of the roving lights and stared at Katrina. She wasn’t moving.

Even with the Glock in my hand, I felt helpless. Katrina was gone, Jose was out there among the mess and D was being carted off. If I stood here too long, I would go insane.

My mind was made up. I had to stop them from taking D.

A hand grasped my shoulder and gave a light squeeze. I spun, expecting Jose, but instead, I found myself face to face with Rex.

T
hat friendly touch became gripping and I flinched under his hold as he pushed me towards the back. Under the circumstances, I had no choice but to follow. I tried to gage his feelings by lowering my shields, but his anger was surprisingly contained. Once we slid into the back, he switched on his flashlight and kept it pointed towards the floor.

“Still clear,” Amber said from the doorway.

It was considerably cooler inside the storage room where the flames hadn’t reached. The two weren’t moving very quickly and I couldn’t wait around to see where the tension was heading.

“I need to get to the asylum,” I said.

Amber huffed. “We have other plans.”

“This isn’t up for negotiation,” I said.

Rex spoke over my shoulder. “There are several helicopters rotating around the island. No one is going to make it to the asylum unnoticed.”

Every second standing here was wasting time. I needed to know what they wanted with D. I couldn’t walk away knowing D was with the patrollers.

“Which sides of the island are they taking the people they capture?” I asked.

Rex spun me to face him. “Are you suicidal?”

He meant to shun me, but I was beyond getting hurt by petty words.

“She’s in shock.” Amber slid up to Rex.

I was growing frustrated. They weren’t listening.

“We’ll get you back to the mainland. The Berserkers will give us a distraction,” Rex said. At his pause, I knew he wanted to say something else.

“Just say it, Rex.”

I lowered my shield and felt no animosity from him. He honestly believed the Berserkers were going to help us. He had a hard life. He should know people used others for their gain.

“Rex, Sonya isn’t going to protect me—”

“Our alpha came to this island looking for you. What did you do with him?”

The question caught me off guard.

“In coming,” Amber whispered.

Their flashlight went off, leaving us in the dark. The quietness unnerved me. I strained to hear them, but neither of them moved. The backdoor opened and light outlined two patrollers. I wasn’t a great shot, but it was something I was working on with Jose.

“Lower your weapon,” a woman ordered.

My eyes barely adjusted around the glaring light connected to their shoulder holsters, but one thing was clear, Rex and Amber weren’t visible to them or me. I lowered my gun.

“The button on her coat—” the man started.

“She’s with the Diablos. Pack her up and send her to the boat,” the woman said.

“Drop the gun,” he ordered.

I kept a hand up to block the worst of the light glaring in my eyes and bent slowly, trying to buy time as I dropped the gun to the floor. I didn’t want to leave it behind, but I had a load of weapons that they weren’t seeing with the large gas masks over their faces.

My heart was hammering as I moved towards the door. There was a good chance they’d take me straight to D. I had no idea what I could do when I caught up with him, but I wouldn’t let them take us.

The gun pressed into my back told me which way to head, but we didn’t get far. A grunt was the only warning that I’d changed hands. The two patrollers were laying on the ground with Rex and Amber standing over them.

Rex nudged me. “Stay calm.”

I nodded, but my head felt heavy. The conversations about World Congress kept drawing to the forefront of my thoughts. If the asylum was destroyed, World Congress would be forced to earth. My attention drew to the sky, but with all the spotlights and the black fumes filling the air, not even the moon was visible where I stood.

My eyes burned from the chemicals in the air. The last thing I needed was blurry vision when so much of my body already worked against me. If we were stuck running, I was screwed. My ankles could barely hold up in these shoes and I was pretty sure my fingers were bleeding again after I held so tightly to the railing.

“I need to go with them,” I said.

It wasn’t too late. I could still find a rebel and hope they saw the Diablo pin before shooting. Lights rolled over the building and Rex thrust me against the wall. Amber was just across from us in the narrow shadow as the light rolled down the middle of the alley. It rested for mere seconds on the bodies before rolling away.

“What is so important to you that you would risk your life?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“Loyalty, okay. There’s someone I need to protect.”

Amber pushed away from the wall and came over to us. “I understand that. What you did for me back at that building, uh, thanks.”

I didn’t help her. I took away her pain and she went right back into the fight. With as much blood as she lost, she could have died. Guilt riddled my heart and I looked away.

“You want them to take you to the water’s edge?” Amber said.

Rex wasn’t buying this. “Don’t encourage this.”

Amber knelt by a body and started undressing the woman from her patrol gear. “You aren’t alpha yet, Rex. I can do what I please.”

I realized what she intended to do and though it was putting her in danger, I needed an escort to D’s destination. I bent down and started helping her strip the woman. We were halfway done by the time Rex growled and bent down next to the man, doing the same to him. Every part of me knew this was a bad idea, but I couldn’t tell them to stop.

“You’re bleeding,” Amber said.

I squeezed my hands, feeling the leather gloves grow tight. It wasn’t sweat that made my hands slick. I turned to help Rex undress the guy and then gave them privacy to change.

The windswept over my shoulder and for just a moment, it felt familiar, like Katrina was ruffling my air. I swore I smelt the warmth of her perfume and then it lifted.

“Katrina,” I whispered.

Dressed in full gear, Rex was suddenly at my side. “What?”

I shook my head, dismissing him. I didn’t want to leave Katrina in the middle of the street, but she wanted me to go after D.

“We get you there and then what?” he asked.

Dressed in formfitting black, he looked dangerously good. I had to shake the thought because the way the material clutched at his strong thighs was distracting.

“Drop me off and leave,” I said.

“I’ll work on a plan as we go,” he promised.

With their masks over their face, they looked exactly like patrollers. My heart raced and the only thing that kept the tingling down was the fact that every couple of minutes, I smelt Katrina. I felt the weight of her presence, but this was the first time I could smell a shadow.

The carnage left sharper scents in the air and as they drew me through the destruction, those scents overpowered Katrina, but she still lingered. It made me brave, even though I suddenly felt incredibly cold at the center of my being.

As we moved by the dead bodies, more shadows began collecting towards me. They were emotionally heavy. I had a hard time focusing with the constant loathing and hate radiating through me. In my rush to leave it behind, I took too wide a step and slid on the slick pavement. Rex caught me, but his fingers lingered long after I found my balance. His hot presence pushed the cold weight back.

For one moment, the world melted away. It didn’t take all my fear, but it was easier to concentrate.

“I’m scared.”

“Me too,” he offered.

Guns popped around us and desperation flared through me. Was it the newly dead or me? I couldn’t tell. Many people died tonight and were still being killed. There was no way I could close the floodgate on their anger. It was consuming.

We made it to the water’s edge where the electric fence was pulled back exposing the naked shore with captives waiting to board the boats. D was nowhere among the grouped girls.

Amber growled. “What do they want with them?”

The young women were getting their necks scanned, then getting separated and escorted into different boats. My biggest problem was that D wasn’t among them. I worried my bottom lip until I tasted blood.

“I need to get closer,” I whispered.

“No way,” Rex grumbled.

I slid past him before he could grab me. The need to be quicker than Rex had my pulse speeding again. It didn’t take much to gain the patrollers’ attention. My palms began to sweat and the salt made my wounds ache. When they scanned me and saw that my chip didn’t work, would they kill me on the spot?

“I have her,” the man yelled at Rex who was rushing up behind me.

They thought I was a runaway. I glanced back at Rex who stood frozen. Amber was next to him. The man grabbed me by the throat, tilted my head and scanned my neck. I waited for the indicator to go off since I didn’t have my chip, but it never happened.

“I need assistance. We have Belen McKnight over here,” the man said.

He released me and I played my fingers over the skin behind my ears. Draken lied to me. He never disabled my chip. The big question on my mind, however, was why did it sound like they were looking for me?

I glanced at Rex and Amber, but with their masks on, I couldn’t read them. Rex’s gun was trained on me, though Amber’s was held at an angle. This close to the patrollers, they had to keep up the parts they were portraying. A number of patrollers approached with their guns aimed at me. Two of them disarmed me, taking every knife in my coat and gun, but they didn’t check my boots.

“Move it,” a man ordered.

I was shoved, along with the others, towards a docked boat. That’s when I saw him. D was a single prisoner in a boat with seven guards. His blond hair twisted and that’s when I realized I couldn’t feel Katrina. I thought of the way she brushed her fingers through his hair and wondered if she was now following him.

I needed to catch up to him, but the cold water and the guns pointed at me were major deterrents. The moment I was up the plank, I was hauled by my shirt to a seat. There were at least seven girls, all forlorn and roughly beaten. Beside myself, there was one other girl present who looked like she was ready to put up a fight. We sized each other up before our attention drifted.

Two guards climbed the plank and took their positions and I knew, without a doubt, Rex and Amber were going to follow me to the island. It was suicide. They had no idea that I wasn’t worth it.

I took the chance and leaned toward the only sane girl sitting beside me.

“What is with the masks?”

“Gas masks,” the girl said. Her eyes were red rimmed, but it wasn’t from crying. She actually looked too tired to care. “That’s what killed so many people the first round.”

Gas? It hadn’t affected everyone on the island, though the girls looked ill. If the soldiers were wearing masks, that meant they were human. That upped my chances of survival, or at least I liked to believe it did.

“My names Belen,” I said.

“Rose,” she answered.

The longer I sat there, the colder it became. I fidgeted. My thoughts wandered to all the things that we were heading into without a plan. It was easier thinking about D than it was about Katrina. So many people were dead.

“Start the engine,” a guard ordered.

I shifted in my seat as the patrollers took their post and the boat roared to life. We didn’t get far from shore before the fog rolled in, clinging to my clothes and making me clammy.

I flexed my achy fingers, trying to make them limber, but the pain was great. It was hard not reaching for the blades in my boots. I desperately wanted something in my hands.

“It’s the perfect night for Diablo,” one of the guards mumbled.

“Don’t say creepy things,” the second one said.

A fog horn mournfully blared. We could have gone a few feet or half a mile for all I could judge. The boat wasn’t in a hurry. The fog that rolled in was surprisingly thick and hid everything. It became so dense that I could barely see the girls at the end of the boat.

There was a shout and then a splash.

“Girl overboard,” a lone guard at the back shouted.

No one jumped in after her and there was no sound of swimming. I released my breath slowly, hoping against the odds that the girl could swim to shore, before hypothermia would get her. The cold would eventually freeze her muscle and carry her down.

The light that played over the fog was almost gray, but it grew brighter the closer we came to the island. The patrollers started moving, preparing the boat to dock. This was the end of the line and I still had no plan.

The fog lingered, but it was thin enough around the asylum that I saw D surrounded by a group of guards no longer in their masks. Draken was among the crew. I stood; ready to swim the distance, but they were already walking into the building with Draken in the lead.