Sandy Williams - The Shadow Reader

Aren reaches back, grabs my arm, and thrusts me forward. “Follow Naito!”

I stumble over the gurgling vigilante, try to ignore the gaping slash angling from the top of his shoulder through his chest. My body wants to shut down, to stop moving. I’ve seen too much blood tonight, too much violence.

I crawl forward and then notice the little blue cell phone sticking out of the vigilante’s pocket. I tug it free—oh, God, I’m stealing from a dead guy—and bury it deep in my pocket.

Flipping my wet hair out of my face, I glance up. Naito’s just ahead. He peers over his shoulder, sees me down on all fours in the mud. I make a decision, scramble to my feet, spin, and run back toward the inn. After a few strides, I veer off the trail and carve my own path through the forest.

“McKenzie!” Naito shouts, but I’m sure he won’t follow me. He loves Kelia too much to risk her waiting for him at the gate. And Aren’s preoccupied. I should be able to escape long enough to make a phone call.

The underbrush entangles me. I shake loose, continue on, slipping and sliding over leaves and wet grass. I don’t know what direction I’m heading in, but I don’t care as long as it’s away.

The gunfire fades, and I no longer see fissures in the thick green of the forest. A hint of light peeks through the canopy above, and my pace slows when the trees thin up ahead. Cautious, I flatten myself against a thick oak and study the clearing. The inn isn’t located as deep into the forest as I imagined. An honest-to-goodness paved road lies just on the other side of the field. But running without cover makes me decidedly uneasy, especially when I’m not sure where I can find a safe haven.

I wrap my hands around the straps of my backpack and scan the road again, wondering how much traffic it gets on any given day, when, finally, God throws me a bone. To my left, no more than twenty yards away, an empty BMW is parked half obscured by an outcropping of trees. As an added bonus, I can get to it without crossing the field. I’m sure it belongs to the vigilantes. Hopefully, I can get to it before they return. If the fae leave any of them alive to return.

The rainwater drenching my hair and clothes weighs me down as I pick my way along the edge of the forest. With each step, I pray the humans left the keys in the car. I don’t know what I’ll do if they haven’t—I can’t hot-wire the thing—but as I draw near, I hear the engine purring beneath the sound of the falling rain. They’ve left it idling.

Taking my backpack off, I hurry to the driver’s-side door, open it, and fall inside. Sosch squeaks when I swing the bag into the passenger’s seat, but there’s no time to see if he’s okay. This seems all too convenient to go off without a hitch, but I’m already committed. I shift the car into reverse, then slam down the pedal. Too hard. The BMW fishtails in the wet grass before its tires catch. I curse and ram the gearshift into drive.

The back windows explode the next instant. Glass rains through the air. I duck behind the wheel, blindly steering as bullets thunk against the car’s sides. I accelerate over uneven ground, away from the attackers and toward where the road should be, before risking a quick peek over the dash.

Aren’s there. I slam on the brake as he cuts down a vigilante who had a gun aimed at me. He fissures, reappears behind another armed man, and strikes again. Three more vigilantes replace that one.

This time, Aren moves more slowly when he attacks. Two of the newcomers get shots off. Aren stumbles back. He loses his footing, slips, and lands hard on his back.

Maybe I could have driven away if he hadn’t caught my eye just then. I freeze, one foot hovering over the accelerator. The vigilantes will kill him. I shouldn’t care. I should let him die—he’s killed hundreds of fae—but leaving him here is too close to murder. I can’t do that, not when I’m in a position to help.

Cursing my conscience, I slam down the accelerator. I ram into the two humans, hard enough to knock them off their feet. Before they have a chance to recover, I pull up beside Aren and shove open the passenger door. “Get in.”

“YOU OKAY?” I ask, even though I don’t care. Really, I don’t. I’m fulfilling my humanitarian obligation by giving Aren a lift. After we put a few more miles of asphalt between us and the vigilantes, I’m kicking him to the curb and he’s on his own.

I glance at him. His right hand is wrapped around the pommel of his sword and he’s huddled against the car door as far away from the radio and air controls as he can get. His edarratae flash erratically, and he’s noticeably uncomfortable. When tech messes with a fae’s magic, it disorients them. Not much, at first, and they can ignore the dizziness for a while, but Aren’s weak and he’s injured. His cuirass is mottled with dents, and aside from his other scrapes and bruises, there’s that hole in his shoulder from the vigilantes’ first assault on the inn. His armor covers it up right now, but blood trickles down his left arm, dripping off his elbow and staining the seat’s upholstery.

Carefully, he begins to loosen the cuirass’s laces. I tighten my grip on the steering wheel so I don’t give in to the urge to help him struggle out of it. It takes a while, but he finally manages to get the armor off and shoved to the back of the car. The effort takes its toll. His chest heaves as he leans back against the seat and closes his eyes.

Great. I can’t kick him out when he’s hurt this badly.

Well, he can stay in the car for all I care. Once we reach some type of civilization, I’m out of here.

“Turn the heat off?” he asks.

I’m already cold with the back windows blown out, and we’re both still soaking wet, but a deep frown creases Aren’s forehead.

I sigh and kill the heater.

“Your edarratae don’t look that bad,” I tell him as the last of the warm air vanishes. It’s only a half lie. The tech is obviously screwing with his lightning, but I’ve seen worse reactions.

“That’s because I’m not operating the vehicle.” There’s a soft squeak when he shifts in his seat. He frowns down at the floorboard.

Oh, no. Sosch.

“Is he okay?” I ask as Aren bends down to retrieve the kimki from my backpack. Sosch is alive, at least. He chirps when Aren holds him to his chest, but Aren doesn’t answer for a long time. Maybe Sosch would have been better off if I left him at the inn.

“You saved him,” Aren says.

His tone draws my gaze. The raw gratitude in his expression makes him seem all too human. That’s not good. It makes it hard to remember he’s a killer.

“I didn’t do it for you,” I snap, staring out the windshield again. Don’t they have road signs in this country? I haven’t seen a single one, and we’ve only passed one car. That was too close to where we started out, though, and I didn’t blink my lights or try to flag it down because I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a vigilante. Plus, I know more Fae words than I do German. Communication with the locals might not be so easy.

I glance at Aren, wondering just how badly the tech is affecting his magic.

“Can you fissure out?”

He hesitates before answering. “Yes.”

“Good. Do it.”

The way he looks at me causes a jolt of something to flutter through my stomach. Apprehension, I tell myself, because there’s regret in his eyes. He’s going to say something I don’t like.

“I still can’t let you go.”

Yep, there it is. I don’t like that at all. “You don’t have a choice. I’m driving, you’re the passenger, and I just saved your ass. Fissure out.”