Hunting the Shadows Read online

  He wasn’t real, Amy told herself. He wasn’t real.

  But he was.

  Amy screamed and jerked herself away. She landed on her hands and knees, scrambling away as fast as she could. How had he gotten in? She hadn’t heard him enter.

  And she should have.

  Her vision blurred dangerously until she could barely see. “What do you want? I’m not scheduled for another round in Testing today.” Her legs shook as she rose to her feet. He was just a scientist. There was no reason to be afraid of him. And yet…

  “Follow me.” Large hands wrapped around her arms, pulling her forward despite her struggles. His touch was like ice—so cold it burned her skin.

  There was something about his voice that was almost familiar. It was… If only she could hear through the static that buzzed in her ears. What was wrong with her?

  Terror made her heart pound in her throat, body shaking. His hands were unyielding. With no other choice, she followed. Her options weren’t exactly sparkling.

  “What are they going to do?” Usually, the scientists wore a small device attached to their wrist to break any formed connections and disrupt her mind from entering theirs. Despite the lack of a device, she couldn’t go into his head. Hell, she couldn’t even see him. “I don’t like to be touched. Let go.”

  The man stopped, so sudden she jerked forward, legs giving out. “Pity you can’t get what you want. Stop fighting me,” he barked.

  Why couldn’t she see or hear him clearly? Why were his thoughts unreadable?

  His grip tightened on her elbow. Moving again, he ignored her squirming with a finesse that made her blink.

  The hall to the lab was dark at this time of night, the only real light coming from dispersed bulbs along the ceiling and the red glow of the cameras. From somewhere in one of the many rooms, a man screamed, his cries echoing. She shuddered.

  It was the sound of death.

  She’d heard it so many times.

  When his screams cut off mid-cry, Amy felt a relief that sickened her. His suffering was over, but it would never erase what had been done to him. He’d still been tortured to death. Nothing made that better.

  “Keep moving.”

  His palm settled on her back, his other hand wrapped tightly around her elbow as he nudged her to keep going. She stumbled, trying to keep up, his pace long and determined. When they passed the Testing lab, something like relief bubbled up within her. That relief quickly extinguished when they moved deeper into the shadowed halls—past any place she’d been before.

  Fear turned into terror and then panic. Her head jerked up, eyes trying to focus on him, but it was too late. The film of black that invaded her sight wouldn’t dissipate. Her mind had been censored…her senses were blind. Her stomach tangled, twisting into tighter knots.

  “You.” Her voice trembled.

  All she saw was his grin. “Me.”

  Chapter Six

  “Me.”

  Shock numbed Amy’s mind. Her thoughts were like disjointed dots, so close but so far away at the same time. It was as though someone had turned on her mind but there only was static like a badly tuned radio.

  She opened her mouth, but words were forgotten when he moved. His fingertips brushed her lips, a light touch. She shuddered.

  “Sweet, innocent, Amy.” His palm cupped her cheek, the warmth of his hand making her stomach recoil. “You betrayed me. I thought I could trust you with my secrets but it’s obvious that I can’t.”

  “I—” She shook her head to clear her thoughts.

  “No.” His thumb stroked her jaw then lower against her throat. “No, don’t deny it. Don’t make me think less of you with your lies. You’ve been talking behind my back to J.C. Now he knows too much.”

  “No.” She pulled back, struggling to get free of his grasp. “He knows nothing.”

  Images of death rolled through her mind. Leila and so many others—their bodies found mutilated and bloodied, completely stripped of life. She stumbled and his arm tightened, catching her when her knees threatened to give out.

  “Watch your step. Wouldn’t want you to fall and hurt yourself, now would we?” He said it with a laugh, his amusement making her ill.

  She swayed. “Bastard.” The word stuck to her tongue. “What did you do to me?” she mumbled.

  “We’ll be there soon enough. Come on, not much farther to go and then you can rest.” His voice sounded far away.

  They had to be in the basement still. Squinting her eyes against the dots that floated in her vision, she tried to pick out something recognizable. With her next step, the ground seemed to dip and roll and before she could catch her balance, she went down hard on her knees.

  When he leaned down, she slapped his hands away. “No. I can do it myself. Don’t touch me.” Head hung low, Amy cradled her legs against her. She’d found her voice and the sound of it—slurred and foreign—sent alarm through her. Her entire body felt heavy and rusty, as though none of her joints worked properly.

  She had to get away. Think.

  “Get up. You can break down later.” He yanked her to her feet, his grip hard enough to bruise.

  Gathering what strength she could muster, she lunged at him, aiming for anything vulnerable as she tried to wrestle free. Swearing, he hit her and she fell back. Her body collided with the wall. As she tried to push herself up off the floor, she saw the glint of a gun.

  Swinging wildly, Amy went at him. She refused to let him kill her easily.

  “Bitch,” he growled.

  He caught her by the hair, dragging her head back and slammed the butt of the gun against her temple.

  Starbursts exploded in her vision, bright red coloring the grey. Amy folded, crumpling to the ground as consciousness began to slip away.

  “I said get up.”

  Catching hold of the wall, Amy pulled herself up. The world swam and the ground moved erratically under her step as she staggered after him.

  “It’s really not that difficult. You do what I say and maybe I’ll let you live a bit longer. I don’t really see why I should, considering your betrayal… But I did help shape who you are. There’s a certain pride that comes with knowing that.”

  He gave her another push. When he swung out to hit her, Amy turned. Hot pain streaked across her wrist. She fought viciously, digging short nails into his arms until the gun fell from his hand.

  “Help me. Please…”

  J.C. had changed. He probably wouldn’t remember her. But she had to try. Had to.

  She jerked her knee, purposefully aiming for his crotch and when he folded, she kicked the gun down the hall. Doubled over, Amy rushed forward. She didn’t know where she was going, and it didn’t matter. She needed to get away and she needed to do it now. She wouldn’t have another opportunity. Half blind or not, she had to move.

  “J.C., please. I need your help. I don’t know what to do. He’s going to kill me too.”

  His mind remained blocked. It was as though the message box in his brain was full and anything she tried to send kept getting bounced back.

  Shoving open the first door that was unlocked, Amy threw herself through it, clumsily scrambling into the connecting corridor. When she slipped and fell, she clamped a hand over her mouth and screamed silently in frustration.

  The killer wouldn’t stay down for long. She had to keep moving.

  She pushed up on legs that felt as though they were made of rubber and stumbled. Once again the world dipped and she closed her eyes before she lost complete sense of what was up and what was down. Her equilibrium was shot.

  The sound of the gun going off was louder than the ringing in her ears. A bullet tore through her right thigh and she fell. Pain flooded her mind, the taste of blood bitter and coppery in her mouth.

  Ti
me had run out.

  To keep the sobs that threatened at bay, she bit down hard on her bottom lip, forcing herself to scramble away on her belly as fast as she could. His laugh chilled her, mocking and determined. Cruel.

  Propelling herself through another doorway into what looked to be a classroom, she moved toward a heavy desk. With her strength quickly fading, she worked fast to push it against the door before allowing herself a moment to rest.

  She felt for the entrance and exit wounds at her thigh, her hand coming away wet and sticky.

  “Amy…” He dragged out the last syllable of her name. “Don’t make me have to come get you. I won’t be very pleased if I have to chase you.”

  She couldn’t stay there.

  Desperate, she focused her eyes in the darkened room. The only light came from a single window, faint and gray.

  She pushed herself to her feet, gripping the edge of the desk for balance with sweaty, unsure hands and waited as she tested her right leg. She found it deadweight, but she had no choice. If she wasn’t gone by the time he got in, he would finish what he’d started. He would kill her.

  The gun went off and the shot splintered through the door. When her leg gave out and she hit the ground in a heap, she bit back a cry. She didn’t waste time catching her breath but dragged her betraying body toward the window. Toward that one last chance she had. The gun cracked off another round and more wood splintered.

  “Do you really think you’ll stop me? You’re only delaying the inevitable.”

  Amy gulped a breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead, smearing her skin with blood. Dizzy. Sick. Weak. Her vision blurred as she yanked at the closed window. Please let it open. Please, please, please open.

  It didn’t.

  The glass broke beneath her fist, cutting through her skin. Blinking hard, Amy cleared the broken shards from the frame, and using the last bit of strength she had, lifted herself onto the window sill.

  She stumbled into the wildness. The voices returned, crashing through her system. As though they had been on mute, the thoughts and emotions came back so jarring that she forgot to breathe. When she got out of eyesight of the building she collapsed, unable to control her own body anymore.

  The wind whipped at her, the rain instantly soaking her clothes, pasting them against her body.

  Lightning made the world bright and thunder shook the earth beneath her.

  She didn’t feel the elements. Her mind cracked open against the strain. J.C.’s memories sprung free, exploding with a vengeance. She couldn’t resist, couldn’t put up a fight anymore. The shards were like broken pieces of mirror reflecting light, each one displaying a different period in his life.

  They spun, faster and faster. She had to give the memories back to J.C. There was no other choice. She couldn’t keep them safe any longer.

  This time, when she found him, his mind wasn’t locked. If she’d had time, she would have eased herself within his head, but she felt the pinch of desperation. She thrust herself deep without preamble.

  J.C. had to remember.

  Closing her eyes tight, curling her fingers into wet moss, Amy held on to the physical world as she began the upload to his mainframe. It was a complicated process and she had to unlock the system and safeguards Ashton had set in place. When she managed to crack it, she fought through J.C.’s consciousness as he struggled against her presence.

  She had to replace each “file”, writing over them with the new ones. If she didn’t, if she made the mistake of having a duplicate memory, she risked his sanity. He could get caught in a literal mental loop of one memory, having to relive it over and over again like a goldfish on crack. If that happened, nothing she did could fix him. They would both be screwed.

  His consciousness shut down. She felt the weight of it closing in, suffocating her. She couldn’t breathe, could barely hear through the thundering of blood in her ears. Trapped, she gave in and let the darkness consume her.

  “You’re late. Where have you been? Mackenzie and I have been waiting all night, Stefan.”

  Stefan didn’t answer. They were supposed to sneak into the Crypt and spend a night down there. Not that he thought Stefan would last.

  “Leave me alone,” Stefan had said, pushing J.C. back. “I have better things to do than join in on your childish antics. If you want to do it, then go, but I’m not.”

  Confused. J.C. stepped into his friend’s path, blocking his way. “Not until you tell me where you’ve been. What are you up to? You better not have done something stupid.”

  When Stefan lifted his head, the eyes that stared back at J.C. were empty. There was nothing there, nothing familiar.

  “I said back off, J.C. Go away.”

  He knew his best friend and this wasn’t the Stefan Gurvitch who joined him at the age of eight to crawl into the secret tunnels of the Centre to steal a blueprint of the compound. This was a stranger.

  “No, damn it. What’s going on? I’m not dropping this. Mackenzie’s going to be pissed off at us as is for leaving her down there.”

  “I said drop it and leave me alone. What don’t you understand?”

  “How about every part of it?” J.C. dropped a hand on Stefan’s shoulder.

  Stefan’s eyes flashed with vehemence. Claw-like energy shredded ruthlessly through his defenses. Before he had time to react he was on the ground, past injuries tearing through his skin and spilling his blood.

  He couldn’t breathe, liquid filling his lungs.

  And as he lay there dying, as he struggled to pull in every last breath, he watched Stefan walk away, without ever glancing back.

  It was too much. Desperate to free herself, to get out before she became lost, Amy fought the ensnaring shadows of his mind. His brain would do the rest and reboot J.C.’s system now that the proper memory files were replaced. He would remember. He had to.

  Now, as she escaped back to herself, sensation flooded back. She began to convulse and this time, she gave in to the agony that radiated through her. Her job was done.

  * * *

  The morgue’s chill was nothing compared to the raw, penetrating feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  J.C. pulled out the middle drawer of the refrigerator. Easing the thin sheet away from the corpse’s face, he stared down at case file number 2431—otherwise known as Leila. His fingers itched to touch her, but he didn’t know why. She was just another corpse. Sliding his hand over her hair, he brushed the blond strands away from her face and the ugly bruises there.

  A whisper stirred, deep within his mind, a brush of phantom knowledge. He knew her, had grown up around her, but something else niggled at his brain. It was there, at the edge of his thoughts, just out of reach before it slid back into the fog.

  He furrowed a brow as he reached for her wrist, turning it over so he could look at the tattoo. When that didn’t jog his memory to explain the hollow feeling in his gut, J.C. let it go. He walked away and retrieved the file from the counter, then returned to the body.

  According to the autopsy report, cause of death was the slit throat. He didn’t need an expert to give him that conclusion. He had eyes of his own. She couldn’t have survived such a wound. The blade had cut through the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae, nearly severing her head from her body.

  She had remarkably few defense wounds on her body and her toxicology screen had come back negative for any kind of drugs or alcohol. Not only had she not been subdued by chemical means, she hadn’t fought back.

  “She knew her killer,” he said softly.

  The door behind him made a soft whooshing sound as it opened. Angling himself, he looked over at Ajay as she strolled toward him. “What are you doing in here, J.C.?”

  “I don’t need to justify my actions to you.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Her gaze dropp
ed to the deep neck wound on the body. All color drained from her cheeks, making him wonder if she was going to have to make a dash for a garbage can. Because he’d rather not have to clean chunks of food off his shoes, he reached down and pulled the sheet over Leila’s body, covering her completely.

  “I’m doing my job, Ajay, and making sure nothing was missed. It’s called being thorough,” he said coolly, picking the file back up. Thumbing through the rest of the forms, J.C. skimmed over the description of the wounds. “He walked right up to her and she didn’t fight him. Why wouldn’t she fight back?”

  “She had to have trusted him.”

  “We’re missing something.” He wasn’t sure why he was here. Tristan was the most plausible suspect and he was now dead. The Council had already ruled the case closed. “Did she know Tristan?”

  “I don’t know when they would have interacted. He was in a whole different division.” She shrugged and settled herself onto a chair, spinning it toward the desk with a box of Leila’s personal belongings. Reaching inside, she pulled out photos. “Cameron checked out by the way. His alibi has been confirmed.”

  He’d assumed it would, but he wasn’t going to take a chance. “Why are you here, Ajay?”

  “You don’t remember her, do you?” Her soft question made him frown. He couldn’t remember a lot of his past and it wasn’t worth the migraine trying to pick at it.

  “Why would I? She wasn’t part of our team.”

  “Ok.” She was quiet a moment. He could practically see her restless energy as she shifted her weight in the chair. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  J.C. narrowed his eyes, pinning her with a glare at the cryptic words. He was about to ask what the hell she was talking about when the headache he’d been battling shifted over his skull with full force. His vision blurred and the morgue darkened. He stumbled, slapping a hand against the counter to stabilize himself and, when everything doubled, missed and fell forward to his hands and knees.