Still struggling with Yetic’s plan and its rushed explanation, I find my brother and I following him into the arched entry of the Shadows. Everything I’ve ever held to be true is in question. Yet, there isn’t time to rummage through the mental confusion. The one thing never in doubt is that what I’m about to do will define my worst nightmares for years to come.
The wall is four meters thick. Yetic stops a meter short of the gate—a telekinetically charged iron turnstile pounded into a nearly seamless door. “We might have to move fast, and we’ll need to stay together.” Yetic shakes me until I focus on him. “That means we’ll need to cram in all at once.”
I nod.
“You understand what we’re likely to see on the inside? The survivors are keyed to this one point. All the fresh meat passes through these gates.”
I growl, “We’ve been over this already. Just make sure you keep up.” I disguise my fear with rage. I’m sure Olin sees through it, but not this chadzitzin boy, Yetic. “The quicker we get in, the quicker we get out.”
Yetic backs into the turnstile.
Only the slightest slivers of light slip through the door’s cracks. Along with them streams all my most vivid imaginings about the blood-soaked ruins of the final battleground for the twitch insane. Breathing in deeply, Olin and I squeeze in to join him.
Removing his gum, Yetic grinds it into a corner with his thumb. “Ready?” He braces his arm against the lever that will spin us through the final gateway into the Shadows.
Pressed up against me, Olin shivers. “There are several within thirty meters—two fighting each other, at least five watching from the trees.”
“Trees?” I question.
Yetic interrupts by slamming the lever. “Now’s as good a time as any.”
The gate spins so fast it ejects us, ready or not, inside the Shadows. As I steady myself, the first image seared into my consciousness is of a twitcher sinking his teeth into the arm of another—one gurgling, the other screeching. The clearing at the site of the gate is a bloody mess of shattered human carcasses. Beyond that, there’s nothing except dense forest.
“Go!” Yetic forces us to our right.
Pushing Olin in front, the two of us crash through the underbrush like peccaries fleeing the jaws of a jaguar. Behind us, Yetic grunts. A half-dozen screams split the air, riding the front edge of a telekinetic pulse. The distortion washes past us, leaving only the sounds of Olin and me stumbling through the brush. I’m tempted to look over my shoulder for Yetic when I hear him.
“Keep the wall on your right until you see a red insignia painted on the rock.”
“Insignia? Of what?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
“Then what?”
“Head straight in,” he huffs before adding, “with caution.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going hunting.”
“What? I thought you said stay together.” I duck a low-hanging branch.
“I won’t be far.”
Olin calls over his shoulder, “He’s getting the Queen’s attention.”
Yetic is already breaking away from the wall and heading further into the forest when he adds, “Before the subjects sink their teeth into us.”
Again, Olin and I are running, this time through a forest in the heart of Worker City. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always envisioned the Shadows as an ancient and wasted version of the city itself—a tattered urban war zone. Instead, I find myself in an ancient forest more lush than the one surrounding New Teo.
In quick glimpses, I scan the interior, keeping an eye out for movement. It’s difficult to see further than ten meters. “You watch for the insignia,” I call up to Olin. “I’ll watch the forest.”
“No need. I’ll warn you if anyone gets past Yetic.”
He doesn’t even sound winded, and I’m already sucking air. “How can you—”
“We’ve been over this, remember?”
I think of a dozen smart remarks to put my little brother in his place. Ultimately, I decide to focus on not tripping or spraining an ankle. As I do so, the bandage wrapped around my foot snags a branch. The branch snaps, but not before yanking me to the ground.
I hit with my hands and knees first. Unable to buffer the impact completely, I smack my face into the dirt and roll to a stop. Instantly, I scramble to my feet and fall again. The wall to my right is spinning, the ground refusing to stay beneath me.
“Calli, I’m here,” Olin stabilizes me. “They’re not far behind.”
Completely dependent on Olin’s fluttering eyes for all sense of orientation, I lift and drop my feet in obedience to the motions I remember as running. After a few minutes, it’s apparent I’m slowing us too much. And the spinning hasn’t stopped. “How close?”
“Close.”
“Yetic?”
“Busy with others.”
“I can fight.”
“You can’t even run.”
“Fighting is different from running.”
“Just keep running.”
“I can’t.”
Olin’s grip around my waist tightens. “I don’t want it to happen again.”
It only takes a moment to realize he’s talking about his telekinetic outbursts.
“Not even to twitchers.”
I latch onto the only thing I can think of to encourage him. “It happened to me too.”
“What?”
“Wolves outside the city, yesterday.” I can almost hear him thinking, weighing our options. “Not so powerful as you, but I saved Neca. Like you saved me.” I hear the brush snapping and know whoever or whatever is pursuing us is much too close. “That means we can control it.”
I cringe as my shin slams into a stump. We remain upright and running, but losing ground. “You can control it.”
“No!” he burst out. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to learn to kill.” For the first time since Olin has picked me up, his body quivers beneath my weight.
Olin’s pacifist desires aside, I know the time has come to turn and fight. I also know I don’t need my sense of balance to tear out the throat of the next living thing to threaten us. “Keep going.” Reaching over my head, I grab a branch with both hands and rip free of Olin’s embrace.
“Calli!” he barks.
I’m focused on the sounds of movement closing from behind. Still swinging forward, I switch my hands on the branch and turn myself for the backswing. Raising my feet, I pump them forward as one. The world is spinning, but I can see well enough to identify the twitcher’s head and aim for it.
With a crunch, I plant both heels into his nose and cheek. The impact jerks me free of the branch and slams me down on top of the stiffened body. Delivering further injury to the twitcher’s rib cage, I lose all breath in the process. My arms braced in front of me, my hands gripping the sides of my head, I bounce and tumble into the brush.
Gasping and dizzy, I hear footfalls approaching at a rapid pace from opposite directions. To my horror, I realize a set of them must be Olin’s. Before I can get up or even scream, the leading edge of a pulse forces my face into the soft bracken of the forest floor.
Shards of rock and splintered branches shower me in the wake of the telekinetic attack. Lifting my head, I spot Olin on his back several meters away. Crawling on my hands and knees, I finally suck a complete breath into my lungs. “Olintl, I’m sorry.” Oh, gods, please let him be okay.
Footsteps approach from behind. I turn to see Yetic with an outstretched hand.
“I can’t even trust the two of you to stay ahead of some injured twitchers?”
“Olin? Is he—”
“He’s fine, just caught in the wash.” Yetic brushes a branch from my back. “Can you walk?”
Staring at him, I realize his face isn’t spinning. I nod. “So the outburst, that was you?”
“Outburst?”
We reach Olin, and indeed he’s awake and moving.
“That was a directed attack. Damn fine aim, if I say so myself. Not that you two were making it easy.” Yetic pulls Olin to his feet.
Embracing my brother, I whisper into his ear, “Nothing others force you to do will ever change who you are. That will always be your choice.” I squeeze him to let him know I love him for who he chooses to be, even if it doesn’t always serve my purposes.
“There’ll be time for war stories later. The queen’s men are clearing a path for us this way.” Resuming a cautious pace, Yetic steers away from the comforting presence of the wall until we’re surrounded by nothing except world-dampening forest.
The branches hug us almost as tightly as a cave. If it weren’t for the noteworthy exception of hiding blood-thirsty twitchers, the forest’s closeness would be comforting. Yetic doesn’t seem worried, and Olin’s eyes have gone to fluttering again, so I try to relax. “What is it like? Other than shimmering water?” Walking side by side, I look straight ahead to avoid Olin’s empty gaze.
“The forest is amazing.” He breathes deeply. “So much shadow and light. At first, after the attack at the shield wall, I didn’t understand how to overlap the signatures of light with the rest of my senses. I got lost. Now I see you as both flesh and brilliance.”
“Brilliance?” I flush at his casual usage of such a flattering word.
“If only you could see yourself as I do.” He glances at his hands before putting an arm around me. We slow, allowing Yetic to outpace us several strides. Olin whispers, “Yours is yellow with wisps of green. Mine is mostly blue with green flecks. His—” he nods toward Yetic, “his light scares me. It’s red and angry. I don’t like him.”
“Don’t judge too quickly,” I smile at my little brother without looking him in his flickering eyes. “Do you even know what the different colors mean?”
He shrugs. “The twitchers that attacked us, they were dark red, like blood.”
I shiver at the memory of my feet crunching into the twitcher’s face. “Come on, we should stay close.” We close the gap with Yetic, who doesn’t seem to take notice.
For the next several minutes, despite my attempts to occupy my mind elsewhere, I return to two thoughts. First, how awful it must be for Olin to experience the nightmare that has become our life in so much terrible detail. Second, what could it mean that Yetic’s color is so similar to that of the twitchers?
Flittering between the thoughts, I land on a third. I almost ask Olin about Neca’s color, but a small knot in my stomach keeps me from it.