I Become Shadow (25 page)

“Ren, please calm down,” Mr. S. said

He was right. Struggling was pointless. Whatever he was going to do, I couldn’t physically stop it from happening. I had to calm down. I had to try something different.

“Let me talk to him,” I pleaded. “He’ll listen to me. I’ll get him to tell you whatever you want.”

“Not necessary. He’ll break soon enough and we’ll get everything we need from him then. Your voice could prove a setback. There’s no need to risk it. He’s put up a hell of a fight for a civilian though. I’ll give him that much.”

The pain in my stomach grew worse. I was shaking. Gareth was being hurt, and I could do nothing to stop it. I nearly vomited again.

“Ren … I wanted to come down and say thank you. To tell you what a great job you did and that I’m proud of you. I see now it was a mistake and it would have been kinder to have done this while you were unconscious.”

“Wait,” I was able to blurt out. I had to keep him talking. I had to buy more time. For what, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t give up, not yet. I stopped struggling and clenched my jaw. I tasted the blood in my mouth. “I’m okay.”

“Good. I would have hated for it to end like that,” he
said. “So quick, so cold. You’ve performed admirably and I thought you deserved to know it before we unlink you and forget it all. You earned the praise.”

I couldn’t think straight. “Unlink me?”

“Yes, why do you think you’re alive? Killing is easy.”

My words. No, not mine: the words of the FATE Center. He drained the last of his tea, put the cup down on a counter, grabbed a stool, and sat right in front of me.

“Like a Band-Aid, here it goes, Ren. In the very near future your link will be broken and then Gareth will be dead shortly thereafter. There’s nothing you can do to stop it, so the sooner you accept it the better off you’ll be.”

My eyes teared up. Unable to wipe them, they softly flowed down my cheeks, off my chin and onto my clothes.

“Do you know what happens to a Shadow when their Link dies?”

I couldn’t shake my head. My body was wracked with sobs.

“Of course you don’t because we never told you. It’s a terrible thing, losing yours. I don’t have to tell you how strong the connection is between a Shadow and Link; you’ve had enough experience with it already. More so than others if the reports I’ve read are correct.” He flashed a sly smile. “When your link dies there is …”

“Gareth,” I choked out, interrupting him. “His name is Gareth.” He could at least call him by his name, show a smidgen of respect.

“Of course, sorry. Gareth. When
Gareth
dies there is only one outcome for you. You will lose all sense of yourself, all sense of purpose, all sense of right and wrong. That
pain you are feeling right now will turn to uncontrollable aggression and your thirst for revenge will be unstoppable. Everyone becomes a foe. And blinded by rage, you’ll be a highly trained, fearless, killing machine. No one will be safe anywhere near you.”

The only person who’s not safe right now is you. Pray I don’t get loose
.

The pain had become a sharp stabbing pain. Gareth was getting worse.

“Unfortunately, once this happens, once your mind has abandoned you, there’s no getting you back. It’s similar to what happens when someone succumbs to the fire treatments. We send that sort to a second home where their aggression can be put to good use. But I digress and am off point. You’re too talented to allow this to happen. Far too skilled and valuable to us. So the decision has been made to unlink you and then reassign you.”

“I won’t be reassigned to anyone else,” I wept. “I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can, actually. If we unlink you before he dies, you’ll be free and your mind will be fine. You don’t honestly care about him. It’s only a byproduct of what we’ve done to you.”

“No, it isn’t,” I fought back.

“No, it is,” he said sadly. “But don’t worry. When it’s done you’ll wake up and think it’s your last day of training. You’ll have no recollection of the past six months, or of any of this. You’ll be a blank slate again. But this time we’ll make you a Hunter, what we should have done the first time around. Gareth will be gone and you’ll be none the wiser.”

All gone? All of it?
If he could take away the past six months, could he go further? Could he erase all of it and send me home? My mother and father’s faces flashed in my mind. Even my brother’s. Then Junie’s. And then Gareth’s.

“It only goes back to your link, a sort of reset button,” he said, as if reading my mind.

From somewhere an old obnoxious rap song blared. Mr. S. got excited and blurted out, “Ooh!”

He pulled out a small glass tablet from his pocket. There was a flashing message on the screen. He tapped it and his lips curled into a smile. “He’s broken. We’re extracting the information we need as we speak. It’s over.” He tapped the screen again and the message disappeared. “Time’s up.”

He opened a small black box sitting on a surgical tray next to him and took out a pair of the same lighter-than-air glasses I’d worn for my linking with Gareth.

“Upload Project
Sharpe
Reversal,” he said toward the tablet. “Get it?” he asked me with a smile.

A tiny light on the side of the glasses began to flash red. A few seconds later, red turned to steady green. He gently placed the glasses on my head. They carried a heavy weight of foreboding. He checked to make sure they were securely behind my ears.

“Snug as a bug,” he said.

A small red button was now pulsing at the center of the tablet screen.

“All I have to do is push this and it all goes bye-bye.”

“Wait. Let us go. You have what you want. Just let us
leave. You’ll never see us again. I can make us disappear; you know I can.”

“True,” he toyed with the idea for a moment then finished with, “but then I’d lose you.”

I’d failed. Gareth would die and I would never remember him. I’d rather die than be unlinked to Gareth. I
would
die, rather than be unlinked. Mr. S.’s mind was made up and now so was mine. I had one hand left to play and it was time to play it. If you’re gonna go out, go out with a bang.

“Let’s cut the bullshit shall we, Blake?” I spat.

The use of his real name caught him off guard.

“How much faith do you have that this,” I nodded toward the tablet, “will work?”

“Absolute. Why do you ask?”

“Blake Alexander Adams. Parents Charlie and Samantha. Little sister Megan, sophomore at Boston College. Parents’ address 23015 West Ogletree.”

Hearing his full name, and those of his family, did the trick. The cool, commanding demeanor vanished. His jaw flickered. “How …?” He shook off the shock.

“I was well trained,” I said coolly. “And
you
screwed up. Brass rat.”

He instinctively touched the school ring on his finger.

“You have no idea how many people I told this to.” I hadn’t told a soul, but
he
didn’t know that.

“I … had not expected this …” Glassy-eyed he pulled out a gun from his belt, cocked it, and pointed it at me. “No one threatens my family.”

I closed my eyes.
Gareth, I’m sorry
.

BANG!

Pain. Indescribable pain.

It felt like my memories were being ripped from my mind with razor blades. At first it was the little stuff. Following Gareth around campus. Taking fake notes in class. But then bigger, more intense, more personal moments. And the more powerful the memory, the more difficult and painful it was to lose.

I think I was screaming, but was it all in my head? And then the glasses were ripped off my head and it stopped. I was screaming.

“Ren! Ren!” came the sweetest voice I knew. “Ren, are you okay?”

I opened my eyes, the tears still streaming out of them.

Junie?

“Are you okay?” he repeated.

I nodded. “Think so.” I jogged my memory. There were definite holes, but most of it was still there. The
important stuff anyway. “Yeah, I’m good.” I looked up at him. “Junie?”

There was a groan behind him and Junie’s face contorted with rage. Over his shoulder I could see Mr. S. leaning against a counter clutching his bloodied right hand to his chest. On the ground sat his tablet. The red button now green. Junie thundered toward him and slammed the butt of his machine gun into his stomach. Mr. S. crumbled like a sack of potatoes.

I’d never seen Junie
truly
angry. It was terrifying. This was not my Junie, my best friend, my soul mate. This was a giant, hellhound of a man. He had grenades, pistols, knives, and other weapons tactically strapped to every part of his body. A nightmarish war machine to anyone but me.

“How’d you …?” I asked.

“I took a page out of your book. I was sneaky.”

He dropped the large black bag he’d been carrying and sliced the binds off of me. I quickly wrapped my arms around him, but there wasn’t time for crap like that now. I leapt out of the chair and crushed Mr. S. in the face with my fist. God it felt good. Then I hauled him up against a cabinet and crushed his windpipe with my knee. “Where is Gareth?” I asked.

Mr. S. didn’t answer. I pushed harder, putting all my weight behind it. Any more and I’d kill him. We both knew it.

“Ren, hurry. We need to get moving,” Junie grunted, dragging two unconscious guards into the room.

He was right, we didn’t have time for this. The gunshot would not go unnoticed and soon enough the beehive
would wake up all around us. I stopped choking Mr. S. and stood over him.

I recited, “23015 West Ogletree …”

He looked up at me, terrified. “Floor R1, room 3907.”

Liar
. “Parents: Charlie and Samantha—”

“Okay, okay.” He reached past me, trying to get to his tablet. I swiped it off the ground and handed it to him.

“Status,” he croaked into it. He held it up for me to hear.

A voice, Cole’s, responded. “Extraction finished; we’ve got it. Project Midas complete. Subject is alive, moving to garage C3 for removal to the nest. Will you meet us there?”

I grabbed the tablet and said, “On my way.”

Cole had unknowingly given me my answer. Gareth was alive. I would find him. I put the tablet into my pocket, spun the pistol around in my hand, and cracked Mr. S. in the temple with it. It might have finished the job Junie had started with his gunshot. I didn’t care.

“Ready?” Junie asked behind me.

I turned to see him kick the black bag toward me. It slid across the floor and stopped at my feet. I unzipped it and grinned: a fully loaded kit. Everything I would or could want was in there. Bulletproof vest, grenades, guns, and best of all, knives, my knives.

I strapped on the gear. With guns in their holsters and knives and grenades in their places, I was ready. And not a moment too soon.

Sirens began to wail from all over and emergency lights began to flash.

There was gunfire behind me as Junie shot at someone
through one of the small windows in the doors. He repositioned himself by the door, popping up to fire off more rounds through the now bullet-riddled window.

“How many?” I asked as I positioned myself on the other side of the door to fire in the opposite direction.

“Eleven,” he said and then fired off a quick burst before saying, “Now ten. But more keep showing up and this is our only way out.”

“Won’t be easy,” I said.

He flashed a faint smile and said, “Never is with you, Ren.”

A sudden barrage of gunfire ripped into the door and into the room. We were well protected by the thick cement walls. Voices could be heard giving orders. They were organizing. Not a good thing. I looked around and had an idea. I took a block of C-4 that my lovely Junie had brought me and slapped it on the opposite wall. Then I set the detonator.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Making a door.”

His eyes widened. “Christ.”

“Flash,” I yelled, but he was already ahead of me. He took a flash bomb from his vest and tossed it through a door window. It went off in the hallway seconds later, and the moment it did, I flipped the trigger and the C-4 detonated, slamming me back into the wall. My ears were ringing. Two strong hands grabbed my vest and yanked me to my feet.
When did I hit the ground?
A bit dazed, I was about to hit whoever it was, but at the last moment realized it was Junie.

“We’re gonna have a little chat about this later,” he yelled.

The room was full of smoke. The sprinklers kicked on, but the small bomb had done the trick. There was a good-sized hole in the wall we could climb through.

I popped my head out. The hallway was clear. I hopped through the hole and covered Junie who was barely small enough to get through.

My heart jumped. I knew this hallway. I’d spent enough time going to and from the hospital wing here to recognize it. We were a long, long way from the garages. For good measure, Junie tossed a grenade through the makeshift door I’d just created and came jogging toward me. It exploded, the ceiling collapsing and blocking the way behind us.

We moved like cats through the halls, a pack of two working together as one. Anything that moved went down. We made sure to go up and down stairs whenever it didn’t take us too far out of the way. We kept them from pinpointing us. The sirens, flashing lights, and sprinklers only added to the confusion. Nobody came close enough to stop us.

We were about halfway to the garage when Junie stopped me from turning right down a long hallway.

“What?” I asked.

“Need ammo,” he said gesturing to his gun.

I checked mine. I was running low, too.

He pointed to the right and said, “Gun ranges.”

I nodded my agreement and said, “Go.”

It was strange: Not only had we avoided any large
groups, we’d come across no Hunters. Were they not here? Were we really that lucky? Or were they biding their time, planning an attack that would easily snuff us out?
Too many questions and no answers. Stop thinking, Ren Sharpe, and get to Gareth
.

We barged into one of the gun ranges and found it empty. It took seconds to find the right caliber bullets for our guns in the ammo lockers. Maybe it was the situation, but I was loading clips faster than he could. He gave up and took position by the door to cover us.