Page 2 of Shadow

“Defense Secretary Church, we’ll be landing shortly,” the intercom crackles, jolting me so hard I nearly smack my head on the filthy white console above me. Heart racing, I take a deep breath and brace myself. The real terror is about to begin.

The abrupt blare of the intercom had jolted me, but it wasn’t the sound that hit hardest. It was the title:Defense Secretary Church.I’m still not used to hearing it, and the weight of it presses deep into my chest, pulling at old wounds. It was my father’s title, and the memory of people addressing him that way stirs an ache I can’t seem to shake. He died fighting, an old man who should’ve been surrounded by comfort, a fluffy dog at his feet, a worn western novel in his hands. Instead, he carried the impossible burden of responsibility, standing alongside the men and women battling a terrifying war.

Dad didn’t live to see the victory. He was gone before the dust settled, before he could stop the heads of state from fumbling our hard-won alliance. I know in my heart he would have found a way to avoid the diplomatic mess that followed.The Shadow Warriors respected him, and that respect was mutual. Now, as his daughter, I’m trying to follow his example, even if the men I’m about to meet scare me senseless. They’re everything nightmares are made of. Big, bad, and terrifying. Picture a human who could turn into Bigfoot on steroids, and you’re not far off. A shiver prickles my skin, and without thinking, I start humming“My Humps”again, as if the absurdity of it might shield me from growing dread.

I glance out the narrow window, letting my eyes wander back to the ocean below. My mind drifts to the view from earlier, when we’d first taken off. Knowing our cities were destroyed was one thing; seeing the ruins from the air was something else entirely. Towering skyscrapers had been reduced to skeletal remains, jagged scraps of concrete and twisted metal scattered across the earth. We live underground now, and as much as I’ve resented the confinement, I can’t deny the relief of being spared the constant reminder of all we’d lost.

The endless expanse of blue water stretches beneath us, concealing its predators. I know sharks are lurking somewhere down there, but even that thought is easier to stomach than the devastation I left behind. At least the ocean hides its secrets. The land wears its scars out in the open.Monsters. I’m going to negotiate with monsters.

I catch myself. I’ve never thought of Shadow Warriors as monsters because my father didn’t. I’m simply terrified they will kill me, so I’ve put everyone on the opposite end of that remark in the monstrous category.

After my first full shower in months. With hot water, no less. I’m actually clean. It feels almost decadent, like the only perk I’ll get as Defense Secretary before I inevitably meet some grisly end.

I stand, stretch slightly, and move to the restroom. I stare at my reflection in the small mirror, studying the face staringback.Beautiful or sexy?Not even close, no matter what they dressed me in. My high cheekbones and pointed chin give me a sharp, haunted look that even my sun-kissed, cherry cheeks can’t soften. Before the war, I hated sunlight and sought out dark corners to work in peace. Now that the sun is practically a myth, I find myself longing for it, at least until yesterday’s scorching heat reminded me why I preferred the shade.

The Federation thought they were doing me a favor by sending me for one day of training with weapons in the heat. It made absolutely no sense today because they sent me on this flight minus the weapons. I’m one of the clumsiest humans on Earth, and they’re lucky I didn’t shoot myself when I fell. The looks on the faces of the red stripes I was training with were priceless. They had no idea why I was with them other than also being a red stripe. They saw my coming death as a foregone conclusion. I saw it as sooner rather than later.

I glanced up at the mirror. It was so tiny that all I could see was my face, and honestly, that’s probably for the best. I’ve always been awkwardly tall, towering over six feet, and painfully thin. Grace isn’t my strong suit. Sit me down with a pen and paper, and I’m harmless. Put an obstacle in my path, and I’ll go down like a newborn colt. If there’s no obstacle, I’ll trip over my own feet, which I proved yesterday. A career in acting probably wasn’t the wisest dream for someone with my lack of coordination, but I wanted it anyway.

Surviving the war meant toughening up, but let’s be real. I’m the antithesis of tough. In a world where only the strong survive, I’m still unsure how I made it this far.

I leaned closer to the mirror, searching for answers in my reflection. Almond-shaped eyes, almost black, stared back. A high forehead dominated my features, especially when my curls stand on end or I pull my hair back. Dark eyebrows framed my eyes, and without constant upkeep, they threatenedto merge into a unibrow. My angular cheekbones and button nose, a family trait, gave my face a pixie-like quality that didn’t match my tall, gangly frame. My lips, though. Those might be my best feature. Full and perfectly shaped, they looked like they belonged to someone confident and alluring.

That’s a joke.

My last kiss was a sloppy disaster in a supply closet at work. One awkward, spit-filled meeting of mouths, and I decided I’d rather die alone than serve as someone’s slobber receptacle.

The guy wasn’t bad, he was just young. Too young, at least for me. Or maybe not technically younger, since we were around the same age. Still, I’ve always been drawn to older men. Daddy issues? Maybe. But my father was incredible, so if anything, I’m looking for a good man like him, not some inexperienced guy still figuring out how to kiss without drowning his partner.

I sighed and studied my face one last time. Nothing special stared back at me. Just the introverted failure I’d been picking apart in mirrors for years.

I shrugged and pushed my thoughts away. Dwelling won’t help.

Many people like me, the non-fighters, the ones unfit for this brutal new world, didn’t survive. Some took their own lives, unable to face the relentless horrors. Others, blinded by bigotry, refused to fight alongside the Shadow Warriors and perished in their unprotected militias or homes. My father’s position within the government shielded me from the worst of it, and that privilege gnawed at me. It felt like a cruel twist of fate that I was alive while so many others, braver and worthier, were not. By sheer accident of birth, I survived. For now.

The cost of that survival haunted me. So many human lives lost, each a testament to courage in the face of the unimaginable. And the Shadow Warriors. They suffered too.Their casualties were staggering, yet they fought on, defending a population that distrusted them at every turn. Their numbers were a fraction of the hellhounds’, yet they defied impossible odds to become our saviors. And how did we repay them?

Betrayal.

The Federation’s first catastrophic mistake, once the hellhounds were seemingly annihilated, was believing they could control the Shadow Warriors. No,controlwasn’t even the right word.Use.They thought they could use the Warriors for experimental purposes. The government actually expected them to voluntarily surrender to a system that viewed them as tools, not allies. The president and his cabinet assumed the Warriors would revert to the passive half-men, half-beasts who had walked unnoticed among us before Hell’s War.

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Shadow Warriors had the audacity, no, thenerve, I thought sarcastically, to demand equal rights. Equal representation. The right to hold office. Hell, the right to be treated as equals.

When the military tried to enforce the Federation’s will, human soldiers paid the price, dying in a futile attempt to corral beings who had already given everything to save us. When all else failed on our end, a treaty was finally signed. A compromise, if you could call it that. The Shadow Warriors were granted their own country, a sliver of sovereignty carved out of the world they helped to protect.

That was about a year ago. And here I am now, heading straight into their territory, tasked with repairing a relationship we shattered.

Hellhounds obliterated Cuba early in the war. During the first two years, Cuban survivors trickled into the U.S., desperate and broken. But as the years dragged on and no more survivors emerged, the island was abandoned, its memory sliding intoobscurity. I don’t know who proposed giving Cuba to the Shadow Warriors, but it worked. They claimed the territory and retreated there. It’s close enough for the government to keep tabs on them, yet far enough away to give humans a false sense of security.

If I’m honest, I haven’t felt secure since the war began, and the Shadow Warriors’ presence in Cuba wasn’t the reason. I’m a mouse living in a world of starving lions. Fear has become a constant companion, an obstacle I’ve had to learn to navigate. I liked to think I handled it with finesse.

“Yeah, right,” I muttered under my breath, rolling my eyes. “I tripped over lint.”

I shook the thought away and took one last look in the mirror before stepping out of the cramped bathroom. Back in my seat, I picked up the dossier handed to me by a junior officer before boarding. He’d been dressed in fatigues with a cocky grin that grated on my nerves. The folder contained a brief overview of probable Shadow Warrior statistics, and his parting instruction was to leave it on the plane after landing.

The dossier was thin, and what it lacked in detail, it made up for in irritation. According to the documents, the government estimated between one and two hundred Shadow Warriors survived the war. My mission included verifying that number if possible. Oh, and there’s more: I’m supposed to gatherbreeding informationspecifically, whether they’re reproducing and determine the number and types of weapons in their possession. I rolled my eyes. None of this was mentioned before takeoff.

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