Page 40 of Shadow

Brian, a co-worker, told me once that the only way to stay sane was to stop thinking about the people who died. He said it with a hollow, empty look in his eyes.

He died the day the hellhound broke into the compound. I still heard his screams at night when I closed my eyes.

And now, King wanted me to face one of those creatures again.

No, I didn’t want to see something that killed so many people I cared about. Just knowing there was a hellhound here was enough to terrify me, and this time, the shivers running across my skin had nothing to do with King.

“Follow me,” he said, rising from his seat with that commanding tone I resented way too much.

The fresh food might have bolstered me physically, but seeing hellhounds wasn’t going to do anything for my mental stability. If the Federation had told me in advance that this was part of the plan, I probably would have ended things.

Suicide had become a grim reality for many of us. Nobody wanted to face death at the claws of those creatures, least of all me. They haunted every nightmare I’d had since the war began.

King reached the door and paused, glancing back when he realized I hadn’t moved. “Come,” he snapped, his patience clearly wearing thin.

I sucked in a shaky breath and forced my feet to move, following him like a lamb to the slaughter. I was in a compound full of Shadow Warriors, I reminded myself as I shuffled forward, trying not to trip over my feet. The last thing I needed was for the Neanderthal in front of me to pick me up like a sack of flour.

I increased my pace, skipping a step or two to catch up. The only bright side was I didn’t stumble. Maybe that cursed half-ball really was working miracles.

King strode through a maze of hallways, taking left and right turns in quick succession. Everything looked the same, white walls, wooden doors, and Spanish-tiled floors stretching endlessly. Within minutes, I was hopelessly lost.

He didn’t bother looking back, probably because he could hear every hurried step I took. My father once told me, during one of his rare talks about Shadow Warriors, that their eyesight and hearing were ten times sharper than a human’s.

King knew I was following. I had no doubt about that.

I never fully understood my father’s admiration for the Shadow Warriors. He saw beyond their ability to help us kill hellhounds and seemed to have a deeper connection to them, one I could never quite grasp. He was adamant that I never repeat anything he told me about them. He understood the fragile trust between humans and the Warriors and believed it would only deteriorate once the war was over.

My father respected the Shadow Warriors, even their animal forms. I asked him questions, but he rarely answered. Yet sometimes, it felt like he wanted to. There were moments when he seemed unsettled, and I tried to coax the truth out of him.Each time, he told me the same thing: for my safety, he couldn’t share more.

King led me downstairs, and I recognized the pool area as we passed it. We kept going deeper into the compound. At the end of another long hallway, two guards were stationed in front of a door unlike anything else I’d seen over the past week. It was made of heavy metal, with a thick bar secured across the front.

Without acknowledging the guards, King pressed a button beside the door. A crackling sound came from the small intercom.

“Coming in,” he said curtly, lifting the large bar and handing it to one of the guards.

I glanced at the guard, then back at King, who opened the door and stepped through without hesitation.

“Will you lock us inside once we enter?” I asked the unsmiling Warrior holding the metal bar.

He didn’t even glance at me.

Before I could press further, King grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. I stumbled, barely catching myself before I fell.

The heavy door slammed behind us, and the resounding thud of the bar being replaced sent a jolt of fear through me. My terror was bone deep. My first instinct was to run, but there was nowhere to go. Instead, I closed my eyes, trying to steady myself against the rising tide of panic.

King’s voice was unexpectedly reassuring. “They can’t hurt you. We have security measures in place,” he said.

I forced my eyes open, glancing at him. His piercing blue eyes were locked on me. He appeared calm. Even though fear was crawling through my veins, I remembered his warning about eye contact and quickly let my gaze drift around the room instead.

If my guess about the metal was correct, the walls were reinforced steel. The floor appeared to be the same. The room was built for containment.

A sharp, angry zap of electricity snapped through the air, and my head whipped around toward the source. It took me a moment to process what I was seeing: two hellhounds suspended from the ceiling by wire cables attached to their bodies.

One of them shifted slightly, and the zapping sound filled the room again before silence fell.

The creature I stared at was hideous. Its grotesque form reminded me why these monsters haunted my nightmares. They didn’t just kill my co-workers. They also killed my mother. And my father.

King strode forward, nodding to one of the guards stationed inside. The guard immediately lowered his gaze, but not before shooting me a sharp, unhappy glance.

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