Page 6 of Echoes From the Void

Heat creeps up my neck. “It’s... a long story.”

“Good thing I brought enough curry to feed an army.” She pats my cheek, then Leo’s. “You boys are too skinny. Does this future pack of yours not feed you properly?”

Through the medical wing windows, I catch Frankie trying not to smile, though her eyes keep darting anxiously to her unconscious twin. Even in his magically-induced coma, Finn’s face looks less pained than before, as if somehow sensing the protective energy gathering around him. For the first time since feeling her car approach, I truly breathe.

My mother hooks her arms through both of ours, guiding us toward the twins. Some things really never do change—like how she always knows exactly what we need. Maybe she’ll understand about the rest too. About shadow beasts and void magic, about healing through violence, about finding family in the most unexpected places.

About how sometimes the most peaceful path is the one that runs straight through the darkness.

Chapter 3

Leo

My phone lights uplike a Christmas tree, five different “L” names flashing across the screen. The Martinez sisters, coming together like they always have since Mom died. Because apparently naming all your daughters names that start with L wasn’t confusing enough—now they’re all converging on Shadow Locke as the realms collapse, refusing to be separated again.

I create a small shadow butterfly while I answer the group call, letting it dance between my fingers. Mom always said my shadows were different—playful where others were predatory. “Make them smile, Mijo,” she’d say during those final days in the hospital. “The world needs more light, even in the shadows.”

“Luna, I already told you the exit number—no, Lucia, don’t try to fix it yourself, you’ll make it worse—Lena, I swear if you psychoanalyze my pack one more time—Lyra, put your sister’s inhaler back in her bag—” The butterfly dissolves as I juggle conversations, but smaller shadows still swirl around me, responding to my energy like eager puppies rather than the wolves most shifters manifest.

“But the flow of energy in polyamorous bonds suggests—” Lena starts, her psychology major voice taking over.

“No,” I interrupt, pressing my fingers to my temple while my shadows form little hearts just to make Matteo roll his eyes. “No psychology papers about my love life. Mom wanted you to have a normal college experience, remember? Not turn your shadow-shifting brother into a case study.”

“It would be completely anonymous!”

“You tried that with Luna’s divorce. It wasn’t anonymous enough.” I watch rain drench Shadow Locke’s parking lot, each drop creating ripples in the growing puddles. My shadows reach out to dance in the water, creating patterns that would have made Mom smile.

“That was different,” Lena argues. “And the paper got published.”

“Yeah, and Tony’s lawyer quoted it in court,” Luna snaps in the background. Despite being the only one of us to attend law school instead of Shadow Locke, she’s always been our fiercest protector. Mom’s death hit her hardest—she was the one who encouraged me to accept the Shadow Locke scholarship, to learn what Mom had tried to protect us from.

Matteo leans against the wall beside me, a steady presence after years of dealing with Martinez family chaos. My shadows reach for him instinctively, curling around his darker ones like they’re trying to make them play. Through our incomplete pack bond, I feel his amusement at my shadows’ antics.

“Your sisters are going to eat Bishop alive,” he says, watching my shadow creatures try to dance with his. “Remember when Luna made my father’s business partner cry at that dinner party?”

“In her defense, he was embezzling.”

“She didn’t know that yet.”

“¡Dios mío! Luna, what do you mean he’s trying to claim custody?” The words cut through my playful mood. Our father, who walked out when I was twelve, suddenly wants custody ofLyra and Liliana? After years of nothing but birthday cards with wrong ages—when he bothered to send them at all. The same man who missed Mom’s funeral, who wasn’t there when we needed him most.

My shadows suddenly surge, less playful and more protective as they spread across the walls. Even the happiest person has their triggers, and family—both the absence and presence of it—has always been mine.

“Someone told him about the pack,” Luna says, her lawyer voice taking over. The one she developed after Mom died, when she had to become more parent than sister. “He’s claiming our alternative lifestyle creates an unstable environment for the girls. As if he has any right to judge stability after walking out on us.”

Matteo’s amusement vanishes as my shadows darken, responding to my anger rather than my usual cheer. Through our pack bond, I feel the others stir—Frankie’s protective rage echoing my own, Bishop already plotting legal strategies, Dorian’s cold fury at anyone threatening pack. The bonds pulse with their energy, and my shadows respond by creating a protective dome around me and Matteo.

“You would think,” I say, forcing lightness into my tone while letting my shadows paint funny shapes on the wall—Mom’s old trick for calming Liliana’s anxiety attacks, “that dating four hot people would make me more stable, not less. I mean, have you seen my pack? We’re gorgeous.”

Matteo rolls his eyes, but I catch how his shadows reach for mine, trying to soothe. He’s seen me use humor to mask pain since we were fourteen, since the day Mom first got sick. “Leo...”

“No, really. Between Bishop’s cheekbones and Dorian’s... everything, I’d say I’m making excellent life choices. Mom would have loved them.” The last part slips out without my permission,and my shadows briefly form the shape of her favorite flower—lilies—before I can stop them.

A sleek black car pulls into the lot, and Luna steps out looking every inch the power lawyer in her designer suit. The same one she wore to Mom’s funeral, though she’s filled it out better since then. Her expression says she’s ready to commit murder, preferably with legal precedent. She makes a point of ending the group call.

“Leo,” she calls, waving a manila envelope. The sight of it makes my shadows twist anxiously, forming abstract patterns that reflect my unease. “We need to talk.”

“Kind of in the middle of a crisis here, sis. Lucia’s car broke down with the girls—and you know how Liliana’s asthma gets worse around unstable shadow energy.” Another thing Mom warned us about before she died, one of many reasons she kept most of us away from shadow society.

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