Page 47 of Semblance

Shadow: I don’t want to get better. I want to stay angry so when I find this guy, I can torture him. I want him to suffer and I want him to burn.

Dr. Rosenburg: Violence will solve nothing. Let’s revisit your past week at the Academy. Your headmaster said you beat up one of your classmates the other day.

Shadow: He said something about my mother.

Dr. Rosenburg: And hitting him was the first thing you decided to do?

Shadow: No. Telling him to shut up was the first thing I decided to do. When he refused, I decided to kick his ass.

Dr. Rosenburg: And what did that solve?

Shadow: He stopped talking about my mom on account of his broken jaw. . I’m also pretty sure he won’t do it again.

Dr. Rosenburg: It looks like we have a lot of work to do still over the coming months.

Shadow: No, we don’t. This is our last session.

Dr. Rosenburg: Only your guardian can make—

Shadow: I always liked puppets, doctor, because you could make them dance and move whenever you wanted them to.

Dr. Rosenburg: I don’t understand.

Shadow: My guardian agrees with me. This session is finished now and forever. Please, enjoy the BMW that’s waiting for you out on the driveway.

End Transcript.

#

Holy shit.

I was stunned. No wonder Shadow was brooding all the time. I thought of the way he described the torture of Julia’s killer, almost like he wished he had participated. After picking my jaw off the park ground, I rushed home and looked up any information regarding the murders of Tristan and Sienna Tremaine.

There was no mention of it anywhere. It was like that part of their history was erased from the archives of the Internet.

As I sat there staring at the transcript while trying to digest the information from it, my cell phone rang.

It was Abraham.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you Ms. Valencia,” he said cheerfully.

“I wasn’t doing anything important,” I lied. Snooping into Shadow’s life was very important. “I’m just sitting around reading slutty books.”

“Well, I won’t bother you too long then. Shadow has requested that for your next date, you pack three nights worth of clothes and also suggests they be garments that you don’t mind sweating into.”

“What?”

“I’m only the messenger,” Abraham said. “And perhaps you should bring a couple of those slutty books as well. It’s about a sixteen hour flight time to the destination of your next date.”

“You’re kidding right? Where are we going?”

“That my dear, is a surprise,” Abraham said before adding, “Just make sure you have all your hepatitis shots.”

#

Chapter Fifteen

Cambodia. We were heading to Cambodia, which I realized after boarding one of Shadow’s private jets.

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