Page 49 of Shadow Caster
“Justice?”
“Where is sector one?”
He locked gazes with me, his eyes more green than blue today, lit up with something akin to glee. “Sector one, like all the other sectors, is in the mist.”
Sixteen
The mist. We were headed to the bloody mist.
We jogged through the tunnels after Master Hyde. He took a left instead of the right we’d taken yesterday, and then the tunnel went from gray stone to black. The murmur of whispered conversation echoed off the walls.
Harmon and Thomas were a little ahead of me. I picked up the pace, so I was right behind the pair.
“Hey, how’s Lottie?”
Harmon didn’t answer. Instead, he shot off, leaving me and Thomas behind.
Thomas didn’t try and follow him, and instead, he fell into step beside me. “They wouldn’t let him see her. Said she was too fragile for any visitors. They said it would upset her. She doesn’t remember anything. Not this place, not her family, not her name. Harmon is fucked. He cried. I’ve never seen him cry before.”
I couldn’t imagine Harmon crying either. The guy was cocky and hard as nails. “Fuck. What the hell could do that to a person?”
“I don’t know. I mean, the brain is crazy complicated. They have Madam Mariana on the case. She’s gonna do her weaver thing, and see if she can extract any memories to piece together what happened to Lottie.”
Maybe then we would have some answers. “It won’t help Harmon to push people away.”
Thomas snorted. “Seriously? This coming from you? Miss I-have-a-wall-around-me-that-has-a-Minnie-sized-hole-in-it.”
“Point taken. But I’m messed up as shit. Harmon is … He has it together.”
“You’d think so. But he’s not the playboy everyone thinks he is. And when it comes to Lottie, he’s a total softie. He sees her as his responsibility. His mum died five years ago, and he took over caring for his sister. The Black pack doesn’t have time for females. Its focus is on the males. Women are baby-making machines. He insisted Lottie attend the Academy as soon as she hit seventeen so he could watch over her so that she could have a purpose other than bearing children for the pack. He wanted more for her.”
And now she didn’t even remember him.
Shit.
Cool air brushed my skin.
“I think we’re almost there,” Thomas said.
“The mist?”
“Fucking hell, right?”
The tunnel grew brighter, and then we were slowing down and coming to a halt. Hyde stood at a thick metal grated barrier. There was a winch system set up on the wall to one side. He grabbed the handle and began to turn it slowly. The grating began to lift.
“Exit is by winch,” Hyde said. “But your entry is by biosignature.” He ushered us under the partially raised grating.
I stepped out into the night air, onto soft grass that rose in a hillock. Sparse woodland lay on either side of us, cocooning the entrance to the tunnels. Stars winked down at us, and a waning moon hung heavy and bright in the sky.
A citrus scent tickled my nostrils, and then Hyde brushed past me. The contact was brief and through clothing, but my skin tingled regardless.
“This way,” he ordered.
We followed him over the knoll, and the world beyond came into view. Flat land was home to a low, squat building with a stream running behind it, and beyond … Beyond was a swirling mass of silver and gray.
“The mist …” Thomas took an awed step forward.
We’d heard about it. We’d read about it. But seeing it this close … Wow.
