The Dark Within Us

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

MY SHADOW TRAILING AHEAD of me rippled on the ground, fizzing in and out at the edges like a bad connection to the earth.

That made me slow to a standstill and stop talking mid-sentence, phone gripped too-tightly in my hand, my skin prickling with goosebumps, my veins suddenly feeling like they were full of ice shards. Something was watching me. I could feel it, like the ghost of a hand grasping the back of my neck, starting to dig in claws.

Something was here.

Boots scraping, I spun on the spot, the torn jacket I held in one fist dragging in the dirt. The rest of my clothes weren't in a cleaner state; I had grass stains and flecks of blood dotting my white t-shirt and holes in the knees of my jeans.

Squinting against the glare of the sunset, I only saw the empty road I was walking and dead leaves scattering before the wind, whispering deviously as they scratched across the pavement. The same wind made the oaks bow back and forth, waving solemnly my way, filling my nose with the smell of dust and growth, deep and green. Was I about to get jumped again? I had left Remold, the foremost idiot that had taunted me for weeks, unconscious a mile back with his goons flittering around him like frazzled hens. Clenching my hand tighter on my jacket sleeve, I felt my split knuckle protest as my skin stretched further, sticky blood half-dry between my fingers, dripping onto the ripped fabric. The throbbing of my black eyes and my ripped-up knees intensified. Maybe they'd returned. I'm sure they had more to say about my mom and her "episodes".

I was used to the rumors that were whispered—and oftentimes said straight to my face—regarding my mother's sanity. She wasn't shy about her beliefs that another world existed, that demon creatures were real, and I lived with the consequences. Ignoring people's insults and insinuations wasn't very difficult, most of the time; it just became impossible when their stupidity was coupled with a few rough shoves and a certain stink-breathed moron refusing to get out of my way.

One straw too many, I suppose.

But this... this felt different, like nothing I'd encountered before. Behind me, my shadow was spitting furiously again, like it was trying to come alive.

Obviously, I'd been hit too hard.

"Kal?"

Lifting the phone again, I cleared my throat. "Yeah, sorry mom. You were scolding me?" This wasn't a rare occurrence on her part. I made no false claims that I was a role model daughter. I blamed Jan, my best friend, and his propensity to find trouble no matter where we went. Resuming my strides, with a lot less fury and more trepidation, I continued onward, casting suspicious glances over my shoulder. Huh. Getting jumped on my way home from school was filling my head with paranoid thoughts. Shrug it off, Kal, and keep your ears open. Go get an ice pack for your bruised brain and make it stop seeing things that aren't real.

"Honey," she sighed into my ear. I could just picture her, sitting in her favorite spot by the back window that overlooked the vast woods, anxiously tugging at the purple headscarf I had gifted her for her birthday to help brighten up her despair at her losing her lovely hair in chunks. Her shrunken frame would be shivering even beneath the soft throw my little brother had given her as his present. I was no doubt deepening the worry lines around her storm grey eyes. "You need to ignore those who try to anger you. If you try to pick a battle with every person who angers you, you'll spend your whole life fighting."

She had a point, admittedly. At seventeen, I was the older sibling and the supposed example to Nate, the nefarious dweeb who, at twelve, liked to do whatever he pleased. The trembling in her voice made my gut coil with guilt. For the millionth time, I wished she would return to seek medical help so we could figure out what was causing her body to waste away into nothing, her mind to slowly dissolve into an emptiness that was, little by little, taking her away from us. For the millionth time, I wished my dad or older brother were around so I could defer to them on what to do. Have someone else in charge. But they were hardly more than memories kept alive by my mom's voice, gone before I could create many solid recollections myself.