{WATTYS 2023 WINNER}
• Book 1 of the Daegelus series •
While hunting for his missing friend, Elijah stumbles upon a fiery journalist, who so happens to be looking for the same people as him: the doctors who experimented on him when he was a child. B...
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Lyca Corp.'s lackeys were everywhere. They glided along the bustling street, and the crowds instinctually edged away as if the sharply dressed men were sharks moving through schools of fish.
Elijah could smell the blood and chemicals clinging to their bodies all the way from across the road, and as each of them headed inside El'Vorian Horizons, he resisted the urge to break his cover and go for their throats. Guards stood at every entrance, and he had to be careful. He couldn't let his weeks of observation go to waste. Not now.
He sipped from his latte, hiding his face behind a newspaper. While he pretended to read its words, he watched closely as each doctor and scientist walked through the security gates and headed deeper into the building.
And then he saw him. Doctor Benedict Harris. The sight of the old man's crusty, saggy face caused angst to clash with Elijah's festering anger; it made him remember what that man did to him. Harris stole everything from him, and Elijah wasn't going to stop until he found the man who made him feel something other than fury and desperation through the years of torture they endured together in Lyca Corp.'s lab.
But he wouldn't let his past hold him back. Not anymore.
He shifted his sights to another familiar face; the same red-haired girl that he saw going into that building every morning since starting his surveillance was making her way down the street, only this time she was holding a stack of files against her chest. He had no idea who she was, but he did know that she wasn't a Lyca Corp. doctor or scientist. She wasn't on any of the lists he got from the last guy he hunted down.
The girl's vibrant orange hair flowed to her waist, and despite the fact that it was the middle of winter, she seemed perfectly comfortable in a long pencil skirt and blouse. That was probably because she was a demon, though, and like him, she mustn't feel the cold.
Elijah watched her head inside; he tried to listen when she started arguing with the receptionist, but his heightened senses couldn't pierce the glass walls; all he got were muffled voices.
He rolled his eyes and slouched in his seat. It was going to be another long day of sitting, watching, and waiting, but today was the last he'd spend sitting outside the small coffee shop. He had everything he needed; all he had to do now was wait until dark.
So, he waited...and waited, watching the building like a hawk hour after hour. Rush hour hit and that was when he saw the orange-haired girl leave every day before, but she didn't come out this time. He didn't think too much of it, though.
It was 10 p.m.; the coffee shop closed, and Elijah headed down the street to where he left his bike. He pulled his leather jacket on over his hoodie, and when he sat down, he stared at the building to his right. In the dark of the night, the windows of the building to his left acted like a mirror, allowing him to watch El'Vorian Horizons while he lay in wait.
