She Who Sees Through Darkness

Part Twenty-Two

The town at the foot of the mountain was mostly deserted by the time she managed to scale the locked gate and head on down. All the kids were at school, and most of the adults at work in the fortress. Dogs barked as she passed their houses. A young man took one look at her strange face and ducked away.

The town consisted of two rings of buildings around a central square. It was there she stopped, facing the glass-enclosed bulletin board that announced high school plays, a showing of Rocky at the church, and a for-sale snowmobile. Her eyes darted back and forth over the ground, reading the bootprints in the freshly-dusted snow. Three sets of prints were from new shoes; only one was a men's size eight.

Katrina followed them around the back of the town library and towards an abandoned shed. The second she stepped into the shadows, a strong arm reached out and lashed around her neck, dragging her back into the shadows. She coughed and gasped, and then the pressure relented. She turned.

This was Shawn as she'd never seen him before, and it just because she was looking with her new eyes. His muscles were tensed, like a wildcat about to strike, and bulky armor stood out under his jacket. She'd seen him pissed, seen him fight as a young man, but time had stripped all the humor from him. This Shawn had eyes that said he'd kill without regret, and kill as many as he needed to reach his goal.

She could see now why they called him the Living Flame.

"It's me," she gasped. "Your sister."

"Katrina?" His voice broke. Past the crease in his brow and looseness of his cheeks, she saw the wide-eyed face he'd worn that day twenty years ago when he'd learned his parents were dead. Then he pulled back on his agent's face. "What did these monsters do to you?"

"Nothing I didn't ask for." More or less. "You have to leave. They'll kill you—"

"I go nowhere without you." He kept his voice low, but urgent. His hand cupped her chin, exploring her modified features. "It's my fault you're here. I let that bitch get away."

"Can the guilt," she whispered, fiercely. "I chose this. They were going to experiment on somebody. Now Indigo will know what they can do."

"You did this for Indigo?" His eyes narrowed. She hoped that was just a reaction to the shadows. With her new vision, the darkness didn't affect her like it did him.

"You'd have done the same." Wouldn't he? "And the stuff I've learned—Shawn, they've got a mole inside Indigo! They're building an army for the Father of Witches! They're—"

"Katrina!" He ran his bare fingers through his hair. Steam rose from his skin and drifted up the wood panels of the surrounding buildings. She'd seen his control slip like that only once before. "You . . . you take too many risks. Come on. We're leaving."

No way in hell could she go with him. She needed to look like a devoted agent, sneaking back from enemy territory after handing over her own body to gather intelligence. Not like a fool who'd gotten in over her head and required a real agent to rescue her.

"No," she said.

He froze like she'd slapped him. "These people want to destroy our country and break the Seal. You'd side with them?"

At first, she thought he was joking. But Shawn never joked. Her stomach sank. "Shawn . . . I'm on your side. I've always been on your side. You have to know that." She'd gone to Shawn for advice on her first crush, cried in his arms over her missing powers, entered rehab at his prompting. Why didn't he know that she loved him the same way, that she'd fight for him the same way? What have I ever done for him?

"Give me one good reason I should trust you. You've lied to me a hundred times." His face hardened. "I can't trust you to walk around the city at night without trying to destroy yourself. How can I trust you to be loyal to Indigo?"

His words felt like a bullet to the chest. "I might have been a terrible sister, but I was a damn good agent." She kept her voice low and balled her fists. Here, even here, she would show him she had what it took. "I would have died for Indigo. All I asked was to be treated like I belonged there. I worked harder than any of them. They never let me prove myself. They gave me the least important postings even though I made the top five on every evaluation. The second they had an excuse, they shoved me behind a desk and called it a promotion. They only put up with me because they needed you, and because I was a Harris. Shawn, I was born to be part of this. To fight for the greater good. I had to find a way back in. It's who I am."

"No. It isn't." He didn't put any anger behind that. To Shawn, he was simply stating a fact. "I'm sorry, Katrina. Indigo's not for you. And now you've ruined up the life you actually had. You think you can go back into society looking like that? It's freakish."

"Guess Indigo's my only option, then." She gritted her teeth to hold back her urge to scream at him. And I like my face. "What if I bring them a wyvern?"

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