The Shadow (Book 1)

Chapter 12

Split Personality

''I need welding gear. I don't care if it's acetylene or propane. I need a soldering station. I need helmets. I'm gonna need goggles. I would like a smelting cup. I need two sets of precision tools,'' Men swarmed the cave, Tony listed off to Yisen what he needed, Yisen translating his words.

Scarlet watched from the corner of the cave, unable to move from the fear of The Shadow making an appearance. She'd been whispering; in her head since Scarlet had regained conciseness. It was as if the knock to her head had dislodged the Shadow from her hiding place.

''He's going to find out sooner or later,'' The Shadow whispered. Scarlet bared her teeth, bracing herself. She wanted to scream. Every time Shadow pushed through the barrier she'd made, her head hurt, the words puncturing her brain with each syllable.

''If you keep quiet, he won't,'' Scarlet seethed; the Shadow chuckled a dark sickening chuckle that sent icy shivers down Scarlets' spine.

''He won't what?'' She jumped, shuffling further into the corner of the cave, the jagged rock cut into her back. Peering through her lashes, she noticed the figure before her was not Tony as she had suspected, but Yisan instead.

''It doesn't matter,'' she mumbled, choosing not to look up at the spectacle-wearing translator. Instead, she stared at a piece of metal that lay abandoned by her feet, a piece of scrap that someone must have dropped when moving the equipment about.

Yisen furrowed his brow, glancing worriedly down at the young girl. He sighed, lowering himself down to squat at her level. He stayed silent for a few seconds before cautiously as if she were some kind of wild animal that might attack if any type of contact was made, moved his right hand to rest on top of one of her knees that she pulled up into herself. Her left arm curled around them as her right forearm dangled helplessly by her side.

Slowly drawing her head to look up at him, a flicker of green flashed across Scarlets' blue eyes as they connected their stares. Silence fell across the two, each taking in their shared shocked expressions. Scarlets from his kindness, Yisen from how quickly her eyes changed colour. He'd never known a mutation like that, the ability for one to change their eye colour completely, was something he'd never even thought could happen.

''You saw her, didn't you?'' Scarlet croaked. Her throat was extremely sore from the lack of water, the bitter taste of the desert still coated her tongue, ''in my eyes,'' a tear, small but visible, crawled from her eye and rolled down her cheek. Yisan reached his free hand out to catch it with a dust-coated thumb before it travelled any further down her face.

''By her, you mean the other side of you?'' Yisen moved his hand away from her face, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. He was already aware of how much he was encroaching on her personal space.

''She'd been there since I can remember, I think. I had an accident; she took control for a while. The details are kind of fuzzy,'' Scarlet sighed, reassessing the hold on her legs. Yisans' hand still reassuringly rested on her knees, ''I wish I could give you a big scientific explanation, but I really can't.''

''So when your eyes are green, that's not you?'' Yisen asked. Scarlet nodded, pushing a finger in a shush motion to her lips, ''he doesn't know, does he? That's what you meant by he won't. Right?''

Scarlet nodded, her eyes glancing in Tony's direction, who was stood bent over a piece of paper, pencil in hand, scribbling and scratching what Scarlet could only assume were designs. She knew one day she'd have to tell him the truth about Shadow, about her. The memories just weren't there yet; the doctor Fury had given her, the one running test every other month, maintained that her memories would come back, mostly in fragments they had guessed, but only when her brain thought she was ready.