Page 18 of Echoes From the Void (Shadow Locke Shifters #3)

Chapter 17

Frankie

“The fun part about learning to slip through shadows,” I say, forcing myself to focus on the technical aspects rather than the memories threatening to drown me, “is discovering how many rules become... flexible. Distance, time, space—they’re all negotiable when you know how to ride the darkness between moments.”

“Trust us,” Leo murmurs, his hand warm on my shoulder. The usual playfulness in his voice has been replaced by something steadier, stronger. “We’ve got you. Both of you.”

I nod, grateful they’re pretending not to notice how I’m clinging to their strength. Five years ago, I faced these walls alone. Now I have a pack, a twin, a family forged in shadow and light.

“Three,” Bishop counts down, Guardian marks pulsing with contained power. “Two. One.”

The world shifts.

Shadows wrap around us like silk, like water, like the space between heartbeats. My instincts scream to fight, to maintain control—too much like being strapped down, like needles in my arms, like?—

No. Focus. Trust.

We emerge in darkness that tastes of antiseptic and abandonment—stale air tinged with ozone from decaying wards. The familiar hospital smell hits first, wafting from broken windows, making bile rise in my throat. Those same green walls. Those same flickering lights.

Beside me, Finn wrinkles his nose exactly like I do, making Bishop hide a smile behind his hand. The small gesture of normalcy helps ground me in the present.

“Stop that,” I mutter to my twin, desperately needing something normal to focus on. Anything to keep from looking too closely at the scratch marks still visible on the walls. My scratch marks.

“Stop what?” Finn mirrors my stance, arms crossed. He’s doing it on purpose now, trying to distract me. Through our bond, I feel his own tension, his understanding.

“Being creepy.”

“You’re being creepy.”

“Children,” Dorian interrupts, temporal energy crackling as he dismantles the outer ward. His precise movements falter slightly as he encounters the facility’s defenses. “Perhaps focus on the potentially lethal security system? These wards... they’re familiar. Like they were designed specifically for?—”

“Us,” I finish quietly. My stomach knots as understanding hits. Of course they were. This whole place was built around containing people like us.

Locke Asylum looms against the pre-dawn sky, its Victorian architecture a twisted parody of grandeur. Five years of my life disappeared behind those walls. Five years of needles and tests and screaming in the dark. Now I’m standing here again, by choice this time, and my hands won’t stop shaking.

“We don’t have to do this,” Leo says softly, his usual smile replaced with something fierce and protective. “We could find another way?—”

“No.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “It has to be us. Has to be me.”

Through our pack bonds, I feel their worry, their rage on my behalf. Bishop carefully doesn’t look at how I’m trembling, maintaining the fiction that I’m fine. That we’re all fine.

“Remember,” he says, Guardian marks pulsing with barely contained violence, “we get in, gather intel, get out. No one splits up.”

I want to make a joke about their overprotectiveness. But all I can see is that second-floor window—my window—where I used to press my face against the bars and dream of freedom.

Finn’s fingers find mine, his light matching my shadows. The twin bond pulses between us, carrying understanding no words could capture. He may not have been held here, but he knows. He remembers his own cage in Blackwood’s labs.

Matteo materializes from the shadows, all predator grace. His new fangs flash in the dim light as he scents the air. “Perimeter’s clear of guards, but something’s wrong. The air tastes... corrupt.”

He exchanges a look with Leo, their years of friendship evident in the silent communication. Step by careful step, we cross the broken threshold into darkness that feels alive, hungry.

“Trail’s fresh,” Leo confirms, tension beneath his casual tone. “Maybe three days old. And there’s something else...” He touches one of the walls, tracing sigils I remember being carved with bloody fingers. “Power signatures. Recent ones.”

Through our connection, I feel Finn’s pulse quicken to match mine. The empty corridors ahead look exactly as I remember—the same sterile walls that used to close in during the dark hours, the same fluorescent lights that never fully turned off. Always watching. Always monitoring.

A memory threatens to surface: antiseptic masking blood, screams echoing down identical halls. My screams. Other children’s screams.

“Hey.” Bishop’s hand finds my shoulder, grounding me in the present. His touch carries warmth, strength, understanding. “We’re not here as victims. Not anymore.”

“We’re here for evidence,” Matteo reminds us, but his eyes promise violence at what that evidence might reveal. The predator in him responds to my trauma, ready to hunt those who hurt me.

“And to make sure she can never use this place again,” Leo adds, his usual warmth hardening to something dangerous. Shadow essence curls around his fingers, responding to the rage he usually keeps hidden behind smiles.

“The power grid is intricate,” Dorian murmurs, trailing frost across control panels. “Multiple redundancies, experimental wards I’ve never seen before. Valerie’s work, but... modified. She was trying to stabilize something. Or contain it.”

“Or someone,” Finn says softly, light gathering around his fingers. I catch him doing that thing with his jaw—the same tension I feel in mine as we pass rooms I remember too well. Observation rooms. Testing chambers. Places where children went in but didn’t always come out.

“Okay, seriously,” I say, needing to break the growing tension before memories overwhelm me, “we need to stop with the twin thing. It’s freaking everyone out.”

“You started it.”

“Did not.”

“In the ancient and immortal words of modern youth,” Dorian drawls, “shut up.”

The banter helps, keeps us centered as we move deeper into the facility. But beneath it, through pack bonds still new and raw, I feel their protective rage building. Every room we pass tells its own horror story—medical equipment still spattered with old blood, child-sized restraints bolted to examination tables, observation windows with claw marks on the inside.

This place holds more ghosts than just my own.

“Split up?” Leo suggests, but Matteo’s already shaking his head, fangs catching dim light.

“Together,” he growls, and through our bond I feel him fighting memories of his own—nights spent holding me through nightmares about this place. “Always together in places like this.”

Bishop’s hand finds mine as we approach the first set of labs. My old labs. Where it all started. “Ready?”

I look at Finn, see my own determination reflected back. “Let’s see what the bitch left behind.”

We don’t go upstairs to the bedrooms, and I avoid the ballroom at all costs. Instead I lead them to the basement that was never a basement.

The first lab knocks the breath from my lungs—not from gore or obvious signs of torture, but from the mundane details that somehow make it worse. Coffee cups still on desks, rings stained into the wood. Post-it notes with grocery lists. A child’s drawing pinned to a bulletin board right next to a chart tracking “subject responses to shadow essence infusion.”

“People worked here,” I say, bile rising. “Regular people who went home to their families after... after...”

“Probably complained about traffic,” Finn adds, his voice hollow as he picks up a photo of staff at a Christmas party. “Had favorite lunch spots. Celebrated birthdays.”

Leo retrieves the child’s drawing—stick figures surrounded by black scribbles that look disturbingly like my shadow wolves. His usual smile vanishes. “You know what’s fucked up? This looks like the art projects my sisters make for the fridge.”

“Don’t,” Matteo warns, but Leo continues, that edge of protective fury bleeding through his sunshine persona.

“No, really. Lyra drew something like this last week. Except...” He touches the black scribbles. “Pretty sure hers didn’t include shadow manifestations. Pretty sure she wasn’t documenting her own—” His voice breaks.

Bishop moves to the computer terminals while Dorian examines the wards, their shoulders tight with different kinds of anger. Professional. Focused. Trying not to show how much this place affects them.

“Hey, wonder twin,” Finn calls from across the room, his voice carrying a forced lightness that doesn’t match the horror I feel through our bond. “Come look at this.”

“If you ever call me that again, I will end you.”

“You’ll try.” He’s examining a wall of photographs—researchers in lab coats, social gatherings, holiday parties. The kind of normal moments that shouldn’t exist in a place like this. “Third row, second from left.”

I cross to him, my feet remembering exactly how many steps it takes to reach this spot. How many times I was dragged here for observation.

“Son of a bitch,” I breathe as recognition hits. “That’s?—”

“Professor Blackwood,” Bishop confirms from the terminal, ice in his voice. “Ten years younger, but it’s him.”

“You know,” Dorian muses, temporal energy crackling beneath his precise tone, “I’m developing a theory about why he was so interested in your academic development. Why he pushed to be your advisor.”

Matteo’s low growl makes the shadows dance, predatory energy rising. “I’m developing several theories about where to hide his body.”

“Get in line,” Leo and I say simultaneously.

“Now who’s being creepy?” Finn smirks, but his light flickers with shared anger.

I flip him off, but my heart’s not in it. The photo shows Blackwood with his arm around Valerie, both smiling at the camera like proud parents. Like they weren’t destroying children’s lives one experiment at a time. Like they weren’t strapping me to tables and filling my veins with light essence until I screamed.

“Bishop.” My voice comes out steady, grounded in the present by our pack bonds humming with protective fury. “What are you finding?”

“Nothing good.” His fingers fly over the keyboard, Guardian marks pulsing. “But also nothing recent. Everything’s been systematically erased. Almost like—” He cuts off, swearing softly. “Dorian?”

“Working on it.” Dorian’s shadows spread over the computer, trying to recover deleted data. The temperature around him drops as his control slips. “But something’s wrong. These wards... they’re not just for protection. They’re designed to store something. Or someone.”

The words hit me like a physical blow, memories surging up—isolation tanks filled with writhing shadows, children screaming as darkness was pumped into their veins, my own voice begging them to stop?—

A mechanical hum starts somewhere deep in the facility. Emergency lights pulse red, exactly like they used to when an experiment went wrong.

“Please tell me that was you,” I tell Dorian, fighting to stay in the present.

“That,” he says with elegant precision that doesn’t quite mask his concern, “was most definitely not me.”

“Backup generators,” Matteo realizes, moving closer to me as his predator instincts rise. “The whole place is waking up.”

Leo’s already moving toward the door, shadows gathering around him despite his usual preference for light. “New plan?”

I grab Finn’s hand, feeling our power sync instinctively. Light and shadow merging into something stronger than either of us alone. Something that remembers how to survive this place.

“New plan,” I agree, my voice steadier than I feel. “Run.”

Through our twin bond, I feel Finn’s grim understanding. Through our pack bonds, I feel their determination. Five years ago, I faced this place’s horrors alone.

Never again.

“Left!” Bishop shouts as another door slams shut behind us, the sound exactly like I remember from escape attempts that always failed. “Security protocols are activating in sequence!”

“In English!” I yell back, dragging Finn around a corner I know too well. Five years of failed escape attempts taught me every turn of this maze.

“Everything’s shutting down in a very specific order,” Dorian translates, frost trailing behind him. “Almost like?—”

“—it’s herding us,” Finn finishes, his light pulsing with growing dread that mirrors my own.

Red emergency lights strobe across Leo’s face as he vaults over a descending barrier. “Anyone else feel like a rat in a maze?” His attempt at humor falls flat as we all realize that’s exactly what this place was designed for—testing subjects, measuring responses, documenting failures.

“Less talking, more running,” Matteo growls, bringing up our rear guard. The shadows around him writhe with barely contained violence. Through our bond, I feel his growing rage—at this place, at what was done to me here, at every person who looked the other way.

We burst through double doors into what used to be where Valerie took us when we got too weak. My steps falter as memories assault me—needles in my arms, light being forced into my veins, Valerie’s voice taking notes on my screams. It’s the same room where he helped me escape.

The only one to help me live. The doctor that saved my life and died for it. Bile creeps up my throat as I struggle to forget him and everything that happened from the first moment he whispered for me to live.

Screens flicker to life on every wall, each showing the same loading screen: PROJECT GEMINI REACTIVATION SEQUENCE INITIATED.

“Oh, that’s not ominous at all,” I mutter as the doors seal behind us. The same doors that used to lock me in for procedures.

“Dorian?” Bishop’s already at the main terminal, Guardian magic crackling around his hands.

“Working on it.” Frost spreads across the controls as Dorian attempts to halt the sequence. “But this isn’t just old data. The system’s running new protocols. Recently installed ones.”

Finn’s light pulses in response to my shadows, our twin bond carrying shared understanding. “She knew we’d come.”

“Course she did.” I start pacing, an old habit from days spent trapped in rooms like this. Finn mirrors me automatically, our powers reaching for each other like they always do under stress. “She’s probably got cameras on us right now, laughing her ass off?—”

“Frankie.” Leo’s voice carries an unusual edge that makes me stop cold. He’s staring at one of the screens. “I don’t think she’s laughing.”

The screen shows security footage from three days ago. Valerie staggers into view, and for a moment I don’t recognize her. The perfectly put-together woman who tormented my childhood is gone. Blood stains her pristine lab coat. Dark veins spider across her face like corrupt shadows trying to escape.

“The experiment,” she gasps to the camera, desperation replacing her usual controlled demeanor. “It’s working too well. The essence... it’s spreading faster than... Project Gemini must... the twins are the only... if anyone finds this...”

She collapses. The footage loops, showing her fall again and again.

“Well,” Dorian says into the silence, his academic tone brittle. “That’s concerning.”

Matteo moves closer to me, radiating protective fury. “Define essence.” But I can tell from his tone that he already knows.

“Better question,” Bishop interrupts, pointing to another screen. His Guardian marks pulse with recognition. “Define that.”

The video feed shows another containment chamber, deeper in the facility. One I remember. One I was threatened with whenever I misbehaved.

“The bad place,” Valerie used to call it. “Where difficult girls went to be corrected.” Inside, something dark writhes against reinforced glass. As we watch, spider-web cracks spread from points of impact.

A mechanical voice I remember too well fills the room: “Containment failure imminent. Project Gemini failsafe protocols activated.”

“Frankie?” Leo’s hand finds mine, warm against my cold skin. “Remember how you said this place couldn’t get creepier?”

“Yeah,” I say, watching the cracks spread. Remembering other children who disappeared into that chamber. “I take it back.”

The thing in the containment chamber pulses like a heart made of shadows—if hearts were the size of cars and had too many chambers. If hearts screamed in voices that used to be human.

“That’s not normal shadow essence,” Finn says, pressing closer to my side. Through our twin bond, I feel his horror matching mine. “It’s... wrong. Like what they tried to put in me, but...”

“Corrupted,” Bishop confirms from the terminal, his voice tight. “These readings are off the charts. Dorian?”

“Fascinating.” Dorian’s eyes gleam with academic interest while frost spreads beneath his hands. But I catch how his temporal energy reaches for our bonds, seeking connection. “It’s like someone tried to distill pure shadow energy but lost control of the refinement process. The molecular structure is?—”

“Nerd later,” Leo interrupts, shadows gathering around his usually sunny presence. “Survive now.”

Another impact. More cracks. Matteo’s shadows writhe in response to the creature’s movements, his predator nature recognizing something familiar in that twisted darkness.

“It’s calling to me,” he growls, fighting his instincts. His fangs lengthen as he struggles for control. “Like a shadow beast but... hungrier. More wrong.”

“Yeah?” I grip his arm, anchoring him like he’s anchored me through so many nightmares. “Well, it can’t have you. I saw you first.”

His answering smile is all teeth, but I feel his predator nature settle slightly at my claim.

“How long on that data, Bishop?” Leo asks, keeping his eyes on the containment chamber. His usual playfulness has hardened into something dangerous. “Because I’m pretty sure we don’t want to be here when that glass breaks.”

“Two minutes. But—” Bishop swears as new text scrolls across his screen, his Guardian marks flaring with rage. “Blackwood, you absolute psychopath.”

“That’s not concerning at all,” Finn mutters, his light pulsing faster.

“She was trying to recreate Father’s essence.” Bishop’s voice shakes with fury, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “These notes... she thought if she could concentrate enough shadow energy...”

“She could make her own Eredar,” I finish, the truth hitting like a punch. Old memories surface—Valerie taking samples of my blood, measuring my shadow output, rambling about perfect vessels and pure lineage. “That’s why she needed us. We’re not just vessels, we’re?—”

“Templates,” Dorian says softly, his academic detachment cracking as the implications sink in. “The perfect balance of light and shadow. Born from an Eredar and a light shifter.” Frost spreads from his fingers as calculations form in the air. “She was trying to replicate your father’s power using...”

Another impact. The cracks spread like frost across glass. Like the way my skin used to split when Valerie pushed too much shadow essence into my veins.

“Thirty seconds to containment failure,” the mechanical voice announces helpfully. The same voice that used to count down my treatment sessions.

“Bishop?” I hate how my voice shakes, how easily this place strips away my hard-won strength.

“Almost there.” His Guardian marks pulse faster as he downloads everything he can find.

The creature slams against the glass again. This time, I hear it—a sound like screaming static, like dial-up internet from hell. Like children’s voices distorted through shadow essence.

“Okay, that’s new,” Leo says, his attempt at lightness failing as darkness creeps into his usually bright aura. “And thanks, I hate it.”

Finn’s light flares as something in the containment chamber resonates with him. “It’s not just shadow essence in there. There’s something else. Something...”

“Human,” Matteo finishes grimly, his predator senses confirming what my heart already knows. “I can smell it. Can smell them.”

The realization hits me just as Bishop whispers, “No.”

“What?” I move to the terminal, read the text on his screen. My blood turns to ice as memories slot into place—other children disappearing into that chamber. Other twins. “She didn’t...”

“Project Gemini,” Bishop says, his voice raw. “Named after twins. But not you and Finn.”

“Got it!” Dorian announces, temporal energy crackling around the data transfer. “Now can we please?—”

The glass finally shatters.

What emerges isn’t shadow or light or anything natural. It’s a twisted mass of darkness shot through with burning veins of gold, pulsing like infected lightning. And at its core, visible for just a moment before the corruption swallows them again?—

Two bodies, fused together. Children. Twins. Their faces locked in eternal screams as shadow essence writhes through them, binding them into something that should never exist.

“Run,” I whisper, memories of Valerie’s other “failed experiments” flooding back. Then louder, as the thing that used to be children surges toward us, “RUN!”

We bolt for the door, but everything’s different now. Every step carries the weight of understanding—this could have been us. Could have been me and Finn, twisted and fused and corrupted until nothing human remained.

“Left!” I scream as the corrupted mass surges through the corridor behind us. “Emergency exit!” The same path I used to plot escapes in my head, counting steps while strapped to examination tables.

“That’s not an exit anymore!” Leo shouts back, vaulting over fallen debris. “Pretty sure that’s just a wall with attitude!”

“Then make it an exit!”

Leo and Matteo hit the wall together, combining strength with shadow manipulation. The concrete cracks—not fast enough. Never fast enough. Just like every other escape attempt in this place.

The thing behind us screams again, that digital shriek that sets my teeth on edge. Through our connection, I feel Finn’s horror matching mine. Those children. Those twins. They could have been us. Would have been us, if Valerie had succeeded.

“Frankie.” Dorian’s voice cuts through my spiral. “Focus.”

Right. Leader now, breakdown later.

“Bishop, status on the data?”

“Secured.” He’s running beside me, Guardian marks blazing. “But Frankie, there’s more. The other facilities?—”

The corrupted essence slams into the ceiling above us. Debris rains down, but Finn’s light creates a barrier, deflecting it. Our twin bond pulses with shared determination—we survived this place once. We’ll survive it again.

“Show off,” I mutter.

“You’re just jealous your shadows aren’t as pretty.”

“They’re not supposed to be pretty, they’re supposed to be—DUCK!”

A tendril of twisted essence whips through where our heads just were. The gold veins pulse like infected lightning, carrying echoes of what these children used to be.

Matteo and Leo finally break through the wall, revealing the facility’s grounds. Freedom. Almost there. But the thing behind us is learning, moving faster. Those golden veins spread like cracks in reality, reaching for us with desperate hunger.

“It’s evolving,” Dorian shouts. “The fusion of essence and human DNA is creating a feedback loop of?—”

“NERD. LATER.” Leo grabs his arm, pulling him through the breach.

I push Finn toward the opening. “Go!”

“Not without?—”

“That wasn’t a request!”

The corrupted essence rears up like a cobra, its core pulsing with that awful merged light. And in that moment, I hear them—two children’s voices overlapping with Valerie’s, a chorus of agony and madness:

Help us.

It hurts.

The experiment must continue.

Make it stop.

Project Gemini will succeed.

Please.

My shadows react instinctively, reaching for the twisted mass. For a moment, I feel it—the agony of being torn apart and fused back together wrong, the desperate need to end it all. Just like what Valerie tried to do to us. What she would have done, if she’d succeeded.

“Frankie!” Multiple voices scream my name.

Matteo’s arms wrap around my waist, yanking me back as Finn’s light creates another barrier. Bishop’s magic seals the breach while Leo pulls me through.

“Don’t you dare,” Matteo growls in my ear, fangs sharp against my skin. “Don’t you fucking dare try to save them.”

“But they’re like us,” I whisper. “They’re just kids who?—”

“They’re gone.” Dorian’s voice is gentle but firm. “What’s in there isn’t human anymore. Hasn’t been for a long time.”

The thing slams against Bishop’s barrier, its screams now a mixture of rage and despair. Children begging for release. For mercy.

“We can’t just leave them,” Finn protests, but I feel his understanding through our connection. Some things can’t be saved. But they can be freed.

“No,” I agree, watching the barrier start to crack. “But we can end their pain.”

Through our twin bond, I feel Finn’s resolve match mine. Through our pack bonds, I feel their strength flowing into us. We’re not victims anymore. We’re not Valerie’s experiments.

Our power explodes outward, but not in combat. In mercy. In rage. In understanding of what it means to be twisted into something you’re not.

The corrupted essence shrieks one last time—a sound of relief as much as pain. The gold veins shatter first, then the twisted shadows dissolve, leaving nothing but a faint echo of gratitude in our minds.

Thank you.

I sink to my knees, Finn mirroring my exhaustion. The pack surrounds us immediately—Matteo and Leo pressing close, Bishop’s hand in my hair, Dorian’s frost gently cooling our overheated skin.

We made it out. But this time, I’m not alone. Through our twin bond, through our pack bonds, I feel it—not just survival, but victory. We faced the nightmare and chose mercy. Chose freedom.

Valerie wanted weapons. Instead, she created something stronger: A pack that knows the difference between vengeance and mercy.

Let her run. Let her hide in her other facilities with her twisted experiments.

We’re coming for her.

And this time, we know exactly what we’re fighting for.