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DUSK AVENGER - BONUS SCENE

What happened to Snap after he went to appeal to the Company of Light, and how did he end up losing his memories? This bonus scene from his point of view fills in that blank in the story.

* * *

Snap

It took some time to find the people my recent Company of Light victim must have been working with. I slipped through the shadows for hours, watching for sights that matched the fragmented memories I’d gleaned from him, tasting various surfaces and objects for the impressions left behind by those who’d come nearby.

Here and there, I caught wisps of the same righteous determination and defiance that had flowed through so many of the man’s thoughts. And as I drew closer to the place I realized was my ultimate destination, the uncomfortable prickling sensation from large amounts of silver and iron nearby started to affect my other senses as well.

I hadn’t known any mortals other than the Company of Light and other groups of the humans who hunted and captured shadowkind to use those two metals together to that extent. Not that I had all that much experience with the wide variety of humans out there, but following the metals felt like a good starting point.

I studied the building I’d come up on, which looked like a lump of concrete, though I could feel the quivers of the toxic metals embedded in its frame. A shiver ran through my being even in my shadow form.

The glow of dawn was only just starting to seep along the edges of the horizon. It seemed that like we shadowkind, the Company of Light was most active during the dark hours, despite their name. Maybe because they were looking for us? In any case, I watched several figures head out through the front door to a waiting truck, all of them wearing the kinds of protective clothing we’d seen on them before. I spotted the emblem of the Company on one of their chests.

This was definitely the right place. I lingered in the shadows a little longer, debating the best way to approach them. Apprehension coiled around me.

I wanted them to cut the monstrousness out of me. I wanted to know I’d be safe for Sorsha always. They should want that too, shouldn’t they? If I couldn’t devour any more souls, then they had no reason to fear me or to want to eliminate the rest of me.

We had the same goals in this one instance. It shouldn’t be difficult. I just didn’t know what to say.

Sorsha would have strode right up to them and announced her intentions, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t have cowered in the dark afraid of facing the necessary fate. I had to be brave for her. She deserved a mate who was bold—a mate who’d never consider harming her.

I could give her that. I would .

I darted through the slowly shrinking patches of shadow until I reached the door to the building. Should I take on my physical form here or slink right inside?

I debated for a moment and decided on knocking. I’d seen enough of human behavior by now to know that they typically announced themselves at new buildings that way. I should make every effort to show that I could display proper manners.

As I pulled my being into the sharper focus of a physical presence, the cool early morning air closed around my newly formed skin, the scent of car smoke tickling my nose. My muscles twitched with the vibrations emanating off all the unpleasant metals embedded in the walls in front of me, but I held myself steady. I raised my hand to knock and then quickly glanced down to confirm I’d remembered to compose all appropriate clothing. All good there.

My knuckles rapped against the steel door. I held myself still and calm, doing my best to look unthreatening. I had the urge to taste the door to find out what impressions it might hold but restrained myself. Somehow that behavior seemed impolite.

With a faint squeak of the hinges, the door swung open. A man and a woman peered out at me, the man’s forehead creasing and the woman’s mouth set in a slight frown.

“Yes?” the man said.

I dipped my head in acknowledgment and then thought maybe I should wave in greeting as well. And offer a handshake? No, they probably wouldn’t want to touch a shadowkind while I still had my murderous abilities.

“Hello,” I said. “You’re part of the Company of Light, aren’t you?”

“Who’s asking?” the man said gruffly, but the woman gripped his arm with a flash of panic across her face. She yanked out a weapon at the same time—one of those beaming whips I didn’t like at all.

“It’s one of them,” she hissed. “One of the beasts.”

I blinked, momentarily confused about how she’d figured that out so quickly, and then realized she must have noticed my forked tongue. The man’s hand leapt to a device attached to his belt.

I smiled at the two of them with as much friendliness as I could convey and held up my hands in what I believed was a peaceful gesture. “Yes, I’m a shadowkind. I promise I’m not here to hurt you, though. I’m just hoping—I heard that there’s a way that you can take out the monstrous parts of beings like me—I’d like you to do that. To me. I don’t want my powers.”

The statements didn’t come out as coherently as I’d intended to express myself, but having the two mortals look so disturbed by my presence had rattled me. Had I gotten my intentions across clearly enough to reassure them?

It was difficult to tell. The woman continued clutching the whip, but she didn’t extend its condensed blaze from the handle. “Stay right where you are,” she said. “We’re not falling for any tricks.”

The man seemed more open-minded. “You can talk to us from there,” he said, his posture stiff. “Tell us exactly what it is that you want.”

I thought I’d already done that, but obviously I hadn’t laid the situation out thoroughly enough. I groped for the right words to explain without mentioning the fact that I’d shredded one of their colleague’s souls into agonizing pieces last night. They weren’t likely to feel at all friendly if they found out about that.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone ,” I said. “Whatever you do to… ‘hollow the danger out’ or however you’d put it, I’d like you to do that for me. Then I’ll be safe and you won’t have to worry about anything I’ll do afterward, and we’ll all be happy.”

I beamed brighter, but neither of the mortals looked convinced.

What else could I say? Wasn’t it enough that I’d come here alone, willing to put myself at their mercy so they could do their work? I searched my mind for something that might persuade them of my intentions.

Maybe I should mention my motivations, and they’d see it was all out of love.

“There’s a woman,” I said. “A mortal I adore very much. I want any harmful tendencies taken out of me so I never have to worry that I might hurt her by accident. It’s the least I can do for her. I don’t mind if it hurts me , having those parts taken out. She’s worth it. And when you’re done, there’ll be no reason you can’t let me?—”

I didn’t get to finish my suggestion. The man’s expression tensed just slightly, and I paused with the sense that something was wrong—but I didn’t figure it out quickly enough. The next thing I knew, a heap of material flew over my head from behind and collapsed on me with a far-too-familiar burning sensation.

It was one of their nets, all twined with silver and iron—the kind the hunters had used to capture Thorn, Ruse, and me before we’d ended up in those cages that Sorsha had freed us from. Someone had crept up behind me while I was talking.

I cried out as the pain jabbed all through my limbs and chest, hazing the thoughts in my head. My arms flailed out instinctively, but the searing fibers were already pressing too close, penning me in so tightly I couldn’t transform, couldn’t escape into shadow, couldn’t do anything but grit my teeth and stiffen my body against the agony.

Voices reached my ears, blurred and distant through the pain echoing in my head.

“Quick, haul him in. He’s a powerful one.”

“What’s the strongest cage we have—or should we use one of the booths?”

“Don’t loosen up your grip for a second! He was trying to pull something over on us.”

“Someone go check the perimeter. He might not have come alone.”

But I did , I said silently in my mind, because I couldn’t will my jaw to move. It’s just me, and I just wanted to let you do your work. We don’t have to fight. It doesn’t have to be like this.

But apparently in the eyes of the members of the Company of Light, it did. My awareness of the world beyond the net dwindled more and more as they hauled me through the building, but I felt the thump of my physical body hitting the metal floor of cell that might have been like the one we’d found Omen in. I wasn’t in a state where I could make many clear observations. The pain somehow dulled and expanded at the same time, as if it were gnawing at every particle of my body instead of jabbing at just the most vital bits.

No. No. This isn’t what I meant. Can’t you please just listen? You don’t have to be afraid of me. You don’t have to treat me like this.

None of the protests made it past my lips. I didn’t think anyone was near enough to hear them anyway. The door had closed. I was alone, surrounded by reflective metal surfaces that bounced the glaring light around to hit me from all sides.

When I’d recovered from the net’s grasp enough, I pulled into my shadow form as much as I could. It was more comfortable than maintaining my physical presence, less draining, even though the metals around me and the constant light still scraped at my awareness like… like… like that material we’d found in a furniture workshop we’d searched that Ruse had told me was called “sandpaper.”

It’d felt almost pleasant to rub the pad of my thumb against the stuff, but having it grating all across my being was not enjoyable at all.

Sometime later, after time had blurred together beyond any ability I had to follow hours or days, I found out that there were worse things than the sandpaper sensation. A panel in the ceiling clicked open to drop another net on me, one that jerked me back into the physical plane against my will. Hands dragged me out of the cell and onto a hard table where various tools sliced and stabbed me.

Everything was pain. Dull and sharp, burning and throbbing. There was nothing else.

I tried to think of Sorsha, to wrap my love of her around me like a shield. But when I pictured her face, the image that sprang into my mind was the shock and horror that’d been etched there when she’d seen me devour that man’s soul. It brought a deeper pain into the core of me, down in the corners even my tormenters hadn’t been able to touch with their instruments of torture.

You deserve this , a little voice started to murmur in the back of my mind. You tore mortal souls apart, and now you’re being torn apart too. It’s perfect justice. Did you really think you deserved better?

You wanted to devour her . How could you think you could be with her again after that? How could you think you really love her when you almost ? —

I wrenched my thoughts away, but there wasn’t anything outside my body that I could shift my attention to. So I pulled in, retreating from them. Renouncing the me that had felt those urges. Deep, deep, deeper, as far as I could go.

If I swallowed myself all the way down, devoured every shred of my own soul, there’d be no one left to feel this revulsion or this pain. I wouldn’t exist at all. I wouldn’t be .

Bit by bit—rip, slash, gulp it down. There was no Snap. I wasn’t here.

I was gone, gone, gone where they couldn’t touch me… and I could never touch another soul. Especially hers.