Page 99 of Marked By Shadows

I flipped my wrist and dumped the ball, letting go of all that hate, anger, and bitterness. It dropped away, like a lead weight shoved free from my shoulders.

The orb hit the ground and blasted outward in a booming circle of radiant color. When it touched the child, they shivered, colors flowing over them briefly as though it were absorbing the energy. Then it lifted its head to stare at me, expression changing to one of interest.

I stared back, unmoved by the dark eyes of swirling terror. Yokai. Demon. Black-eyed child. Djinn. Ghost. Normally I never called them, knew better than to make demands. Locked in my own sorrow they had ignored me, found me uninteresting, despite knowing I was sensitive to their presence.

Now they found me tasty. My emotion, power, life, whatever. That was what had drawn it to Alex, wasn’t it? People gravitated to him because he was a source of light in the darkness. He was a beacon of warmth; I merely reflected his glow.

I sucked in air, willed my heart to stop racing, and swallowed back the fear, waiting for the child to respond, do something, other than stare at me with that unnerving gaze. This wasn’t death. Not anything like that writhing mass of souls I’d seen on the road that day. Would they give me Alex back? Perhaps an exchange, my energy for his. Mine might not be as bright as his, but I was willing, so long as he could be free.

They seemed to look us over, but shook their head.

Marked.I heard the word, a breathy whisper echoing through the silence, but the child’s lips didn’t move. The only sound, like it was in my head instead of a real spoken word.

Who was marked? Alex? Me?

The child’s hand breezed over my wrist, not touching, more a wave, and agony erupted from my skin. I screamed, couldn’t help it, felt like it was burning me to the core. A pulsing energy scorched over my arm, an imprint of blues and greens, and seared flesh swirling like an elaborate tattoo on my wrist. The ball of self-loathing seemed to reappear in my grasp as though I’d never let it go, weight slamming back down on me.

I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy to release the baggage of the past.

The etching curled up my arm, and I could feel it racing over my shoulder and across my chest, tracing line after line until every inch of me throbbed in agony like it was being cut into my skin. The pain insanely intense and brutal, yet not unfamiliar.

As the glow faded, leaving the mark slowly vanishing beneath my skin, I realized it couldn’t be a new infliction. A tug on my memory echoed back to that walk in the park, the silence, the pain, and darkness. A buried memory of torment, and the first arrival of that horrific touch, a mark. Claiming me. For what?

Marked. They said again.Not ours.

What the fuck did that mean? Something else had marked me? So we couldn’t do an exchange? My life for Alex’s? I glared at the vanishing glow on my skin, lines going from thick nasty burns, to ink lines, to nothing. Felt the weight of it through my entire body. Instead of trying to release the ball of trauma that clung to me, I crushed it beneath my fist and let another emotion rise. A whipping fire of anger, burning away the sadness and loneliness, leaving only room for determination. Rage poured over me. Not buried or shoved aside this time, but the living fire-breathing dragon of a lifetime waiting to be set free.

Alex liked dragons. He’d like this fire too, right? He’d be okay if I wasn’t meek and obedient? If I wasn’t always the guy to diffuse the conflict and tell everyone it was okay? He’d still love me when the last of the ice melted from my soul, right?

The world flickered for a moment, starlight and moonlight flashing out for a few seconds around me. Darkness overtaking me. A heat settled in my gut, while pain throbbed over my skin, a reminder of the mark that might have faded but still bound my soul. It wanted control, I realized. The way the mark snaked through me, like the fire, fueling negative emotion, seemed self-sustaining, until it met with the cooling force of my affection for Alex. From that came a trickle of other emotions, love for Sky, dreams for Lukas, and even distantly the warmth of my parents, all bits of sand falling onto the fire, squelching the worst of the blaze.

Marked.

I thought about that for a moment while I stood in the war of emotions. Something had been feeding on me for the past two years. Slowly devouring my positive energy, keeping me stagnant in pain, afraid, and lost in the dark. That was why the child couldn’t use me. There wasn’t enough of me left to offer it anything.

Alex had been returned to us in shambles, unwell, and used up, on the verge of death. In some ways, their use of him had been kinder, faster. They could have killed him, left him in a ditch somewhere. Instead they had given him back to us to restore. My own demons, they were killing me slowly. Perhaps that was why others who had vanished like I had, had all been found dead. Why it decided to let me live only made sense when I realized how much it still had control. And that was terrifying.

Marked.The child agreed and nodded, seeming to agree with my thoughts. Did that mean Alex was marked too? He had a faint scarring on his palm that he hadn’t had before all this madness had happened to us. Perhaps his mark was different than mine.

I thought about why they would have returned him, and it was really the same reason I’d survived. We would be useful. They could feed on us. Find us with ease, and take another joyride. Did that mean I’d been used like Alex had been? Was there a way to remove the marks? Or did it only end when we were dead?

The child provided no answer, merely took a step back.

Sound and definition returned all at once, my heart pulsing hard, the wind blowing, leaves shuffling. Even the sensation on my skin faded. They weren’t taking me today, and I realized they didn’t have Alex either. If they had, they wouldn’t be here right now. Did that mean Alex was out in the woods somewhere? That didn’t make sense either because the child would be there, right? Watching him? Hadn’t he said they watched us?

I glanced up at the trees and wondered if it was more than just Alex’s demon who watched us. Was mine out there too? Was it different? Like another type of creature, or simply another version of a black-eyed child?

I stared in the direction of the light again. These shadows didn’t need artificial lights and text messages. They took me in broad daylight and Alex while he was on camera. A little forest gained them nothing.

I balled my hands into fists, angry again, irritated by the lack of answers and clarity. Alex had said he didn’t think this mess was paranormal. He’d also begged me not to go into the woods alone. Had he seen all this coming? Who was messing with me? Not a what, but a who this time.

Odd how the fear faded that fast. Sure I’d shoved it down beneath my anger, but the weight of doom, that felt like something outside of me. An impression imposed by something else. More of an eerie ‘I’m here,’ presence to remind me I’d never truly be alone. The child stayed where it was, staring back into the distance again. Uninterested in me.

Watching. Only it wasn’t looking toward the light anymore, but back toward the lot and my car. Was someone there? I could still sort of see the shape of the car, but no lights anywhere in that direction. Whatever was out here with me, dragging me into the night, wasn’t the paranormal monsters that had marked Alex and me. Those monsters didn’t need elaborate ploys and abandoned woods. They could find us anywhere. Which meant whatever was out here was human, and really pissing me off.

Chapter 29

Iturned away from the child and stalked through the woods, anger raging, feeling the weight of it intensify with every step. Heart pounding even as the light began to illuminate a small area of woods. I don’t know what I’d expected, other than maybe some horror of Alex’s shattered body laid out with elaborate lighting. However, all that sat in a small clearing was a flashlight/lantern and a box.