Shades Beneath (Shattered Souls Book 1) Read online

  Mia opened her mouth to say something just as we reached our door. I moved to unlock it and saw her out of the corner of my eye. Her expression was serious, but as soon as the lock slid back, her phone went off. She looked at it and silenced it as we went inside and moved up the stairs. Then I heard the phone in our apartment ring.

  No one ever called the landline unless it was important. Only a few people even had the number. It made us hurry to reach it. If it was Aunt Lauralin, we were going to have a bit of a trip on our hands. A taxi through the city on a weekend would take an hour at least and then another half hour just to get to her house with all the snow. Unless she was in the hospital. God, I didn’t even want to think about that possibility.

  We rushed to get inside. Mia grabbed the phone while I went around the room turning on a few lights and adjusted the heater so we wouldn’t freeze in the night.

  “Hello?” I heard her say into the receiver. I paused just inside the hallway, not so much eavesdropping as I was holding my breath, waiting to hear whether it was Aunty or not. “Are you sure? How long ago?” Her voice lowered but she sounded alarmed. I was going to go back and see what had happened, but before I could, I heard her say something about being right there and then the phone hung up.

  “Ari, I have to go out. Emergency at work,” she called out.

  I popped my head back around the corner to look at her, but she didn’t see me until she reached the door and paused to say something else. I stopped her with a flourish of my hand. I wasn’t sure what her job was exactly, but I knew she had a paid internship at a place that dealt with immigrants. I’d asked her once, but she’d been vague about the details, though I knew it was important to her. My confession could wait.

  “Go, I’ll be fine. I hope nothing bad happened,” I said. She hesitated for a moment, but I made a shooing motion. “We’ll talk tomorrow, instead.” I knew she was hesitant because once she got an idea about something and made a choice, she stuck to it. We were going to talk whether I wanted to or not.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be,” she said, her voice soft, almost coaxing but then she rounded her shoulders back and stepped through the door. “Lock up behind me,” she called out to me over her shoulder and then she was gone.

  A part of me sagged in relief. I’d avoided it for another day. I didn’t know why I was relieved. I didn’t like not telling her about the pills. It felt dishonest, especially with how much she sacrificed for me.

  I slid down the wall and leaned my head back. It had been a long day. A new crazy tattoo I didn’t want, accepting meds after fourteen years without them, this weird energy between me and Mia, and the strangest blackout I’d ever had. I was emotionally exhausted.

  I sat there for a few minutes before deciding to pick myself back up again. It was almost nine in the evening and I had agreed to some cataloging work from one of my online professors. Sitting here feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to solve anything.

  Instead, I got myself a glass of water and then went to fill up the tub. After the day I’d had, a bath seemed like the perfect idea. In my room, I dug out my new medications and then took the one for sleep, swallowing it dry with no hesitation. It slid down my throat and I cringed at the sensation.

  Okay, no more dry swallowing pills.

  Back in the bathroom, I chugged the full glass of water to make the feeling disappear and then stripped, careful not to look at my back in the mirrors. It was nearly impossible not to notice it. The problem solved itself when I realized my skinny jeans were a bit wet and I had to sit down on the cold floor to peel them off. I felt like a fish flopping around on the floor trying to peel the material back. Seriously, whoever thought up skinny jeans was an evil genius. Cute as hell but a pain in the ass to get off, even when dry. After wiggling around for another minute, I was able to pull them down my calves and slip into the tub.

  I relaxed almost instantly into the warm water. I’d added some jasmine and honey bubble bath Aunty had made for us that was supposed to soothe the soul or some bullshit like that. I didn’t know about it soothing the soul, but it definitely helped me relax. I was asleep within minutes.

  I bolted upright in bed, crying out into the dark room, still feeling the fear from the nightmare that had woken me up. My body continued to tremble long after my heart rate slowed. Too afraid to close my eyes again, I waited for them to adjust to the darkness. As sight came to me, I realized that something was very wrong.

  For one, the last thing I remembered was laying my head back in the tub. Mia could have come home and put me to bed, but it seemed unlikely. I’d always been a light sleeper. At least I was when I didn’t take something to help me sleep.

  But this wasn’t like that. The bed was too firm to be my own and the familiar scents of my bedroom were absent. Instead, all I could smell was something musty and damp. This wouldn’t be the first time I’d woken up somewhere strange, but it was always unsettling. Worry swiftly took place of the overwhelming fear that woke me.

  I rolled to my side, swinging my legs over the side of the unfamiliar bed and tried to make out where there might be a lamp or a switch. The light was minimal, even by normal standards. A small amount of moonlight peeked through curtains across from me. Instead of finding a light, I stood and moved to the window to pull open the curtains.

  The fabric was thick and heavy which made sense why there was so little light. As I pulled them back, a dim parking lot revealed itself. There weren’t many cars in the lot, but I could make out a dimly lit office across the way. It looked closed, but I knew from past experiences that Bea had booked us into a motel.

  Why couldn’t it be something fancy? Always seedy motel rooms. Gross.

  With the first mystery solved, I searched further out, trying to find a sign that could tell me where I was but there was not much. Just a stretch of road that seemed endless, surrounded by forest on all sides.

  I needed my phone. The rails scraped against the curtains as I pushed them further open to provide light and turned back toward the room. The room was standard with two slim beds separated by a small nightstand with a lamp that gleamed in the moonlight. I hurried around the closest bed to turn it on and stumbled over something on the floor. I almost shrieked but stopped myself and reached for the lamp.

  With the lamp finally on, I spotted my purse on the floor with its contents spilled out. I swooped down, gathering it and searching through it, all the while growing more desperate when I couldn't find my phone. It was missing.

  Shit. Why would Bea get rid of my phone?

  I searched around the small room and spotted a phone on the dresser that also held an old TV complete with an ancient antenna. I was pretty sure those were outdated twenty years ago. I crossed the room in three strides and plucked up the receiver and started dialing Mia’s number by memory alone.

  Aunty said it wasn’t reliable enough to keep the numbers written down or saved in my phone. There would come a time when I didn’t have either. I sent up a small prayer for yet another instance of her thoroughness as the line rang.

  Mia didn’t pick up on the first call, nor the second or third. I bit my lip and finally left a message on the third call to let her know I was okay but trying to reach her. When this happened, I was supposed to stay where I was. But this had never happened before—Mia always answered her phone for me, even if she was busy.

  Next, I tried to reach Aunt Lauralin. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the switch, but it had to be at least a few hours. My hair was dry and was dressed in warm clothes.

  The line rang several times before going to her answering machine. A pit grew in my stomach and my hands trembled as I held onto the receiver. Instead of calling over and over, I left her a message too and sat down to wait.

  Sleep was the furthest thing on my mind as I sat back down on the bed I’d woken up in. Instead, I went through my purse. Everything in it looked normal except for a small key with numbers on it, and receipts; one for the room I was in and
another for a bus ticket from Narrenhill, New York to Bangor, Maine.

  What the hell had Bea done that required us to travel several states?

  My brain started to hurt as I tried to search for her reasons, so I turned my attention to the small key instead. It appeared to be made of bronze and had small numbers engraved in it, which was probably the locker number, most likely at the bus station. More curious than panicked, I searched through the drawer in the nightstand, looking for maps. I was rewarded with a small travel guide but as I looked through it, my stomach sank.

  I wasn’t in Bangor, but I’d known that already. According to the guide, I was right on the border of Maine and Canada - literally one of the last stops before someone had to either turn back or cross the border.

  Chapter Four

  Loneliness, true loneliness, sunk into me as the night wore on. I understood just how alone I was for the first time in my life. I had nothing and no one beyond my two lifelines to cling to. Here I was, stuck in a different state with no real idea how to help myself, feeling the completely lost. My aunt and Mia had always been there to help me when I needed them. But now, I was well and truly on my own.

  Most of all, I was confused. I should have been a mess, but I wasn’t. My resolve would crumble eventually, like sand slipping through and hourglass. When the last grain fell, Bea would take advantage. Part of me wanted her to. No matter how frustrated she made me feel, she at least new how to take care of us. As night faded, I contemplated begging her to fix it. To make decisions for us. Or to at least impart some wisdom of what to do. I couldn’t stay still indefinitely but the idea of leaving the room terrified me.

  I hadn’t even opened the door to the motel room yet. I was too afraid. There would be people that I didn’t want to deal with. I had no phone. Just a key to a locker in Bangor, the usual contents of my purse, and something else I hadn’t realized at first. My pill bottles were stuffed into the bottom but completely empty. To be honest, the only reason I’d wanted to take them was so she wouldn’t take over anymore but that clearly didn’t stop her. The fact that she’d left the bottles but got rid of the pills told me she was not happy about me taking them either.

  It made me angry that she again took my choices away. I wanted my family to find me, to take care of me. At least this one last time. I had a lot of time to think while I watched the night pass. Once this ordeal was over, I was going to find a way to be rid of her. It was her fault I was stuck here. Too scared to move, too restless to stay. And I was angry with my family. They knew I needed help. How could they not? I’d checked the receipts for dates. I’d been missing for two days so they had to know I’d be calling soon. Me not having my cellphone was one thing, but them? It should be impossible for me not to reach them.

  But that wasn’t true. People lost their phones all the time. Just like people, especially young women, went missing. I felt sick thinking about it. What my family must go through every time I went missing. I didn’t like that this happened so often, more and more as I got older. Didn’t they ever get sick of the worrying? Or frustrated with the mess that was my life? I certainly did. I was sick of me, but even I got a break from it when Bea and I switched.

  Maybe Mia found the pills and thought I'd betrayed her. What if Bea had dumped them out somewhere Mia could find them? And she told Aunt Lauralin. I was sure it wouldn't take either of them long to deduce that I'd been keeping things from them. I'd never outright lied to either of them, but those pills were proof that I was capable of lying.

  I’d made a promise never to take them. But they weren’t me. They didn’t know what I went through. I’d wanted it to be my choice. But it really wasn’t. Not when my mental state controlled their lives as much as it did mine.

  I went to pick up the phone again, determined to leave Mia a message, to apologize and beg her to help me, but something stopped me from picking it up. A creeping feeling grew along my skin, slick and pinching all at once. It was like that night at the gym. I felt like something was closing in on me. Every hair on my arm stood at attention as the sensations grew stronger. I knew what it was now. It was the feeling I had most nights when I woke up from a nightmare. Like someone was smothering me in my sleep.

  Someone banged on the door, completely shocking me out of the daze I'd fallen into. I could still feel the pressure all around me but as quickly as it had taken over, I was able to push it aside. I couldn’t be ruled by my fear anymore. There was nothing more important to me in that moment than mastering it. I could still feel the invisible hands on me, but it was more like it was in my mind, trying to grab hold, take root, and wrap me up until I had no will of my own.

  "Front desk!" Someone called at the door, knocking again. The voice sounded wrong, barely even human. It sounded raspy and flat, like something dead, wasting the last few pockets of air in its lungs to speak. I didn't dare move toward it to open for whoever was on the other side. Whoever was on the other side was a liar.

  "Open up, Miss. There’s an issue with your room." It was practically a hissing whisper that grated against my ears as much as that oily sensation irritated my skin and the tendrils of something invisible tried to grasp something to reach inside me.

  Regardless of what they said, I knew it was a lie. How could there be a problem when I’d been here most of the night. The office wasn’t even open and any staff they had was probably minimal. Motels like this didn’t have a full staff at night.

  My hands grew slick with sweat as I stared at the door. I wanted to press them onto my tights and wipe the dampness away. I could feel my hands trembling slightly as whoever was there continued to bang on the door, growing more frequent. They said a few more things, but after more failed attempts to get a response from me, they'd stopped trying to coax me. Now, they just banged on the door like they could bring it down. I needed a plan if the door didn’t hold. They might even have a key, but considering the desperate knocking, it didn’t seem likely.

  The thought spurred me into action as I whipped my head around to search for an escape route or a hiding place. The beds were out. There was no way I could shimmy my body underneath either bed, no matter how thin I was. There was a bathroom with a small window set high into the wall, but I knew it was too high for me to use. Even if I did get myself through it, it was at least twenty feet to the ground. I’d break a leg and then I’d be really screwed. A closet across from the bathroom was also out. Sure, I could hide in there, but whoever was demanding entrance would probably look in there. There was only one place I could possibly go that would give me a chance to get away.

  I edged closer to the door as it rattled in its frame. I could see it wasn't going to last much longer, even with all the locks still in place. I just hoped I could hide behind it long enough for them to go further into the room and slip out behind them.

  Pressing my back firmly against the wall, I slid into position. The doorjamb was just far enough away from the corner of the room that I could easily go unnoticed for a few seconds. It would have to be enough.

  My heart was pounding in my chest. Sweat was dripping down my neck and I was shaking all over. My entire body felt like it was teetering on the edge of a knife; one stiff wind and I’d fall right off. I begged every god I could remember my aunt prattling on about to help me.

  The wood in the door cracked and I let out a small squeak but quickly stifled it by throwing a hand over my mouth. The banging continued, rattling harder and groaning louder than ever before, but I turned my head away. If I watched it happen, I'd melt into a puddle right then and there. My gaze slid to the doorway of the bathroom and I had to suppress another sound before it escaped my throat.

  The doorway was starting to glow. A soft white light slid around the four edges, moving quickly as pulses of light spun clockwise within the glow. With each sweep of the light, it grew brighter, blocking my view of the room beyond. The stress was making me lose my mind and see things that weren’t there. I heard the wood in the front door crack more. As it splintered, I
could feel small bits of wood hit my front. But I couldn't look away from the glowing doorway.

  As I stared, a hand stretched through the light, blocking the bathroom beyond, followed quickly by an arm and then a shoulder until the figure of a man stepped through. He stopped just on the other side of the glow to take in the room, me, and the shaking door of the rooms entrance. The light behind him hid his features, but his clothes looked strange, as if they’d been made by hand. I blinked at him for a moment, completely shocked before he started shouting at me. I couldn’t hear what he was yelling. All the blood was rushing to my ears. Then a piece of the door broke, falling to my feet. It hit my bare toes and rolled off and pulled my attention back to the door.

  I whipped my head around out of instinct and saw what was on the other side. It was black as night, darker than the evening sky behind it. I couldn't make out any features except that it was humanoid in shape, but that's where all similarity ended. It was just a black void that blurred around the edges, all except for its eyes which I felt piercing me. They were a violet blaze searing into my own.

  Something clutched around my throat as it gazed at me. I couldn't breathe even if I wanted too. I couldn't even scream. I was going to drown in those cruel eyes. They whispered a violent death into my mind, tearing at me, trying to find a way in.

  Someone grabbed my other hand, the one not clamped around my mouth and started tugging me away from the door. Something snapped inside me, making my chest hitch as a piece of me clicked into place. My mind cleared slightly as I registered a warm hand in mine and wondered why it didn’t bother me. Another's touch, except for my family, made me feel unclean, sometimes burning me alive. I wanted to see who it was, to see who could touch me but I couldn't look away from those burning purple eyes. It was like it was reaching into my soul and trying to tear a piece of it out. I fought it with everything I had, renewed by a stranger’s touch that didn’t burn.