This is the edited chapters. It seems I missed the chapter that explains what happened to cause Shorn to bring Dove into his Darkness.
CHAPTER 21
The rain turned freezing the closer winter approached. I didn't have much time outside to feel it, but I got an earful at mealtimes when the outside guards came in. Many of them were volunteering cleaning duty just to get a brief spate of relief from it. I had been to three different safe houses and Miguel trimmed down how many I helped transitioned to one of his choice. Occasionally, he'd ask me to do two at a time.
I was getting better with practice, and I could generally get them out of the limbo stage within a couple days if I could focus without distraction. It wasn't to say it made it easy if anything it was harder on the hunters to be subject to something that fast and brutal. If anyone got in his face over any of his decisions, he'd take them outside where I couldn't hear. Sometimes forcefully with help.
Besides guard rotation, many things changed since that night Shorn stayed in the bed with me. Miguel was on his cell once a day speaking Spanish, I assumed with Carlos, all mirrors were removed within the houses, and Shauna finally got a power boost and left.
Oldavai went through a change as well. He shined a small hidden lock of my hair. It was barely noticeable and at first, I thought it was him when I saw the tiniest specks of golden glitter on the pillows. When I figured it out, I confronted him. He just grimaced and asked nicely for me to indulge him. Seeing me sprawled over Shorn had confused him and he did the only non-violent retaliation he could think of. I stared at him while I mulled it over, finally agreeing that he was showing incredible restraint since we both refused to have sex while in a house full of hunters.
The other change was more disturbing for both of us. My magic was getting out of control and Oldavai was on constant alert. He hid it well from the hunters, snapping me out of my trance, absorbing traces of power that would bounce around in him and back to me anyway, and taking a hit from emotions so it'd redirect itself away when I was too busy defending myself from the untethered magic. He even pushed more of his own into me when he felt the voices start to cajole me to take and take and take. Unfortunately, the thinnest streams of magic were getting past my shields from who Shorn called, the broken ones. Mentally I was exhausted, and I felt that I wasn't trying my hardest to shield. That I was letting the addiction get its hooks into me.
When he left to quickly recharge himself on an incubus hunt Gan watched me from the shadows. He got close twice, I burned him both times, the second time while he was in the shadows. I don't think he would have let that go if it wasn't for the fact that he believed I belonged to Shorn. I knew that, because he used those words when I apologized profusely to him one night while I was getting ready for sleep.
It unnerved me so much that I spat out, "Does Miguel belong to you?"
"Of course," he said matter of fact.
I grimaced but didn't correct him his belief that Shorn had any sort of hold over me. I wasn't sure it was in my best interest. I just retorted, "I wouldn't tell Miguel that."
His shadow face got close to mine, "Hunter, if we could do so without repercussions, we would chain you all to us."
I shivered from the magnitude of his belief enveloping me, "To use us as a power supply."
He moved back, "That wouldn't be the main reason."
"What's stopping you from trying?" My anger lashed out in disgust at his words.
Gan laughed and I knew it echoed through the bedroom walls. He transformed out of his shadow being and started to bring his fingers to my chin. I reacted quickly, shoving his hand away, not wanting him to touch me so intimately. I could feel the ice flow over the tips of my fingers, and I hastily put them behind me on the mattress. He didn't answer me, so I hastily spoke again, hoping to distract him from the frost I could feel spreading out on the comforter behind me.
"So?"
"Ask Oldavai if you're so curious."
I narrowed my eyes at him, "Go away."
He bowed his way into the shadows, "Be at ease, Dove. We never mean any harm."
"Tell that to my dead mother," I said as I pulled the blankets over me. I was cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature. They always believed that, but they never realized how much harm they did. If they violently harmed us when they were too young to understand I didn't see how that exonerated them. With that thought, I pushed those meanderings into their box and brought out my Zen to soothe me to sleep.
Conner followed us, but never followed through. His constant bickering came to a head before we left one of the safe houses and Miguel threw him out. It turned out there were a few who couldn't take that final step, willingly or even fighting. Some simply because it hurt their egos to know Miguel was better than them.
I watched Miguel's behaviors fluctuate between testosterone and pride to weariness of the fighting, whining, and rain. Even though I never asked him, I knew he was ready to go home, back to California. Throughout it all Ila never issued him a warrant, maybe she knew he was the one in charge here in Seattle. I wondered, if she did, was she doing it for every leader in the movement.
I had just started to sleep when Gan poked me in the ribs. "Go away," I grumbled.
He poked me again and I swatted the air. "Get out of the shadows so I can hit you properly," I mumbled into the pillow.
I felt the bed sag under his weight, and his molasses smell swamped me, "Come on, Dove. Patrick is here."
His name penetrated the fog and I groaned, "Does Miguel want me down there."
"No, in fact he wants you to hide."
That got my attention, and I sat up. "Why?" I yawned.
"Don't trust him."
"Well, he is a mercenary." I looked over to the shadow demon.
"You need to hide," he reiterated.
I perused his gravity of manner, "Do you think he has a contract for me?"
Gan shrugged, "Don't know. It's something we planned for though." I watched as he faded into the shadows.
"We who?" I asked the air. He poked me again, "My gods, stop it! I'm coming," and I followed him. He was a pair of glassy eyed blackness watching me as I stepped into his world of gray. I walked from shadow to shadow until I was down the stairs, listening to a conversation that had already started.
Patrick was nonchalantly scanning the room as he talked to Miguel about the transition. He looked at the hunters laid out in the beds and placed his hand on the back of the chair I sat on. His hair was still a spiked orange and contrasted with his black wardrobe of cargo pants and rain jacket. To their right a hunter went through a seizure and caused a flurry of activity. My eyes stayed glued to him as he rubbed the rim of the chair back and forth with his hand.
"Maybe I'll come back," he said out loud as he backed himself out the door.
Miguel looked up at us from holding down the hunter, as if he knew exactly where Gan was. I immediately followed Patrick out into the sunshine despite Gan shouting for me not to. We didn't know what magic he carried so I knew I was being reckless. He was clear of the guards by the time he detoured into a coffee shop. I continued filtering through the shadows behind him, not even pausing when he went into the bathroom and locked the door.
He pulled out a vial from his side pant pocket with his left hand, popped the cork, and deftly sprinkled a complete circle of salt around himself speaking an incantation. The shadows ripped and vibrated, and I felt myself pull apart in streams of steam. I grit my teeth and held on to my magic as I watched him rub the tips of his fingers on his right hand over his palm and flick the light off with his left. Even with the darkness strengthening the shadow magic I wanted to scream in pain as I felt parts of myself drifting away from each other. I watched him pour a liquid from another vial on his hand and was almost disintegrated when a bright golden light saturated his palm.
"Got you," was the last thing I heard before I was completely pushed out and stumbled into the light in the hallway outside the bathroom door.
"Shit," I whispered and crouched over as my muscles everywhere spasmed. The click of the lock disengaging was loud in my ears. I sucked in my breath, bracing myself for the pain of tight calves, and sprinted for the front door, startling people waiting for their morning coffee. I could almost imagine Patrick behind me, closing in. As soon as I stepped outside and turned a corner I tried to phase back into the shadows, but found my ability blocked. My fingers flickered and turned solid.
"Shit!" I ran farther, my bare feet pounding on the asphalt between the buildings.
Between my sprints I grabbed onto Iloum's power and slammed myself from one morning dream to the next until I found the nightmares of overdosing hunters. My control slipped and I stopped and spun in a circle. I saw all their dreamscapes at once as I turned, from ocean to burning houses to someone running through the woods. The spiders poured from me and covered them all, turning these nightmares into terror so fierce I screamed my own with them.
I crouched down, my abhorrence at myself vibrating in the air like a dozen punches to the body. I growled and sang to the tiny spirit spiders, calling them back into me. They came bringing with them hundreds of sips of terror that felt like a tidal wave of power washing over me.
My roar of anger and frustration let me rip myself out of the dream and drop myself onto the carpet. I stayed hunched over and listened to my haggard breathing. Around me was chaos. The four hunters were wide awake, the caretakers were trying to calm them. I prayed I didn't permanently scar them with Iloum's fear.
