Page 23 of Echoes From the Void
My youngest sister’s fear hits me like a physical blow. I was twelve when he left, old enough to understand but young enough to break. Liliana was barely walking. She doesn’t even remember him, just knows the shape of his absence.
“Leo.” Matteo moves closer, solid and real. His twilight shadows reach for mine instinctively, a habit formed long before we understood what we were. “What do you need?”
What do I need? I need my sisters safe. I need my pack stable. I need to not fall apart when everyone’s counting on my sunshine to light the way. I need...
I need to stop pretending I can handle everything with a smile and a joke.
Lyra’s violin strings hum, responding to the rising tension. The shadows in the room dance, and I remember all those nights after he left, playing music with Lyra to help her sleep. Using laughter to dry tears. Finding light in darkness.
Maybe that’s been the point all along.
“Luna, get the girls behind the protective barriers,” I say, voice steadier than I feel. My shadows might hold a golden tinge, but they’re just as strong as Matteo’s darkness. “Bishop, we’ll need those Guardian wards. Matteo?—”
“Already on it.” He moves to guard the door, shadows gathering around him. The bond between us pulses with years of shared protection—him guarding my sisters while I made them laugh, me keeping him human while he kept us safe.
“What about Father?” Lena asks, still taking notes because of course she is. Even facing family trauma, my sister’s scientific mind never stops. “Your aura suggests?—”
“Time for truth,” I cut her off gently. Through our potential pack bonds, I feel their strength flowing into me. Not just their power, but their acceptance. Their understanding that sometimes the brightest lights cast the deepest shadows.
I open the door.
Our father stands there, expensive suit and practiced smile exactly as I remember. But something was different about him. His expensive suit couldn’t hide how his shadows moved wrong—writhing beneath his skin like living things trying to escape. Each time he shifted position, darkness rippled unnaturally, leaving trails that seemed to bend reality itself. When his gaze met mine, I saw something ancient and hungry looking back—something that wasn’t entirely my father anymore.
“Leonardo,” he starts, then freezes. Shadow marks swirl across my skin, matching my sisters’ new patterns.
“Hello, Father,” I say, keeping my voice light. The same tone I used to comfort my sisters after his calls stopped coming. “We need to talk about genetics. Maybe start with why your children are manifesting shadow powers? Or why you left six untrained shifters alone?”
His face pales as Lyra’s violin music swells, visible notes twining with shadow essence. “You... all of you...”
“Inherited your shadow shifter genes?” Luna supplies helpfully from behind her legal fortress. “Yeah, funny how that works. Almost like you should have mentioned it before abandoning your children. There’s precedent for criminal negligence in supernatural inheritance cases, by the way. I checked.”
“I was protecting you,” he whispers. “The shadow realm?—”
“Is falling apart,” I finish, letting my shadows dance with Lyra’s music. “Yeah, we know. But guess what? We’re handling it. As a family.” I gesture to the pack, to my sisters, to the visible proof of our strength. “A real one. The kind that stays.”
The last words hit him like I meant them to. Through the pack bonds, I feel their approval—especially Matteo’s. He’s seen every scar my father’s abandonment left, helped me hide my own pain while I helped my sisters heal.
Something changes in our father’s face. Recognition, maybe. Or regret. His own shadow marks begin to show, responding to the power in the room.
“The Martinez line was always strong,” he says softly, his neck twitching oddly. Dark veins pulse beneath his expensive collar. “I should have...”
“Yes,” Lena interjects, though I catch her gaze tracking his unnatural movements. “You should have. But psychological analysis of your failures as a father can wait.”
I love my sisters so much.
Lyra’s music shifts, finding a pattern that makes the shadow essence dance. Like all those nights I’d sing her to sleep, finding light in darkness. The realm alarms quiet.
“How...” Father stares at the display of magic, at his children wielding power he never taught them to use. And yet the longer I look at him the more I notice there is something off. He continues to grit his teeth. His head jerking every now and again.
“Family harmony,” Lucia says, adding a final sigil to her protection circle. “Literally. Turns out when you don’t abandon your family, amazing things happen.”
“Ouch,” I grin. “And here I thought I was the one with the sharp tongue.”
“The thing is, Father,” I say, letting my natural warmth carry an edge, “you left us thinking you were protecting us. But look what we became without you.”
Luna, the lawyer who fought her way through school while helping raise her sisters. Lucia, whose protection sigils rival any Guardian’s. Lena, turning her need to understand our trauma into a career. Lyra, whose music literally bends reality now. And Liliana, my baby sister, standing tall despite her fear.
And me? The class clown who held us together with jokes and midnight stories? I’ve got shadows that dance like sunlight and a pack that loves every part of me.
