Page 47 of Echoes From the Void
“Probably complained about traffic,” Finn adds, his voice hollow as he picks up a photo of staff at a Christmas party. “Had favorite lunch spots. Celebrated birthdays.”
Leo retrieves the child’s drawing—stick figures surrounded by black scribbles that look disturbingly like my shadow wolves. His usual smile vanishes. “You know what’s fucked up? This looks like the art projects my sisters make for the fridge.”
“Don’t,” Matteo warns, but Leo continues, that edge of protective fury bleeding through his sunshine persona.
“No, really. Lyra drew something like this last week. Except...” He touches the black scribbles. “Pretty sure hers didn’t include shadow manifestations. Pretty sure she wasn’t documenting her own—” His voice breaks.
Bishop moves to the computer terminals while Dorian examines the wards, their shoulders tight with different kinds of anger. Professional. Focused. Trying not to show how much this place affects them.
“Hey, wonder twin,” Finn calls from across the room, his voice carrying a forced lightness that doesn’t match the horror I feel through our bond. “Come look at this.”
“If you ever call me that again, I will end you.”
“You’ll try.” He’s examining a wall of photographs—researchers in lab coats, social gatherings, holiday parties. The kind of normal moments that shouldn’t exist in a place like this. “Third row, second from left.”
I cross to him, my feet remembering exactly how many steps it takes to reach this spot. How many times I was dragged here for observation.
“Son of a bitch,” I breathe as recognition hits. “That’s?—”
“Professor Blackwood,” Bishop confirms from the terminal, ice in his voice. “Ten years younger, but it’s him.”
“You know,” Dorian muses, temporal energy crackling beneath his precise tone, “I’m developing a theory about why he was so interested in your academic development. Why he pushed to be your advisor.”
Matteo’s low growl makes the shadows dance, predatory energy rising. “I’m developing several theories about where to hide his body.”
“Get in line,” Leo and I say simultaneously.
“Now who’s being creepy?” Finn smirks, but his light flickers with shared anger.
I flip him off, but my heart’s not in it. The photo shows Blackwood with his arm around Valerie, both smiling at the camera like proud parents. Like they weren’t destroying children’s lives one experiment at a time. Like they weren’t strapping me to tables and filling my veins with light essence until I screamed.
“Bishop.” My voice comes out steady, grounded in the present by our pack bonds humming with protective fury. “What are you finding?”
“Nothing good.” His fingers fly over the keyboard, Guardian marks pulsing. “But also nothing recent. Everything’s been systematically erased. Almost like—” He cuts off, swearing softly. “Dorian?”
“Working on it.” Dorian’s shadows spread over the computer, trying to recover deleted data. The temperature around him drops as his control slips. “But something’s wrong. These wards... they’re not just for protection. They’re designed to store something. Or someone.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, memories surging up—isolation tanks filled with writhing shadows, children screaming as darkness was pumped into their veins, my own voice begging them to stop?—
A mechanical hum starts somewhere deep in the facility. Emergency lights pulse red, exactly like they used to when an experiment went wrong.
“Please tell me that was you,” I tell Dorian, fighting to stay in the present.
“That,” he says with elegant precision that doesn’t quite mask his concern, “was most definitely not me.”
“Backup generators,” Matteo realizes, moving closer to me as his predator instincts rise. “The whole place is waking up.”
Leo’s already moving toward the door, shadows gathering around him despite his usual preference for light. “New plan?”
I grab Finn’s hand, feeling our power sync instinctively. Light and shadow merging into something stronger than either of us alone. Something that remembers how to survive this place.
“New plan,” I agree, my voice steadier than I feel. “Run.”
Through our twin bond, I feel Finn’s grim understanding. Through our pack bonds, I feel their determination. Five years ago, I faced this place’s horrors alone.
Never again.
“Left!” Bishop shouts as another door slams shut behind us, the sound exactly like I remember from escape attempts that always failed. “Security protocols are activating in sequence!”
