Page 54 of Echoes From the Void
“Wrong how?”
Through our bond, I let him feel what I sense—the twisted merger of essence, like what we saw in the asylum but... fresher. Still changing. Still salvageable maybe.
The child screams again, closer now. Through the hastily made shadow path, I catch glimpses of a small form being dragged between larger ones.
“They’re trying to transport the successful subjects,” I growl, feeling my fangs lengthen fully. “Before we can find the other facilities.”
“Not happening.” Leo’s shadows gather like a storm about to break. “Plan?”
I bare my teeth in what might be a smile. “Since when do we plan?”
“Fair point.” His answering grin carries an edge of darkness. “Fast or quiet?”
Another scream tears through the night, raw with pain and corrupted essence.
“Fast,” I snarl, already moving.
We burst through the shadow path together, our darkness combining into something deadly. The first guard goes down before he can raise his essence injector, my shadows finding the pressure points my mother taught me about. The second manages to pull his weapon, but Leo’s shadows tear it apart.
The third guard holds the child—a boy no older than ten, essence corruption already spreading black veins across his skin. “Stay back! This subject is unstable, if the merger process is interrupted?—”
“Wrong choice,” I tell him, letting him see my fangs. Letting him see what his ‘subject’ could become. “Holding a child like that? In front of us?”
Leo’s shadows flare. “Really wrong choice.”
The guard tries to inject the boy with something, but my shadows are faster, more precise. The syringe shatters. The guard’s wrist breaks with it.
“The blood knows,” I remind him as he falls. “And yours just told me everything about where you were taking him. About all the others.”
“You don’t understand,” he gasps as my shadows constrict. “The realms are dying. We need vessels strong enough to?—”
“To what?” Leo asks pleasantly, his shadows wrapping around the boy like a blanket. Gentle now, always gentle with the innocent despite his deadly power. “To torture children? To play at being gods?”
“To save everything,” the guard insists. “Project Sunrise was supposed to?—”
I silence him with shadows in his veins. Through his blood, I see more facilities, more children, more horror. But I also see hope—coordinates, access codes, shadow paths leading to every hidden compound.
“Matteo,” Leo says softly. The boy has collapsed in his arms, corruption pulsing under his skin.
“I know.” I kneel beside them, letting my shadows taste the essence corruption. It’s like the twins in the asylum, but newer. Not fully merged. “Hold him still.”
Leo cradles the child while I reach for blood and shadow both. My mother taught me about healing. The streets taught me about hurting. Somewhere between, there has to be a way to help.
“The blood knows,” I whisper, feeling for the corruption’s pattern. “The blood always knows.”
Power flows through me—not just shadow, not just predator instinct, but something deeper. Something that knows about balance, about the thin line between healing and hurting.
The boy whimpers once, then goes still as my power draws the corrupted essence out. Not destroying it like Frankie and Finn had to do with the twins, but... redirecting it. Remaking it into something sustainable.
“There,” I breathe as the black veins fade. “He’ll live. He’ll need help, but he’ll live.”
Leo kisses my temple, his pride flowing through our bond. “And the others? All the children they took?”
I stand, letting my shadows spread into the night. The blood has shown me everything—every facility, every victim, every secret they tried to hide. But what I saw in the guard’s blood... it’s worse than we imagined.
“Project Sunrise wasn’t just about merging essence,” I tell Leo, watching the child breathe easier in his arms. “It started as a Guardian program. They were trying to create perfect vessels, children who could channel both light and shadow. But something went wrong.”
“The corrupted twins,” Leo realizes. “They weren’t Valerie’s first attempt.”
