Born in the Shadows (In the Shadows Series Book 1) (3 page)

              He followed Mitch to the parking lot and tossed his tools in the back of his truck. There was no use pining for someone who wasn’t interested in him. They were friends and would never be anything more.

Chapter 2

              The hours passed by as Cordelia worked well beyond her normal quitting time. She had wanted to hug Mitch when he had brought the piles of new invoices into the trailer. He had told her that she could leave them until Monday but she lied that it wouldn’t take long for her to log them into the system.

She was just happy to have an excuse to avoid seeing Sampson or Gabe. By the time she was done, they would be long gone, eager to start their weekends. She knew she  could text Gabe when she finished up and meet up with him but she didn’t feel like having to rehash the nasty incident with Sampson. And if Gabe had gone out there to
pick up chicks
with the other guys, she definitely didn’t want to be around to watch it.

              By the time she had finished her work and was locking up the trailer, the sun had completely set. She headed slowly towards her car, not in any particular rush to get home tonight. It was Friday night but all she had to go home to was a bottle of merlot and her cat.

              She had never had a large social circle, most likely due to the damage her mother had caused. Her mother’s constant criticism had convinced her that all women thought that way and it wasn’t until she met her college roommate, Claudia, that she had finally forged a friendship with a woman. Unfortunately, Claudia had moved out to California five years ago, originally for a short internship with a Silicon Valley start-up but then she met her future husband and that all changed. Now they had settled into a comfortable life out in San Francisco and Cordelia couldn’t be happier for her. Of course, it had cut her social circle down to the people she worked with but she wasn’t about to blame her friend for that. 

              As for going out on a date, well, she never had much luck in the men department. She had usually been considered
one of the guys
or
like a little sister
which meant she might as well be asexual to men. She never blamed them. Attraction was not something you could control. After all, she had ended things with her last boyfriend because she just couldn’t muster up enough attraction for him to keep the relationship going. After that had ended a couple years back, she had stopped looking for a relationship altogether. Sure, it left her alone a lot of the time but she didn’t mind that much.

              So a bath, a glass of wine and a good book had become her standard Friday night activity. It wasn’t glamorous and it wasn’t exciting but it was relaxing and after today, it was just what she needed.

              She had expected to find her car the only one left in the parking lot so she was surprised to see a pickup truck still parked in the far corner. The streetlamps had yet to come on so she struggled to decipher the color of the truck to figure out its owner.

              “Cordelia!”

              No need to check the Ford’s paint job, she recognized Sampson’s voice and his silhouette as he came around one side of the truck. She stopped walking towards her car, eyeing him suspiciously. What the hell did he want?

              “I was just doing some clean up in my office here,” he said, jerking a thumb back at his truck. “I got a couple invoices for you.”

              She hesitated. With anyone else, she would go and grab the invoices but with Sampson, there was something that scared her about the idea of walking over to that shadowed corner to get the papers from his hand. Something was off about him tonight. Getting herself within striking distance of that man felt like a really Bad Idea, capital letters and all.

              “Can’t you just bring them to the office on Monday?”

              “No, come get them.”

              “Look, I just want to go home--”

              “What the fuck is the big deal? Do your cats get worried if you get home too late? I found myself a hot date so I’m cleaning this shit heap out. We both know that you don’t have anything better to do tonight.”

              The fact that he was right should have made her sad but it just pissed her the hell off. What a fucking asshole. She stomped across the parking lot and tried to grab the papers from his hand but he wouldn’t let them go. She glared at him, for the first time noticing purple bruising around both his eyes. There was something lurking there in his eyes, something that set her internal warning bell ringing but she shook it off. She was just being paranoid because she didn’t like the man.

              “You like my shiner? You must be fucking pleased with yourself, huh?”

              “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

              “Pretty boy Gabe got it in his head to defend your honour,” Sampson fingered the cut on the bridge of his nose. “Good thing he hits like a pussy.”

              Judging by the deep color of the bruising on his face that was a lie.

              “The thing I don’t understand is why he did it. He didn’t do it to get in your pants. He must think you are one sad case. What, was he worried that you’d off yourself tonight because I called you fat?”

              That was enough to deafen the warning bell as she stepped forward and glared at him.

              “Why don’t you go fuck yourself, Sampson.”

              She should have listened to her instincts judging by the way his eyes darkened and he closed in on her. She could smell the booze on him when he reached out to grab her wrist, his fat fingers squeezing hard. 

              “You think I’m going to let you get uppity with me.”

              She tugged on her wrist but his steel grip didn’t budge. “Let go of me.”

              Her voice quivered slightly and she could feel tremors begin to wrack her body.

              “What, you going to cry again? You don’t have Gabe to come to your rescue this time.”

              The malice in his tone set her heart racing and panic began to claw its way up her throat. The self-defence training she had taken last year came back to her and she immediately brought her knee up, hoping to slam it between his legs. Unfortunately, her aim was lousy and her knee merely bounced off his hard thigh. Judging by the rage in his eyes, he knew where she had been aiming and he was not pleased.

              “You stupid bitch!”

              His meaty backhand had her head snapping back, stars bursting before her eyes. Her ears were ringing and she could taste blood in her mouth. Her vision finally cleared enough for her to see that Sampson’s thick fingers were still wrapped tightly around her wrist.

              She tugged furiously against his grip, panic and pain causing her to throw her whole weight into it, even if it felt like her arm was going to pop out of joint. Her flailing seemed to surprise him and his grip loosened.

              Panic, in combination with the mild concussion from his backhand, caused her to lose her balance and she went down hard on her back. When she hit the ground, all she felt was a fiery pain that lit through her chest. She tried to cry out but she couldn’t catch her breath and her mouth gaped in a silent scream.

              She opened her eyes and looked down to where the pain was centered. Terror filled her as she saw a piece of steel rebar protruding from her chest. She reached out with a shaky hand and touched the thin metal rod, her fingers becoming sticky with what she realized was her own blood.

              Sampson stood over her, hands on his head, eyes bugging out of his ashen face. He seemed to be shaking his head back and forth as if in disbelief but that could just be the double vision she had going on screwing with her perception.

              “Oh fuck, I didn’t mean to…it was an accident…oh shit, oh fuck.”

              Sampson disappeared from her view and, in the distance, she faintly heard the sound of a car door slamming and an engine starting. It was weird. It felt like her ears were stuffed with cotton, the world around her muted to a low murmur. It was kind of calming, like one of those relaxation CDs that used to be so popular.

              A pleasant numbness filled her body and as the pain faded away, she almost smiled. Except in the clearer part of her mind she knew that wasn’t a good sign. It was the sign that her body was shutting down.

              She turned her head and saw her purse on the ground next to her. If she could get to her cell maybe she could call for help.

She reached for it but the strap was just beyond her fingers. She tried to shift her body but searing pain replaced the numbness again and she immediately stilled.

              This was bad.
Really bad
. She wasn’t going to walk away from this. She couldn’t catch her breath, which meant her lung was probably punctured. No screaming for help. The site was deserted and would remain that way until Monday morning. She was going to
die
here.

              Well, hell, this definitely wasn’t what she had planned to do with her Friday night. She thought about bemoaning the unfairness of it all but she couldn’t muster up enough energy to care. It was funny. She had always expected to be terrified when the end came but instead she felt nothing. This wasn’t so bad. It was actually kind of peaceful.

              She stared up at the sky, the stars beginning to blink to life and she wondered if there were stars in the next life. A figure blocked her view of the sky and she smiled. She had always thought Death would be a terrifying skeletal spectre in a black robe. What a nice surprise to see that Death was actually a young boy with the most beautiful pale skin and golden eyes. She closed her eyes, the smile still on her face as she made peace with her own demise and waited to wake in the next life.

***

              Nicky gazed up at the bare bones structure that loomed in the sky before him. He had always been drawn to the construction of buildings. There was something mesmerizing about watching such a large structure come forth from such small beginnings. He found himself entranced by how the buildings were becoming bigger and taller as time passed.

              It was as if the human race had a need to master the world by ensuring that they constructed the largest and most powerful objects in it. As if it was a way to assure themselves that they were in control of this world. A driving need to master all of its dominions.

              He remembered when airplanes had first taken flight. He had been just as obsessed with them as he was with the buildings. He had spent several years working the midnight shift at an airplane assembly line, learning what made the giant metal birds stay in the air.

              And when the Space Race had begun, he had read everything he could get his hands on about the satellites and rockets that were being launched into space. Such advancements in such a short time. Humans truly were an amazing race.

              All of his obsessions came down to the fact that humans fascinated him. He had been one of them once but that had been such a long time ago, more than several lifetimes in fact.

              He was a Shadow Walker now, a completely different species. A human resurrected with the power of a God is no longer human, after all. No, humans were like tiny ants in the face of the power he could wield.

              It had been those thoughts that had sent him here as soon as the sun had set. He needed to see for himself that humans weren’t insignificant. He needed to remind himself that they were able to bend steel to their will and create something grandiose from it. He did not want to give in to the delusions of grandeur. Humans were worthy companions and he needed to remember it, for their safety and his own. There was nothing more dangerous than a Shadow Walker who thought he was above the humans.

              And so he found himself standing amid the slowly forming condominiums that were growing on the waterfront. Perhaps he would look into purchasing one when they were completed. The view of the lake would be breathtaking, even at night.

              He took a deep breath, the scent of steel, concrete and water filling his head. His nose twitched as an unexpected scent drifted on the night air. Metallic with a hint of sweetness. Human blood. Human female blood.

              Normally he would ignore it but something about it caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. A dark cloud seemed to settle around him and all of his instincts screamed that something was very, very wrong.

              He breathed in again, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. He moved at a fast clip through the construction sites until he turned onto a street flanked with the parking lots for the workers. A beat up truck kicked up gravel as it peeled out of one of the lots and sped away in the opposite direction. Before the truck’s taillights could disappear around the corner, Nicky was in the lot. 

              If it hadn’t been for his excellent night vision and his keen sense of smell, he would have missed her completely. Her body was hidden in the shadows of the back corner but even from this distance, he could see the glint of blood on the steel spike sticking through her chest.

              He was at her side in an instant, assessing the damage. Her skin was grey and clammy, her breath barely a whisper between her lips. Her wound was only trickling blood, the metal keeping the bleeding in check. That didn’t matter though. If the blood wasn’t pouring out of her, it was filling her up on the inside. Internal bleeding was just as deadly as bleeding out on the ground.