Page 18 of Power of Shadow

“Exceptionally, however, you’ll have to trust me.” A devilish smile creeps onto his face, and he slowly lowers his weapon and puts it away.

But I’m not letting up. He’s in my sight now. I could kill him and dance in a pool of his blood. It would be a bitter victory, but a victory, nonetheless.

Aisling.

Her name and childish face flash through my mind. It’s the only thing stopping me from splitting his head in two. Every cell in my body hates him with incomprehensible force.

“Ry—” Theo’s words reach me. “It’s time for us to go.”

I exhale. I secure my weapon and put it back in my belt.

Getting up, I give my father another hateful look as his face lights up with a crooked smile. I pick up the files and leave.

It’s only when we return in tense silence that Theo speaks up. “It won’t be long now, Ry— Hang in there, brother. We have to play this smart.”

“We must outsmart him,” Eli chimes in. “We have to find his weakness. Any ideas?”

My head is still spinning. The adrenaline is dancing in my veins. It prevents me from thinking rationally. And that’s not good.

“I’ll take care of the underground,” Theo offers.

“That’s a good idea,” agrees Eli. “Just be careful not to let James find out, or one day you’ll find a target on your forehead. A lot of the Pact’s business goes through the dark web. That’s my turf. I’ll take care of it.”

Theo takes the underground; Eli takes the network. And me?

“In the meantime, you take care of Charles Baker,” Eli adds, accurately reading my gloomy thoughts.

Flashback 2

Ryker 7 years old

Right after my seventh birthday, my mom’s belly began growing. With each passing month, it gets bigger and bigger. Eventually, it sticks out so much from the rest of her body that it’s sometimes hard for her to move. She complains that her back hurts and her feet are swollen. But she also tells me it’s totally normal, and that she felt the same way when she was pregnant with me.

Mom is pregnant. It suits her. She's more beautiful than ever. Her rounded face is happier, younger, radiant. Her looks have changed. I couldn’t ask for anything more. If she’s happy, so am I.

All the wounds my father inflicted on her a few months earlier have healed. On that day and the days that followed, I washed and cared for my mom’s wounds. And she washed and cared for mine. I told no one what happened behind the closed doors of my father’s office.

Undeniably, however, the events of that day changed something in me forever.

Every night, I had nightmares, not only about my father but also things I hadn’t seen with my own eyes. They were filled with evil, as much as I could tell as a child.

At first, I woke up every night in wet sheets. The images that haunted me were so terrifying, they were stronger than me. My mom looked at me with sadness, sent me to the shower, and changed my sheets.

Then I started sleepwalking. Once, my mother found me standing on the dining room table; another time, I was hiding in a kitchen cupboard. Yet another time, she found me standing in my father’s study, staring at the place where her blood had once stained the floor. That’s when she got scared, and cried until morning.

The next day, she dared to ask my father to let us see a therapist. I don’t know what he said that day, but when she left his office, she was white as a sheet. We never made it to the therapist.

I rarely see my father as he spends most of his nights in his apartment in the city. That doesn’t bother me at all. I’m not afraid we’ll repeat my lesson; rather, I’m afraid for my mom.

“Ryker, do you want to feel your sister’s kicks?”

Snapped out of my thoughts, I look at Mom, who’s sitting on the couch in the living room. Her legs are covered with a green blanket because she has been feeling cold a lot lately. Her hands are resting on her round belly, and she’s smiling slightly.

Approaching her, I sit down on the edge of the couch. The happiness on my mother’s face is undeniable. The green of her eyes so shiny.

“Put your hand on my belly, I’ll show you,” she says softly.

The skin on her belly is warm and nice to the touch. I’ve seen her rub some wonderful lotions into that part of her body to make her skin soft. The belly itself is hard and seems to be filled to the brim with water. Mom says that’s how it is.