Page 12 of Siege of Shadows

Shivering, I checked the time on my phone. I hadn’t been asleep for thirty minutes, but that heavy, languid feeling lingered stubbornly in my bones. It still took my body time to recover from these missions. I’d traveled here and there, back and forth so many damn times, all the cities were starting to blend together—as was, apparently, my vision, right now. I rubbed my eyes. The weight of the stress of battle came down hard on my bones. Belle always said that the more you train, the more you get used to it, but apparently nobody told my muscles.

Well, at least I wasn’t the only one who’d conked out. Having taken the whole back bench for herself, as she usually did, Chae Rin curled up on her side with her headphones plugging her ears and slept peacefully, her bare legs sticking to the leather through the natural adhesive of heat and sweat. She was out of her Sect fatigues and back into her civilian clothes. We all were. It was hot enough in Morocco without torturing ourselves needlessly.

In the seat next to me, Lake fiddled with her phone with one hand and kept her minifan trained on her with the other. “They’re still out there?” she asked, peering out my door. “Should it be taking this long? Didn’t they already take the...” She paused and bit her lip. “The...”

Body. The body of the mysterious young man we’d found in the desert hideout. Sibyl ordered that he be processed at the African Division headquarters several miles away. This meant that even after surviving a dangerous, body-breaking mission, we still had to stick with the body, stowed safely away in its sterilized white bag, as it was transported to Morocco to ensure its successful arrival. The moment we passed through the tall black gates, a medical team was already waiting for us. We should have been able to leave by now, but after half an hour had passed, Belle was still outside talking to the director of the facility.

“While the untalented and undeserving are releasing rubbish singles that get rewarded with money and praise, I am going on secret missions, fighting for my life, and hauling away dead bodies.” Sighing, Lake closed her eyes against the fan-generated wind lapping against her face. “My one consolation in this whole dreadful scenario is Sibyl okayed us going to the TVCAs. Attending an awards show because you’re nominated for something and not because your agent wrangled an invite from some poor underpaid intern. How novel!” With her eyes still closed, she grinned. “It’s gonna be so great. I’m back in the game!”

I stared at her. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

But Lake was already checking out the nominations list on the awards show’s home page. There we were, under Favorite Badass Role Models, next to an eclectic list comprised of a teen physicist, a social media star, an Olympic athlete, and a pop star fresh out of rehab. The weird thing about being an Effigy was you could fit in perfectly among any of them.

Ah, the strangest beast of all: celebrity.

Well, Effigies were known all over the world. Even as we fought monsters in a kill-or-be-killed lifestyle that usually ended in our bloody, gruesome deaths, the media still reported on us as if we were no different from your typical reality star or starlet stumbling drunkenly out of a limo into the latest LA party. When I was a kid, I worshipped the Effigies. I bought the posters and the trading cards the Sect put out just like every other obsessed fangirl. But it was the hero part that thrilled me. The fame part I could do without.

“You’re not actually still planning on making us go to that,” I said wearily. “Are you?”

“In fact, I’ve already picked out your dresses!”

“Oh god.” My head rolled to the side and came to a rest against my seat belt. Unlike me, Lake relished the spotlight and thrived in it. Going from auditioning for some cheesy televised British talent show to debuting in a pop group to becoming an Effigy, staying famous wasn’t something she had to worry much about. Still, it’d been months since her solo pop single was supposed to drop, but her record label was delaying the release, and her fans were beginning to think it was a myth.

“Did you check out Doll Soldiers? Wait, let me go there.” On her phone, Lake signed in to the online forum of Effigy enthusiasts, the site I’d spent an unhealthy amount of time on before I’d, somewhat ironically, become an Effigy myself. I leaned over for a better look. Ah, the Belle Kill Count thread was still racking up the views, as expected.

Lake pointed at what was creatively called the Official TVCA Thread and grinned widely. “Our fans are organizing mass voting parties. Isn’t it awesome?”

She clicked the link. She really shouldn’t have.

“Oh...” Lake grimaced as she read the screen.

[+299, - 173] LOL @ Icicles acting like they’re too good to vote for a damn Teen Viewers’ Choice Award. Like don’t you think if Belle were “above it all” she wouldn’t be going? Think again, they’ve all been confirmed by their publicist. What now, bitches?

[+230, - 101] People honestly think Swans are pushing for this shit just because of Lake and her personal career. Well, the reality is we’re not, and if you think that, it just makes your bitterness toward her that much more obvious. Doing this kind of stuff helps the girls. Do you know how much pressure they’re under? Every Effragist that supports OT4 should take this shit seriously, so Icicles need to get over their damn selves andvote.

“What’s OT4?” Lake asked me because she correctly assumed I’d wasted enough time on the internet to know the lingo.

“One True Four,” I said. “All four of us. The whole crazy Effigy gang.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” Lake nodded excitedly as I read another comment.

[+220, - 180] Okay, but Belle fans don’t actually call themselves Icicles and never did. We’d like you to stop this immediately.

“Yeah, when the hell did that start?” I narrowed my eyes because it only got messier and messier down thread.

[+218, - 194] I love the girls, but Swans are so desperate, pathetic, and transparent. Like fave, like fan!

[+218, - 150] I’m voting for Aaron. He just got out of rehab and hasn’t shown any dick pics or peed in a public establishment in like a month—that takes real courage.

[+210, - 130] I’mscreaming—these girls are supposed to be warriors; there is literally no reason for them to be attending parties designed for the detritus of the entertainment industry!Wake up!

They had a point with that last one. Unfortunately, after Saul’s escape from the London facility and the PR disaster that followed, embracing our Effigy fame was the best option we had to distract the masses while the Sect pulled its shit together.

“Whendidthey come up with ‘Icicles’?” Lake cocked her head to the side. “A bit on the nose, isn’t it? Andwhyin God’s name are they all fighting each other instead of voting?” She scrunched up her face as she whined, like a child throwing a tantrum. “Ugh, beunified, you wankers. Iwantthis win.”

Even I knew that expecting unification in Effigy fandom was like asking time to move backward. And in fact, you’d have a better chance of achieving the latter. The angrier people were, the longer and more frequent their online vitriolic rants. Hell, I was the former poster child of messy Effigy fans, so I had no room to judge.

Leaning back in her seat, Lake kept on scrolling through comments. With nothing else to do, I laid my head against the car window, readying myself for another nap, when the door opened with a yank. I would have fallen straight out of the car if I hadn’t grabbed the seat.

---