Page 17 of Shadow's Chosen

The last man dropped. The only one standing was death himself. Or what she thought was death until she took in his silvery-black armor and realized it was the lead hunter standing above her.

They locked eyes, and she opened her mouth to say something when a car sped its way down the tunnel. The hunter jumped out of the way as it approached, and Elise rolled to the tunnel wall. The car slammed right into the side of the tunnel and from there, the doors opened, and more masked men jumped out. Elise fired at them as they fired at the hunter who lunged at the men without pause. Their car hitting the tunnel was the last straw, and large chunks began to rain down. Elise stumbled to her feet and started for the car where her team still lay injured and where Jerico now sat against the back with Adrien unconscious beside him. As she crouched down and holstered her gun, Elise saw the blood on his legs where he'd been hit.

"Don't think I can walk," he said. "Adrien is still out. I don't know about the others."

"I'm here. Someone will come to help," she said quickly, her head finally beginning to clear, her senses once again becoming more alert. "We'll get everyone out. We'll get—"

More rocks fell, and the tunnel around them began to collapse. A cloud of dust swept in with the smoke, coming at them like a wave.

Elise shouted, covering her and Jerico from the rubble. She could no longer see, but she felt herself being shoved away as more of the tunnel roof fell. She heard shouts and saw flashes of light but nothing else as the dust grew thick.

"Go!" she heard someone yell.

Jerico.

She called for him when something grabbed her hard and pulled her around. A rock hit the side of her head, and everything clouded in her mind again. A cloud of black swam over her vision, and she felt herself falling. But instead of feeling the ground beneath her, all she could feel was her body being swept up against something solid and the wind rushing around her as she heard the sounds of the tunnel breaking.

Seven

The first feeling that came back to her was the sense that she was breathing. All else seemed to be darkness for a time and the odd feeling of being everywhere and nowhere at once, as if she were racing through endless moments or visions—some blurred, others vivid but seemingly infinite—and always there was a sense of danger, that she needed to wake, needed to focus, but every time she came to that edge of clarity, she was pulled back, like a wave ripping her from the earth, forcing her back into the dark.

Many times in that darkness she saw her sister, other times her team, and sometimes death dressed in black armor with eyes like fire.

When a light passed over her once then again several moments later, she held onto it until it brought her back fully to the edge, to where she could feel more than just her breath, where the radius of her senses grew. She heard distant noises like a roaring, heard water falling, smelled the sting of copper, felt the cold. She moaned as she awakened, or perhaps she had always been awake but could now fully clear her head, could really see. Her eyes were heavy, but she forced them open and blinked several times. It was dark still, but she knew now it was not from inside her mind but instead from the actual place where she found herself, wherever that was. The only light seemed to come from overhead, passing by every couple of minutes, a bright beam from above.

Elise turned her head and felt something soft underneath her cheek, covering whatever hard, sharp surface lay underneath. She tried to see more around her, but all that came into focus whenever the light passed were the rows of metal and broken piles of rubble and concrete. She blinked some more and saw that the metal rows were pillars holding up a building. A broken building with several holes in its high ceiling where the light shined through.

Elise moaned again as her head throbbed. Her shoulder ached something awful when she flung her arm out to plant her hand on the dust-filled floor. Slowly, she pushed herself up and let out a low hissing cry as the pain seared down her back. Her suit creaked as she rose into a sitting position, and when she looked down at her shoulder, she saw the large crack in the armor. Cursing, she touched at it with her good arm then looked around her. She couldn't identify what sort of building she was in, only that it was abandoned and in disrepair. As she carefully looked across and behind her, she noticed a large pit in the center where the skeletal remains of a ship had been left behind. She could gather from the damage above and below that it had fallen. Glass and metal parts had been flung across the whole surface, and scorch marks seared the side of the metal rows. Elise stared at it all in a moment of confusion that quickly began to clear as her memory fixed itself back together.

She attempted to rise when a noise close by made her stop and glance over.

"I wouldn't try that yet if I were you..."

Elise froze for perhaps a half a second before pulling her gun from her hip and aiming it at the shadows of a broken pillar ahead of her. There was a moment of silence before the alien laughed low. The light above swept over the rows of metal, and Elise got a better look at him as he sat watching her.

His eyes lit up as the beam hit him, just like a cat’s or a wolf's, with the shine making Elise shiver.

"What are you doing here?" she said in a hoarse murmur. Her throat and mouth were awfully dry as she tried to swallow.

The alien hunter tilted his head. He had one knee raised where he rested his elbow. The other hand seemed to be grabbing at something by his thigh. He stared at her for a long moment, never even once glancing at the gun aimed at him, as if it were of little concern. "You don't remember?" he said finally.

"Remember what?"

"What happened."

Elise's gun dropped an inch. "The gate...we were attacked and the tunnel..." Elise's grip tightened. "What did you do?" she snapped.

The alien's pupils widened. He said something in his language then laughed again. "You think...I had anything to do with that? Truly? That I would be...here right now if I did?"

Elise opened her mouth then closed it. She remembered now seeing him attacking the masked men and the golden woman fighting them off as well. She lowered her gun some more but not fully. "The tunnel...oh, god. I have to get back. The others need me—" she tried to get up again but found her head swimming when she shot up too quickly. She fell back with a groan, her gun slipping from her grasp as she covered her eyes.

"There's no point," the alien said.

Elise dropped her hand to look at him with a frown. "They are not dead."

"I didn't say they were. But the exit is gone. The tunnel collapsed."

"Which implies you think they are dead."

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