Panic and confusion overwhelmed her and the strength drained from her body. If she hadn’t already been sitting down, she would have fallen. Slumping over her desk, she buried her head in her hands.
Somehow she had taken the stories of a bunch of superheroes, twisted them, and adopted them for herself. It wasn’t wallpaper that covered up the cracks in the wall of her memory, but the pages of comic books. But if her past was false, what had her childhood really been like? Why had she blocked it from her mind?
In the corners of the room, the shadows whispered, the sound almost like the giggle of imps. “No photos,” she whispered. “No records.”
Brainwashed, she wanted to tell herself. Or maybe you’ve blocked out the truth.
A truth worse than her parents being murdered in an alley and wandering Nepal in search of enlightenment and nearly being eaten by wolves?
Maybe.
But she felt sure there must be more to it than that. After all, if none of that was true …
If none of that was true …
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
Heart slamming inside her chest, Nora jumped up from her desk chair and retreated until she could put her back against the wall. The chair continued to glide backward a few feet as if nudged by a ghost, then came to a halt. She stared into the dark corners of the room for a moment, then rushed around switching on the rest of the lights in her apartment—the table lamp, the floor lamp. But even with all of them blazing, the room was still full of small shadows.
If none of those memories were true, then where the fuck had the shadows come from? How could she do the things she could do as Indigo?
What the hell was she?
Her panic and confusion gave way to a rush of terror. Her throat went dry and she opened and closed her fists as if she might be attacked at any moment. If the shadows weren’t some mystical power she had been trained to control, then what were they? What might they do to her? What kind of control over them did she really possess?
Forcing herself to breathe, listening to the thunder of her heart, she tried to calm down. Normally she liked to be alone, but now she could not stay by herself. Not now. Not when she was on the verge of screaming. She desperately needed to talk to someone. Solitary by instinct ever since the death of her parents—however that had really happened—there was only one person she could trust with her secrets.
Shelby.
Reeling like a punch-drunk boxer, still barefoot and wearing little, she staggered to the door of her apartment and pulled it open. The stairs up to Shelby’s floor swayed in front of her. For a moment shadows amassed there, forming a barrier to block her way. Then she blinked and the shadows dispersed, skittering in all directions like roaches exposed to the light.
She was halfway up the first flight when one of the now-exposed cracks in her mind gaped open and another long-buried memory slammed into her like a fist to the stomach.
She is young, still in her teens, naked and bound, rough cold stone pressing into her back. Someone is looming over her—a woman. Marble-white skin. Burning eyes. A skull-like face bisected by a red, wet grin. She is clutching something in her hand. Something sharp. Something that flashes in the candlelight …
Nora staggered, spun, grabbed the handrail, and sat down hard on the steps. The memory was there and gone in an instant, but the image was so awful, so terrifying, that she thought she would pass out. She felt nauseated. Beads of cold sweat appeared on her skin, making her shiver. Clinging to the metal strut of a banister rail, she willed herself to stay conscious, to take slow, deep breaths.
At last she dragged herself to her feet and plodded up the stairs again. By the time she reached the fifth floor she was exhausted, as if she had run a marathon. She stumbled across the landing to Shelby’s door, balled her hand into a fist, and raised it to knock …
*
And then she was no longer outside her best friend’s door. Instead she was sitting at her desk, fully dressed, in the bustling, open-plan office of NYChronicle. Her fingers were poised on her keyboard, a half-finished article on the screen before her. Perched on the edge of her desk was Casey Santiago, a Starbucks coffee in her hand, her dark curls swishing as she tossed back her head, plump red lips stretching wide as she laughed.
Nora jerked back in her seat as if her keyboard had bitten her. Disoriented, she looked wildly around.
“What’s going on?” she muttered.
Casey stopped laughing and frowned. “You all right, girl?”
“How did I get here?”
Casey blinked. “Well, I dunno, honey. The subway maybe?”
Nora stood up so fast that her chair glided back on its casters and crashed into the wall behind her. A few people looked over to see what the commotion was about, curious expressions on their faces.
The room spun in front of Nora’s eyes. The strip lighting above her seemed overbright, piercing her vision, awakening pain centers in her brain.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she muttered.
Still bewildered, Casey asked, “Is that right? Then where should you be?”
“At home. I should be at home.”
Casey nodded. “Maybe you’re right. You do look a little pale. Like maybe you’re coming down with something?”
Nora staggered from her office cubicle, heading for the exit. The room was still spinning and swaying. She felt eyes on her, watching her weaving progress. Some of her colleagues might think she was drunk, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting home, talking to Shelby, trying to make some sense out of what was happening.
A dark shape loomed in front of her. She cried out.
“Hey, hey,” a voice said. She felt hands on her arms, steadying her. “It’s just me. Are you okay?”
She blinked until her vision cleared. Staring down at her with concern was Sam Loh, his lower lip cut and still a bit swollen from the punch she’d thrown at him.
“Sam, I … I gotta go.”
“Go where? Look … I came by to talk about what happened the night before last. You’re not yourself. I don’t think you should be going anywhere right now, Nora. You look terrible.”
“I’m fine, I’m just … not feeling too well.”
“Look, Nora, there’s obviously something going on with you—”
“There isn’t,” she insisted, pulling away from him. “I’m fine. Well, except for the fact that I think I’m coming down with something … flu maybe.”
“Flu?”
She scowled. “You don’t believe me?”
He raised his hands. “The way you’ve been behaving recently, I don’t know what to believe.”
She saw the hurt on his face, the concern. She reached out a trembling hand and touched him on the shoulder. “Look, Sam, I’m really sorry. You’re right. I haven’t been myself and I was … stressed. It’s this story I’m working on. The murders. It … well, it got to me, that’s all. But I’m so sorry, and I’m fine now. Other than…” She wafted a hand.
“The flu.”
“Yeah. The flu. I just need to go home, get some sleep.” She was already edging past him. “Look, I’ll call you, okay?”
“You’d better.”
“I will. I promise.”
And then she was past him, and out the door. Running down the stairs as if something were after her. Her thoughts churning, churning.