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"Eli, please." Maya's voice cuts through the dark. Close. Maybe twenty feet. "I can't—just follow me. Don't turn around."
I want to believe it's her. God, I want to.
Three months of missing person reports. Three months of nothing. And now she's right here, alive, talking.
But something's wrong.
"Maya?" I keep my hand half-closed, the blue-white glow dim between my fingers. Just enough to see the ground. The light makes my skin itch, like static crawling up my arm. "Where are you?"
"Here. I'm here. Just—don't look at me, okay? I don't want you to see."
She sounds closer. Ten feet, maybe.
The darkness ahead shifts. Thick. Wrong. Like oil moving in water.
I take a step.
"That's it. Come on. We need to get out before they find us."
"Before who finds us?"
She doesn't answer.
The air smells like wet metal and something rotten. Meat left out too long. My sneakers stick to the ground with every step.
I don't want to know what I'm walking through.
"Maya, talk to me. What happened? Where's the rest of the scout team?"
"Dead." Her voice cracks. "Eli, they're all dead. I'm the only one left and I—I can't hold on much longer. Please just come here."
That's when I hear it.
Breathing.
Not hers.
Something else. Low and wet, like lungs full of water trying to pull in air.
It's coming from the same direction as her voice.
I stop.
"Eli?" Maya's voice again, but now there's an edge to it. Impatient. "Why'd you stop? Come on. We don't have time."
"I need to see you first."
"No. No, you don't. You don't want to see me like this."
"I don't care what you look like. I just need to know it's you."
Silence.
Then something moves in the dark ahead.
A shape. Taller than Maya. Hunched.
It shifts forward and I catch a glimpse of pale skin. Too pale. Stretched tight over something that bends wrong.
"Eli." Her voice comes from the shape. Exactly her voice. "Please. I'm so tired."
I open my hand.
The light flares.
It's wearing her face.
Maya's face. Down to the scar on her chin from when she fell off her bike at twelve.
But the face is a mask stretched over something else.
The eyes are too far apart. The mouth moves but the jaw underneath doesn't match.
And when it reaches for me, the hand has too many joints.
Fingers that bend in three places. Tipped with black nails that curve like hooks.
"Come here, little brother." Her voice. Still her voice. "Let me hold you."
I stumble back.
My foot catches and I go down hard, the light sputtering in my palm.
The thing lunges.
I throw my hand up—instinct, not plan—and the light explodes.
Not a glow this time. A flare. Bright enough to burn white spots into my vision.
The thing shrieks. A sound that splits into two pitches.
I see it clear for half a second: too many limbs folded against its body, skin pulled tight over a frame that's all wrong, and Maya's face peeling at the edges like wet paper.
Then it's gone.
Scuttling back into the dark so fast I barely track it.
I'm on my feet before I know I'm moving.
My hand is still lit. Brighter now. The blue-white glow pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
It doesn't hurt but it should. Feels like my bones are full of lightning.
"What the hell—"
A noise behind me. Sharp. Mechanical.
I spin.
Three red dots hover in the dark. Moving. Circling.
Drones.
Council drones.
I know because I've seen them on the news. Sleek black models they use for perimeter patrol.
Except these aren't patrolling.
They're locked on me. On my hand. On the light.
A voice crackles from the nearest one. Automated. Cold.
"Unauthorized light source detected. Suspected Lightborn manifestation. Deploying suppression protocol."
Something clicks.
I run.
The drones scream after me—high-pitched whine of rotors spinning up—and I don't look back. Can't.
The light in my hand is still going, throwing wild shadows against the walls.
I don't know how to turn it off.
I slam into a corner, ricochet off a wall, keep moving. My lungs are burning. The air down here is wrong. Too thick. Every breath tastes like rust.
Behind me, the drones fire.
Not bullets. Something else.
A crack of sound and the wall next to my head explodes into dust.
I duck into a side passage. Narrow and low.
The drones overshoot. I hear them recalibrating, rotors screaming as they try to reverse course.
I need to kill the light.
I shake my hand. Flex my fingers. Try to will it off the same way I accidentally turned it on.
Nothing.
It just glows brighter. Spreading up my wrist now. Tracing lines under my skin like veins filled with neon.
"Turn off turn off turn OFF—"
A drone clears the corner.
Red targeting laser sweeps across my chest.
I dive left and something whistles past my ear. So close I feel the heat.
The wall behind me cracks.
I hit the ground and roll. My shoulder slams into something solid.
A door.
I don't think. Just grab the handle and throw myself through.
The space beyond is smaller. Tighter. I can't see the walls but I can feel them close on both sides.
Some kind of maintenance shaft, maybe.
The drones' rotors echo behind me, but they're not following.
Too narrow.
I crawl forward.
The light in my hand flickers. Dims.
Finally.
It fades to nothing and I'm blind again, gasping in the dark. My hand still tingling like it's asleep.
For a minute I just lie there, trying to breathe quiet.
Listening.
The drones are still outside. Hovering. Searching.
But they're not coming in.
Something else is, though.
I hear it before I see it.
That wet, wrong breathing.
Closer now.
And under it, a voice. Whispering.
"Eli."
Not Maya's voice this time.
Mine.
It's using my voice. Saying my name the way I'd say it, if I was calling for help.
"Eli, where are you? I'm scared."
I press my back against the wall and clamp my hand over my mouth.
The breathing gets louder.
Something drags across the floor. Slow. Deliberate.
"Eli, please. I can't see. Turn on the light."
My hand tingles again.
The light wants to come back. I can feel it building under my skin. Hot and sharp. Like it's got a mind of its own.
I squeeze my fist shut and bite down on my lip hard enough to taste blood.
Don't. Don't don't don't—
The dragging sound stops.
Right in front of me.
I hold my breath.
Something touches my shoe.
Cold. Wet.
Too many fingers.
"Found you," it whispers.
And my hand explodes with light.