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Dekka Talent
Aristotle Adamo (aka “Armo”)
Justin DeVeere (aka “Knightmare”)
Malik Tenerife
Hugo Rojas (aka “Cruz”)
Drake Merwin
Francis Specter
CHAPTER 29
Aftermath
SHADE DARBY DID not immediately return to the hospital. Instead, she drove aimlessly along the cracked and decaying freeways of Southern California. The car she drove was stolen. The money she spent for gas was stolen.
The things she could not do formed a damning list that churned endlessly in her head.
She could not bring back the dead.
She could not go home.
She could not undo what she had done to herself, or to Cruz.
Or to Malik.
She pulled off to the side of the road in . . . she wasn’t sure where . . . and cried. The last time she had cried was four years earlier, and she had vowed then . . . well, she had vowed a revenge she had now failed to perform, an impossible revenge. In fact, she had screwed up everything. The proof was lying in a hospital gritting his teeth against pain Shade could hardly imagine. Didn’t want to imagine.
Her friend Cruz was staying with Malik, having to watch him, to listen to his cries. She was staying in morph, playing the part of nurse, and withstanding the insinuating attentions of the Dark Watchers for hour after hour.
Sorry, Cruz.
Sorry, Dad.
Sorry, Malik.
Sorry, Mom.
Such a terrible long list of people to apologize to. If she spent the rest of her life groveling and crying, she would never be able to find . . .
Find what, Shade Darby? Find what? Forgiveness. Redemption?
No. Only one goal was attainable now. Only one.
Revenge.
As her tears dried, the other part of Shade, the cool observer, the analyst, what Cruz called “the shark,” slowly reemerged.
What had happened had happened. What was done was done.
The world was changing. The old order was dead or dying. The center, to quote the poem, was not holding; it was coming apart. And rough beasts, their hour come round at last, were already slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.
Hero, villain, monster.
She, Shade Darby, had power. It didn’t matter anymore how it had happened, only that it was true. She had power, and the villains and monsters would have to be stopped. There was no other way forward for her, no escape from her fate.
