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Why hadn’t Moa told me?
Because she hadn’t known if they’d actually come, and she didn’t want to hurt me if they didn’t.
The Warden narrowed her eyes. “You’re making a very dangerous mistake here, Mr. and Mrs. Weston.”
My father stepped forward, his booming voice carrying. “I made my mistake when I listened to you, when I believed the things you told me. I abandoned my own daughter because I was afraid, and I won’t be a coward any longer.”
“You know what we are up again,” the Warden said to my mother as though she could convince her more easily. “Out of anyone here, you know what they’re really like. You know the sacrifices that have to be made.”
My mother shook her head. “I can’t make these choices on my own, but I can say that people deserve the right to know the truth. This will go to the public, but this time, the citizens will vote with the truth, with knowing everything and making a real choice.”
The Warden pressed her lips together, then spoke to the guards around her. “This changes nothing—kill the shades. We’ll deal with the fallout later.”
Except, no one pulled a trigger.
Then again, this had been the point. It was easy to do evil things in the darkness, to assure oneself that the actions were justified. It was different when others saw, when someone had to own up to it.
It seemed none of the guards were quite willing to kill a bunch of unarmed shades—including children—while on film.
It wasn’t that they were good people who didn’t want to kill people. Instead, I suspected they just knew that once they crossed that line, once they fired on unarmed people, they wouldn’t be able to easily come back from that.
The Warden turned and shouted at her men, but none followed her orders. It was the first time she appeared so fragile, so alone. Without the might of Larkwood behind her, without the ability to hide what she’d done, she had no power.
She walked forward, toward me, and I followed suit to meet her at the center.
“You think you’ve won? I told you the truth, tried to make you understandwhywhat I do is important, but even after that, you still don’t get it. You still don’t understand what’s at risk.” She sighed, looking every day of her age suddenly. “Well, you have changed things, I’ll give you that. One way or another, Larkwood will never be the same after today.” She reached into her pocket, and warning bells went off in my head.
Even still, I couldn’t react fast enough. She pulled a small round device from her pocket. Her words before came back to me, when she’d said they’d made devices as small as palm-sized orbs. “Believe it or not, everything I’ve done has been to save us all. Someone has to be the villain, someone has to do the hard things people don’t want to do, and I’m happy to make that sacrifice.”
“It’s over,”I mouthed to her.
She nodded. “It is for me, but this is all bigger than I am. So, if you’re determined to show the public the truth, let’s make sure they see what needs to be seen.”
Her words hit me, coming together so quickly that I went to reach for her. It was too late, though. She used her thumb to press the button on the round device, and a cracking echoed around us.
I closed my hands on my ears, trying to shut out that noise, but it was gone as soon as it happened.
A shimmering tear had appeared right where the device had been, making it hard to see her through it. Still, this wasn’t the tear I’d seen before in the video. Or, it might have been better to say it was similar, but whereas only shadows moved in the last one, something came through it this time.
I saw the beast of the Warden’s nightmares, the thing like a starving, mange-covered bear as it slid through the shimmering space.
It didn’t belong in our world, that much was obvious. It seemed at odds with everything around, and it locked its eyes on the Warden.
I recalled what she’d said about her mark, about the thing stalking her, and I had to admit…she was right. The thing didn’t give a damn about anyone else, about anything beyond the Warden.
And she didn’t run. She didn’t try to escape it. She stared back at it, no tremor to her voice when she spoke. “Go on. You’ve wanted me for all these years, and it’s finally your chance.”
The beast’s tail twitched, and it waited only a moment before it dove forward on her. It happened so fast I struggled to believe it, to follow. It took the Warden and headed back for the tear.
I rushed forward, wanting to stop this. I didn’t care what the Warden had done—I wouldn’t leave anyone to such a fate.
A hand wrapped around my arm, yanking me backward. I didn’t understand why at first until something that resembled a tentacle swung toward me from the tear. I fell against a hard chest, pushed away to find Deacon there, having saved me.
Still, the delay was enough for the beast to leap back into the tear, taking the Warden with him, her pained screams like daggers.
Kit stepped forward and raised his hand. He grasped the tentacle, the thing releasing a sharp, panicked noise just before ash fell from Kit’s hand. It was as if that had let the thing know to retreat, because it pulled the stub back and the tear closed, the silence falling around us as if it had never been there at all.
I wanted to collapse. My knees threatened to give out as the reality hit me.
