Share
The Last Stand iii
~ Marx was leading the last assault; one meant to be a distraction. Ava moved her palm away from the wound on her side. Bleeding still felt strange to her. Martha was the only one with whom she could go into details about her plans.
“Penny has the last rune. All she has to do is plant it on him. When she does, we have only a few minutes to get our part done,” she said to Martha.
“What is our part?”
“I’m going to use you like an amplifier. I know how it sounds and yes, it is dangerous. For me more than you.”
“Then we can’t do it,” Martha said. “If you’re going to get hurt—”
“I have a contingency for that as well.”
“Ava—”
She
Related chapters
Enter the Shadows 27. Epilogue: After the Shadows
~ Marx stood looking at the carbonated lump that used to be four people he knew. Four people he loved. Ava, Lochlan, Zack, and Dempsey. Around him, the grass had grown again. The earth showed no signs of the battle that raged there. Mother earth had healed, but he had not. None of the others had. The world was safe, but a gap remained in their hearts that could never be filled. Around the base of the carbon memorial, laid fresh flowers. Every day for the past six months, Martha came with a new bouquet. Today was no different. He arrived as she did. “You came,” she had said to him when she saw him. In her hands, she had more than a dozen bulbs of tulips. Her summer dress fluttered in the breeze, strands of her now brown hair escaping her ponytail. The smile she gave him out shunned the sun, and Marx, for the life
Enter the Shadows 1. The Purest Heart i
~ Penny looked up from her hot chocolate, frowning at the sheets of rain cascading on the other side of the window. It was only one in the afternoon but it looked like late evening. The dark clouds, which blotted out most of the light, and bringing with it heavy rains, left Chaise Point district wet and bleak. The rain made everything cumbersome. Penny never seemed to have an umbrella on hand when it started raining. On top of that, she was always getting caught in the rain. She sat there drenched and miserable, nursing her hot chocolate, which had already gone cold. She’d taken the initiative to go to work on her day off and get some extra work done. Normally, she would have been alone in the office on a Saturday. Penny was probably the only one who didn’t have family or friends to be with instead of camping out at her office on a weekend. She’d walked halfway to work when the rain started to fall. It hadn’t even been cloudy. Well, maybe it was a little cloudy, but not the kind of cl
Enter the Shadows The Purest Heart ii
~ Obsessive.That was what she had become, over a complete and utter stranger no less. She couldn’t help wondering if the man—Lochlan—had been alright after she bolted from the diner like a scared rabbit. Her reaction made no sense to her. He hadn’t been rude, he hadn’t threatened her, yet she had felt... threatened. Guilt nagged her, as she wasn’t the kind of person to see someone else in need and walk the other way. Or in this case, run the other way. His eyes haunted her. They had started a pure emerald green with flecks of gold, and as she stared into them they changed. Peculiar and intense were the words she would use to describe his eyes. Beautiful was another.Her obsession with him led to paranoia. Penny thought she was seeing the man everywhere she went. It wasn’t bad enough that his eyes followed her into her
Enter the Shadows The Purest Heart iii
~ Covered in a cold sweat, Penny woke up from her nightmare. It took some time for the ghastly images to clear from her mind, and for her eyes to adjust to the dim light streaming through the windows into the room. This was not her apartment. She looked down where she sat on a bed that was not hers, wearing a shirt that was several sizes too big to be her own. Penny froze where she sat, panic tightening her chest. She moved nothing but her eyes now scanning the room, most of which was in shadows. To her left, the shadow shifted. Penny sat there staring into the darkness; she felt it staring back. Two eyes, the shade of pure gold, came from the shadows walking towards the bed.What she saw confirmed that it had not been a nightmare. The whole thing had been real. He had been real. Penny was up and off the bed, running through the door that had been left ajar. Down the hall, down the stairs, and through the
Enter the Shadows The Purest Heart iv
~ “Penny.” He called her name several times before she came out of her thoughts. Her forebodings persisted.Tears streamed down her face. She stood there before him, unable to stop the sudden outburst of sobbing that shook her body. Penny crumbled to the ground and just wept. The images she had tried to block from her mind all came tumbling out of the closet, jumbled and frantic.When he came over to her, holding onto her shoulder, trying to comfort her, she didn’t push him away. “Listen to me.” Penny didn’t notice the slight change in the timbre of his voice. Using a finger, he lifted her chin, leveling their eyes. “Calm down.”Instantly, she did. Her hysteria died down to a mild fit of sobbing. His eyes, pure gold, held hers until the sobs died out completely. Hands
Enter the Shadows The Purest Heart v
~ It was just her luck being a pure heart. Some endangered subset of humanity everyone was searching for. And willing to kill for. Penny didn’t feel particularly special that she was in high demand. Naturally overt to attention, she was none too pleased that two different species were locked on to her. The sensible thing would be to go to the police, seek protection, but how sensible was it to tell anyone what she knew. They would be laughing their heads off while they dragged her to the nearest psych ward. Penny rolled over onto her side looking at the picture of her parents, and her brother sitting on her nightstand. She missed them. More than anything in the world, she missed them. They had been her everything and after they—left, she had nothing. Penny had resigned herself to a quiet, nondescript, predictable life without danger, and or excitement.
Enter the Shadows The Purest Heart vi
~ As he had told her, Lochlan was outside waiting for her after work. By Thursday, the guilt of what she had said to him was unbearable. “Look, Lochlan, about what I said the other day.” “Don’t worry about it,” he said, stopping at a red light. “Just listen to me, please.” He glanced over at her then back on the road. “It was a jerk thing to say. You didn’t make me a pure heart. And you’ve been going out of your way to keep me safe. If it wasn’t for you I’d either be dead or a vampire right now. I owe you.” He shifted the car into gear as the light turned green. He made a right turn. “You owe me nothing, Penny.” She sat back in
Enter the Shadows 2. Those Red Eyes i
~ It started as a regular day. Regular in the sense that Penny went to work pretending as if all was well. Jumping at every random sound, looking over her shoulders, being paranoid that everyone who glanced in her direction was watching her. That was her regular day now. One cloaked by a sense of dread with a healthy dose of paranoia, however, justified. The seriousness of her situation didn't hit home until one night she came out of the business complex where her office was located, and there was no Lochlan. She had stood just inside the glass doors, waiting for him, thinking that he had been late, but he never showed. That left Penny to decide between braving the streets alone or staying at her office. She chose the latter. She had a change of clothes there. None would be the wiser. With him gone, she brought a change of clothes with her every day in
Latest chapter
- Enter the Shadows 27. Epilogue: After the Shadows
- Enter the Shadows The Last Stand iii
- Enter the Shadows The Last Stand ii
- Enter the Shadows 26. The Last Stand i
- Enter the Shadows To Hell and Back xii
- Enter the Shadows To Hell and Back xi
- Enter the Shadows To Hell and Back x
- Enter the Shadows To Hell and Back ix
- Enter the Shadows To Hell and Back viii
