Enshadowed

“You heard me,” he said. “I hated the games. I hated the practices. I hated the tailgating and the stupid pep rallies. The only reason I did it was because everyone told me I should. Because it made my old man happy. Because I thought it made you happy.”

He shook his head, yanking the yellow ties so the neck of the bag drew tight. He tied them off in a knot. “Now,” he said, and stuffed the nearby stack of T-shirts and locker photos into the duffel. Isobel thought she even recognized Nikki’s smiling face in one of them before he zipped the bag shut. “Now I can just forget about it. Right? Start over. Be something else. So thanks for that, Izo. But please . . .”

He looped the strap of the duffel over his head and positioned the bag on his back. Anchoring himself with one of the crutches, he pulled himself onto his feet again. “Don’t do me any more favors.”

He picked up the black garbage bag with his free hand and limped toward her. Isobel stepped aside to allow him access to the enormous trash can behind her. He hoisted the bag over its edge and let it fall in with a whoosh.

Then he turned to her and pointed to the remaining crutch.

Wordlessly, she handed it to him.

He slid it under his arm.

Isobel expected him to walk right past her after that, to leave without saying anything else. But he lingered, edging in closer, his crutches creaking.

“You know . . . ,” he began, his voice dropping to a whisper, “I still hear the screaming. If my head ever gets too quiet, that’s when it starts up. It’s like when you hit the snooze button and then, just as soon as you begin to doze, the alarm goes off again. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and there’s blood all over my hands. And all down my arms.” Adjusting his weight, Brad extended one of his arms out in front of him, staring at it as he flipped it from front to back. “And I have to blink several times before it’ll go away.” His gaze shifted back to her. “What about you, Izo? What do you see?”

Isobel didn’t move. Her eyes remained trapped by his. She told herself not to speak, not wanting to let on how much he was scaring her.

“Can I tell you something?” He tilted his head, moving in closer still, so close that she could feel his breath against her cheek. “Do you want to know what my grandma used to say about kisses on the forehead?”

He pressed his lips to her brow, holding the silk soft kiss for a long moment while Isobel stood in place, unable to bring herself to shove him away.

“She told me it’s the kind of kiss we save for the dead.”

Isobel’s eyes snapped open wide. She took an immediate step back from him, her hands forming into fists.

But he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Instead he seemed transfixed by something behind her. “A word to the wise,” he added in a murmur. “Cover your mirrors. That’s how they find you.”

With that, he turned away from her, his crutches clanking as he moved toward the door. He pushed through without looking back, leaving her there alone.

She stared after him, suddenly hyperaware of the mirror at her back.

A nagging feeling settled over her. It was that same sensation she’d felt that night in the park behind her house before being chased by the Nocs. Like there were a thousand invisible eyes aimed at her back, waiting for her to notice them so they could descend and devour.

Her body told her to start moving, to walk away as fast as she could, to leave right that second and not look back. But her mind, her instinct, told her there was something she needed to see.

She pivoted slowly in place, like a music-box ballerina winding down on its pedestal.

There, in the mirror, standing only a few short feet behind her, Isobel saw him.

It was the pure blackness of his eyes that stopped her breathing. They peered right through her. White ash caked his boots like flour, turning them from black to gray.

“Varen?”

He watched her with an expression as unreadable as it was unchanging. It was that cold and stark blank-canvas look of his she’d always found so unsettling, that mask of nothingness that refused to give anything away.

He blinked, and the lights flickered.

Isobel stood paralyzed, helpless to move or utter a single syllable as he slipped between the lockers and vanished.

She spun to look behind her. The aisle stood empty. As she ran the length of it, checking between each of the alcoves, panic swelled in her chest. Still, she found no trace, no scrap of evidence that he’d ever been there.

She whipped her head to look back at the mirror, confronted only with the mad confusion of her own reflection.