4. Vai

Iran for the door, pulled my leg back, and snapped at it.

I didn't want to waste time checking if it was already unlocked.

The door flew open, the latch catching on the edge and sending a shard of splintered wood to one side.

Time seemed to slow as I drew my blaster pistol and took aim.

My heart was in my throat as I raised my eyes and locked onto the demon clutching her naked form.

His quivering member stood extended and long, prepared to dive deep inside her velvet folds and claim her for himself.

The creature turned, his grin broadening at the sight of me there, his teeth gleaming sharp in the moonlight as he grabbed Emma's hips and drew back to slam inside her.

My blaster pistol was already aimed at his chest.

All I had to do was pull the trigger.

I did it without hesitation.

Once, twice, three times.

Every shot hit home.

The creature's torso jerked one way and then the other as a bolt of plasma took each of his shoulders.

The third hit him full bore in the sternum, knocking him off the bed.

He slammed into the floor with a heavy thud.

The world turned silent, save for Emma's panting breaths, her breasts rising and falling with each intake and expulsion of air.

Her eyes were fixed on the fallen figure on the other side of the bed.

I drew up to her, pistol focused on my Shadow, his leg still curled around the bed's corner.

Emma's eyes filled with tears and rolled down her cheeks.

She gibbered something unintelligible and shook her head in shock.

"Hey," I said. "Hey. Everything's going to be fine."

She turned to look up at me.

When our eyes met, I felt a click, and a look of confusion came over her face.

Her eyes moved between me and the creature lying on the floor at the foot of her bed.

And her confusion deepened.

I lowered the pistol but kept it at the ready.

"It's okay," I said, approaching her slowly. "You're safe now."

Emma shuffled backward to avoid me touching her.

She wrapped an arm around her chest, covering her nakedness.

The poor thing was terrified.

This was the very last way I wanted us to meet for the first time.

I scanned the floor and found her clothes.

I scooped them up and handed them to her.

"Get dressed. We need to get as far from here as we can. Trust me. I'll protect you."

Emma just stared at me, the shock already beginning to wear off.

She slid her dress on over her head.

She blinked, and the mist of confusion that'd descended over her eyes began to dissipate.

"What… What's going on?"

Where did I even start to answer that question?

I'd rehearsed this moment a thousand times but in all those instances the situation never looked anything like this.

"There's… a lot going on here you don't know… things that might sound outlandish unless you know the whole story. If you come with me, I promise they'll make sense."

I extended a hand to her.

She eyed it uncertainly, glancing once more at the creature on the floor.

She took my hand in hers.

Her skin was so soft, so smooth.

I smiled and nodded comfortingly at her.

"We need to leave right away. We don't have time to pack your things—"

I stiffened my arm to help pull Emma up onto her feet but she pulled me forward.

I leaned over to cater to her movement.

She raised her other hand.

Moonlight winked off something sharp and metallic in her hand.

I said, "No—"

I barely managed to turn my head as she swung the blade around and sliced me across the cheek.

I released her hand and pressed my fingers over the wound that spurted blood.

Emma bolted up onto her feet and ran for the door.

"Wait! Emma! Wait!"

She didn't so much as turn to glance back over her shoulder as she disappeared down the hallway.

I ran to the door and caught sight of Emma as she slipped on a pair of sneakers and disappeared into the night.

"Emma!" I bellowed.

I was too late.

She was gone.

Emma might have slippedthrough my fingers but at least part of my plan had come to fruition.

I wanted to get her out of this apartment.

It might not have happened the way I had hoped but the important thing was she was getting as far away from here as possible.

As far from him as possible.

It had been close.

Too close.

Within inches of him claiming her for himself.

Then the bond between us would have been broken and she would have belonged to my Shadow for all time.

Then I would have been doomed to a life of solitude for the rest of my days.

Just the sight of him naked with her was enough to make me sick to my stomach.

My Shadow must have given her a powerful dose of poison for her to fall so hard for him the way she had.

But it wasn't real.

They were fake emotions, cultivated for the demon to use her this one time and make her supplicant to him.

Then, once he had spilled his seed inside her, she would belong to him.

That hadn't happened.

And it wouldn't, so long as I had anything to say about it.

I turned back to the bed.

I had to finish off the creature.

If I was quick, I could slow down the threat to her right here and now.

There was no way to kill the beast, not armed as I was, but I could give it enough wounds that it needed to heal from before it could give chase once more.

I checked the plasma readout on my blaster pistol.

More than enough to disable this monster.

I would finish him off and then go find the girl.

I could sense her out there now, running into the night, zigzagging through the streets.

Panicked.

Scared.

Confused.

I couldn't imagine what it must feel like to have witnessed what she had and not know what was going on.

I aimed my blaster at the floor as I rounded the bed.

If my senses had been a little sharper, had been less full of Emma, I might have noticed the leg that'd lay flopped over the corner of the bed was no longer there.

When I lowered my blaster pistol to the figure, I found the space empty.

Iav wasn't there.

A fist slammed into the back of my head, sending me sprawling.

I shoved myself off the wall and collapsed on the bed.

My Shadow struck at the wall where I should have landed.

The concrete gave way to his powerful fist.

I rolled over, my blaster pistol still clutched tight.

I took aim at the thick shadow in the corner and fired.

A hand swung from the darkness and knocked the pistol from my hands.

I didn't lose my grip.

The blast of plasma illuminated the room for a fraction of a second before the pure energy burnt a hole in the wall.

I spotted the dark humanoid shape, pressed against the ceiling.

It ducked and spun to one side as I unloaded my pistol at it.

The bolts crackled as they zipped through the air, missing the creature by inches.

I kept firing.

In each millisecond of flashing light, the creature slithered, as graceful and terrible as water.

In many ways, Iav and I were the same.

He had a good idea of what I was going to do before I did it, just as I knew the same thing about him.

He would either go for the door to escape and chase after Emma or throw himself at me and attempt to wrestle the pistol from my grasp.

I rolled from the bed and onto the floor, placing myself between him and the door.

Any second now I would see a tiny movement of the shadows and open fire.

A second came.

Then went.

He knew I knew what he would do.

And that didn't give him much incentive to do it.

Smash!

The window exploded, the shards of glass glinting like snow as they sailed toward the ground.

The creature perched in the window frame, grinning back at me the way he had moments earlier when he prepared to plunge into Emma.

The creature leaped out onto the street below.

I ran to the window and took aim with my pistol.

I appraised the shadows for movement but the creature had already gone.

He moved like the wind in the shadows.

Darkness was his home.

It would be hours yet before daylight warmed the skin of my face and I would have the advantage.

My Shadow would take after Emma.

She'd gotten some distance from us already.

It was a head start but not much of one.

My Shadow could sense her every bit as much as I could.

This world was alien to me.

Where would she run?

Who would she go to for help?

And could I reach her before the creature did?

I leapedfrom the window and landed in the shadows.

I rolled up onto my feet and immediately spun around, looking for the attack I knew could come at me from the darkness.

None did.

Not yet.

That didn't mean it wouldn't—only when I least expected it.

My Shadow might look like me but he was anything but.

He was my opposite, my darker side, identical to me in every way but where it mattered.

I was birthed in the light, he in the dark.

Similar and yet so different.

The same ingredients were used to make us but his soul had been twisted and morphed into something darker.

And more deadly.

I ran for the low wall that marked the small front garden of the property.

I jumped over it and entered the small circle of golden streetlight.

I felt stronger already.

I peered at the fringes of darkness and the trail of breadcrumbs that drifted in either direction down the street.

No sign of the monster.

No sign of Emma either.

My Shadow had a head start and it was more than he needed.

I took off at a run toward the throbbing light of Emma in the distance.

"Computer," I said. "I need you to help me get to the girl."

"You misplaced her already?"Computer said.

I could imagine him rolling his eyes—if he had eyes to roll, that is.

"Will you just get on with it?" I snapped.

"No need to be so grouchy."

I made a mental note to alter Computer's personality settings when I returned to my ship.

I bolted around a corner and almost flew headlong into a couple taking a midnight stroll.

"Computer. Gauge Emma's speed and direction. Triangulate where she might go for help. I can't afford to waste a single second."

Being born and raised in darkness provided my Shadow with certain strengths.

His senses were stronger than those born in the light and could likely smell Emma and the trail she left in her wake.

If Iav was to reach her first, he would not be as patient with her as he had the first time.

"Affirmative," Computer said. "Processing now."

The Shadows' naturally aggressive demeanor made them good hunters but poor researchers.

The light gifted us with wits able to develop advanced technology that was beyond the Shadow.

But that didn't stop them from stealing every piece of technology we had and backward engineer it for their own purposes.

We've been at war with each other for as long as we existed.

There had never been peace and never would be.

We were two halves of the same coin, darkness and light, and could not exist peacefully in the same galaxy.

"Location detected," Computer said. "The humans often seek help from a place known as a ‘police station.' She appears to be heading toward one now."

"Find me a shortcut. I need to reach her faster than my Shadow."

"Calculating."

Please let me reach Emma before my Shadow, I prayed.

I was the only chance she had.

Both me and my Shadow were driven to mate.

Unfortunately for Emma, she was both our fated mate.

He would stop at nothing to take her.

We born in the light could never take without permission.

She had to give herself freely.

And if my Shadow succeeded, it would be over for me.

I would never mate again.

I would never love again.

And the fate that would befall her…

It was a thousand times worse than the one that would befall me.