The Shadow Read online

  CHAPTER 94

  FOR A FEW seconds after the blast, Times Square was totally silent. The wind died down and every bulb and LED fizzled out. From all sides, people started creeping out of broken buildings, stunned and shaken, not sure if they had just witnessed a nightmare or a miracle or both.

  Near the epicenter of the blast, Lamont lay on his back against a pile of wreckage, barely conscious. Margo crawled to him over the rubble. She wrapped her arms around him. He winced with pain.

  “He’s gone,” Margo said gently. “You won.”

  Lamont shook his head. Even that hurt.

  “That wasn’t Khan dying,” he said. “That was Khan escaping.”

  Lamont leaned forward. His brain was throbbing and it felt like hot knives were stabbing him through the chest from the inside.

  “Maddy,” he said, his voice raw from dust and smoke. “Where’s Maddy?”

  Margo turned with him to scan the area. All around them, pavement heaved up at odd angles and small flames flared up from the crevices. A few yards away, a curled hand was poking out from under a jagged metal plate.

  Maddy’s hand.

  Margo and Lamont crawled over piles of broken asphalt and twisted beams to get to her. For Lamont, every move was agony, but he pushed through it. With Margo’s help, Lamont braced one shoulder against the huge section of metal and heaved it aside. Maddy was on her back underneath. Blood and soot covered her face. She was pale. Still. Not breathing.

  Lamont slid his hand under Maddy’s neck. Her head tipped back, limp.

  He pressed two fingers against the side of her throat. No pulse. Not even a quiver.

  “No!” Lamont shouted, leaning over her. The pain in his chest erupted again. His face twisted with pain and his vision blurred.

  “Move back.” Margo’s voice. Now steady and determined.

  Lamont rocked slowly back onto his heels, his knees still touching Maddy’s body. Margo leaned in close from the other side. She rubbed the dust from Maddy’s lips. Then she placed her mouth over Maddy’s mouth and began to breathe into her. She didn’t know how. She didn’t know why. It was as if Maddy were telling her to do it.

  She exhaled in quick, hard puffs. Again and again. She paused and turned her head to see if Maddy’s chest would rise on its own. It didn’t. Margo leaned in again, her tears falling onto Maddy’s face. She pinched her nostrils. More breaths. Then more. It felt like hours, but it was only minutes. After that, it was no use. Margo stopped. She looked up at Lamont and shook her head. Lamont pressed his fists against his temples as if he were trying to crush his own skull. He gritted his teeth and squeezed out two words.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  It would be hard to list all the things he was sorry for. Sorry for putting the people he loved in danger. Sorry for believing he could protect them. Sorry that he was alive instead of Maddy and Jessica. Sorry that the Shadow’s mighty powers had failed them both.

  Margo rocked gently, eyes closed, tears streaming down her cheeks. She rested her hand on Maddy’s head. She’d known this girl for such a short time, but she loved her in a way that went very deep. And now she felt hollowed out and helpless.

  Suddenly, Maddy’s whole body shuddered. Her neck arched back. Then her mouth opened wide in a loud, rattling gasp.

  CHAPTER 95

  I CAN FEEL myself being carried somewhere. And feeling is about all I can manage at the moment. That and breathing. There’s a jumble of crazy images tumbling through my mind, like pieces of a puzzle. Weird. Bizarre. Surreal. Grandma in her prison jumpsuit. TinGrins in animal masks carrying platters of food. A classroom full of kids with white foam running out of their mouths. A man in a wide-brimmed hat and red scarf running across a desert with mountains in the background. A baby wailing but making no sound. Then a burst of light that erases all of it.

  Now I’m resting against a doorway with something soft behind my head.

  I’m not sure if I’m dead or alive or somewhere in the middle. Khan is not here. I know that much. I can sense it. The absence of him. I also know that my arms hurt, my back hurts, my legs hurt—everything hurts. I guess that’s a good sign.

  There’s smoke in the air and people all around me, crowds of them, moving past in every direction. Then two faces come into focus. Lamont and Margo. I can see them leaning over me. They’re scared. Maybe I’m alive, but dying. Kind of feels that way.

  Margo is holding my hand and whispering something in my ear. But my head is ringing so much that it sounds like she’s talking underwater. All I can hear are muffled syllables. Then, all of a sudden, the ringing stops and I can hear her perfectly. She’s saying my name.

  “Maddy!”

  I nod my head and open my eyes wider. Margo and Lamont lean in closer. Margo is half smiling and half crying.

  “You’re a fighter,” she’s saying. “You’re such a fighter.”

  I don’t know what she means, exactly. Does she mean I’m good at fighting evil? Or good at fighting my way back from the dead? I’m still pretty groggy and it hurts to talk, but I manage to get out one sentence.

  “I come from a long line of fighters.”

  It might be the truest thing I’ve ever said.

  CHAPTER 96

  WHEN SONOR BREECE emerged from the culvert pipe, he wasn’t exactly sure of his location. It had been a frantic scramble from the mansion after the mob broke through the perimeter. He’d made his way across town through the old E-train tunnel and found the enormous cement duct running along the east side of the city. But now the pipe had run out—another unfinished infrastructure project. He was standing on the lip of the final section with nothing ahead of him but an empty ditch.

  Above him at street level, he could see a crowd of citizens filling the roadway. He heard the pop of gunfire and hoped that the government forces in this sector had restored control. But as soon as he climbed up the embankment, he could see that the guns were in the hands of citizens instead. The shots were celebratory, fired into the air—or into video screens.

  Breece hung briefly on the margins of the crowd. He pulled his hood forward to shield his face, then filtered into the flow, moving uptown alongside the East River. In his salvaged clothes, he blended in with the masses. If he kept heading north, he would soon be out of Manhattan and into the safety of the upstate wilderness. Just keep moving, he told himself. Don’t stop for anything.

  Ahead of him on the right, he saw the bridge that led to Rikers Island. For a moment, he thought that the prison compound might be a final holdout, a stronghold for loyalists. But he quickly saw that it was just the opposite. As he watched, squads of TinGrins were being herded over the bridge toward the prison, hands bound behind them with plastic ties. Spilling across the bridge from the other direction were hundreds of newly freed prisoners, still in their yellow jumpsuits, jumping and shouting and embracing everybody along the route to the mainland.

  Breece tried to wind his way through the congestion at the city side of the bridge, but he found himself engulfed in the crowd. The more he tried to force a path forward, the more he kept getting jostled backward. A chunky young man in a yellow jumpsuit bumped hard against Breece’s shoulder, knocking the hood back from his face, just for a second. But long enough. The man started to say “Sorry,” then stopped short.

  “Hey!” he said to Breece. “I know you!” He said it with snappy emphasis—a comic’s timing. Sonor Breece had a photographic memory for names and faces. He remembered this one from an arrest order. Danny Bartoni. Illegal comedy performance. Inciting insurrection.

  “I don’t think so,” Breece muttered. He tried to move away through the crowd, but his path was blocked by a cluster of citizens and prisoners. Former prisoners. Bartoni grabbed his arm and leaned in for a closer look.

  “Yes!” he shouted. “You’re him! You’re Sonor Breece! You’re the Beak!”

  Breece felt a chill run through him. He reflexively reached into his pockets for the stack of bills he had stashed for bribes and s
afe passage. When his hand came out, a legal document fell onto the ground. It was crushed and torn by crowding feet. The bills were knocked from his hands and fluttered through the crowd like confetti.

  “Hey, everybody!” shouted Bartoni. “Look who it is!” He stood on tiptoes and pointed emphatically at Breece, as if introducing the next act at the comedy club. “Let’s hear it for the Beak!”

  Bartoni knew how to command an audience. Even in the noisy intersection, his voice carried. People in the scrum around him quieted and turned his way. They had only seen Sonor Breece in pictures or in rare public appearances, always in Gismonde’s shadow. He looked smaller in person, but the profile was unmistakable—the kind that would look good on a coin. No doubt about it. It was him.

  “Where ya headed, Beak?” a man taunted, pulling Breece’s hood all the way back, exposing his bald skull and wrinkled neck.

  “Time to fly the coop?” said another, speaking right into his face.

  Slow, rhythmic clapping started to rise from the crowd, and then the mantra began…

  “Beak! Beak! Beak!”

  The sound grew louder and more insistent. Breece twisted one way and then the other. But it was no use. There was nowhere to go. The circle started to tighten. Breece tried to raise his arms to push back, buy himself some space, but he was now compressed so tightly that he couldn’t move at all. He could barely breathe. Within seconds, he only had room to swivel his head from side to side, like a terrified bird.

  “Help me!” he screamed. “Somebody help me!”

  “What a comedian!” said Bartoni.

  The circle closed in.

  CHAPTER 97

  LAMONT, MARGO, AND Maddy climbed the steep stairs to Jessica’s apartment. Their clothes were ripped and their faces were streaked with blood and soot. For Lamont, every step was agony.

  When they got to the top of the stairs, Maddy reached up and ran her hand along the ceiling molding over the door. The spare key was stuck in the notch where her grandma always kept it. Maddy pushed the door open.

  As they walked in, Lamont grabbed a gallon container of water from the kitchen counter. They passed the jug around, taking deep gulps until the water spilled down their chins and necks. Maddy realized that Margo was seeing the apartment for the first time.

  “So this is it,” said Maddy. “This is where I live.”

  Margo looked around, taking in the tiny kitchen, the battered tile floor, the chipped walls.

  “Not quite your style, I know,” said Maddy.

  “It’s a home,” said Margo softly. “That’s all that matters.”

  “I can give you the tour,” said Maddy. “Won’t take long.”

  “Sure,” said Margo. “I’d like that.”

  Maddy led the way from the kitchen into the living room, where the sofa took up most of the floor space. A worn blanket hung over the armrest. Bando’s scruffy bed was pushed up against one wall. Maddy’s eyes started to sting, but she blinked back the tears. She took a deep breath, in and out.

  “This is me,” she said, leading the way through the curtain into her tiny alcove. Discarded clothes covered the rumpled bed and half-melted candles lined the windowsill.

  “Suits you,” said Margo.

  They walked back into the hall and hooked around the partition into Jessica’s room. The bed was neatly made and three pairs of shoes were lined up against the wall. A hairbrush and a jar of lotion sat on the polished nightstand.

  “And this is…this was Grandma’s,” said Maddy.

  Margo ran her fingers along the blanket on the bed and picked up the jar from the nightstand. She lifted it to her nose, closed her eyes, and sniffed.

  “Lilac,” she said, with a soft smile.

  “That was her,” said Maddy. “That’s how she always smelled. Like lilacs.”

  Margo pushed aside the pale blue curtains and paused for a moment to look out on the street below. She turned to follow Maddy back into the living room. Then suddenly, she froze. On the dresser near the door sat a photograph of a young woman. A blonde. Margo was staring at a black-and-white image of herself.

  “Maddy,” she called out. “Why is this here? How is this here?”

  Maddy turned back into the room. Lamont stepped into the doorway. He let Maddy do the talking. And Maddy could only say what she knew.

  “It was Grandma’s,” she said. “She got it from her parents.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Margo softly.

  She took the photograph in her hands. She passed her fingers lightly over the image of her own face. She remembered the day it was taken and the name of the studio. And she remembered how much she was looking forward to seeing Lamont at the restaurant that night. That’s when she would tell him…

  Suddenly, Margo’s knees gave way. Lamont jumped forward to catch her as she fell. He helped her onto the bed. Margo felt a rush in her head and saw a flash of images, like a movie playing in fast motion. A restaurant with toys hanging from the ceiling. Glittering lights. People laughing. Lamont smiling. And then—her hand on her belly over a smooth white dress.

  Margo bent forward, silent. Tears started pouring down her face.

  “What is it?” said Lamont. “What’s wrong?”

  Margo’s throat was burning. She could hardly speak.

  “Lamont,” she said softly. “I was going to tell you—that night. I was planning to tell you…”

  Lamont wrapped his arms around Margo’s shoulders. She was trembling, struggling to find the words.

  “Lamont,” she said, “I was…I was pregnant.”

  Lamont’s face went white as Margo shuddered in his arms. And then a jumble of feelings rushed into his mind at the same time—sadness, pain, regret, guilt. That was her secret! He should have guessed that night. He should have known! Margo was sobbing so hard now that her words came in short, unfinished bursts.

  “We lost everything…” she said softly. “We lost…” She couldn’t finish her thought. It hurt too much.

  CHAPTER 98

  MADDY SILENTLY STEPPED out into the hall and walked quietly to her room. She knelt down and reached under her bed. From inside the box of Shadow magazines she pulled the medical record—the page she’d saved from the warehouse file. The one she didn’t truly understand until this very moment.

  She walked back into Jessica’s room. Margo looked up, her eyes red.

  “My God, Maddy,” she said. “All those years ago. Lamont and I. We lost …we lost our baby.”

  Maddy sat down on the bed with the yellowed paper folded in her hand.

  There was nothing to do but to just say it, plain and simple.

  “No,” said Maddy softly. “You didn’t.”

  She unfolded the paper and handed it to Margo.

  Margo held the paper up. Lamont looked over her shoulder. It took a few seconds for them to realize what they were looking at, and a few more to comprehend the scribbled notes at the top:

  Year. Date. Time of birth.

  Margo stiffened. She inhaled and exhaled slowly. Her heart was racing. She looked at Lamont.

  “No,” she said. “No. It’s not possible.”

  Maddy understood. She’d thought it was impossible too. But now she realized that it was true. And she finally knew how it all fit together. She sat down on the bed.

  “I know you don’t remember,” she said, “but it happened. It did. You delivered a daughter. While you were sleeping. They never wanted you to know. Your daughter grew and got married and had children. And those children had children—all the way down to me. I didn’t come out of nowhere. I’m not some random freak. I’m part of you. I come from you. From both of you.”

  Lamont and Margo looked at each other, stunned and silent. In their mental fog, they were both doing the same calculations, trying to add up the decades and generations that had led to this place, this time, this girl.

  Their living, breathing descendant.

  CHAPTER 99

  I DON’T KNOW what I was expectin
g. Cheers. Shouts of joy. A group hug. Instead, Margo and Lamont just keep staring at me like I’m some alien creature. Margo won’t let go of the paper. She’s holding on to it for dear life.

  “You must have wondered,” I say. “Why was I the one? Of all the people in the world, why was I picked to find you? Did you think it was some crazy coincidence? And my powers—mind control, invisibility. Did you think those were just learned skills? Something I picked up from a Shadow novel?”

  Margo looks around the room. She’s still wobbly, but I can see her mind turning.

  “Jessica…” she says to herself, like she’s trying to solve a riddle. “She was…?”

  “Your great-great-granddaughter,” I say. “Making me your great-great-great-great-granddaughter.” I count out the “greats” on my fingers.

  It’s hard for me to wrap my head around it. But for Margo, it’s too much. She stands up. She’s a little shaky on her feet, but her voice is clear.

  “I need some air,” she says. “I need to think.”

  She walks out through the living room. I hear the front door close behind her.

  Lamont looks at me.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” he asks. “Why didn’t you say something as soon as you found that file? Why did you keep it to yourself?”

  “Because it didn’t seem real,” I tell him. “I didn’t really believe it, until…”

  “Until when?” asks Lamont.

  “Until today,” I say. “Until just now. I had to hear Margo say it. About the beginning. About her secret. So did you.”

  Lamont reaches over and hugs me. He knows I’m right.

  We walk downstairs and find Margo sitting on the front steps of the building. The sun is getting low in the sky. This is the time of day when people usually start to take cover from TinGrin patrols. But today there aren’t any patrols. Now the TinGrins are the ones on the run. Up the street, a couple of kids are throwing stones at a video screen on a light pole.