Chapter Club: The Shadowrunner Chapter 22
Happy Friday! I’m excited to bring you another excerpt from The Shadowrunner. The publication process is ramping up, so be on the lookout for a cover reveal in the next week or so!
Want to start from the beginning? You can find Chapter 1 here!
Last Time
Luke is the chief police officer in a small Arizona town called Abeja
His daughter, Lucy, has magical abilities that she is keeping secret from her parents.
A Texan named Silvia Montes was murdered not far from Luke’s house. Lucy both met Silvia prior to her murder and saw the murderer on the night of the crime. She has come to call the murderer a dragon
The murderer has attacked several other victims, leaving them in comas
The latest victims are Officers Pollard and Bradley, two of the officers that work with Luke
A federal agent named Abigail Morrison is also investigating these strange occurrences as part of her work with an agency specializing in magical threats. Lucy has drawn her attention.
Lucy rolled over and felt paper crinkle under her cheek. She opened her eyes and saw the rosy pink glow of the sun through the window. A few more blinks woke her enough to realize that she had rolled onto a note.
Something came up at work. Mom will be home soon. Love you, Dad.
That happened sometimes. Since it was Saturday she wouldn’t need to walk over to the neighbor’s house to get a ride. She was grateful for that. Better to stay inside.
Lucy carried the note with her down the stairs to the kitchen and left it on the counter while she pulled a package of instant oatmeal from one of the pantry’s lower shelves. She moved the stool over to the oven and grabbed the electric kettle from where Mom normally kept it. After moving the stool again to the sink, she filled the kettle before returning it to the small base that would heat up the water inside. While she waited, she grabbed a cup, a bowl, and a spoon and placed them on the counter.
She wasn’t allowed to use the computer when Mom and Dad weren’t home, so she went back upstairs and grabbed the book she had brought home from school. Her teacher had suggested she read it after she turned in her creative writing assignment about a dog that went to Phoenix. This book was about cats and apparently there were a lot of them.
With the water now boiling, Lucy made her oatmeal and poured herself a glass of milk from the half-gallon bottle in the fridge. She opened her book and started to read while she waited for the hot oatmeal to cool. She had just managed to eat a few bites of still too-hot cinnamon raisin oatmeal when she heard a knock at the door.
Mom must have ordered something online. Lucy glanced at the page she was on and closed the book. She jumped down from her chair, walked to the front door, and pulled it open.
There wasn’t a package on the doorstep. Instead, there was a tall woman wearing a coat the color of sand. Her eyes were blue and sharp like knives. Lucy let out a small “oh,” when she saw the woman.
“Hello. Are your parents home?” the woman asked.
Mom had told Lucy how to answer this question on a morning like this. It was important to be polite, but polite didn’t always mean honest.
“My mom’s busy right now. Can I give her a message?”
The woman smiled. “My name is Abby. I work for the government. I’m trying to track down some dangerous people and I was wondering if your parents had seen anything suspicious.”
“I can give you my mom’s phone so you can text her,” Lucy offered. “Or I could give her your number.”
The woman laughed. It was the kind of laugh that grown-ups used right before they told her that she was so grown up. But this laugh was different. Wrong. Like an orange that was too squishy.
“Why don’t I give you my phone number?” the woman said.
“Okay, one second,” Lucy replied. She closed the door and went to go get a notepad and pen from the kitchen. As she pulled a pen from the junk drawer, she thought about not answering the door again. Maybe she could just turn the lock, the big one that went into the door frame, and then wait for Mom to get home. Mom and Dad had said she didn’t need to be polite if she felt like she was in danger and something felt off about this woman. But she didn’t know what it was, and Mom said that it was important not to judge people just because they looked different. The two pieces of advice were like a square hole and a round stick. They didn’t fit together quite right, but if she didn’t figure out how to make them work, something else could go wrong.
Then again, the woman would just give her her phone number and then they could be done. Then she could lock the door and wait for Mom to come home, and it wouldn’t be rude.
Resolved, Lucy returned to the door and offered the woman the pen and paper, making sure that she kept one hand on the door knob and most of her body inside the house.
“Thank you! What’s your name, sweetie?” The woman asked as she started writing on the paper.
“I’m not comfortable telling you my name, but my mom’s name is Jenni.”
The woman laughed again and Lucy felt that same sense of wrongness that she did before.
“You’re a smart girl,” she said with the tone that sounded like praise. “Maybe you could help me. Tell me, have you seen anyone who looked dangerous, but you couldn’t say why?”
Lucy thought back to when she had been playing with the blocks and Dad had asked her about the woman who had come to take her ghost friend away. She had felt scared then, scared that there was something that Dad couldn’t solve on his own. Now she felt the same, but multiplied by ten.
“No. Can I have the paper back?” She didn’t bother to say please.
While the woman continued smiling, Lucy sensed something strained in her eyes. She returned the stationary to Lucy, who took it while keeping one hand on the door handle.
“My mom will call you soon,” Lucy said.
She didn’t wait for a response. She closed the door and flipped the switch on the deadbolt. She stood there for a moment, hardly daring to breathe. Then she darted over to the couch and climbed up to the window. It was covered by blinds, but she lifted one of the slats with her finger. Through the small opening, she watched the woman as she walked down the drive way. Lucy kept her eyes fixed on the woman as she turned down the sidewalk.
She wanted to make sure the woman didn’t disappear.
Lucy had been perched on the back of the couch for about half an hour when Mom’s car pulled into the driveway. She slipped down and ran over to the door, burying her face in her mother’s pant leg right as she walked through the door.
Mom gasped. “Hi, Lucy. What’s wrong?”
Tears pricked the edges of Lucy’s eyes. All of the fear she had hid behind a brave face was now spilling out of her like water through a leaky bucket.
“There… there was… somebody came… and I… I opened the door… and…” she choked through tears.
Mom dropped her bag on the ground and crouched down next to Lucy. “What happened, sweetie? Where’s your dad?”
Unable to speak, she pointed at the counter where her dad’s note was. Mom stood and shepherded Lucy along to a chair. After reading the note she sat and brought Lucy up into her lap. As her mom’s arms closed around her, she started to feel safe again, as if a swarm of bees were coming back to sleep in their hive.
And yet, she still felt something tickling in the back of her mind. The sense that someone was watching her from far away.
“Lucy, can you tell me what happened?”
She drew in a sniffling breath and told her how she had thought someone was dropping off a package but found someone at the door instead. She pointed at the paper with the woman’s phone number where she had dropped it and explained where it had come from. When she was finished, she felt as though the insects in her stomach were threatening to make a big swarm again.
“Sweetie, what did the woman at the door look like?” Mom asked.
“She had blonde hair and blue eyes. She was wearing a tan coat.” Lucy replied. She twisted around to look at her Mom’s face. Though she smiled at her, Lucy could tell that she was worried. Something about the way the corners of her eyes didn’t move up with her smile.
“I messed up,” Lucy said, a fresh round of tears ready to reduce her to sobs.
“Sometimes we make mistakes, Lucy,” Mom replied, running her fingers through Lucy’s hair. “But you did a good job keeping yourself safe.”
“I don’t feel safe.”
Mom pulled her in close again. “I know, sweetie. But you’re safe in the house.”
“What about when I have to go to school?”
“You’re safe at school too,” Mom said. “Tell you what, why don’t we drive you to and from school for the next little bit? Would that help you feel better?”
Lucy nodded. The bus driver was nice, but she wanted to spend the time with her parents.
“And Dad and I will tell you when we’re expecting a package next time. If we haven’t said so, then you can just ignore the door.”
She nodded again. Even without the rule, she wouldn’t open the door for a long time, probably not even when her parents were home with her.
“And sweetie?”
Her Mom held Lucy out so that she was looking directly into her eyes.
“I know that your dad and I said that it isn’t bad to talk to strangers, so long as you don’t go anywhere with them.” She swallowed. “But for the next little bit, I don’t think you should talk to strangers. In fact, I think you should avoid them.”
Lucy nodded, slowly. Part of her had felt that such a rule was coming. But to actually hear it spoken out loud scarred her about what might come. Evil things from evil people posing as strangers.
She thought back to the dragon and how she was preparing for if it came back. The dragon was an evil thing, but she thought that her ghost light could protect her and her family. Maybe it could help with the strangers too.
Lucy helped Mom pick up the stuff on the floor and then finished eating her breakfast as Mom got ready to go to sleep. Lucy could tell that she was tired, even more than she normally was when she worked at night. When Mom climbed the stairs to go to bed, Lucy went to her room and closed the door behind her.
Ever since her last experiment, she hadn’t been able to shake that feeling of being watched. At school the last few days, she had kept looking over her shoulder, but no one had been looking at her. It had felt like, whoever was looking at her, was far away. She had wondered if someone had a pair of binoculars and was watching her from outside the school. But Lucy thought that if that were the case, she still would have been able to see them.
Now, in her room, she summoned her ghost light. It was solidly purple, and she easily pushed it out a few feet in front of her. She moved it around back and forth, then practiced more complicated shapes. She traced circles, crosses, triangles, and squares with her light, summoning it again when it winked out of sight. She felt the same resistance she had the other day, but it felt slightly easier to overcome.
As the light swirled in front of her, she had the thought that she should try to spin it around her like a shield. It took a few tries, but she was able to spin all the way around with her light without loosing her concentration. That would be useful if she needed to turn around to use her ghost light.
The thought prompted her to stop the ghost light in front of her and stare at it, focusing and willing it to grow brighter. Soon she had to shield her eyes from the brightness of the ghost light. When she tried to make it dimmer, it winked out and she had to start over again.
She couldn’t tell how much time passed. When her head started to hurt, she took a little break and then started again. She imagined that this was how piano lessons must be like for Ashley, one of her friends at school. But this wasn’t like piano lessons. Ashley didn’t need to do piano lessons to keep her family safe, but Lucy did. Safe from the dragon, and safe from the woman at the front door.
I hope you enjoyed this sneak-peak of The Shadowrunner. What did you think? Let me know by leaving a like and some of your thoughts in the comments below!