Enter the Shadows

~ 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

~ 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

~ 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.

~ 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

~ Lochlan scooped Penny up out of midair. He landed on the balls of his feet, holding her tightly against his chest. Her death would have to wait for another day. "I got you." Lochlan wasn't sure if it was his heart or hers that was beating out of control. He had been on a run when she had tried to call. By the time he had gotten back to his things, he had ten missed calls and a text message. It was a good thing he hadn't been too far away. Penny took a second before opening her eyes to look at him. Lochlan was looking up at the roof. There on the ledge, the three men looked down at them. They could have made the jump with ease, but they did nothing. The one who had killed the woman gave the other two orders she couldn't hear, and they walked off. A second later, so did he. Grabbing on the front of his shirt, she told him everything that had happened inside. She wanted to go back to help the others. Lochlan knew that would not be possib