Ch. 3

"Injuries?" I shouted. 

"Bullet grazed me on my side." Tally reported. 

"I've got a bullet lodged in my thigh. They were using silver. Someone needs to pull it out of me." Emerson called. 

"I'm good. Injury free." Percy called out. I felt relief at that. 

"I cut my hand on some glass. Aside from that, I am good." Kellan finally answered. 

"What about you?" Emerson asked. 

"Not a scratch. Why do you think I am the one that leads?" I said arrogantly. I was trying to lighten the mood. 

They all laughed. 

"Witnesses?" Tally asked. 

We always had to get rid of witnesses…. Kiran. 

"There were two in the store when I entered. They seem to have been shot dead already." I answered, emitting Kiran. 

"What about the guy running the register?" Percy asked, his all seeing eyes, I swear. 

"Gone." I lied. 

I waved my hand around, under the counter, covering Kiran with my shadows. Percy can't see past them. 

He checked behind the counter, not believing me. There's little trust in this group. We all fight alongside one another, but none of us like each other. We're all just stuck together. 

"I'll clean up here. You guys head back." I told them. 

This wasn't unusual as I'm usually the one to do the cleaning up. I'm the only one that can travel far within minutes. I'm the one that can dispose of bodies the quickest as well. 

"Alright. Give me the pearl." Emerson opened his hands to catch. 

"Like hell. Percy, who will keep it the safest?" 

Percy took a second, looking into every possibility of the future. 

"You." He said minutes later. 

"Well, it seems I'll keep holding onto it. Don't beat me home." It was my way of telling Emerson he better drive slow. 

They won't want to show up at the lab empty handed. They also won't want to tell the Scientist about what happened. He doesn't care about innocent lives being lost. He just wants a job done right, with minimal exposure to us. He doesn't want people knowing about us. We're the ace up his sleeve. 

"Fine." Emerson rolled his eyes. They all headed out then. I watched them all climb into the car and drive off. 

I unshielded Kiran from the shadows and he drew in a big breath. He looked at me a little suspiciously. I am honestly surprised he isn't having a full on panic attack. How is he not? 

"Are you okay?" I asked him. He seemed uninjured, but I couldn't gauge his emotional state. 

"No. What was that? What are you?" He asked. He was looking at the shadow before him as if it would eat him.

I sighed, I don't have time for these questions. I started sucking the dead bodies into the shadow realm. I formed shadows to take a humanoid shape, and had them repairing the place. With that, I can focus on Kiran and his questions. I sat on the floor beside him. His scent was strongly wafting into my nose, a rich amber. 

"I'm a shadow weaver. Those were men sent after us." I explained as simply as I could. 

"A shadow weaver?" He hadn't heard this term before. Vampires and werewolves seem to be the most well known to humans. Then witches, elves and fairies. Eveything else just kind of falls on the wayside.

"I can control shadows." Again I gave him the simplest answer. He doesn't need to know it all, just the basics. 

"Why did you hide me earlier?" He glazed right over everything else. Accepting it as fact. Kiran was definitely interesting in the way he was handling this all. 

"They would have killed you." I admitted plainly. "We're not supposed to leave any witnesses." 

"So again, why did you hide me? Why didn't you let them kill me?" Kiran furrowed his brows trying to understand me. His golden eyes met my lilac ones for a moment. 

"That's a question for another time. I need to go." I still need to dispose of the bodies in the shadow realm.

The shadow workers had everything looking back to normal now. It was as if nothing had happened here. The lights were brightly shining again. Kiran stood up beside me. 

"Will I see you again?" 

The question hung in the air for a minute. 

"Not if I can help it." I sunk into the shadows before he could ask me anything else. 

Goodbye Kiran.