Free Shadowed (Fated) by Sarah Alderson Page B

she said.
    Evie blinked at her in astonishment. She hadn’t
expected that. ‘I understand,’ she said as the silence stretched on. ‘I would
have done the same.’
    The two of them stared at each other for a few more
seconds, recognition and understanding passing between them, and Evie felt a
portion of the ache inside her ease a little. Margaret too seemed to pull
herself together. She strode to the cabinet on the wall and threw open the
doors, revealing an impressive display of weaponry – both antique and
modern. When she turned back towards them they could see that she was holding
something.
    Evie stepped forward, her gaze dropping to the
slender blade lying across Margaret’s palms. It had a long hilt, and the blade
was shaped like a dagger. Evie tried to imagine an unknown warrior forging it
centuries ago in the dark desert of the Shadowlands. Margaret offered it to her
and her fingers closed greedily around the hilt. It was so light it practically
floated upwards out of Margaret’s hands as though normal laws of gravity didn’t
apply to it. The others pressed in on her for a look. The blade was as long as
Evie’s forearm and was glowing slightly, like a pearl under water.
    ‘Thank
you,’ Evie said, looking up, but Margaret had already turned away and was
standing with her back to them, staring out of the window at nothing.

Chapter 15

 
    The shoes he’d stolen were more like slippers. Paper ones. Flimsy. His
feet were cold. His torso too. He crouched down behind a bush and waited for
the guard to amble past on his midnight round.
    He’d timed this from his window on the third floor.
He only had a few seconds before the people in white would notice he was gone
and sound the alarm. The seconds ticked by. Finally the guard appeared,
whistling as he walked. The moment the man was out of sight he darted towards
the wall and swung himself up into a tree that brushed up against it. He
scrambled along a branch until he was at the same height as the top of the wall
and then he hung over the side and jumped, landing in a crouch on the sidewalk
below.
    He stood up quickly, scanning the street. It was
eerily quiet. The avenue of trees spreading their thick branches overhead
buried him in shadows. Headlights suddenly swept across him. He bowed his head
and started walking, trying to look inconspicuous – which was hard given
that he was wearing only a pair of bright-green scrub trousers.
    He knew he needed to find out where he was. But,
more importantly, he needed to figure out who he was. Before the monsters with the fangs and the tails came after him.
Because, though he couldn’t remember much of anything else and didn’t even know
his own name, he did know that they were coming.
    As he rounded the corner he saw the sign next to
the front gate of the place where he’d been locked up for what felt like years. Gateways Hospital , it said. And
underneath, Community Mental Health
Centre .
    He paused for a moment, the word Gateways stirring something in his
subconscious, but then he shrugged to himself and kept walking. It was just one
more thing he couldn’t remember.
    In the distance he heard a siren start to wail and
he upped his pace, breaking into a jog and then into a sprint, the green scrub
trousers he was wearing flapping uncomfortably. At the bottom of the hill he
turned onto a main thoroughfare, blinking in the sudden glare of shops and the
eye-shattering headlight beams of dozens of cars.
    Nothing about this place looked familiar, but then
again it didn’t look un familiar
either. He wasn’t scared by the noise or the traffic or the cars weaving in and
out across four lanes. A sense settled over him that he belonged here. That
this had once upon a time been his city – his stomping ground. He knew
that if he gave in and trusted his instincts he’d figure it all out. In the
same way he knew that the monsters the doctors had dismissed as figments of his
psychotic mind were real.
    He was aware that he