The Shadows Beyond (Shadow and Light Duology #1)

1. Cinn

one

Cinn

T hud, thud. Thud, thud.

Cinn’s head pulsated with pain that did nothing to help the disorienting fog enveloping his mind.

His bleariness cleared, and an oval-shaped window came into focus. Outside was only darkness. Darkness and…

He blinked.

Holy fuck, was he on an aeroplane ?

A large intake of breath was his last before his throat tightened. His heart kicked into overdrive, as a sickening wave of vertigo struck him.

Think think think.

He squeezed his eyes closed. His limited oxygen supply had him gasping for air.

After four shaky breaths, he forced some level of coherent thought back into his brain.

Why are you, Cinn Saunders, someone who’s never left England before, and has a crippling fear of flying, thousands of miles high in a tin can?

He pried his eyes open to find this wasn’t any old tin can—it had to be a private jet, if the lack of other passengers, aside from a woman sleeping opposite him, was anything to go by. Any crew remained to be seen. Oh God, please let there be a crew. Don’t tell me she left this thing on autopilot and then took a nap.

The jet featured comfy cream sofa-seats and polished metal tables. The table in front of him housed an ice bucket with an open champagne bottle poking out of it—wherever they were travelling, they were going there in luxury. With trembling hands, he reached down to unzip his rucksack, placed by his feet. His headphones were clearly visible at the top. Thank God.

He’d packed the bag earlier today… Why ?

Cinn rubbed his pounding head, which his panic-fuelled adrenaline was intensifying. Was too much alcohol to blame for it? No. This felt different. Hazier. His brain worked overtime trying to piece together the tatters of his fragmented memory.

His most overwhelming sensation: guilt.

After that? Fear.

It hit him like a punch to the gut—a visceral reaction so deep, he pressed his fist to his mouth.

It was meant to be a simple job. Return to Rosewood Parlour, the restaurant where he was undertaking a culinary training programme, in the early hours of the morning, to let two of Heino Richter’s henchmen in. Escort them into the manager’s office. Open the safe. Close his eyes, and pretend it wasn’t happening.

It would have all gone to plan if only Cinn had controlled his stress levels. Why, oh why, did he not think to bring his Walkman with him? Maybe then he could have used his music to stop his episode. After the safe’s door had clicked open, by his own hand, he’d watched as Ronnie and Spiky scooped fistful after fistful of the last few evenings’ takings into their duffle bags. That was when it got too much—when the vision of their head chef, Benny, had popped into his head, shaking his head with so much disappointment in his eyes.

Only a few hours before the robbery, Cinn had been with Benny—and Sarah, their newest dishwasher—in the side alley adjacent to the restaurant, taking a two-minute smoke break. Benny had told one of his hilarious stories in his thick Irish accent, while Sarah threw her head back in laughter, and Cinn leant against the wall looking between them both, thinking, this is alright.

So when the reality of robbing his own restaurant, the place he’d grown to love over the last couple of months, had hit, so did the panic attack.

And they never ended well.

This one—this visit to the dark place as he’d named it in his childhood—had ended in particular disaster. Namely, the death of Heino’s two men, in addition to the two police officers who’d burst through the door at precisely the wrong moment.

Four dead bodies.

That’s what the two detectives had said again and again, in the interview room, after his arrest.

As if he didn’t know. As if he hadn’t seen it.

The dead female police officer had possessed the same chestnut curls as his mother. He’d fixated on them, sprayed out above her expressionless face and her lifeless body.

After an eternity in a holding cell, they’d then left him waiting in an interview room to stew for hours, the cool metal chair and the bleak walls his only company. Well, and his court-issued attorney. They’d barely said a word to each other since he’d refused to engage with the tired-looking, middle-aged woman. Although what could he possibly say? How could he explain the unexplainable?

Well, the truth is, I accidentally fell into the dark place and then brought back some sort of hell-demon-beast thing, which laughed like a manic clown, picked up Ronnie’s knife and slaughtered everyone else in the room while I just screamed and screamed.

Nope. Wasn’t going to fly.

The two detectives eventually arrived, in similar dark-navy suits, two pigs in a sty, sliding into the room with their badges flashing .

“Interview of Cinnamon Saunders, commencing at seventeen zero five on November third, nineteen ninety-five…”

He knew the drill already. After all, he’d done this all once before.

He’d answered, ‘no comment’ to every question in a row for several hours, despite their mounting frustration. They slid photograph after photograph in front of him, stills from the security cameras. Cinn had touched an image of himself on the floor, his hands clutching either side of his head. He still possessed the faintest lingering of the familiar headache that had struck him like a sledgehammer, a thousand invisible needles jabbing at the very core of his consciousness.

“And this,” one of the detectives had said, “is where it gets interesting.”

Interesting . This was the word used to describe the moment Cinn’s life—his small but precious life that he’d built from the rubble all for himself—fell apart. Interesting .

Another glossy piece of paper had been pushed towards him. This time, a printout of pure white. A photograph of nothing. The poor detectives, and apparently their team of technology specialists, were baffled by the CCTV printouts. They knew it wasn’t Cinn’s doing, of course. They wanted to know how Heino Richter had managed to tamper with it.

“You know, Cinnamon, we’re trying to help you here. We know you were forced to take Ronnie and Samuel into Rosewood yesterday. We know Heino Richter set all this up. Tell us your side of the story, give us something on Richter, and we can—”

“No comment,” Cinn spat. Any information he gave on Richter would have immediate repercussions for Tyler. The man he’d done all this for.

It was at that point she’d arrived. The woman currently sleeping opposite him .

She’d stormed into the room like she owned it, dressed in her stark white suit, her heels creating a loud clickety clack . Her gaze drifted over Cinn to magnetise towards the two detectives, unblinking. “Gentlemen,” she said, voice like honey. “This room is now mine. As is your guest here.”

One detective’s face reddened as he stood up, wagging a thick finger. “Miss, you’re interrupting a criminal investigation. On what authority—”

They were silenced by the flash of a badge Cinn was too far away to read.

An outraged, “You can’t just—”

The woman raised her hand, blue eyes frosting. “I’ve had five hours sleep in the last forty-eight hours, three cups of coffee, and just reduced your receptionist to tears. I’m on a roll. Don’t push your luck.”

With a glance at each other, the two men scooped up the photographs, turned off the recording system, and filed out of the door, slamming it shut behind them.

“You too, Mrs. Thompson.”

His attorney had blinked, looking baffled. Cinn prepared for her to protest—surely she didn’t want to leave him all alone with no representation?—but the woman only gave him a weak, confused smile before leaving the room. She was an even more useless attorney than the one he was assigned when he was convicted at sixteen.

The woman in white took the seat opposite him. She smiled a too-white smile. “Cinnamon, isn’t it?”

He’d cringed, feeling his face pull into the scowl it made whenever he heard his full name. There were many things he’d never forgive his mother for, and his name was one of them. “Just Cinn.”

“Just Cinn. Nice to meet you. I think you’ll want to come with me.”

What happened after that was a whirlwind .

They’d taken a rental car from the police station to his house. She’d said he would need a few things. That they were going somewhere. Luckily, his flatmates were all out. He’d grabbed some clothes… his Walkman, as many cassettes as would fit in the remaining rucksack space…

They’d gotten back in the car. Why, oh why, had he got back in that damned car?

On the drive out of the city, she’d answered everything he asked before that with elusive and vague responses.

He’d given up attempting to talk to her, and pulled his headphones over his head, cranking the volume up until his eardrums were being shredded by Pixie’s Doolittle beats. Reciting the nonsense lyrics of the opening track to himself must have calmed him down, because he eventually fell asleep.

When he awoke, they were at some sort of fancy airfield place—glossy jets lined up like toys in a neat row on a concrete field.

His memories got even fuzzier.

Seeing the jet, and screaming at the woman that there was no way he was going anywhere with her, no way he was flying in an aeroplane .

The woman offering him a bottle of pills from her pocket.

Screaming at her some more, saying that there was no way in hell he was taking anything.

And then… darkness.

The bitch must have drugged him, after all.

His anger brought him back to full alertness, and Cinn’s eyes darted around the jet, taking stock of his options while trying not to think about the fact he was flying thousands of feet above the Earth in a metal bird that could explode or crash at any moment.

Cinn glared at the sleeping woman. Light wrinkles made her certainly past fifty, yet her dark, glossy grey hair was cut into the box-fringe style often seen on women thirty years her junior, hovering above thick-rimmed black glasses. An unfinished glass of champagne sat on the table between them. Cinn leaned forward and flicked the glass over, spilling the liquid all over her lap.

Oops. Turbulence.

Her eyes snapped open as she muttered various curse words while wiping her white linen trousers with her sleeves.

“Morning,” Cinn said with a perfectly straight face.

The woman glared, lips pursed, blue eyes icy.

Cinn countered with a foul look of his own. “I told you not to drug me.”

A razor-sharp smile. “I didn’t.”

Their staring contest continued until Cinn grew bored. He didn’t need games. He needed answers.

“I need to go back to London,” he snapped. “As soon as we land. My friend is in danger.”

“The same ‘friend’ who forced you to allow Heino Richter access to burgle your restaurant, destroying your career prospects and your life?”

Her words stunned Cinn into silence.

“He didn’t force me,” he eventually got out. “I offered.” It was true. When Tyler had appeared at his doorstep, black and blue, eyes so swollen he could barely recognise him, Cinn promised him he’d sort it out.

Because that was what he did.

Tyler fucked up. Cinn sorted it.

Just this time. One last time. How many times had he promised himself that?

“What I don’t understand,” said the woman, genuine curiosity peppering her voice. “Is how Richter thought there would be enough in your little restaurant’s safe to cover Tyler’s debt.”

Cinn flinched backwards, his head colliding with the seat. “How… How do you know all of this? ”

The woman smiled again, adding more fuel to the inferno of anger quickly building within Cinn.

“It was just meant to be a start,” he said. “The first of a few jobs I’d help Richter with. And then Tyler would be free of him for good. He agreed not to let Tyler deal for him again if I got him the money. Fuck knows what’s going to happen to Tyler now, if Ricther hasn’t got the cash. That’s why I need to go back. Even if I’m in a cell, I can call people—”

“You’ll be able to call people when we land. We’re not going to the middle of the jungle.”

Cinn turned to look out of the window, which he’d avoided so far, needing to break eye contact with the infuriating woman. The dizzying expanse of clouds and sky sent an immediate wave of nausea through him.

Rage boiled up, pulsating through every vein. He’d been taken from London, drugged, and then forced into enduring one of his worst nightmares—flying.

Cinn jumped to his feet, snarling, “You still haven’t told me where we’re going or why you’ve kidnapped me!”

The woman tucked a long grey strand of hair behind her ear. “Sit down.”

“Fuck off!”

“Sit down, and I’ll answer your questions in a civilised manner. Or continue to act like a delinquent child, and you’ll quickly find yourself back in a cell, in the company of actual killers. I promise you, you’ll be of very little use to Tyler there.”

Cinn kicked the side of his opulently cushioned seat, his foot connecting with the metal to send shooting pains up his leg.

“Fuuuuuuck!” he screamed at the ceiling of the jet. He couldn’t face looking at the woman for a second longer.

Cinn clenched his fists, feeling the bite of his nails against his palm. This wasn’t good. If he didn’t calm down, and soon, he might have another episode. And who knew what that would look like when he was a thousand miles high in the sky. Although, surely there weren’t many ghosts up here…

“I imagine it was that unchecked temper of yours that landed you in juvenile prison seven years ago.”

The woman was trying to wind him up. And it was working. “Who even are you? How do you know everything about me?”

She remained infuriatingly calm. “Sit. Down.”

Cinn gritted his teeth so hard he could taste the metallic tang of his frustration. It took every inch of self-control he possessed to force himself back down into his chair.

“There,” said the woman, and Cinn hated giving in to her so much that it physically hurt him. “Now we can talk as adults.”

“Fucking talk then , lady . Who are you, where are we going, and why the fuck are we going there?”

He braced, prepared for more games, but to his surprise, she leaned back, poured herself another drink from the ice bucket on the floor, and started talking.

“Eleanor Sinclair. Most call me Madame Sinclair. We’re currently en route to Valais in Switzerland. I work as a small cog in a large organisation that I’ll get to later. My boss, Viktor Sturmhart, has had people keeping tabs on you for a little while now. Most of them stemming from hospital and police reports from years ago. And some psych records.”

Cinn internally grimaced, remembering that brief stint in juvie where he’d tried to convince a therapist that ‘ghosts are real’ as she’d phrased it. They certainly hadn’t seen eye to eye on that one.

“When you were arrested, we were faxed copies of every file. Not long after, I was on this very jet, coming to get you. Don’t you feel special now?”

Cinn could only blink. Was it possible she… knew? She … believed him?

“And the reason you want me is….? ”

“We believe that you have a rare ability, Cinnamon. Very rare. We want to help you. And we want to make sure nobody else gets hurt.”

He flinched. “Don’t call me that. And what happened at Rosewood… that wasn’t my fault.”

It was. It was all his fault. There had been close calls before, sure. But four deaths? They’d stay with him forever. Maybe even in more than one sense…

“This is exactly why you need to be at the Institute. I can only imagine how much you want to learn how to control yourself, Cinn. To master your skill. We can help you with that.”

Was this manipulation on a master level, or was the previously feisty woman’s motherly tone genuine?

“The Institute? What’s that?”

“The Aurelia Arcanum Institute of Esoteric Sciences is known as the European hub for government, research, and further education for… people like you. And me. It’s a multifaceted institution with many subsections focusing on different spheres of activity.” She paused, scrutinising him. “That all means it’s a large collection of groups working together.”

“I’m not stupid,” he spat. “You don’t need to dumb it down.”

His head swam. Esoteric sciences? Multifaceted institution? A horrible thought struck him—what if they wanted to experiment on him? Cut open his brain, see what was wrong with it?

Something buzzed. Madame Sinclair pointed upwards, red nail polish gleaming. “Oh look, the seatbelt light.”

Cinn grimaced. This was going to be a bumpy ride.