Chapter Eleven
There is no free space in the warehouse. Not really. I wouldn’t even be able to pick out the blonde boy amidst the mass of heads, even though I have been studying each hair on his scalp for the last twenty minutes.
He is lost in a sea, drowned out by hundreds of other heads all facing the same way.
Not just students, but the teachers as well. I can see the spindly frame of the new headmaster, along with Mr Knight’s tattoos. They all stand shoulder to shoulder in rows, feet almost touching, and my stomach turns at the sight.
For a room full of people, it is quiet. Too quiet. No noise other than a barely audible hum fills the room. A sound that would be easily ignored in a normal setting, with normal movement and conversation, but now in the deafening silence of the warehouse, painstakingly obvious.
“River?” I question myself, my fingers still gripping tightly to the lip of the window ledge. I feel Ryder’s hand against the small of my back, and my eyes meet his.
Worry.
He stares back at me with furrowed brows and pursed lips, equally confused. His suspicions were correct; the twisted warning that churned in his stomach led him here—to River.
I recognised his varsity jacket first—the blue lettering stark against the thick black fabric.
I’d always liked that jacket on him, the way it drew the colour from his eyes and made it brighter when he wore it.
Then my gaze found the familiar curve of his dirty-blonde hair, the crescent swoop at the back of his head.
His cowlick. That stubborn strand with a will of its own, defying every comb and every smear of gel, always springing free again—unchanged, unmistakable.
My heartbeat controls me, thumping so hard out of my chest it propels me to move to him, but Ryder’s arm halts me before the darkness of the building can swallow me up.
“Stop.” His grip tightens when I resist him.
“If River is in there, Nala might be too.” I pull back from him, but his vice-like grip doesn’t relinquish. “I don’t know what is happening, but we need to get them out.” His strength is overpowering, and in my frustration, an audible huff leaves my lips.
“Exactly. You don’t know what is happening or what they are doing in there; it could be dangerous.
” He lifts his sleeve again to reveal the erect hairs on his arm.
“The same feeling that led me here is telling me to wait and assess the situation.” And with that, my muscles relax with reluctance.
He’s right, my dad would snort at my blatant naivety.
‘Make sure you know the depth of the water before diving headfirst into it.’ This was one of the first things he taught me when we trained together: ‘A fighter prepared has already won half the battle.’ My cheeks heat slightly in embarrassment as I send him a small nod.
He pauses for a moment, eyes assessing me for any instinct to defy him, before slowly releasing me from his grip.
We return to our original positions, eyes pressed closely to the fractured pane.
Anxiety claims my throat, although a window stands between us and them, my nerves feel potent enough to penetrate the glass and seep through its cracks.
I take a steadying breath, but a shallow gasp escapes my lips when I notice shoulder-length black hair floating amongst the sea of heads.
Nala.
My heart begins to race again, and though every part of my being is telling me to run in there and retrieve her. All I can do is watch.
Ryder and I duck as a sudden noise snaps from the far end of the warehouse.
The door slams open, and a line of entranced people file inside, filling the empty spaces with eerie precision—as if they’ve practised this moment. The men guiding them wear the same hollow expressions, eyes unfocused, bodies moving on instinct alone. Present, but not here.
When the last body is in place, the men turn and leave without a word.
I study the newcomers.
I don’t recognise a single face.
Not one.
Which means—It isn’t just our school.
My thoughts lurch to my village. To my father.
I scan the crowd, pulse roaring in my ears, searching desperately for what I fear most.
He isn’t there.
Thank the Gods.
The light filtering through the splintered wood and fractured glass is weak, but it exists—just enough to separate blondes from brunettes, to catch flashes of colour stitched into clothing. But the farther my gaze drifts into the cavernous space, the more the darkness overtakes it.
It doesn’t sit still.
It weaves between bodies, coils around rigid toes, and spiders up unmoving spines. It clings. Claims. I scrub my eyes hard enough to spark black spots across my vision, desperate for the illusion to break.
It doesn’t.
The dark is growing thicker—denser, possessive. It refuses to yield to the light, infecting every glimmer of potential like a spreading sickness. It roots them in place, swallowing their feet, pinning them to the floor as if the ground itself has turned against them.
I thought if I rubbed my eyes hard enough, the darkness would retreat. That it would dissolve into nothing more than fear and shadow, another trick of my mind.
But it doesn’t fade.
It tightens.
The darkness is very real.
“Who’s making those shadows?” My eyes twist with them—black clouds as fluid as an ocean, stopping just above their shoulders.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Ryder admits, his breath slightly fogging up the glass. “If it’s a shadow wielder, it’s a powerful one.”
“We’ve waited long enough; we have to get in there.” My shoulders rise with anticipation, and my feet get ahead of themselves, but Ryder’s hand stops me again before I can make any headway.
“Not so fast—something’s happening.” His eyes snap to mine, sharp and urgent, silently ordering me to look. I obey.
Part of me wishes I hadn’t.
At the head of the barn, the darkness is no longer content to crawl. It rises. It seeps from the floorboards, pooling, stretching, branching upward—until it begins to resemble a body. A shape. Something almost human.
My breath catches, and my mouth falls open, disbelief freezing me in place.
I have never seen anything like it.
Ryder shifts instantly, stepping in front of me without a word, his body a shield. The figure drifts through the space, inspecting its captives—tilting heads, tracing cheeks, threading its fingers through the hair of the entranced students as if choosing.
My hands begin to shake as the darkness glides toward Nala.
I stop breathing.
Those fingers—too long, too thin, like twisted branches—reach out and brush her cheek. The black of them is deeper than shadow, darker even than her hair, as if it swallows light instead of reflecting it.
It doesn’t walk so much as float; its movements are wrong, disconnected from the floor beneath it. But that isn’t the worst part.
No.
The worst part is its face.
Or the lack of one.
Where its mouth should be is only a hollow pit, sunken and endless, a void that makes my stomach lurch. A gasp escapes me before I can stop it.
Ryder’s hand clamps over my mouth, and he drags me down with him, forcing us into a crouch. His eyes lock onto mine, wide and urgent, and he raises his brows sharply.
Quiet.
As if the darkness might hear the thought itself.
After a minute—maybe two—Ryder finally releases me.
“Did you see its face?” I mouth, my eyes wide, my pulse still screaming in my ears.
He nods once. Slowly. Like he wishes he hadn’t.
He lifts himself just enough to peer through the cracked window again, movements careful and deliberate. I stay frozen beside him.
“Do you think it saw us?” I whisper, the words barely leaving my throat.
“I don’t think so,” he murmurs, then gestures for me to look.
I shouldn’t.
But I do.
The figure still stands at the front of the room.
Up close, it’s even worse. Taller than anyone there—unnaturally so. River is at least six feet two, and this thing looms over him, a pillar of living shadow. The darkness inside it feels… aware. Curious. It pulls at me, urging me closer, like gravity.
“What’s it doing?” I breathe, my heart hammering so hard it hurts.
The creature begins to shake.
Not stumble. Not sway.
Vibrate.
The darkness recoils from the walls, the ceiling, the bodies—ripping itself free and funnelling back toward the figure. Shadows stream into it like a warped waterfall, draining from the room as the being condenses, thickens, and grows more solid.
Ryder doesn’t answer.
Because suddenly—
It’s gone.
Vanished as if it had never been there at all.
But the people remain.
They stand shoulder to shoulder, hollowed out, eyes empty, bodies upright but lifeless—shells of who they once were, trapped inside something I can’t see. The wind sneaks through the broken glass, teasing their hair, tugging at loose fabric.
None of them move.
A cold certainty settles in my gut.
That thing did this.
My fingers curl against the window ledge, adrenaline overriding sense, fear sharpening into urgency. Before Ryder can stop me—before he can even breathe my name—I wrench the window open and climb inside.
“What are you doing?” Ryder whispers sharply, his hand fisting the back of my shirt.
“It’s gone. Come on.” I wrench free and haul myself through the window. Wood splinters against my leggings, and my boots crunch softly over broken glass scattered across the floor. Ryder exhales behind me—annoyed, tense—but I’m already inside before he can finish protesting.
The maze of bodies stops me cold.
It would be manageable if they were conscious—if they could shift, step aside, breathe—but they’re rigid. All stiff limbs and locked joints. Walls of muscle and bone. Brick by stoic fucking brick.
I force my way through.
Their closeness makes my skin slick with sweat. Every step costs me breath. Hands brush, cling, weigh me down for half a second too long, as if the darkness hasn’t quite finished with them yet. I huff in frustration, shoulders scraping past chests, hips wedged between unmoving forms.