Chapter 12 The Shepherd #2
“We document everything, find patterns, figure out who’s behind this,” I said. “And if Amy gets worse, we pull her out ourselves, contract be damned.”
“I already called May,” Luz stated, brow furrowing. “She is ready to come down, but you know how stubborn Amy is. She won’t even admit how bad it’s gotten.”
I clenched my teeth.
“What if we use the podcast?” I suggested, my mind already spinning. “Nothing direct—just talk about red flags in clinical trials, how to spot predatory research. Start warning people without naming names.”
“Smart,” Luz grinned. “They can’t touch you for that.”
“So, we document, we warn people, and we keep Amy alive until we figure out what this study actually is.”
My phone buzzed with a text from Amy.
Amy: Ran late. Meet me at the quad.
Luz and I exchanged a look.
“Let’s go,” I said, already grabbing my jacket.
We hurried across campus as the sun dipped low, shadows stretching long across the quad. Amy was sitting at the edge of the fountain, hunched over. Even from a distance, I could see how pale she was.
“Amy!” I called out.
She looked up, tried to smile, and then her eyes rolled back in her head. She pitched forward. I lunged, catching her just before her head hit the stone edge of the fountain. Her body was dead weight in my arms, skin clammy and cold as ice.
“Amy? Amy!” I patted her cheek, heart hammering. “Luz, help me!”
Together, we eased her down onto the grass. A few students stopped, staring.
“Should we call an ambulance?” a guy in a football jersey asked.
“No!” Amy’s unfocused eyes fluttered open. “No ambulance. I’m fine. Just… stood up too fast.”
“Amy, you passed out!” I exclaimed. “You need to see a doctor.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, but her voice was weak, thready. “Just low blood sugar. It happens.”
“Not to you,” I retorted. “You never get sick.”
Amy huffed, rolling her eyes. “We all get sick sometimes, Mel.”
Luz and I helped her to her feet. We had to support her between us, practically carrying her back to the dorm.
Eyes tracked us as we moved through the hallway. A girl from our floor stepped into our path, her mouth opening. “Is she—”
“Just tired,” I said, my lips pulling back in something that probably looked nothing like a smile.
By the time we reached our room, Amy’s weight had shifted almost entirely onto my shoulder. Her feet dragged across the tile. When I guided her toward my bed, she stumbled, and I caught her under the arms, feeling how loose her limbs had become, how her head lolled forward.
I eased her shoes off and lowered her onto the mattress.
“Mel, I can—” she started, but the words dissolved into a yawn so huge it almost swallowed her. Within seconds, her eyes fluttered closed.
I sat at the edge of the mattress, watching her chest rise and fall. Each breath seemed labored, like even sleeping took effort.
The room fell into heavy silence, just the sound of Amy’s shallow breathing and the distant hum of the campus outside.
“This isn’t just exhaustion,” Luz said, voice tight. “This is worse. Way worse.”
“I know.”
She turned to me, her eyes fierce. “We can’t just sit here and watch her waste away. We need help beyond just you, me, and Leo.”
“Maybe the Dean,” I said, though the words tasted bitter. “Maybe I’ll go straight to Carroway and report this.”
She scoffed. “Don’t bother, I already did.”
“What?” I asked, surprised.
“I went after I talked with those other students. He told me that he vetted that company thoroughly and that there’s nothing to worry about.” She huffed, crossing her arms.
“So, what, he’s not even going to look into it?”
“The university probably gets a nice fat check from Ekklesia every semester. Carroway’s probably swimming in research grants he doesn’t want to jeopardize.”
The thought made my stomach twist. She was right—if Carroway was complicit, or even just willfully ignorant, going to him wouldn’t do anything. I chewed my lip, mind racing.
“Maybe… maybe I could ask Kian. He’s a faculty member. If there’s some official channel for reporting the study, or some university oversight committee, he might know about it.”
Luz raised an eyebrow. “Professor Broody?”
“Don’t.” Heat crept up my neck. “This isn’t about him. It’s about Amy. He’s been here for years. He has connections. Maybe he’s heard something we haven’t found online.”
“What makes you think we can trust him?” She asked.
“Call it a hunch?” I offered, shrugging.
She drooped a bit, sighing. “Worth a shot…”
Luz started pacing, muttering under her breath in Spanish.
“I’m going to call May in the morning again,” she murmured.
I glanced at Amy, who looked so fragile curled up in the bedsheets. A stark contrast to the fierce girl who’d helped me through the times I thought I wouldn’t survive.
“May’s probably freaking out already,” I sighed.
Luz stared at Amy for a long moment before answering. “I know. Especially after what happened with their mom. You remember how traumatizing it was for them, watching her waste away in the hospital.”
I did. May had dropped out of school to hold her hand as she died. Both of them were devastated over it, and it was partly why May had chosen to get her GED and go to a school out of the state.
Luz sank onto her bed, shoulders sagging. “We have to get her out of that study,” she said, voice low and fierce.
“Agreed.” I pulled out my phone, staring at the blank screen. “Tomorrow, after class, I’ll talk to Kian. See if he knows anything that could help.”
“And I’ll keep digging. Talk to more participants, see if anyone’s managed to quit.” Luz rubbed her face. “There has to be a way out of this. There has to be.”
But everything, from Amy’s contract to the NDAs, pointed to one truth: Ekklesia didn’t let people leave.
I must have dozed off at some point, because I jerked awake to the sound of floorboards creaking. My first thought was that Amy had gotten up for water, but when I blinked into the shadows, my stomach dropped.
She wasn’t at the desk or the sink. She was standing in the middle of the room, barefoot and swaying. Her hair fell in a tangled curtain around her face.
Luz was already awake, perched on her bed, knees drawn to her chest. Her wide eyes caught mine in the dim glow from the streetlight. She lifted her hands helplessly, like she’d been watching this for minutes already and had no idea what to do.
“Amy?” I kept my voice quiet, my throat tight.
She didn’t respond. Her lips moved, words tumbling out soft and strange.
“The hunt runs cold… the moon calls, but the woods are gone…”
The hair on the back of my neck prickled. Amy had never sleepwalked in all the years I’d known her.
“Amy,” I tried again, sliding out of bed. “Hey, it’s Mel. You’re okay.”
Her head tilted toward me, but her eyes didn’t focus. They were glazed, seeing something I couldn’t.
“Silver arrows, silver cage,” she whispered. “The forest burned. They took my forest. Took my girls.” Her voice cracked, and tears slipped down her cheeks. “I couldn’t protect them.”
My chest tightened.
“Who took your forest?” I asked, dread sinking into me like teeth.
“The Shepherd,” she breathed, and my blood went cold. “He was watching, waiting, taking what isn’t his.”
She swayed again, and I moved closer, afraid she’d fall.
“Kore,” she murmured. I froze at the name. My birthmark burned, and I pressed my hand to my wrist, gasping.
She knows. Somehow, she knows.
But that was impossible. I hadn’t told anyone about the name from my dreams. Never wrote it down where she could see it.
“Little Kore,” Amy continued, voice breaking. “Don’t stray too far. You’ll be lost when the dark comes. When he comes. He always comes.”
Behind me, Luz whispered, “What the fuck is happening?”
I swallowed hard, forcing calm into my voice. “Amy, come on. Let’s get you back to bed.”
I touched her elbow, and she melted at once, all resistance draining away. I guided her back under the covers, and she curled against the pillow.
“Kore,” she breathed one last time, so faint it might have been a dream. “He’s coming for you. He always finds you. Always.”
Then she went still, her breathing evening out into something that might have been real sleep.
I stayed crouched at her bedside, my pulse hammering.
Luz crept over, her expression pale and stricken.
We lingered there for a long time, both of us watching the slow rise and fall of Amy’s chest. Every creak of the dorm seemed louder. Every shadow heavier.
“The Shepherd,” Luz said quietly. “What the fuck is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“And that name… Kore? Why would she say that?”
I couldn’t answer. My throat was too tight, my thoughts too tangled.
When I crawled back into bed, sleep was impossible. I lay there in the darkness, listening to Luz’s breathing even out, feeling the weight of Amy’s words pressing down on me.
He’s coming for you.
I pulled my blanket tighter and stared at the ceiling, mind racing from the fear for my friend and the ever-present feeling that we were caught in something we would never be able to escape.