The automatic doors slid open with a whisper, and the scent of roasted coffee beans, warm pastry, and polished tile washed over them. Lili blinked under the sudden brightness of the shopping center—neon signs humming, kids tugging on parents’ hands, couples drifting lazily past storefronts. For a moment, it almost felt like they belonged. Cova walked beside her, but her presence was anything but casual.
“You know,” Lili began, a wry smile touching her lips, “the last time I came to a mall like this, I almost got stabbed. Shoe sale turned into a blood sport.”
Cova huffed out a dry laugh. “You do have that effect on people.”
“I was wearing combat boots at the time. Maybe that sent mixed signals.”
But even as they spoke, Lili noticed how often Cova’s gaze flicked—windows, reflections, corners, faces in passing. Her shoulders carried a tension that didn’t match the stroll.
“You said I should loosen up,” Lili muttered, glancing sidelong. “But you’re the one moving like there’s a sniper on the roof.”
Cova didn’t look at her. She kept her eyes ahead. “I didn’t say the world was safe. I said you deserved a breath.”
Lili’s smile faded.
“They might come for you,” Cova added quietly, her voice nearly lost beneath the thrum of life in the shopping center. “You vanished from their hands with too much knowledge. If they’re watching, they’ll follow your scent before they ever notice mine.”
Lili’s steps faltered. Her throat tightened, and she glanced around with new eyes—faces blurring into suspicion, every passerby a potential shadow in disguise.
“So… you’re guarding me,” she said slowly, the realization settling.
“Call it what you want,” Cova murmured, still scanning the reflections in the windows they passed. “But I’m not here for the sandals and overpriced smoothies.”
“You told me you wanted to drag me out so I could breathe,” Lili shot back, her tone caught between a whisper and a wounded truth. “So I wouldn’t be locked inside myself.”
She turned her gaze across the crowded atrium, a tidal wave of voices, footsteps, smells and laughter. So many people, so much noise. And beneath it, a coil of dread she hadn’t fully acknowledged until now.
“Maybe it was a mistake,” she muttered, the pressure climbing behind her ribs. “Let’s just get back—”
She spun on her heel, already retracing their steps, but Cova’s hand gently caught her wrist.
“Lili.” Cova’s voice softened, as if pulling her back from the edge. “I do want you to breathe. But I also want you to understand why it’s hard. That fear, the tension you feel? It’s instinct. And it kept you alive.”
Lili’s eyes flicked to hers, wounded and wary.
“But we can’t let it chain you anymore,” Cova continued. “If we run every time it rises, you’ll forget what it feels like to stand. So we’re not leaving. Not unless you truly want to.”
“Now I’m the one who feels chained,” Lili whispered, her voice trembling, laced with something raw and stinging. “I thought you brought me here because you wanted to spend time with me—not because it was some duty, some obligation to guard the unstable girl.”
Cova blinked, caught off guard, but Lili was already folding in on herself.
The crowd seemed to double in size, swell and surge around her. Every voice was too loud, every step too close. Her lungs began to protest the air she couldn’t quite find. The ceiling felt lower. The lights too harsh. The movement of people became an endless blur of shapes she couldn’t track.
Her breathing quickened, sharp and shallow. She could feel the tremor in her fingers. Her Gift clawed at its leash, sensing her unraveling control.
“Lili,” Cova said, stepping closer, her voice careful but steady. “I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t,” Lili snapped, but it wasn’t anger. It was panic, trying to find a name. “I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere. This was a mistake.”
People brushed past her. Someone laughed nearby too loud and too sharp. Her eyes flashed red for a heartbeat. She turned her back to Cova, her shoulders rigid, trying desperately to force the shadows back down, to draw breath into lungs that didn’t want to listen. But they wouldn’t settle. And she was seconds from losing control.
That’s when Lili ran out of the noise, out of the light, out of the pressing heat of bodies moving too close. She pushed past startled strangers, barely hearing their protests, and burst through the front doors of the shopping center like something hunted.
The moment the fresh air hit her face, it offered a slight, momentary reprieve—cool wind curling against sweat-damp skin, the scent of concrete and distant rain washing away the sterile perfume of artificial space.
But the relief was shallow.
She stood frozen just outside the building, her breath still unsteady, dragging in through her nose and out through clenched teeth. Her hands trembled uncontrollably at her sides, fingers twitching like they might betray her any second and let the shadows pour free. Her face was too pale, the color drained, and her eyes glassy with a storm of thoughts she couldn’t sort fast enough.
She wrapped her arms around herself as if she could squeeze her chest into something smaller, more manageable.
A part of her had known this would happen. And still, the shame stung. She hated that her strength frayed in such mundane places where people laughed and shopped and lived without wondering who might be watching from the dark.
Cova found her exactly where she expected—curled into the corner of a bench.
Lili sat with her elbows resting on her knees, head bowed low, strands of red hair falling like curtains around her face. Her fingers were knotted together tightly, like if she let go, something inside her might unravel beyond repair.
Cova approached slowly. She didn’t speak right away. Instead, she sat beside Lili, letting the silence stretch. After a long pause, Cova spoke, voice softer than Lili had ever heard it. “You’re right. I didn’t drag you out here just for duty.”
Lili didn’t lift her head.
Cova continued, slower now. “I wanted you to breathe. I wanted you to see there’s more out here than walls and missions. But I also knew that being out here wouldn’t feel safe. Because it’s not for someone like you.”
At that, Lili gave the smallest bitter laugh.
Cova leaned back on the bench, one arm draped over its edge. “You know,” she said casually, “you just about ruined my plans for a full-blown wardrobe makeover.”
Lili blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
Cova smirked. “Yeah. I already had this mental list going—leather jackets, boots with enough heel to make someone rethink picking a fight, maybe a few tops that scream ‘don’t mess with me or I’ll ruin your entire bloodline.’” She arched a brow at Lili’s skirt. “We’re halfway there, honestly.”
Lili huffed—somewhere between a scoff and a reluctant laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“True,” Cova agreed with a grin. “But I know what I’m doing. Look good, feel powerful. Let the world second-guess whether they should mess with you.”
Lili shifted slightly, her body a little less tense now, her fingers no longer trembling.
“You think clothes can do that?” she asked, voice quieter.
Cova shrugged. “Clothes, attitude, a good friend nearby. It’s all armor in different shapes. And trust me, the right look can shut people up faster than a punch to the jaw.”
Lili finally looked at her fully, lips tugging at the corner. “You’re not giving up on this shopping thing, are you?”
“Not a chance,” Cova said, rising to her feet and offering her hand. “Come on, shadow girl. Let’s go find you something that says ‘dangerous, but healing.’”
Lili hesitated only a second before taking the offered hand.
***
The afternoon unfolded like a scene from someone else’s life—someone softer, someone free. Lili still felt the occasional prickling on the back of her neck, the phantom weight of being watched, but Cova’s steady presence beside her dulled the edge of that fear.
They drifted from store to store, with no particular destination but the one they carved with their steps. It began innocently—Lili spotting a rack of charcoal-gray jeans stitched with crimson thread, running her fingers across the seams. Then came a ribbed top with mesh sleeves, then a hooded cloak-like coat in midnight blue. One by one, the pieces started to gather in her arms like fragments of someone she was trying to become.
“You know, you could start your own fashion cult at this point,” Cova muttered, watching as Lili picked out a fourth pair of boots.
Lili, unbothered, glanced at her from beneath a pair of red-tinted sunglasses. “I’m reclaiming my identity,” she said, half-joking, half-honest.
By the time they hit the seventh store, Lili’s and Cova’s hands were overflowing with bags.
“Fifteen outfits,” Cova counted under her breath, shifting the bags on her arm. “Are you planning a catwalk in the base corridors?”
“I might,” Lili replied, eyes glittering with something dangerously close to joy.
As they drove back toward the base, the golden dusk sky slowly surrendered to a deeper, grayer hush—clouds billowing like bruises above the horizon, folding in on the last light. The wind picked up first, whispering through the trees that lined the road. Then came the scattered taps against the windshield—soft at first before the heavens opened fully.
The rain poured in sheets, thick and fast, washing the world into smudges of light and movement. Headlights of passing cars became blurred halos.
“Rafael told us to be back before dark,” Lili said, glancing toward the clouds already blotting out the fading sun. Her voice was calm, but laced with a subtle tension. “He’s probably checking the clock already.”
Cova let out a grunt, her grip tightening on the steering wheel. “I know. I just didn’t expect the sky to betray us.”
“I think that’s the first poetic thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Lili teased lightly, watching the rain race down the window beside her. The droplets caught the reflection of the stormlight.
Cova smirked but didn’t take her eyes off the road. “Don’t get used to it. I only wax poetic when I’m annoyed.”
Despite the humor, Cova was clearly tense. The rain made it impossible to drive faster—the tires hissed on the wet asphalt, and visibility shrank with every passing minute. Lili could feel the subtle shift in her—her shoulders pulled tight, her jaw clenched. She wasn’t just worried about Rafael or the clock.
“You think someone might be following us,” Lili said quietly, not as a question but as a truth she had already sensed.
Cova’s knuckles whitened on the wheel. “Storms like this make good cover,” she muttered, stealing a glance at Lili.
“I’m vigilant,” Lili answered, voice low and sharpened. Her eyes flared yellow, scanning the blurred world through the haze and rain. Her muscles tightened a second later. “You were right. We’re being followed.”
Before another word could form, Lili’s entire body shifted. Shadows curled along her spine and then erupted from her back in a ripple of dark smoke. She flung the door open mid-motion.
“Wait—Lili!” Cova shouted.
But the wind devoured the warning. Lili was already airborne. The figure in the shadows lunged at her, striking, but Lili’s form twisted in midair, shadows swirling around her limbs and hardening into jagged strikes. She struck the enemy with a force that shattered the silence—he staggered, but didn’t fall.
Behind her, tires screeched. Cova was braking. But then the second shadow—larger, faster—slammed into the car with explosive force. The vehicle flipped, steel groaning and glass shattering.
“COVA!” Lili’s voice ripped the sky in half. Her wings snapped backward, propelling her toward the car—but the first shadow lunged again. Too slow. Lili’s shadows surged forward smashing into the attacker’s ribs. He flew back, but Lili didn’t watch him fall.
The second shadow was raising its hand toward the crumpled wreck.
“You won’t touch her!” Lili bellowed, and her wings folded sharply, diving like a hawk, her shadows slamming into the enemy like the hammer of night. The strike shook the earth.
Her adversary reeled but didn’t fall. He was tougher than the last, cloaked in moving darkness, face hidden, voice hissing in a tongue she half-recognized. Another blow came—she dodged, twisted. Rain hit her skin but never slowed her. Every strike she landed, she thought of everyone she’d survived for.
Inside the wreck, smoke rose. The door screeched weakly—moved. A skeletal arm clawed out—then faded.
Cova…?
Lili’s heart seized. She screamed—not words, but raw sound—and the shadows on her arms surged again…
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