A Million Shadows Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Free Book Offer!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Thank You from JABberwocky!

  A Million Shadows

  © 2016 Janci Patterson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Melody Fender

  Cover image from istock.com/Aleramo

  Author Photo by Michelle D. Argyle

  For James,

  Who always knows how the book should end.

  One

  Wearing Tommy Amato’s pants was an exercise in self-restraint. As I sauntered down the street toward Tommy’s girlfriend’s house, all I wanted to do was hitch them up on my hips so they wouldn’t feel like they were about to fall to my knees. But Tommy never did that, even when his belt was clinging to the lower half of his boxers by static alone. So I swaggered like Tommy, my bones thickened to nearly double their normal size, every muscle packed with extra bulk, which I supposed was to be expected when a sixteen-year-old girl spent her morning in the shape of a large thirty-something-year-old man.

  The pants weren’t literally Tommy’s. They were his favorite brand and color, and I’d bought them at a thrift store so they wouldn’t look new, since none of Tommy’s pants were. But the most important and most difficult piece of my cover wasn’t the pants. It was Tommy’s truck, which I could see parked on the curb up the block.

  Producing a truck identical to Tommy’s would have taken me a month. The model was rare—the nearest one I could find for sale in the same color was in Fresno, nearly a six-hour drive away. And even that one wouldn’t be perfect: Tommy’s driver’s-side fender had rust spots in a pattern that resembled moldy cheese. His mermaid hood ornament was a collectible that sold for hundreds on eBay. And worst of all, the back bumper was hung with Truck Nutz so greasy I wouldn’t have touched them with two-foot tongs. I really didn’t want to fathom how I would go about making my own.

  Lucky for me, I didn’t have to. My current resources were too scant to make what I could easily steal.

  I continued to saunter up the block toward the truck. The curtains to Tommy’s girlfriend’s house were all drawn, and I hoped that, inside, Tommy was still fast asleep. It wasn’t unlikely, given the amount of alcohol I’d watched him down the night before. I’d tailed him to his girlfriend’s house, which made it easier to break into his empty place and steal his spare truck key. Then again, the guy was so hammered that I probably could have walked right in his front door while he was home and taken the thing. I could have stolen his truck right then and there, if that’s what I needed.

  But Tommy’s truck wasn’t the goal; it was just a piece of the persona, like the wide shoulders, the thick hips, the shaved head, and the peeling scalp that made Tommy look like an oversized onion. Even the cash drop was only half of the real take—though I fully intended to steal that from Tommy’s underdealer, who worked behind the counter at Tommy’s convenience store, hawking cigarettes and overpriced snacks. My mom and I needed cash to stay on the run. The people who were after us were too dangerous, and knew our old habits too well. We couldn’t chance accessing any of our old accounts unless we absolutely had to. It was far safer to live like all we had was what we could acquire now.

  Though, at the moment, I was the only one doing the acquiring.

  Tommy’s girlfriend’s house remained quiet as I approached, unlocked the driver’s side door, and climbed in. Tommy might call in the theft of his truck before I finished the job, but I didn’t think he would. There were too many gram bottles in the glove compartment. This, Tommy would want to take care of himself.

  And by the time he did, I’d be long gone.

  I started the truck and drove down the street. Driving to the job decked out in my Tommy persona, I could almost pretend I was in the middle of the kind of mission I used to run—the sort that involved data theft and high-profile clients and a team to watch my back. The old me would have been disgusted to see what I was doing now. I used to be a spy. Now I was nothing more than a thief. I’d told my boyfriend two months ago that I wanted to get out of the larceny business, and yet here I was.

  Because that was before. And here in the after, I’d do whatever I could to help my mother survive.

  When I drove up to Tommy’s convenience store, I pulled into the parking lot by barreling over the low curb without slowing down. The truck nearly bounced me out of my seat, since I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. It was a stupid thing to do, but it was the same thing I’d watched Tommy do every morning for a week, so it was also a part of my cover.

  Though I’d charged into the parking lot like the place was on fire, I slouched into the store like I had all day. That was the one and only thing I liked about Tommy: that contradiction.

  I shoved the glass double doors open wide and ambled into the store. I walked right up to the counter, past the cases of smoking apparatuses with their unlikely label: for tobacco use only. Tommy’s drug dealing operation was so thinly veiled it was a wonder they didn’t get raided twice a week. It was all I could do to restrain myself from calling in a tip, but I couldn’t get extra-curricular until the job was done.

  Before the doors even closed behind me, I fixed my eyes on Angel, the greasy-haired cashier, who was wearing a tight shirt and baggy cargo pants. I didn’t know what was with Tommy’s operation and pants that were decades out of fashion, but I was pretty sure it had something to do with the ease of hiding stashes of drugs underneath the folds of clothing.

  “Hey man,” Angel said.

  I grunted in return. Tommy was a man of few words. I knew this exchange because I’d hung out in the snack aisles yesterday and memorized every word.

  I watched Angel’s posture as he bent over the safe, pulling out last night’s register haul. Obviously nothing about my appearance had led him to believe that I wasn’t Tommy. Nor should it. I’d done my research, and I was good at this.

  Angel withdrew a clear pouch from the safe, full of cash, and offered it to me. I restricted the pores in my palms to keep my hands from sweating as I took it. Not that I wasn’t used to stealing. Far from it. This might be more petty than the jobs I used to do, but I’d helped my parents steal many, many times the amount Angel was handing me, from people who had earned their money a lot more honestly. If anything, robbing drug dealers made me feel slightly better about myself.

  Today, though, all of this felt a whole lot dirtier, and not just because the floor in Tommy’s shop was in des
perate need of mopping. This time, the cash wasn’t the only thing I was here for.

  I took the cash drop and shoved it in my deep pockets, causing my pants to slide another inch down my hips. “Did Julian drop off the tabs yet?” I asked.

  Angel shrugged. “Not while I’ve been here.”

  I raised an eyebrow and gave Angel my best intimidating glare. “You gonna check?”

  Angel rolled his eyes, muttered something about not getting paid well enough to deal with me, and then ambled toward the back room, to the other safe.

  And I was glad. Because while Tommy might be fully capable of opening his own damn safe to see if his drugs were there, my profiling hadn’t netted me the combination.

  I followed Angel into the back room and watched as he opened it. He stood between me and the dial, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t need the numbers; I only needed Angel to enter them for me. He shoved aside some papers in the safe and pulled out a large Ziploc full of smaller, unmarked baggies. “Yup,” Angel said. “There you go.”

  “Give it here,” I said. “I’ve got a delivery to make.”

  Angel shrugged and tossed the bag at me, then wandered back up to the front of the store, muttering something under his breath about how I could have gotten them myself.

  I stared at the bag in my hand. I might have committed more felonies than all my years of life combined, but possession of this much Vicodin had never been one of them.

  I could have taken all the pills. There had to be hundreds of them. But I didn’t want to believe that I needed that many. Just a few. Two bags’ worth ought to be enough. I reached in and pulled out the baggies and shoved them into my pocket with the cash drop. I thought about conveniently losing the rest, but that, too, counted as getting extracurricular. So instead I tossed the Ziploc back in the safe and slammed the thing shut.

  On my way out of the store I gave one last disdainful look at Angel, to let him know I found him wanting. Then I barked "later,” and wandered back to where Tommy’s truck was waiting.

  I had to force myself not to jitter as I pulled the truck out of the parking lot, holding my knees still to keep them from bouncing up and down, up and down. On the other side of the block, I parked next to a Laundromat. I pulled jeans and a t-shirt in a girl’s size from one of the unattended dryers, then tossed two twenties from the cash drop in with the remaining clothes. The ones I’d taken didn’t look expensive. Hopefully that would more than cover them.

  I ducked into the bathroom to get changed. I reduced my body, sucking in all of Tommy’s bulky mass into a wiry girl a few years younger—and several pounds smaller—than my normal self. I pushed several feet of jet-black hair out of my bald scalp, then dulled it a bit. Shiny hair attracted attention.

  When I got the pants on I had to lengthen my legs so they wouldn’t drag, since I’d undershot a bit. I stuffed the bags of pills into the pouch of money, and tucked the whole mess into the front of my pants, then sucked in my waist a bit to compensate so it wouldn’t be visible while I walked home.

  When I walked out of the bathroom, I stuck Tommy’s clothes in a dryer, inserted a few coins, and let it run.

  I left the Laundromat, abandoning Tommy’s truck on the curb. Tommy would find it eventually. He’d go by the store and find that Angel didn’t have the drop. Angel would tell Tommy he’d already been there; Tommy would know that he hadn’t. That was messy, but it wasn’t like they’d want to draw legal attention to their operation. Tommy would probably fire Angel for being a liar and a thief, and Angel would probably think Tommy set him up to be fired for one reason or another. In the worst case scenario, one of them might shoot the other, and the world would be down a drug dealer. Whatever happened, it wouldn’t fall back on me or my mother. No one would suspect shifters were involved, mostly because they didn’t know we existed.

  On my way back to our apartment, I passed through an underground parking garage. In a corner, away from cameras, I reshaped my face into the persona I’d been using at our apartment complex—a gaunt girl with thin limbs that made her look frail and unassuming. I tightened my hair into a short bob that made my features appear more severe than they were. I walked the remaining block to our apartment complex the long way around, brushing the cash drop in my pants.

  I paused when I saw our new neighbor hovering by her window. She hobbled along with a walker, but she still managed to open her door just as I stepped onto our doormat, keys in hand.

  “Amelia,” she said.

  I forced a smile at her—one I knew looked natural. I’d called myself Amelia when I introduced myself to her when she’d moved in about a week ago. Before that all our neighbors had been the kind who kept to themselves. I felt bad for trying to avoid her—she was a lonely old woman, after all—but she would keep me standing on the doorstep for hours if I let her.

  “Hi, Laura,” I said. “How’s the knitting?” Through the window, I could see every surface of Laura’s living room covered in afghans and doilies and skein after skein of yarn. It was no wonder she never invited me in. There was barely room for Laura to sit, herself.

  Which hadn’t stopped me from breaking into her house to watch her sleep the night after she moved in. New people made me nervous; new people with limps made me want to run. But Laura looked like herself in her sleep, and everything inside the apartment checked out.

  There were at least four shifters who would be looking for me and my mother, but she wasn’t any of them. Shifters can look like anyone, but we can’t hold on to other personas once we fall asleep.

  “Not knitting,” Laura said. “Crochet. I finished another blanket. I thought I might make one for your mother next. How is she?”

  I tried not to twitch. “I’m not sure,” I said. “Have you seen her today?”

  “No,” Laura said. “That’s why I’m asking. Is she still ill? I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with her face. She’d looked like she was healing so well.”

  I cringed. If I wished one thing, it was that Laura’s windows didn’t face our door. It wasn’t healthy to have someone watching us all the time. Someone who might remember details about the cuts on Mom’s face.

  “I’d better go check on her,” I said. I took the out, shoving the door open and slipping inside before Laura could protest.

  “I’ll see you later, dear!” she shouted as I closed the door.

  I locked it behind me. If Laura got any pushier, Mom and I would need to move.

  Safely inside, I checked to make sure the curtains were closed. They always were—Mom rarely sought the light of day anymore—but it paid to be careful. Then I relaxed into my home body, the one formed by my subconscious when I wasn’t intentionally forming myself into someone else.

  When my dad was alive, we always used our home faces with our neighbors—safer that way, since we reverted to them in our sleep. But now that people were hunting us, Mom said we could only use them inside, where no prying eyes might see. She was recognizable enough as it was, what with the scars on her face.

  Even in here, I felt exposed.

  I walked through the near-empty living room and kitchen. Usually when we moved to a new place, we decorated right away, so we wouldn’t look as transient as we were. But not here. Mom didn’t seem to care that our empty rooms looked suspicious. This time, she’d only bought two beds and a folding chair. We couldn’t even sit down together. I wondered if, for her, refusing to turn this apartment into a home made it hurt less to have Dad gone.

  For me, it served as a constant reminder that nothing would ever be the way it was again.

  On my way through the kitchen I pulled out the cash drop and tossed it onto the kitchen counter, then pulled out the baggies of pills. I had the ridiculous urge to flush them.

  I’d actually tried that a month ago—the first time Mom came home with pain pills instead of the sleeping pills she’d stolen right after Dad died. I understood that she wasn’t sleeping. Hell, my own nightmares were enough to make me never want to sleep again.
But the pain Mom was in wasn’t the kind that got fixed with a pill. I’d flushed the whole bottle, and before I knew it she’d disappeared to get more.

  I stuck the pills back in my pocket and knocked on the door to Mom’s room, shoving aside a pile of laundry that had made its way outside the door.

  “I’m up,” she called. Though from the scratchiness of her voice I knew that she hadn’t been.

  I pushed the door open. Mom sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. The nightstand was littered with prescription bottles. Whether Mom had forged or stolen those prescriptions, I couldn’t tell. I supposed it didn’t really matter. Regardless, she was still leaving the apartment, putting herself at unnecessary risk. She needed to stop taking the drugs, but more than that, she had to stay safe.

  I had to keep her safe. At least until she’d had enough time to recover from our loss.

  I stepped into the room and Mom stopped rubbing her face long enough to take my hand. Her scars were an angry pink color in the dim fluorescent light. We gave our hand signal—taking turns shifting our palms and responding—our secret code that allowed us to recognize each other.

  But then she drew hers away and ran a hand through the tangles of her hair and shifting them straight.

  I hesitated, the pills still buried in my pocket. Mom didn’t need more drugs. She needed a miracle

  The cuts on her face were healing well, but even with plastic surgery, the scars would never disappear entirely. Even the best laser treatments probably wouldn’t get rid of the scar tissue completely, and any imperfection on her face would be emphasized when she tried to shift her skin tone.

  Scars might hurt another person’s vanity, but they threatened Mom’s whole life. Even wearing makeup wouldn’t do the trick, because if she got herself into a pinch, the makeup wouldn’t shift with her.

  We couldn’t even get her proper medical treatment to help her partially heal. The Carmines were hunting us, and they were ruthless, and powerful. Doctors kept good records. One note on a computer with internet access that accurately described her scars and the Carmines could search us out, even if we had it done in another part of the world. That’s why they’d given her this particular injury, after all. Scars were precise and specific, and therefore easy to trace. Moreover, they’d know exactly where to find Mom unconscious, if they found out the date of her surgery.