The moment the final bell rang, Andres felt the shift in the air Shit it took him to long to get out of class. The hallway chatter sounded normal, but something underneath it, an edge, a tension, made the hairs on his arms rise. He slipped out a side door, hoping to avoid Chad's usual ambush point.

  He didn't make it ten steps. Fuck says Andres

  "There he is!"

  Chad's voice cracked across the courtyard like a gunshot.

  Andres didn't look back. He bolted.

  Footsteps pounding behind him sounded like multiple sets, heavy and fast. Chad wasn't coming alone today. His boys were with him, and they were pissed. They were hunting.

  "Cut him off!" Yells Chad

  "Grab his bag!" Yells another one of Chad's guys that was chasing Andres.

  Andres sprints across the courtyard, slipping between benches and trash cans. His denim backpack was bouncing against his spine, half unzipped, and slightly torn from where someone had grabbed it earlier. His lungs burned, but adrenaline pushed him harder.

  He darted toward the row of portable classrooms behind the gym. The sun making super long shadows across the pavement, deep, sharp, and perfect for Andres.

  Andres cuts between two portables, but one of Chad's friends lunges and catches one of the straps of his backpack. The hard yank nearly pulls Andres off his feet.

  "Got you now!" fucker said Ben (one of Chad's lackeys)

  Andres twisted violently, the strap slipping off his shoulder. He stumbled forward, barely catching himself before hitting the ground.

  "Don't let him get away!" Yells, Chad is closing in on them fast

  He didn't answer. Andres dives towards a narrow strip of shadow between the portables, pressing himself into the darkness. He didn't dare jump, not with them this close, not without a stable shadow to anchor to, but he could still use the dark to hide.

  The shadow wrapped around Andres like cool water, muffling his outline, dimming his presence. His chest tightened from the effort, using the shadows raw always drained him, but he forced himself to stay still.

  Chad's footsteps skidded to a stop just a couple of feet away.

  "He was right here!" God Damnit!

  "Check behind the portable!" Yells Chad!

  "Spread out!"

  Chad stomps past, so close that Andres could smell the sweat and cheap cologne. One wrong breath and they'd see him. The boys fanned out, kicking bushes, checking under stairwells, cursing loudly.

  Andres waited until their voices drifted farther away, then slowly peeled himself out of the shadow. His legs trembled from the strain, but he couldnt stop. Andres slips behind the group of portables, cutting across the smoking area at the back field, hopping the fence, and dropping into the alley behind the school.

  Only when he reached the street and step into a shadow did Andres let himself take a deep breathe.

  Finally He was safe,For now anyways

  But the cold ache in his chest felt empty like a loss of energy, it was a reminder that hiding in shadow cost him more than he liked to admit.

  He needed control. He needed to practice.

  And that was why, the moment he got home, he locked himself in his room and turned off the lights.

  ---

  THE WORK BEGINS

  Andres sat cross?legged on the floor, the only light coming from the streetlamp outside. The shadows in his room stretched long across the walls, thick and inviting. Andres reached toward one, feeling the familiar tug in his chest as the darkness responded.

  A tendril rose from the floor like smoke reversing direction, curling around his fingers. He shaped it slowly, carefully, forcing it into a thin long dark blade in his right hand. Concentrating hard with the sweat dripping down his forehead as the shadow hardened, forming another dagger with jagged edges in his left hand.

  Both Daggers flickered once, twice, then dissolved into black mist, leaving him breathless.

  "Damn it."

  He tried again. Same result. The drain hit him like a punch to the ribs every time.

  He leaned back, frustrated, staring at the shadow pooling beneath his desk lamp. Something about it felt… different. More stable. More grounded.

  He reached toward it again, but this time, instead of pulling the shadow away from its source, he imagined it staying connected—like a cord stretching from the lamp's base to his right hand.

  The shadow responded instantly.

  A dagger formed in his palm, solid and sharp, the drain on his chest was barely a whisper.

  Andres froze.

  "No way…"

  He tightened his grip. The weapon held. The cold ache didn't stab him in the heart. The shadow wasn't feeding off of him, it was feeding off the lamp's shadow.

  He grinned, heart racing. "Tethering… I can tether it."

  Andres tried again with the shadow under his bed, then the one cast by his dresser. Each time, the drain was lighter. It was almost manageable he only needed to pull the shadows that we connected. But if ihe pulled at a completely free, untethered shadow did that cold emptiness return full force.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Andres grabbed his book off the bed He scribbled a note:

  "Shadow tether = reduced drain. Use anchored shadows when possible."

  For the first time, the power didn't feel like it was killing him.

  It felt like something he could actually master.

  ---

  JUMPING THE DARKNESS

  Andres stood, His legs super shaky, and stared at the far corner of his room. The shadow there was deep, untouched by the streetlight. He focused onit, letting the cold emptiness in his chest expand grabbing the untethered shadow.

  The world squeezed around him, and he was there, gasping, knees buckling. The drain hit him hard. Too hard.

  He leaned against the wall, panting. Then he noticed something: the shadow he'd jumped from had been floating, unanchored. But the shadow in the corner was tied to the dresser.

  He wondered…

  He tried again, this time jumping from the shadow beneath his bed—anchored, solid, tethered to a physical object.

  The compression hit him, but the drain was half what it had been.

  He staggered, but didn't collapse.

  "Oh hell yes." said Andres

  He tested it again. Bed to closet. Closet to window. Window to desk. Each jump to and from a tethered shadow cost Andres less, it felt smoother, felt more natural. The cold ache in his chest still increased, but at a slower, more tolerable rate.

  He added another note in his journal:

  Tethered jumps = reduced drain. Free shadows = dangerous.

  He wasn't just learning to use the shadows. He was learning their rules.

  ---

  REACHING FOR MARCEL

  By 2 a.m., Andres's room felt too small to contain the storm inside him. He needed air. He needed space. He needed to know where Marcel Baptiste was.

  He slipped out his window and dropped quietly into the backyard. Miami's night wrapped around him—humid, buzzing with insects, the distant thump of bass from a passing car. The city felt different now. Every shadow felt like a doorway. Every dark corner felt alive.

  He moved through the streets, sticking to the darkest edges. When he reached a deep shadow cast by a streetlight pole, he slipped into it—just a short, tethered jump to stay well hidden.

  Shadow by shadow. Alley to alley. Rooftop to rooftop. Andres keep moving.

  Andres climbed a rusted fire escape and emerged onto a roof dotted with a forest of tall metal TV antennas, laundry lines. On a building across the street was a massive 16?foot satellite dish angled toward the stars with a deep shadow beneath it.

  He moved like a stray cat, slipping behind chimneys, ducking under antenna towers, using the shadows cast by vents and water tanks to mask his presence.

  At one point he paused beside a rooftop vent, noticing a deep shadow pooling beneath it. An impulse tugged at him. He reached into the shadow and pulled. Liquid darkness dripped from his fingers like black paint.

  He dragged his hand across the rooftop wall, leaving behind a streak of inky graffiti—an abstract shape, sharp and fluid, like a symbol only the shadows understood.

  A mark.

  A signature.

  A reminder that he had been here.

  After a quick pause Andres decided to kept moving.

  The pull grew stronger a cold thread running through the night.

  Marcel.

  Andres followed the sensation until he reached the edge of Little Haiti. He crouched behind the rusted frame of an old billboard, peering down at a dimly lit street below.

  There he was.

  Marcel Baptiste walked with slow, deliberate steps, flanked by two of his men. Even from a distance, Marcel radiated a kind of coiled readiness. His shoulders were loose, but his eyes scanned everything the alleys, the rooftops, the shadows.

  Andres leaned forward, trying to get a better look

  Marcel stopped walking.

  His head turned quickly.

  Not toward Andres exactly…

  but toward the rooftop.

  Toward the darkness.

  As if he felt something.

  Not the shadows.

  But the intent behind them.

  "Someone's watching," Marcel murmured.

  His men tensed, scanning the street.

  Andres's pulse hammered. He backed away slowly, keeping to the darkest patches of the roof. Only when he was several rooftops away did he dare make another jump short, tethered, draining but safe.

  Andres didn't stop moving until he was a few blocks away, the tension still coiled tight in his chest.

  By the time he slipped back into his bedroom window, the first hints of dawn brushed the Miami skyline. Exhaustion hit him like a wave, but his mind raced.

  Marcel Baptiste wasn't supernatural.

  But he was dangerous.

  More dangerous than Andres had realized.

  And sooner or later, their paths would cross again.