Born of Shadow - Book 1 (complete)

Chapter 20

"Everyone's gone?" Yasmin asked, stunned. "How is that possible? There are over a thousand people who live here."

"That's what we need to figure out. If you want to see your family again, I have some things you need to see. Will you come?" Samuel asked.

"What sort of things?" Kami said. 

He looked around uncomfortably. "This isn't the place. It's too risky to talk out in the open like this."

"Then where?" Yasmin shot back. "This is my grandparents you are talking about! Their lives could be in danger." 

He didn't answer. 

Haji leaned in closer. "So let me get this straight. You are telling us that the entire village has somehow vanished, you claim to know something about it and we are supposed to trust you enough to follow you into the desert? Forgive me for feeling skeptical, but I don't like it."

The man swallowed and looked over his shoulder before speaking to Yasmin again. Several of the policemen were beginning to take notice of their small group. "I believe your grandfather stumbled onto something he shouldn't have. It is very serious. We don't have much time. We must hurry."

With that, he and Chris walked over to a beat up Jeep Wrangler and climbed in.

They looked at each other. 

"I don't see a better choice," Yasmin said.

Kami glanced back at the police officers. A couple of them began slowly walking toward them. If they were going to leave, now was their chance. 

"I agree. Let's go," she said.

After following the jeep for about twenty minutes, they turned onto a dirt path. It was a straight shot into the desert now. Unlike where they were yesterday, here the landscape was now dotted with a patchwork of scratchy bushes and small clumps of grass. Jagged mountains could be seen in the distance. 

Kami couldn't believe how high the cloud of dust behind them reached into the sky. The sky was brilliant blue overhead without a cloud in sight, except near the horizon where the sky was almost brown from the heat or ever-present sand. Maybe both. Even with the A/C blasting, her back and legs were sticky from sweat. 

They drove alongside a washed out, dried-up riverbed. Deep splits and cracks twisted like the branches of a dead oak tree. The landscape was rockier here, and it was harder to pick out the path. Without a guide, they wouldn't have known where to drive. Off to the right, a scabby cliff of auburn rocks began to wall them in.

The jeep came to a stop—a dead end.

"Brilliant," Liam muttered. 

Haji voiced a guttural word in Arabic. He stopped the SUV a safe distance behind the jeep and began to scan the area.

The way Liam gripped the handle above his head made Kami nervous. 

"Ambush?" Yasmin said.

"We should leave this place," Haji said. 

As he started to turn around, Samuel stepped outside and waved for them to stop in an it's alright motion. 

The strange man began pulling aside a pile of bushes and logs. A pathway opened up on the other side.

They drove through the opening and around the cliff corner and discovered an oasis on the other side. Palm trees stood sentinel over the shallow pool of emerald water. Birds fluttered about. A few patches of brightly colored flowers lined the ground.

"It's beautiful," Kami said, staring at it in wonder. 

They pulled in front of a large olive green canvas tent, probably military-grade, with ragged edges and piles of odds and ends stacked around. Samuel and Chris parked behind them. Samuel strolled over to a generator, fiddled with it for a moment, then stepped into the tent.

Chris entered next, holding a wooden box with a handle, about the size of a large loaf of bread. It kind of reminded Kami of the animal carrier she used for Galileo.

They stepped out of the vehicle. It was already several degrees cooler, and Kami didn't find the sand nearly as hot as before. The sun was starting to set. It would probably be dark within an hour or so.  They followed Chris inside.

They could hear music, and Kami assumed Samuel must have turned it on. Chris set his strange box down on the canvas floor. He disappeared behind a flap separating the main room from another. As he lifted the flap, the music briefly blasted through the tent, then went muffled again.

"Our only hope is a guy who rocks out to Pink Floyd?" Liam murmured. 

 "And how do you know this song?" Haji teased.

"Touché," Liam grinned. Kami caught her breath. He was so handsome, but his smiles weren't for her anymore. He and Haji had resumed their closeness, and she was the outsider once more. 

She was glad that Liam seemed to have released his anger. She couldn't blame him for being angry, not if he was innocent as he seemed. There was a part of her deep down that was beginning to suspect she had been way too paranoid, that she had accused him when he had been just as much a victim as her. That hurt look in his eyes haunted her. Now that she was away from those things, now that she had a moment to think about it, it hadn't been fair to accuse him that way. She shouldn't have assumed the worst.

Chris's face reappeared at the door. 

"Come on in."

As Kami followed the others through the flap, she could feel the music vibrating through the tent floor, the reverberations coming up through the soles of her shoes. 

A few dimly lit lights hung from wire giving off a pale glow. Cardboard boxes were piled up everywhere, many of which had books crammed inside. A piece of plywood served as a table and a small refrigerator hummed in the background. The area inside was much larger than she would have guessed, easily the size of her trailer back in California.

Samuel was thumbing through a book with long tapered fingers. He had musician hands, or magician hands. Chris turned down the music and sat cross-legged on a cushion. The others hesitantly followed his lead, sitting beside him. When Kami sat on her cushion, a plume of dust rose, tickling her nose. She sneezed. 

Samuel threw his lanky body into a makeshift chair and began picking at his teeth with an abused toothpick.  He rubbed his eyes.

Yasmin squirmed as if she could barely stand the suspense, then burst out.

"So what are they? These shadow things? And what do they have to do with my missing grandparents? And the other missing people?"

The words tumbled over each other. They were questions they all wanted answers to.

Samuel looked at her with a bemused expression.

"What's your name darlin'?" he drawled.

"Yasmin," she answered.

"Yasmin, like the flower, only not. Enchanting. Samuel T. Towers at your service, ma'am."

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This dedication goes out to a dear Wattpad buddy @Monrosey. I first "met" her when when she commented on one of my chapters. We struck up a friendship, and I've thoroughly enjoyed all of her works, especially her new book The Secret.