Chasing Shadow (Shadow Puppeteer) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the sink.
    The night left me restless. I craved company, hungered for it, obsessed over it. The city was dead. Not a light shined in the homes and a few of the streetlamps flickered out above me. Despite the soreness, I took the last couple blocks at a sprint, openly crossing streets. The risk of getting caught past curfew by a floating camera or patrollers was high.
    My neighborhood was a welcoming sight. By the time I made it to the front porch, I was out of breath. I pulled the house key from the little pouch within my skirt and let myself in.

FOUR
    I leaned into the stream of hot water as it pelted a path against my shoulders and down my back. The pure heat melted the coldness that set in the marrow of my bones, but it didn’t clear the nightmare from my head or the pain from my body. When I closed my eyes, even for a few moments, I saw the dead Starr coming at me with half a jaw and water pouring through its mouth.
    I promptly shut the water off, cutting the image from my thoughts. The moment I brought the towel over my head, I thought of the captain’s fingers reaching for me. Despite what Starr said, I know I saw him.
    My skin prickled. Guilt churned in my stomach. I spared the mirror one glance, long enough to assess that I looked as bad on the outside as I felt on the inside. If I went to school tomorrow, I’d likely get terrorized by students aiming to find another reason to make fun of me. If I was smart, I’d pack my bags and be gone before Ms. Sable woke up, but I didn’t have enough money to bribe a ship to take me to the mainland without a proper passport.
    It was possible to pass from my island to the mainland. As for seeing the rest of the world, that was off limits. Travel was very limited and each country had to abide by the rules. There were a lot of regulations.
    Besides, I couldn’t leave without warning Ms. Sable about what I’d done. I was dreading the minute we had to speak.
    There was a false wall under the cabinet where Ms. Sable kept a number of medicine bottles. I found it by accident three years ago when I was goofing around. It was illegal having any medical products in one’s residence, but now I knew why they were here. If she went out with the Berserkers, she probably came home with wounds.
    I couldn’t find one store that sold cough drops, let alone disinfectants. The most a person could buy at a store was bandages. You had to know someone who sold liquor, cigarettes and medicine if you wanted them and at a very high price.
    I grabbed a dark bottle from the cabinet. There were quite a few cuts to pour it on. It stung and bubbled, which left me hopeful that it was disinfecting the many wounds. The scratch on my wrist and the puncture wounds on my hips were the deepest. The skin around the wounds was now black and swollen with pus. I gave one an experimental squeeze and brackish liquid oozed from it. The pain was immense. It probably stank, but with my nose swelling, I couldn’t smell it.
    When the sting abated, I used a cotton ball to smear an antibiotic gel over the cut on my left wrist, the knuckles on my right hand, the scratch on my chest and the puncture wounds up my thighs. I’ve been treating myself for so long that this was second nature. I slapped a big bandage on my wrist and wrapped it tight with gauze. Smaller bandages worked perfectly for everything else.
    Cleanup was easy. I pushed the bloody cotton balls and bandage wrappings into the trash and slid the medical supplies back into hiding.
    A quick peek into the hall proved Ms. Sable hadn’t stirred from her bedroom. I really needed this quiet time to think. I tiptoed back into my bedroom and locked the door, but even in the safety of my room, I was too restless to sleep. The Raver said he was watching our house, but why?
    To clear my mind, I toyed with the idea of pulling my guitar from its hiding spot to practice. It cost me three months pay from my part time waitressing job to get it restrung. It was difficult