Shadow Reaper (Shadowlands Series) Read Free Page B

told us how Mum and he hid from her, afraid that it was a trick. The Mother was one of them, why would she help us? He told us how the Shadowlanders that looked like us had left then, and how what was left of humanity waited for them to return, but they never had. Instead, we were left here to rot, to starve, to fight among ourselves for the last scrap of food. By the time Mum and Dad realised that there was a Shelter, the only way to gain admittance was to enlist as a Reaper. Neither was willing to let the other take the risk, and so we lived like animals.
    “Ashling!” Bernadette tapped the port on her suit.
    I tore my eyes away from the barrier that kept us prisoner in our own world and unzipped the pocket at the side of my harness. I grabbed the line tucked inside and pulled. I passed her the end and she screwed my line into the port on her suit and then nodded.
    It was a primitive setup. Just ropes really, attached to someone who would stay behind as an Anchor. Bernadette was the obvious choice. No one questioned it, because we all wanted to live, and we knew Bernadette would haul us back. She had help—the winch. It was a mechanical contraption that could haul a Reaper back at super speed. All a Reaper needed to do was give her the distress signal, and all Bernadette needed to do was attach the rope to the machine and hit a button.
    “Comms on,” George said, and we all complied by flipping the switch on our earpieces.
    Bernadette held up her wrist. “Thirty minutes, people. That’s all you get. I tug, you come. Got it?”
    “Got it!” We all said in unison.
    Ryder joined me in front of the Horizon. “You ready scamp?”
    I nodded. “Always.”
    We stepped through.
    The first time I’d gone through the Horizon, I’d expected it to feel gloopy, thick, and viscous. I’d screwed up my eyes and pressed my lips together, afraid it would somehow get inside me. But it was nothing like that. Walking through the Horizon was like walking through air. It was like stepping from one point to another, and yet, the air on the other side felt heavier, denser. It was as if the laws of gravity were different here. Walking required more effort, and thirty minutes wouldn’t be enough. We all knew it, just like we knew that any longer and we risked detection by the Shadowlanders.
    The sky here was the same, gloomy, grey, and low. A thin mist hung in the air, but it was the buildings that always amazed me. Twisted and bent, standing at impossible angles, they defied the laws of physics. Not that I knew any physics, but I’d heard Ryder use the phrase once or twice, and he’d kind of explained it to me. I’d nodded like I understood.
    I’d seen the old maps, so I knew that this part of the city would have been Shoreditch. I knew what should be here. I’d seen pictures in old tourist brochures collected from gift shops in the place once called Trafalgar Square. This was a new London. It was their London now.
    We still didn’t know what the Shadowlanders were.. I’d never seen one myself, but from what the Order of the Mother described, they looked humanoid, except they had other characteristics, animalistic and insectile, reptilian and amphibian. They were terrible and horrific and bestial, all except the Mother, who’d taken pity on our plight and saved us.
    “Stop daydreaming, Ash, and let’s get to it,” Ryder said.
    We began to trudge. My boots seemed to stick to the ground as gravity held us down. The sky was darker here, the clouds low overhead. It made me feel claustrophobic.
    Ryder nudged me. “You okay, scamp?”
    “I’m fine.” But I so wasn’t. I could feel the sweat breaking out across my brow—the nape of my neck was soaked.
    Even though I longed to cross the Horizon, I couldn’t shake the feeling of claustrophobia that always gripped me upon first entry. I lived underground, you couldn’t get more closed in than that, yet here I was in an open space afraid of clouds pressing down on me.
    I