Extraction: Infinite Hunger

Chapter 65: Definitely The Second

Ash counted each step from the arena back to his dorm, and the walk felt much longer than it should have. The burn along his forearm had dried into a tight crust that itched. He had to resist peeling it off. The muscle in his shoulder decided on its own whether to cooperate for the rest of the afternoon. By the time he reached the dormitory block, the crowd noise had gone quiet behind him, and the tournament continued on without him.

He unlocked his dorm and lazily closed the door behind him. He sat on the edge of the bed, and before he could count the popcorn spots on the ceiling, he had fallen asleep.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

He woke up to three evenly spaced knocks. They sounded deliberate, like the person behind them hadn’t hesitated.

Ash didn’t know what time it was. He forced himself up, eyes barely open, and went to the door.

Lucia stood in front of him, wearing a clean blazer, her long black hair tied with a single red ribbon. She looked at his face and found it displeasing, like he’d pulled an all-nighter doing anything but studying.

"You look like you lost a fight," she said.

"I won, thanks," Ash said slowly, trying not to yawn between each word.

Lucia stepped into his room uninvited.

Her eyes went to the small closet each room was equipped with, even before Ash had fully closed the door. She walked to it and slid the closet curtain open. Her face looked like she already knew what would be behind it, but she opened it regardless.

Lucia pulled out a heathered brown hoodie, held it at arm’s length, then threw it back without folding it. Her hands brushed a muted olive shirt before she found another hoodie one shade darker than the first.

"Every single one of these," she said, "is the color of the ground."

Ash was slowly waking up. "They’re comfortable," was all he could say, glancing down at the beige hoodie he was still wearing.

"They are comfortable," she confirmed, closing the wardrobe. Her eyes moved to his hairline and stayed there as she spoke. "You really must do something about those bangs. I said it at the salon, and I’m saying it again." She said it like it was meant to be constructive feedback. "Nothing here is Crimson Workshop standard." She picked up the bag she’d set at the doorframe. "But that’s tomorrow’s problem."

"Sorry, but did you need something besides looking at my clothes?"

"I decided we’re going to the mall."

Ash looked at his forearm. "I just fought."

"That was yesterday," she said, confirming the new day had come in the span of Ash closing his eyes. "I watched."

It almost sounded like praise.

Almost.

She left the dorm, her heels echoing down the corridor.

Ash pulled off the beige hoodie he was wearing, put on the heathered brown one Lucia had discarded, and followed her.

When he had finally caught up to Lucia, they were already past the academy’s south gate, heading toward the nearest train station. At the turnstile, she tapped her card and held the gate open just enough that a second person could go through with her.

Then she closed it.

Ash tapped his own card and went after her.

The train they needed was already waiting at the lower platform. Ash took a seat, still half-asleep. Through the glass doors, he realized Lucia remained outside. She hadn’t entered the train with him.

"We are now approaching Aegis Shopping Mall," the train conductor said through the intercom.

Ash got off there.

Outside the station exit, a luxury car was idling at the curb. The driver was holding the rear door open. Lucia was leaning against the car’s side, her phone out and not looking up.

"What took you so long?" she said.

Ash looked up at the mall in front of him. It was three levels tall. Inside it smelled like fried sugar and the burnt coffee of baristas who’d stopped caring about their job.

Lucia entered like she had visited it once and arranged to have everything ready for her when she returned.

The shopping crowd adjusted without being asked; clusters of students near the directory shifted to the side, and a food cart vendor moved his cart aside when he saw Lucia approach.

Ash let his Shade-sense run and found the same twelve signatures he had felt back at the salon. They were evenly spaced throughout the base level of the mall.

The first store they passed by was a lingerie boutique. The inside was of pale wood, white fabric, and soft light that came through the window display. His Shade-sense caught a signature inside, its pressure felt like it had been compressed for a long time and was holding it back by habit.

He slowed by half a step.

"Are you looking for someone?" Lucia said, eyes ahead.

Two stores down, a shop stocked athletic leggings and short skirts on racks that ran from floor to ceiling. The store’s music played at a volume that covered any conversation outside it.

Ash stopped, feeling the presence of the twelve Shades move with them.

"Did a group of people catch your attention?"

When Ash turned to look at her, she was studying a window display. Her eyes moved over a mannequin in navy blue leggings and a black mini skirt with a single pink stripe down the side.

"You’ve been watching my face the whole time?"

"You make it easy," she said, turning into a narrow corridor between storefronts that ended at a door with no signage.

The room behind it was the size of a large fitting room and looked like it had been prepared for her alone.

A single upholstered chair was placed in front of a low table, a ceramic cup with steam still rising from it. Three attendants stood along the wall in a line, their posture carrying the anxiety of people whose entire bloodline rested on Lucia being satisfied.

To the side of them was a rack of clothes, five outfits waiting for her approval.

Lucia set down her bag and took the teacup. She looked at the rack for only a second. "Second and fourth," she said with a sip of tea. "Not necessarily in that order."

Ash sat in the chair, the smell of lavender tea from the cup beside him keeping him company while Lucia changed into the first outfit.

Lucia emerged in a high-waisted skirt that ran to her mid-thigh; the fabric fitted close enough to trace the curve from her hip to her waist. It was paired with a black bodysuit with a lace panel running from the collar to the sternum. The sheer material clung to the slope of her ribs. She stopped in the center of the room and lifted one hand to settle the strap at her shoulder. Then she turned to face the mirror, which was angled to show Ash’s reflection in it.

The second outfit was a structured blazer over a burgundy slip dress with a slit at the hem. The color was much deeper than her usual black. She came out, not looking at the mirror at all. She lifted her chin slightly and smoothed a wrinkle from the front of the skirt over her thigh in a single downward motion.

Then her hands settled at her sides, and she faced him.

Her gaze stayed on Ash.

"Did you like this one more," she said, "or did you like the previous one better?"

A Shade’s signal hit him before he could answer.

It wasn’t the twelve he felt that surrounded Lucia at all times. His hunger oriented him toward it; fast enough he registered it as a location before he read the source.

"Lucia," he said.

"Hmm." She glanced down at the hemline.

"There’s a person... Their Shade is on the verge of—"

Her eyes moved to the attendant who had presented the fourth selection. Her gaze went pleasant and still at the same instant. "You’re right," she said. "The heels absolutely did not match the last outfit."

The attendant’s expression went awfully blank.

Ash was already out the door before he heard another word of their conversation.

The signal was stronger two stores away.

He looked inside. The store was designed to feel like an event: dark walls, band merchandise on chrome fixtures, neon signs mounted above racks of black and graphic tees.

Four people were inside. Three students were browsing near the front, while the fourth was at the far end of a merchandise wall.

The fourth had stopped moving.

As Ash entered, the temperature dropped instantly. His breath misted in the air before he’d taken two more steps. On the chrome rack nearest to him, a thin film of frost had already climbed onto the lower fixtures.

A shockwave knocked him into several mannequins.

It came from a person’s body. Not as a sound wave or light, but as a burst of Shade pressure. The cold spiked again in the shockwave’s wake. The frost on the nearest fixtures spread outward, visibly climbing the fabric on the hanging racks, freezing hemlines stiff.

Ash got to his feet, looking at the person on the merchandise wall. His shoulder joint had risen too high, bone pressing outward against the skin from underneath in a sharp, obscene tent. As he watched, the joint reversed its angle with a sound like wood splitting, the crack cut through the music, and the arm dropped in response.

The skin at his neck had gone grey-white, the veins underneath darkening and spreading outward in branching lines. His neck began to turn past its range, cartilage popping in sequence, each pop audible over the store’s speakers.

"Out!" Ash yelled at the students near the front. "All three of you, get out of the store now."

Their eyes finally found the source of the sudden temperature shift and decided it was in their best interest to follow Ash’s orders. The frost had reached the floor in small branching crystals, spreading outward from the base of the far rack across the dark tile. The neon sign above the merchandise wall flickered and split into two discordant colors at once.

From two stores down, through the ambient noise of the mall, came the soft rasp of a curtain being drawn back.

"The second outfit," Lucia’s voice said, in the tone of someone who had reached a verdict and was satisfied with it.

"Definitely the second."