Shade: Unbound

The discomfort in her back was what ended up waking Lyra. She sat up with a groan to rub the ache away.

It took her a second of wondering why she wasn’t in her bed for the memories to come rushing back. She blinked a few times to clear her vision, then froze at the sight of two faces staring back at her.

“Care to explain what that was about earlier?” Jack asked while seated on a chair while typing away on a laptop.

Lyra looked his way, confused. “Earlier… Oh! I wanted to tell you you could use the shower, but… I don’t really remember falling asleep, sorry.” Her leg felt a lot better though. Radi had already twisted it back into place yesterday while Finn had been unconscious, but now she felt a muted tingling and the occasional throb whenever she bent her knee.

Speaking of Finn, the boy was still in his Shade costume, sans mask. His clothes and hair were dry now, and he stared her down with that intense gaze of his. It was odd seeing the person behind the mask, honestly, because Finn had a bit of a baby face that clashed with how she had always imagined him to look.

“You don’t remember what happened?” Finn asked, but Lyra had no clue how to answer.

She glanced back and forth between her teammates, then gave a hesitant shrug.

“I think she really doesn’t know, Finn,” Jack said. “It’s not unheard of. Some people do all kinds of crazy stuff in their sleep.”

“In my sleep? I didn’t do anything weird, right?” Lyra asked, mortified.

“Do? No, not necessarily. You were in that chair the whole night,” Jack gestured to the window, and she noticed it was already light outside. “But you had a lot of interesting things to say.”

Talking in her sleep? She’d never done that in her life, as far as she could remember. Well, obviously she wouldn’t be able to remember, but her parents would have told her if she had, right?

“Can I ask what about?” she tried.

“There’s no need, I was going to tell you anyway. Was just checking if you remembered anything,” Jack said, sitting up straight. “You were talking about us, and yourself, but it was… a bit sinister.”

The freckled, dark-blonde boy seemed to be trying to find the right words to explain, but Finn spoke up before he could. “You said you were trapped.”

Lyra turned to Finn, seeing that severe expression fully focused on her. He looked a lot better than he had when they first got here, not so lethargic and more alert. “Trapped?” she asked.

“Yeah.” That was Jack again. “You were telling us to set you free. Not really begging or even asking, more like threatening.”

“Sorry,” she said reflexively, before having processed those words. Then her posture stiffened.

She didn’t feel particularly trapped right now. As a matter of fact, this was probably the most free she had ever felt in her life. Living on her own, going out at night to fight crime. It was a far cry from the looming promise of monotony she would’ve been doomed to, if not for her powers.

Not that this was what she wanted. No, what she wanted didn’t matter. Not anymore. But she could acknowledge that, despite the constant risk of death, she could say she was out there, now.

“No need to apologize if you really weren’t awake,” Jack said. “We were just thinking it was something you’d wanna be aware of. And there’s no way we weren’t going to bring it up again. It was kind of scary.”

“Did I say anything, uh, specific? Like how I was trapped, or…?” Lyra was not expecting a solid answer. She was asking about her own sleep talking, after all.

Finn surprised her. “You were being suppressed. That’s what you said. You were trapped by yourself. Silenced.”

She gasped.

No…

The voice?

As much as she wanted to deny it, those words matched up with what it had been saying to her. What it had been trying to push her into.

The blood drained from her face, and she could already see the other two had noticed her change in demeanor, clearly expecting some kind of explanation.

This wasn’t fair, she had just opened up to them about her past last night, and now she had to tell them about the fact that she was hearing voices in her head? It hadn’t even been a day. Was omitting one detail of her story so much to ask?

If she denied knowing anything about the voice, she might sow distrust, but if she told them the truth, they would think she was crazy. At this point, she was starting to believe that, herself.

With a sigh, she schooled her expression into something resembling calmness. Facing her guests, she said, “I don’t think I’m sure about what could have happened. I had some pretty scary thoughts, but nothing concrete, probably.”

Jack shrugged. “Well, it’s not like we can look into your brain to see what you’re thinking while you sleep. Not without some of the most advanced American tech. So if you don’t know anything either, I guess that’s that.”

“Right, ah, but I think I should go take a shower now…” Lyra said, abruptly changing the topic. She stood, but her leg still felt fuzzy and tingly, so she favored it, awkwardly limping away and avoiding eye contact.

She quickly made her way to the bathroom and shut the door behind her, slumping in relief as she did so. Here, she could think. Alone. And maybe actually get into the shower, she really stank right now.

A second later, she winced at the realization that she had just rushed into the bathroom without giving Finn a chance to go first. What a host she was, treating her guests like crap. But there was no way she could come back out now. That’d be weird.

Though on the other hand, that was assuming he and Jack had really believed her when she said she wasn’t sure what caused her to act that way while unconscious. She wasn’t even sure if they believed she had been unconscious when she said those things.

Ugh, her entire body cringed at that thought. She didn’t want to start doubting her teammates now, but it was just too much. She couldn’t handle dropping another truth bomb right now. It was a big secret, but Shade and Gridlock were trustworthy. She would tell them, just… later.

Yeah, she convinced herself.

Later.

*******

Silence overtook the room for the first few minutes after Lyra left.

Although Jack was tempted to talk the situation over with Finn, he knew that was a stupid idea. From this distance, Lyra would hear everything they said.

His fingers drummed on the keyboard. This wasn’t how he had imagined the day to go. The glum atmosphere, anyway. The fact that he had to sit here and watch two recovering patients of Radi’s power was within expectations, but there hung a bit of a dark cloud over the room.

Jack had watched a lot of movies in his life, and, despite his mother’s disapproval, that often involved the horror genre. Lyra’s earlier comments reminded him a lot of those film plots about demonic possession. It would be a hapless, unsuspecting young girl suddenly getting taken over by some invisible entity which made her commit heinous acts, to the detriment of everyone in her environment.

Not that he thought that was actually happening here, but it was an interesting reference.

More likely, Lyra had been telling the truth, but that must still mean there was something plaguing her subconsciously.

But was that their problem?

They’d had a good team dynamic going before all of this, and it was hard to give that up. However, Jack wasn’t sure all this was really worth the risk of getting pulled into whatever trouble she’d gotten herself involved with. Though he had certainly thought so at first.

Now that Lyra had come clean about her circumstances, Jack had started seeing for himself how bad the consequences of her actions were. And his findings were… surprisingly mild. Then again, maybe that wasn’t surprising at all, since her case would’ve been relatively low priority. Never this low, though. Her case had been all but forgotten by now, with no active updates or reports. It didn’t even mention her full name, but a little bit of digging uncovered that too.

Some victims had tried to sue the bar for their injuries, but they weren’t getting anywhere in the near future, what with legal battles being so slow. Aside from that, no one was investigating the matter, as far as he could tell. Had Lyra covered her tracks that well?

The first time Jack had seen Lyra through Finn’s body cam, she’d said she was no good at maintaining her double life, but he was beginning to doubt that claim, given how well she was doing for herself with the fake ID and apartment. It would’ve required strong connections with some less-than-savory individuals in the district. A district Lyra apparently hadn’t lived in until recently.

There was also the possibility that it wasn’t her at all. Someone could be covering for her. The question was, who?

Nothing about Lyra Chen made her a priority target to any of the major gangs, she had been a very normal school girl with some extracurricular experience in music. As he considered that, he pulled up her high school class photo from the previous year.

And there she stood, near the end of the middle row, a strained smile on her face. Her long black hair was a stark contrast to the shorter brown she had now. She dyed it, then. He’d suspected as much.

A few clicks later, Jack decided to call it quits. The takeaway was that it wasn’t immediately pressing, and he could work on finding this mysterious benefactor when Finn wasn’t recovering from a concussion. And besides, he felt like a creep for digging into someone’s past so thoroughly, even if it was important to rule out the possibility of her civilian life posing a threat to them.

Of course, he knew Aegis operatives in general hadn’t exactly endeared themselves to the authorities, but Jack had been taking extra measures to protect his and Finn’s civilian identities after his massive blunder.

This had been especially crucial last night, when his drones suddenly picked up several probing signals from an unknown source attempting to trace his location. Around the same time Mistral descended from the sky after killing that primebeast.

The first suspect that had come to mind was Zeta, a DHD hero who fulfilled a similar role as him, providing his allies with technical and informational support. But he hadn’t been able to confirm it, as he’d been too preoccupied keeping himself from being traced, which was extremely difficult, since Zeta was both more experienced than Jack and rumored to be in possession of a power that made him even more of a menace near electronic devices.

Only his precautions had been able to save them all from getting uncovered. He’d managed to redirect the man to the company they’d gotten the lead from. Finn had been reticent about that particular aspect of their investigation, which was understandable. But if he was being honest, he would rather have this matter be taken out of their hands. While Finn would never admit it, Jack knew they had bitten off more than they could chew.

It was a shame. He loved mysteries, but Finn’s safety was more important than satisfying his own curiosity.

Much more important.

On the wall, the colors shifted, distracting him from his train of thought. He recognized the patterns as what Finn practiced to create perceived depth with his power. When he looked to his left, he saw the boy in question concentrating on it, hand outstretched, making it shift back and forth between two particularly challenging city backgrounds.

“Finn,” Jack said, drawing his attention. “Take it easy.”

His friend reluctantly lowered his hand without saying anything. The look he was giving Jack said enough. He clearly disapproved and didn’t want to waste time, but Jack didn’t want to start up this argument again. It was good that Finn was listening this time, at least.

He’d already fallen asleep in short intervals without realizing it multiple times throughout the night, but he hadn’t gotten any rest since the moment Lyra had started addressing them, ostensibly in her sleep.

Finn sighed. “What time is it?” he asked.

“A bit past eight o’ clock. Why? You know I can’t let you leave yet,” Jack answered. Then he pointed a thumb behind him. “And you should get in there after Lyra’s done. Don’t wanna come home smelling like canal water, do you?”

In response, he only received a flat stare. But he hadn’t expected much else. There was no way he could convince Finn to take his clothes off in a stranger’s house; he was just happy to be engaging in the conversation instead of going further down some dangerous rabbit hole.

After half a minute in silence, the colors on the floor in front of Finn started changing until they arranged themselves into a sentence for Jack.

“What did you find?” it read. Finn didn’t need to elaborate.

Quickly typing up a response, he turned his laptop to Finn, the screen displaying, “A lot. But she’s in less trouble than she should be. Will find out why.”

With a nod, Finn wrote out, “She needs our help.”

Jack’s eyes widened, and he reassessed the young hero, who matched his gaze with half-closed eyes. If he wasn’t mistaken, he was seeing a spark of… determination?

He had expected more of an argument from Finn, or for him to say they should bail out and continue with Aegis missions before she cost them more credits, but no. Not even a hint of hesitation.

All those things he’d said to his best friend had not fallen on deaf ears. Finn truly valued Lyra as a member of their team.

Jack had no hope of fighting the smile that was forcing its way onto his face, so he didn’t try.

“Well,” he said out loud. “I should probably see about ordering you some food.”

“Why?”

Jack looked at Finn’s brightening torso as Radi’s power took hold for another bout of healing. “Your stomach is glowing again, and you guys devoured all the stuff I brought as soon as we got here, so.”

“No need to order! I can, uh, cook us something!” Lyra shouted from the bathroom.

Neither of the two boys missed her sudden insistence on cooking something herself instead of having someone deliver at her address, which made Jack wonder just how foolproof Lyra’s new identity really was, but he let it go for now.

Better to keep observing, and be ready to act if things went wrong.

He hoped they wouldn’t. He would love to have another friend.