Shadowlands Read Online Free

teaching me how to hide mine—at least I think I do—as if she knew that what I had could bring the wrong kind of attention. But she never got a chance to finish teaching me.
    The Collector took me when I was four, or maybe five. I’d had a real blind spot when it came to him, at least at first—no context, you see? He’d told me he was only looking after me while my parents were gone, that they were coming soon. I don’t know, maybe part of me had known all along what was going on, that my parents weren’t coming to get me [not dead, though], that this hard, cold man was the only one who was keeping me safe. Like all kids, I fantasized about a rescue, about getting away from him, living my own life, maybe finding my parents, but mostly I knew that if I wanted to go on being safe and looked after, I should meet the people he wanted me to meet and answer the questions I was asked afterward.
    I even got to where I was happy to help out. Sort of.
    But, of course, I got older and better at what I did, and more knowledgeable and experienced about the world and how things worked. I got good enough, finally, that I could read him as well as I could anyone. His own specific talent couldn’t block me out anymore. I thought I had him fooled for a while into thinking I hadn’t caught on to him, but then I realized he was going to get rid of me anyway when I reached the right—or the wrong—age, just in case.And I mean get rid of me, not give me a handshake and a farewell dinner. Considering how much I knew about him and his business, to say nothing of everyone who had ever used me, it kind of made sense.
    That’s when I really started looking for a way out, and found Alejandro.
    These memories took me quite a way down University Avenue, and I was starting to think I should have asked the guard at the Institute about the subway after all. I didn’t turn back, though. I was still feeling the heady buzz of success—I found myself smiling more than once—and besides, I’d been kept indoors for almost fifteen years; I had a lot of outside world to catch up on.
    I had some things to learn about walking around outside, though, such as there was a reason I had a pair of flat shoes in my shoulder bag. There didn’t seem to be any benches I could use to sit and change my shoes, however, and I felt a little shy of just propping myself against a lamppost or something and going ahead. I caught sight of the elevated sign that meant a subway entrance, but debated, as I walked toward it, what I wanted to do. Part of me wanted to get home as quickly as possible and start celebrating with Alejandro. Part of me was reluctant to go back underground, as if the strange [smelling] man [predator] might be down there waiting for me. I managed to convince myself that it was a nice sunny June day, not too warm for my suit, and I was enjoying feeling like a regular person, and maybe even catching a few admiring glances from my fellow pedestrians.
    But to go on walking, I’d have to change my shoes. Luckily, my problem was solved by the appearance on my left of a wrought iron fence. The palings were well over eight feet high, with a design detail that gave every seventh upright a wider, leaf-shaped base just large enough for me to sit down on.
    I was maneuvering my shoes back into my shoulder bag—the space they’d formerly occupied having somehow vanished—when a dog’s head suddenly appeared, thrust through the foliage that grew along the inside of the railings. My life hasn’t exposed me to many household pets, but I knew what I thought I should do, and I was already extending my hand, palm out, when I caught a whiff of old meat, and felt that now familiar chill.
    The world seemed to slow down. A disembodied voice yelled, “Don’t!” and my brain sent the signal “pull back,” but it was a long time getting to my hand. The dog’s head, with its liver-colored markings [what big teeth, what big eyes] stretched out as if it knew I was