Shadow Play: by Erin Kellison

Mars. The scent in the air sparkled in her lungs.
    “I need to talk to you.” Cam took her by the arm and led her a little distance away, into the scrub and low trees beyond the camp.
    “Sure.” She’d like a minute alone with him anyway. Just the two of them, checking in with each other before the start of the day. This was what she wanted.
    I want Cam, her shadow said.
    His mood seemed more direct, grim. He closed his eyes for a long moment, which she knew meant he was choosing his words, but his sentence confused her anyway. “Last night after you went to sleep, your shadow went walking.”
    Big, strong, Cam.
    Shhh. She cocked her head. “Um …” That wasn’t possible.
    “I tried to wake you,” he continued, “but you were deeply asleep. Your shadow was lucid, however.”
    She had no memory of this, but her face was burning anyway. She knew what her shadow was capable of, all of it untoward. Her high plummeted.
    Sexxxxx.
    She put her hand to a low, twisted tree branch. Picked at the bark. Her heart wasn’t pumping right.
    “Ellie,” he said.
    She whipped her attention back. “Yeah. Just … processing.” Huge breath. “Did I do anything interesting?”
    Sexxxxx.
    Of course she had. Her shadow was nothing if not interesting. Damn it, tears were pricking her eyes.
    “ We did,” he said.
    His words spiked her belly. “We?”
    “We.”
    Sexxxxx.
    And she knew exactly what it was they’d done. Her shadow was telling her.
    For the first time in four months, she wanted to be back on her shabby farm in her isolated life. She’d seen this kind of thing on TV shows, where the girl wakes up in bed with a stranger, a whole lot of humiliation, and no memory of what had transpired.
    But this was Cam.
    The colors out here were too damn bright. Hurt her head.
    “Anything else happen?”
    “No,” he answered. “Your shadow disappeared afterward.”
    What did she expect? He was human. And she hadn’t been there to control her shadow. She understood. It was shitty, but she got it. Nobody was perfect.
    Perrrfect.
    “And when you get over it—”
    She made to slap his face, but he stopped her at her wrist. Gripped firmly.
    Sexxxx!
    “When you get past your anger, ” he rephrased. “I’m taking you to meet my family.”
    She snorted. “Like hell—”
    She’d trusted him. How could she trust him, anyone, now?
    And not even an apology.
    Why? Because he wasn’t sorry.
    “I want to take care of you. Take us to the next level.” He let her go. “It’s bound to be rocky at times, but we can handle it.”
    “Take care of me?” she spat.
    He sighed heavily, then started walking back to the camp. “We’ll talk about this more later. There’s too much going on right now to get into it. The point is, you’re meeting my mother,” he said as he went. “God help you.”
     
     
    Just keep walking, Cam told himself. He’d dropped the bomb, which he’d had to do to keep any kind of trust with her. Done. And then he’d gone for a distraction, not unlike, Look, over there!
    It’d taken him every available moment last night to come up with his strategy. Two women in this world scared him: Ellie (oddly, not her shadow) and his mom (who could dissect him with a glance, though he’d been out of the house for over fifteen years). It was brilliant on his part to threaten the former with the latter. And it furthered his ultimate plans for his and Ellie’s future. And finally, it said that things had gotten very serious between them. Mom-meeting-serious. Why else would he bring her home to meet the family?
    He wouldn’t say he’d slept with her shadow because she’d said she loved him. He wanted that admission to come from Ellie herself, all of her at once. He wanted her to choose to say it, not be forced to admit it when she was embarrassed about what her shadow might have done.
    Fast footsteps at his back had him slightly turning his head. Ellie sped by, making sure she didn’t touch him. Yep, angry.