Available Darkness Season 2

him, a powerful enemy, back. They had to be looking for information.
    “Why are you holding me here?” John asked.
    Still, no answer. After another minute of horrible silence, someone finally spoke.
    “Why did you find me?”
    “Shadow?”
    “Yes. Why did you find me, John?”
    He knows who I am. Of course, it’s his job to know shit.
    “I’m trying to find Jacob. He’s back.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “That’s all I wanted. Can you help?”
    Shadow laughed, long and hard until the laugh collapsed into a rattling cough. “You want help from me ? After what you’ve done to my people?”
    “I’ve done nothing to your people.”
    “Don’t insult me with lies, John. I have no patience for the profanity of truth. What’s it like working with the Gestapo? How do you sleep through your daylight without torment from what you’ve done?”
    John said nothing. What could he say to defend the past year? Shadow was right, and right to condemn him.
    Shadow continued, “What do they pay you, John, to betray your people? How much are our lives worth?”
    “They don’t pay me,” John said.
    “So, you volunteer?”
    “They’re forcing me. They have someone close to me, and they said if I didn’t help them find Harbingers, and eradicate their threat, they would kill this person.”
    Shadow coughed again, “That’s a touching story, John. It’s good to know there’s at least a reason for your betrayal.”
    “I didn’t betray anyone!” John growled. “It’s not my fault if some innocents were swept in the raids.”
    “No, they’re just collateral damage, right, John?”
    “If you consort with the enemy, you are the enemy, at least in Omega’s eyes.”
    “In mine, too, John. If you consort with the enemy, then you are the enemy. So, tell me, how many lives have you taken for the enemy?”
    John shook his head, “I don’t know.”
    “How many?” Shadow screamed from the other side of the door, pounding on the metal before falling into another fit of coughs.
    He was angry, but why, John wondered — had he, or Omega, killed someone close to Shadow?
    Shadow, quieter this time, repeated his question. “How many?”
    “Seventy-one,” John said.
    Silence from the other side. Then, “Do you see their faces when you sleep?”
    John nodded, then said, “Yes.”
    “And among these faces, do you see this one?”
    John was confused. “Which one?” he asked.
    His brain was suddenly invaded by Shadow, forcing his way inside John’s mind swiftly enough to break through every defense. Before John could fight him off, or push him back, Shadow was in full control, forcing John to flash through memories from all the people he’d either helped kidnap or murder through the year. Faces, eyes, and terrified screams rang through John’s mind and memory as Omega raided houses, squatter’s pads, apartments, and even hidden camps in the mountains.
    The memories flashed like lighting in his mind, swift enough to strike at his psyche, but not enough to make him feel the pain he’d inflicted. John had killed no innocents, at least none he knew of. His targets were all Harbinger. Yet, Omega’s agents had, and the many soaring memories suddenly paused as Shadow found the one which interested him most.
    He tapped into the memory and forced John to watch it slowly.
    It was a house in the Cherry Grove suburbs. They were acting on a tip that a known Harbinger magick user was hiding in one of the homes. They stormed the three-story lookalike house at three in the morning, with John leading the charge through the living room, then up the stairs to where a family was waking to chaos.
    A father, mother, and a 6-year old girl.
    John didn’t need the memory played further, he knew what was coming. Shadow forced him to watch anyway.
    John was led to the basement where they found the man they were looking for, despite the homeowner’s pleas that they knew nothing. John helped the agents subdue the magick user, shoving a hood over his head while ignoring the gunshots as they erupted upstairs.
    Mike Mathews had control of the hostage, so John, along with three other agents, ran up to the second floor where all three family members lay sprawled on the carpet, shot dead.
    “The man pulled a gun on me,” Agent Broslin said, though no weapon lay on the ground.
    John stared at the trio of bodies, horrified as the little girl looked up, not yet dead — a glimmer of life barely lighting her dying eyes. He kneeled beside her,