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  Deep in Your Shadows

  The Village

  Book Two

  Darien Cox

  Deep in Your Shadows

  Copyright © 2016 by Darien Cox

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Cover Art © 2016 by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  First Edition June 2016

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Chapter One

  White Zombie blasted from the speakers in Nolan’s basement workout room, and Christian bobbed his head in time with the music as he dumped another handful of Skittles into his mouth. Nolan was prone on the bench, neck muscles tight and straining as he pumped a ridiculous amount of weight up and down over his chest. Christian tossed a Skittle at Nolan, this one a direct hit, bouncing off his chin.

  Growling, Nolan set the barbell back in place and sat up, face flushed as he glared at Christian, who reclined on the nearby futon. “Cut the shit, Christian! Stop throwing candy at me. I’m lifting a lot of weight here. You trying to make me drop it on myself?”

  “I’m bored,” Christian said. “Spar with me or something.” He tossed another Skittle, which bounced off Nolan’s furrowed brow before landing on the floor.

  “I don’t want to spar with you.” Nolan moved to the pullup bar. “You fight too dirty,” he said as he pulled his muscular body up, biceps popping.

  “I don’t fight dirty,” Christian said. “You’re just too slow. It’s all this lifting you do. You’re turning yourself into a giant meatball. I’m too lean and mean for you.”

  After completing his set on the pullup bar, Nolan dropped back to the floor. He snatched a towel and wiped his sweaty brow, then tied his chin-length dark hair into a short ponytail. Sweat marks stained the gray tee shirt that stretched tight over his chest. “You need to stop eating that shit.” Nolan pointed at Christian, who dumped the remaining candy from the bag into his mouth. “Or you’re the one who’s gonna look like a meatball.”

  “Nah.” Christian crumpled the bag then threw in on the floor to further annoy his friend as he sat up. “I do too much cardio to gain weight.”

  “Why are you here?” Nolan sat down on the bench and picked up a dumbbell, working his triceps.

  “I told you, I’m bored.”

  “Don’t you have work to do at the marina?”

  “It’s raining buckets. No one’s going out on the lake today. And Ogden still hasn’t given us the okay to go back up on the mountain. Or any other projects. At least for me.”

  “Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stay ready,” Nolan said as he worked his arms. “We’re still getting paid and could be called to action any moment, and you’re sitting around getting soft and filling your body with sugar. That shit will kill you. Eat an apple for Christ sakes.”

  Christian rolled his eyes. It had been three months since they’d been ordered to stand down and cease their tests up on the mountain, and they were all going a little stir crazy. Well, at least Christian was. Nolan seemed content to pass the time in his weight room, turning himself into Nolan the Barbarian. Elliot was stuck in the basement studio of his radio station most of the time, growing paler and grumpier. He was no fun either, and hadn’t even laughed when Christian bought him a gift certificate for a spray tan.

  Christian knew Nolan was right, at some point they’d be called to action again. There was no way Ogden’s team would be content to do nothing now that they’d gotten confirmation that the Whites had a base hiding under the mountains. But after being warned to stay clear of the field by that freaky hybrid, there had been little contact from Ogden, other than ‘stay alert’. JT was still monitoring the activity with his telescope and reporting back to Ogden on a regular basis, but Christian had been basically sitting around with his thumb up his ass.

  He also knew Nolan’s stoic mood and obsessive exercising wasn’t just about staying alert and ready. For a month after the incident on the mountain, where the hybrid, Baz, had basically told them ‘The Whites are here to stay and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it so piss off’, Nolan and Michelle had carried on a heated affair. Christian suspected the sex was just a balm for Michelle, a familiar, soothing distraction from her divorce proceedings and battling with Brock for custody of her kids.

  Nolan and Michelle had been involved once before, years back, in the early days when they were all still so young. They’d taken up again once Michelle got legally separated, as though no time had passed. But time had passed. They were both older now, and this time Nolan had let his heart get involved, so when Michelle left, opting to move to Boston and reconcile with her husband, Nolan had been blindsided and left hurting.

  Christian was hurting as well. He missed her terribly. The five of them had been part of a single unit for a decade, and now it felt like one of their limbs had been ripped off. He loved both Nolan and Michelle like siblings, so wouldn’t take sides. Michelle had been put in an impossible situation, having to choose between job and family. But Christian was human, and had his own private thoughts about it all. A small part of Christian was both annoyed at Michelle for hurting Nolan in the process, and annoyed at Nolan for not considering Brock’s feelings when he started sleeping with his wife.

  But I will stay neutral. Mouth closed.

  Nolan refused to discuss it now anyway, but apparently he’d confided in JT. And JT had shared with Christian that Michelle ‘told Nolan she loved him, but that she loved Brock more and didn’t feel like a whole person without him.’

  Christian wished she hadn’t used the L-word with Nolan. Because Nolan, he knew, had rarely used it himself, not with a lover, a friend, hell, he didn’t even tell his mother he loved her. But Christian suspected Nolan had finally said those words to Michelle. Considering the outcome, he doubted Nolan would be saying them to anyone else for a long time, if ever.

  Nolan set the weights down on the floor with a clang. “Why don’t you go visit JT?”

  Christian’s mood sank. “I don’t feel comfortable popping in on him the way I used to. Not with Rudy there.”

  “Why?” Nolan uncapped a water bottle and took a drink. “I thought you liked Rudy.”

  “I do, he’s a great guy. But he looks at me funny when I joke around with JT or touch him. I feel like I can’t be myself around JT anymore. It’s not the same.”

  “Well,” Nolan said, “you could try to refrain from touching JT in front of his new boyfriend.”

  “I’ve always touched JT, it’s not sexual anymore! We used to just hang out and snuggle watching movies and shit. I don’t see why my friendshi
p with him has to change. It’s not fair.”

  “You sound like a baby,” Nolan said. “JT’s happy. You should be happy for him.”

  “I am happy for him. But everything’s changing. We lost Michelle. And...Brock.” Nolan flinched slightly. “Now I feel like I’m losing JT, too.”

  Nolan grunted. “So talk to him. There’s no reason you and JT can’t still do things together, just the two of you. Ask him to go for a boat ride or something. Go out to the island and have lunch. Rudy’s a rational guy, he’ll understand.”

  Christian and Nolan both jumped as a loud, echoing BOOM sounded, and the floor shook. The walls trembled, and several items on the shelves tumbled off. They stared at each other, eyes wide. Finally, the vibrations ceased, the walls stopped shaking, and they both let out a hard breath.

  “What the fuck was that?” Nolan shouted.

  They ran out of the house, stopping short on Nolan’s front lawn. Rain hammered down on them, and Christian whispered, “Holy shit. What the hell is going on?”

  The normally calm, placid lake was alive with ripples, waves slapping the shore, flowing up onto the sand, nearly to the grass-line of Nolan’s yard. Across the basin, Christian could see the marina, the boats rocking violently. People stepped out the front doors of cottages, and vehicles stopped and pulled off to the side of the road. Over the sound of rain and rumbling thunder, the siren squeal of car alarms filled the air.

  “What happened?” Nolan asked. “A lightning strike?”

  “I don’t know.” Christian’s phone rang. He took it out of his pocket. It was Billy, his employee, calling from the marina. “Yeah, Billy. You all right?”

  “Did you see it?” Billy’s voice was edged with panic.

  “See what? What happened? Are the boats okay? Any damage?”

  “I don’t think so, but shit. I was sitting at the office window and this thing just fell out of the sky and crashed into the lake!”

  “Was it an airplane?”

  “I don’t know. It was black and moving fast. I only got a glimpse.”

  Nolan’s phone rang. “It’s Elliot.”

  “Billy, I’ll call you back.” Christian hung up and turned to Nolan. “Put him on speaker.”

  “Elliot,” Nolan said. “You okay?”

  “What the fuck just happened?” Elliot barked. “The phone lines are lit up like a Christmas tree.”

  “Billy said something crashed into the lake,” Christian said. “All he said was it was black and moving fast.”

  “Well, somebody call Ogden,” Elliot said.

  “It was likely something terrestrial,” Nolan said. “Space trash, piece of an airliner.”

  “I’m aware of that, Nolan,” Elliot said. “But do you want to wait until local law enforcement is crawling all over it to find out you’re wrong? Call Ogden. Now.”

  “I will,” Nolan said. “You just find a way to spin it.”

  “I can’t fucking spin it if I don’t have any real information!”

  “Calm down, Elliot,” Christian said. “Just do your best. We’ll get back to you as soon as we know something.”

  “You better.”

  Christian’s phone rang. “JT’s calling.”

  “Let’s go back inside,” Nolan said. “Talk to JT. I’ll call Ogden.”

  Christian was glad now that he’d had a bag of sugar for breakfast. It was no doubt going to be a long day. Be careful what you wish for.

  On the upside, boredom was no longer an issue.

  ****

  Sheriff Myles Murphy punched the dashboard after hanging up from the chief back in the main town of Singing Bear. The small, jade elephant that hung from his rearview mirror fell off, and he picked it up and carefully replaced it. Sighing, he tossed his phone aside and put the car in drive, pulling back onto the narrow road, heading toward the village. Myles was usually a happy guy, so the unfamiliar anger boiling inside him felt like a poison coursing through his veins. He’d been in a great mood when he woke up that morning, mainly because he’d finally gotten laid after a long stretch of abstinence. But an early phone call from his friend Tim Patterson, who was the forest ranger in Singing Bear Village, had been the ultimate post-sex buzz-kill. And that was only the beginning.

  After two years of being the sheriff in Singing Bear Village, he’d finally allowed himself a long weekend to get out of town and head down to New Hampshire, visit family, hook up with an old lover who was more than happy to serve his needs. It wasn’t as though he had to leave the village to get laid. There were plenty of men who’d propositioned him since he’d moved to the cozy lakeside community. He didn’t have to hide his sexuality here—no one gave a shit. In fact, Tim Patterson, an old childhood friend from his camp days, had used that as a selling point when suggesting Myles take the job.

  “You’ll love living here, Myles. This place is gayer than a pride parade.”

  Myles had come to the village for camp as a child, but until he took the job, hadn’t returned and experienced it as an adult. The village had lived up to the hype, but it was also an extremely close-knit community, and everyone knew everyone else’s business. It had taken only one incident when he was new to the job to teach him a hard lesson—don’t shit where you eat. He’d had to make a drunk and disorderly arrest on a guy called Ian Hardy, one week after spending the night in his bed. It had been awkward as hell, and he’d vowed to avoid sleeping with a local again if possible. So the trip to New Hampshire was much needed.

  Things had been quiet in the village, but shit, things were always quiet in the village, and that’s the way he liked it. While there were a small handful of residents that made his job difficult sometimes, it was more or less a cake walk. His dealings were usually limited to drunks, property disputes, and the occasional fist fight. But as fate would have it, the one weekend he decided to take off, something actually happened.

  Myles was mildly annoyed that he was away when whatever it was had crashed into the lake. But what had his temper flaring was the fact that he’d been shut out before he even got back to the village. The chief he answered to in the main town informed him that some specialized team was dealing with the incident. Myles wanted to know who. State Police? EPA? FBI? Either way, he should be allowed to be involved. He was the damn sheriff after all. Chief Palumbo had been evasive, claiming he couldn’t share details, that the incident had been taken ‘out of his hands’ and that Myles needed to stay out of it as well.

  “Well, who the hell are these people?” he’d demanded when he didn’t get a direct answer.

  “I don’t know,” the chief had said. “But this is coming from the highest level, so don’t cause any shit, Murphy. It’s trouble we don’t need.”

  This was bullshit. It was his village, his responsibility, and he aimed to find out what was going on, no matter who he pissed off in the process. His old friends back in New Hampshire taunted him about his job in Singing Bear Village, but Myles took it seriously. Though he’d been a small town sheriff there as well, the village was smaller still, and Eddie, his old fuck buddy, had teased him about it when he’d had to run out on him that morning, calling him ‘Mall Cop’ and asking if they had electricity there. But there was nothing wrong with living a simple life as far as Myles was concerned. It made him happy, and despite the mundane pace, he loved his job.

  Myles had only been out as a gay man for three years. He hadn’t exactly hidden his sexuality back in New Hampshire, he just figured it was no one’s business. But this led to sly smirks in the coffee shop, whispers behind his back, and homophobic slurs from angry drunks he’d had to arrest. He’d finally decided to just own it, thinking that would make things easier. But rednecks were rednecks, no matter where you lived, and Myles’ decision not to hide who he was didn’t make things easier. Instead it led to a certain element in the town where he’d worked to challenge his authority, making life even more difficult for him.

  His friends and acquaintances, the ones who didn’t give a shit who he slept wi
th, accused him of running away, of being afraid to deal with the fallout. But it wasn’t that. He knew he could ‘handle’ it. But why should he ‘handle’ it when there were other options? It was his life, and he chose not to live it in constant conflict.

  The road began its descent, and the village appeared in the distance, a great basin at the end of the lake shrouded by mountains. The road was wet from an earlier storm, but the rain had stopped now, leaving the sky gray but bright. From on high, the village looked peaceful as ever, but as he eventually drove closer, he saw that it was anything but. The basin was clogged with unfamiliar boats, and a makeshift fence of orange tarps had been set up along the beach just below the main boardwalk.

  When Myles reached the boardwalk, he immediately saw his deputy Darwyn’s truck parked along the water’s edge. He pulled in beside it and got out.

  “Murph!”

  Myles turned and saw Tim, Darwyn, and Stan huddled together on the boardwalk behind the orange tarps. Stan, a silver-haired short man built like a fireplug, was usually in charge of Lake Patrol, and he was pacing like a caged animal. The three men looked at least as angry as Myles felt, maybe more.

  Tim attempted a smile and nervously ran a hand over his buzz-cut blond hair as Myles approached. Tall and lean, the forest ranger had been Myles’ close friend since they both went to Singing Bear Camp when they were kids. Myles knew Tim well enough to recognize the frustration in his eyes, despite the weak smile.

  Darwyn, Myles’ deputy, was only twenty-four years old, but the young black man was well over six feet with a shaved head and ever-present scowl, so no one ever gave him shit for being green. Darwyn’s usual scowl was closer to rage-face now, however, and his big shoulders were tight with tension as he watched Myles approach. Stan’s silver hair was wet, presumably from the earlier rain, and he paced back and forth smoking a cigarette, his eyes on the activity going on down on the lake.