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Ignite the Shadows
Ingrid Seymour
Sixteen-year-old Marci Guerrero is one of the best teen hackers in Seattle. However, she’d give up all her talents to know she isn’t crazy.Marci feels possessed by shadowy spectres that take control of her body and make her do crazy things. While spying on the clandestine group known as IgNiTe, she is confronted by their mysterious leader, James McCray. His presence stirs the spectres inside her brain into a maddening frenzy. Her symptoms and ability to control them don’t go unnoticed by James, who soon recruits her.As IgNiTe reveals its secrets, Marci starts to realise that half the world’s population is infected with sentient parasites, which are attacking and eventually supplanting the human brain.Now Marci wishes she was crazy, because this truth is far worse . . .
Ignite the Shadows
INGRID SEYMOUR
HarperVoyager an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk (http://www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2015
Jacket layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Ingrid Seymour asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008113667
Ebook Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9780008113667
Version: 2015-03-12
Para mi madre Por todo lo que me ha dado y aún me da
Table of Contents
Cover (#u447042cb-e61b-50a0-b696-e5938423b0da)
Title Page (#ud65c4663-5cd6-5e0f-a07c-3b18d2a9d518)
Copyright (#u45738492-4b7e-55bd-abbe-c88069743178)
Dedication (#uc043b25d-5e60-52c2-9069-ff3a0dc33b55)
Chapter 1 (#ub90c40c2-2cd9-5e39-890a-623e07c31690)
Chapter 2 (#u06936bfd-57cf-5a21-b480-1a02f3194c72)
Chapter 3 (#ub5697404-0870-5607-8daa-aea16b9168f6)
Chapter 4 (#u858cadeb-7248-57b3-bb35-978a2096670a)
Chapter 5 (#ub9d80efa-57d1-56f0-9619-785aca258241)
Chapter 6 (#uded0a7dc-5071-5618-809b-f00d86d1fecf)
Chapter 7 (#u1e0eb39f-c8a7-57e0-ab39-d602844d026f)
Chapter 8 (#u7bc1163e-80e3-5c69-99fb-a6a7c10077a6)
Chapter 9 (#u75d19994-fb8c-58a0-993e-af02bb4033b3)
Chapter 10 (#u4fd9ba72-45bc-51dd-b46c-171be00abd7f)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ub8f86cfd-0b23-54f9-9ece-27e638a67bcb)
I try not to look inside the alley. It’s dark. Creepy dark.
Really, I don’t know what I was thinking when I let Xave slink in there to spy on his brother. He walked between the two buildings until shadows devoured him.
Shadows …
Crap, Marci. You know better. Don’t think of shadows.
Sunny days. Think of sunny days.
So I think of my dad and me at the beach all those years ago—his broad hands under my arms as he threw me toward the sky and caught me on the way down. A sad smile spreads across my lips. I push thoughts of Dad aside. I don’t want to get depressed remembering him, so I concentrate only on the sand, the ocean, the palm trees. As hard as that is to do in the middle of February in freakin’ Seattle, I force the images to stay inside my head. Without Dad, the beach colors come out lackluster, but it’s the best I can do.
My hands sweat inside rubbery gloves. The black cloak that fell over Xave’s figure as he disappeared inside the alley is imprinted in my mind and fights the sandy haven I’m trying to recreate. He’s been gone too long. What if something happened? Clark can only be up to no good on this side of town, and he won’t like it a bit if he catches his little brother spying on him.
I wait in the empty street under the cover of night. It’s cold. The motorcycle purrs against my thighs, ready for Xave. My rapid heartbeats feel like a drum roll. I don’t need this kind of stress. It will trigger me.
No, it won’t. Stop thinking about that.
Bright things. Pretty things. Think of that.
The alley looks like a tomb of indefinite depth. I’m trying to tear my eyes away from it when my hands begin to shake. Crap. Not now. There’s never a good time for an attack, but right now has got to be the worst. Fear floods my chest, paralyzing my racing heart.
My eyelids grow heavy with that familiar force that always threatens to banish the light. I fight it, biting the inside of my cheek, clinging to the image of that beach. I take a deep breath, trying to stay in control. My best friend’s in the dark alley. He’s counting on me. I have to—
The attack comes at once.
Shadows form inside my mind, scurrying like teeming spiders. In an instant, they climb one another, forming massive black giants that obscure everything. As they swarm, my very thoughts are scattered like bricks in the path of a wrecking ball. Quickly, the giants break apart and flock to each broken thought, ready to destroy them, like hungry locusts.
I fight to form a new thought, a simple one.
Breathe, Marci.
I inhale. A new specter rises inside my mind. It’s amorphous, but my fear gives it a jagged mouth and empty sockets for eyes. It devours my thought to breathe, killing the impulse to fill my lungs, spreading over my consciousness like a whirling oil spill. In the next second or minute—I don’t know which—I’m gasping for air, trying to remember why I’m not breathing. Then it comes back to me. I’m under attack!
Breathe,I think once more. I need to let the thought bounce and morph. If it stays in the same place or shape, the shadows will destroy it. Breathing is important. Random thoughts are important.
Air. In and out.
My gloved left hand squeezes the clutch without my permission. I struggle to release it, while trying to hold on to the thread of my precious thoughts.
