Biotype (The Shadow Code Book 1)

By J.M. Callaghan

Rowan Scott has woken up from a nightmare, only to find that she is trapped in a secluded cabin. Despite her abilities, she realizes she is unable to free herself, and accepts her fate.... But when her kidnapper contacts her friends, they do not hesitate to come to her aid. When they reach her, and she manages to escape, she is forced to tell them the truth about her past. Together, they discover that Rowan's greatest enemy has gained more power than she could have ever imagined. She has no choice but to accept the help of her friends, even if it puts them in grave danger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.M. Callaghan
• Release date: Aug 25, 2014

Book preview

The Shadow Code: Biotype

By J.M. Callaghan

CHAPTER ONE:

Rowan Scott leaned over the bathroom sink, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes as she thought about the coming day. The longer she thought, however, the harder she found it to remember why she was here…and where exactly she was.

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked to her right. There was a long row of white sinks, identical to the one that she was currently gripping the sides of. There were about five of them in all, stuck to the walls underneath mirrors like the one in front of her.

As she stared, she began to recognize this bathroom. It was definitely the girls’ bathroom on her high school campus. She knew that if she walked outside, she would see dark blue lockers lining the walls, going to the doorways at each end of the hall.

She looked up at the mirror. It eased her slight paranoia, seeing her solid reflection.

Everything about her was on the in-between, not sliding too far down either side of the hill. She wasn’t very tall or very short, but what people seemed to call average. She was slender, but not soft; she had strong muscles that always seemed to stay with her. Her skin was neither pale nor tan, but a combination of the two.

She had always considered her hair to be strange. It wasn’t too straight or too wild, but somewhere halfway. It waved to the middle of her shoulder blades in a curious blend of light and dark brown, with strands of red thrown in here and there—a token from her Irish ancestors, she’d always assumed.

Her eyes were her favorite feature. They were green, with a dark blue rim and streaks of the same color interspersed throughout the iris. If anyone looked really close, they could see a microscopic stripe of light bronze, centered horizontally over the pupil.

She gazed in the mirror a second longer, then smiled slightly, shaking her head and heading for the door. As she walked away, she realized how quiet it was in the bathroom. She stopped and bent low to the ground, checking to see if anyone was in the stalls. They were completely empty.

Weird.

She tried shrugging it off, but something was tugging at the back of her mind, like she shouldn’t be here…like she’d already graduated high school….

She walked out into the hallway. It was nearly empty, too, except for a handful of people. They were stationed on either side of the space, taking things out of lockers, putting them in. These seemed like normal high school actions, but they were out of place. None of these people belonged here.

As she walked down middle of the hall, she realized that she knew them.

The person standing at the locker nearest her was one of the most important people in her life. Alison Scott was Rowan’s cousin, but she might as well have been her sister, as close as they were. Her hair was light brown, and her eyes were a summery tortoiseshell green. Life had made her incredibly mature for her age, though she allowed herself to act the complete opposite when it was just her and Rowan.

On the opposite side of the hallway from Alison, stood Kaitlyn Fox. She was a few inches shorter than Rowan, with short medium-blonde hair, and pale skin that complimented her eyes. They were ice-blue and had a midnight blue ring around the rim, similar to Rowan’s. Those eyes had a talent of seeing straight through people to the good in them. She was unfailingly nice, and Rowan had yet to meet a person who didn’t appreciate her company.

Behind Kaitlyn was Shy Chambers. She had a fierce stature, with dark coppery skin that stood in high contrast to her long hair, which was such a dark shade of brown that it was almost black. Her eyes held the same color. She had a talent for talking to people, and it never stopped surprising the rest of the group how she seemed to know everyone they came into contact with.

Talking to Shy was Danny Porter. He was a heartbreaker of a kid, with eyes like a paler version of Kaitlyn’s. He was about the same height as her, too, but with brown hair. He was witty and smart, and a good friend to have around.

Leaning against a locker behind Alison was Ethan Fox. As Kaitlyn’s brother, he shared the same blonde hair, though his was extremely short. His eyes were a much grayer blue than Kaitlyn’s, and he was several inches taller than her. He was the kind of guy who always seemed to get the joke, and he was protective of all of them, but particularly protective of his sister, and the girl who was standing behind him.

Her name was Andrea Shaw, and she was Ethan’s long-time girlfriend, not to mention one of Rowan’s best friends. She was half an inch shorter than Rowan, with hair as short as Kaitlyn’s, except hers was a rich medium brown color. Her eyes were a medium brown, with a sun-kissed center and a dark ring around the rim. She was a dancer, a lover of magic and romance. She was the sweetest person they knew.

Rowan approached her, wanting to talk to her about this paranoid feeling she couldn’t shake, but before she could speak, Andrea opened her mouth. Rowan waited, but she began to worry as no sound came out of her friend. Then she did hear something. Or rather, felt it.

An earthquake.

The ground started to shake, the lockers making a loud metallic rattling noise. Rowan stumbled back a few steps. She looked around at the others, but they didn’t notice what was happening. They were standing perfectly still, as if the tremor wasn’t affecting them at all.

Rowan heard a cracking sound, and her head whipped back around, staring at the ceiling at the end of the hall. A rift had appeared there, expanding in a dozen lines at once. They raced across the ceiling and down the walls, intersecting in several places and heading straight for Rowan.

She was petrified. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d frozen in the face of a threat, but this time, apparently, her body had other ideas. She looked up as all of the fractures converged at a point directly above her head, and could not move as the ceiling caved in.

Rowan’s eyes flew open.

She was breathing hard, trying to calm herself down from the nightmare. Wherever she was, the lighting was dim, and she couldn’t see well. She closed her eyes and tried to lift her hand to rub her eyelids. She remembered that it was Tuesday, and she’d just left her friends’ apartment. She didn’t recall being tired, but she must have been, to fall asleep in her car like this.

She couldn’t move her wrist.

She looked down, and her eyes had adjusted well enough to see that she was definitely not in her car, because she didn’t have any armrests and her wrists were bound to these ones. They were tied with dusty rope, which was old, but not enough to easily break as she tugged at them.

She was sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of a room that she didn’t recognize. There were windows on three of the walls and a door on the fourth, so she suspected she was in some kind of cabin or shack. It smelled like a forest in here, so she assumed that she was in the middle of nowhere.

She noticed something in her peripheral vision. It was a small table, and on it she could see the light from the single bulb overhead reflecting off of bits of metal. As she strained against the confines of the rope, she could see that there was an array of objects, ones that made her stomach turn.

Knives, ice picks, a handheld saw….

Rowan screamed.

CHAPTER TWO:

Alison sank back against the couch, bringing her knees up to her chest and leaning her cheek against them.

Rowan had been missing for a week, and Alison didn’t know where she was, or if she was hurt…or worse.

It was heartbreaking to look into the eyes of her Aunt Jane, and tell her that she hadn’t heard from her daughter, that she didn’t know anything that could help. The police couldn’t find a trace of where she went, but Alison knew they weren’t working very hard. It was clear they assumed she’d run away.

Alison knew better. She knew her cousin well enough to know that something was very wrong. She wanted to go out and look for Rowan, and a few times, she had tried, but she honestly didn’t know where to start.

Alison felt an arm slip around her shoulders, and she lifted her head, looking to the right. Her eyes met a pair of ice-blue ones. Kaitlyn smiled sympathetically, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

It was Tuesday again, and she, Kaitlyn, Andrea, and Shy were all gathered at Ethan and Danny’s apartment. They got together every week on this night, to catch