A Veiled Truth: The Hunted

By Amanda Shofner

A 31,000 word novella set in The Hunted world

She’s about to learn life isn’t like her controlled experiments.

Edie Brown is a lab rat, dedicated to improving the lives of her fellow Gifted. And while she saved countless Gifted soldiers with her research during the war against the Hunters, she’s haunted by the one person she hasn’t saved: her aunt. With a new pair of joint illusionists to help her, Edie’s closer than ever to a breakthrough.

But her well-ordered scientist’s life unravels when her best friend Marcus proposes a different kind of experiment — one that puts her heart at risk — and her aunt collapses, leaving Edie wondering if she’s too late to help. She’s not about to give up yet, though, not when there’s still a chance she can cure her aunt — and find the one thing she didn't even know she needed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amanda Shofner
• Release date: Jun 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513085562

Book preview

A Veiled Truth

The Hunted #2.5

Amanda Shofner

Text copyright © 2015 Amanda Shofner. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Kelly Apple.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, live or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

To Kyle,

You inspire my writing.

You’ll have to read my books to figure out how.

Chapter 1

There was something in the way her twin brother Will and his no-longer-enemy Jane stood next to each other, without touching, that piqued Edie’s curiosity. They didn’t look at or brush up against each other. Edie cocked her head. And yet, they seemed highly aware of the other.

It brought to mind all kinds of questions. Were they still sharing energy, even though the illusion was supposed to be over? What reason did they have? Why were they being so reticent about it? Sharing energy wasn’t bad. Just unusual if not for illusionary purposes.

She threw them a smile. The better to disarm them. A click of her pen and the flourish of her notebook was all she needed to prepare herself for notes. She looked between Will and Jane again, trying to identify the weakest link: who was most likely to talk?

Will was usually her first choice, but ever since the incident — when Edie had sent Jane to the Hunter compound to save Will — he had been surprisingly tight-lipped about all things Jane. A distinct turnaround from his previous behavior. Which, come to think of it, was telling enough. Edie scribbled her thought, then turned to Jane.

Jane had always been notoriously uncooperative, but Edie had noted changes since the incident. Jane smiled more, she answered more questions, and she had once — just once, but that in itself was its own clue — offered information. Edie hoped she’d be forthcoming now.

She turned up her smile to full force and aimed it at Jane. She clicked her pen, once, twice. Are you currently sharing energy?

Jane blinked. She didn’t look to Will, who’d averted his gaze to stare at the opposing wall, but she shifted infinitesimally closer. We stopped sharing energy when you asked us to.

Edie nodded slowly. Lie or truth? People seemed to lie to Edie with alarming frequency. There was a certain fear that came with interacting with intelligence, she figured. They were afraid she would uncover their deepest darkest secrets. What they didn’t know was that she only cared about their secrets if it had to do with joint illusions.

Most secrets didn’t.

This was a little more…delicate of a situation. Edie studied the chair in the middle of the tiny practice room. It was like any other one might see. Metal. Folding chair. Odd to find it in the middle of the mat, odder yet to know it hadn’t existed before she had asked Will and Jane to create it.

Edie tapped her chin with her pen. Joint illusions disappear after the energy transfer stops. She pointed to the chair. New manifestation of your energy or still sharing energy?

Will and Jane did look at each other then, and an audible crackle through the air signaled the disappearance of the joint illusion. Edie sighed, feeling the faint edges of a headache poking at her forehead.

Lie.

This would be a lot easier if you cooperated.

Will dug his shoe into the mat, not meeting her eyes, and said, We’re tired.

Jane nodded.

Another lie. If they were tired, why share energy? It would drain them further, not help with exhaustion. But of course the day those two would be in agreement — not at each other’s throats — would be to unite against her efforts. It wasn’t like they’d spent the last decade looking for answers. Her fingers itched with the urge to bar them in the room until they performed all the tests she needed, and she could solve the mysteries of joint illusions once and for all.

Edie bit the inside of her cheek. Fine. She struggled to keep her voice even. Go. We’ll meet here again tomorrow. And seriously, rest up. I can’t do this without your help.

You know how much I want this. She let the words, unspoken, hang in the air. They knew how much she wanted it; she didn’t have to articulate it. But if she thought to chasten them, she was wrong. Before she could so much as blink, they were gone. Edie jogged to the door. Don’t worry about me, I’ll just take care of Judy tonig—

Edie’s words cut off as she entered the hallway. Will had Jane pressed up against the wall. Was horniness a manifestation of their shared energy? No. She covered her eyes. But if sexual attraction was a symptom of shared energy, it was something she would need to know. Even if the thought of Will and Jane and that made her want to scrub her eyes out until they bled. Her fingers spread open.

Will yanked Jane into what Edie was quite positive was a supply closet. She had just pulled a new box of gloves from there earlier today. Thank goodness it had been earlier, not later. She clicked her pen a few times and wrote sexual attraction? With that taken care of, it was time to flee. Past time.

She didn’t want to think of what her brother and Jane were doing.

Edie whirled around in the direction of her lab and ran straight into a wall of muscle. She uffed into the chest, and her pen and notebook went flying. The smell of warm male tickled her nose as the impact bounced her back.

Sorry, she said automatically, lunging toward her things.

She had to get better at watching where she was going. It was the second time this week it’d happened; it was Tuesday. Tuesday! At least the first time had been with Will, and he was used to her not paying attention to her surroundings. One of these days, she was going to run into a wall, and how embarrassing that would be.

Her pen was closest, off to the right. She clicked it, then shoved it into the pocket of her lab coat. Where was her notebook? It should have been near her feet, but a quick check showed only her black boots, and the shiny boots issued to every soldier in the Gifted army. Big, she noted. And you know what they say about big feet.

Looking for this?

The familiar voice snapped her head up, and pain bloomed as her skull connected with his chin. Marcus! Just the person I’d been hoping to avoid. "My notebook." She clutched it to her chest as he rubbed his chin absently.

Three weeks. Three weeks since he’d posited the question: Is there a chance you want more from this relationship? This relationship being their friendship, and more being, well, more. Romance, Edie supposed. Physical relations. She had given it thought — a lot of thought, truth be told, that had led to some unsatisfying nights — but no good answer existed.

She pressed her lips together and inched away slightly, lest she be tempted to continue her earlier exploration into big feet and what may lie underneath his standard issue khakis.

His green eyes flashed, missing nothing, and he swept out an arm. Going home? I’ll walk you there.

Home is what Marcus had nicknamed her lab, since she spent more time there than her own dorm. Her heart pinched. She had been careful to keep their relationship the way it was: platonic. Romance — that elusive more Marcus wanted — wasn’t in her future. Friendship was comfortable. Safe. She wasn’t going to ruin something working perfectly fine.

Yet, whether she told him yes or no, she would irrevocably alter their relationship forever. It was why she’d avoided him for as long as she could. She pulled her notebook tighter against her chest, unaware of the people trickling through the hall.

Edie.

Her name snapped her attention back to him. The problem was, she’d thought of nothing but him since he’d posited the question. Avoidance had turned to obsessive thinking. Her heart raced. She wanted him. Except she didn’t do relationships. She kept everything neat and tidy. Sex was in one box, carefully chosen partners who’d never inspire her to great heights of passion or idiocy, but who got the job done. Friendship was in another box, the value of someone who didn’t lie and told it straight too great to combine the boxes together.

It’d been insidious, the way Marcus had become her rock. Little by little, she hadn’t realized it until faced with the possibility of losing him. A no, whether he knew it or not, could drive a wedge between them. And if she said yes — well, Edie didn’t do relationships, not with her aunt Judy, locked in a state of nothingness after her uncle died, providing such a sterling example of how everything could go wrong.

Neither option was acceptable; nothing was guaranteed. His eyes were steady on her. His face was familiar, the angular lines of his jaw and cheekbones hidden by the dark stubble that told her he hadn’t shaved today. How would it feel against her skin?