Book excerpt: SHADOW tells the haunting story of Dakota Sterling and how she became the ruthless vigilante, Shadow, who -- alongside her partner, Jasper Beauregard (Sparrow) -- protects the very city which turned her into the monster that she is. Silver City is plagued by crime and corruption, most of which is owed to the secret underground railroading faction called the Faceless League, which kidnaps children and trains them to be barbarous assassins. Thirteen years ago, in the year 2004, the Faceless League targeted three very important, very wealthy children: Dakota Lovett, her younger brother, Wesley, and his best friend, Alice Fitzgerald. Dakota found herself to be an unlikely protector of the younger children when they discovered the faction had no intentions of returning them to their respective families. When young Wesley fell ill within the week that they were held hostage, proving himself to be too weak for the Faction’s liking, he was executed right in front of the girls. A distraught Dakota and fearful Alice plotted to escape the next night and their plan worked, but only Alice made it out. Dakota Lovett was left behind, and no one – not even Alice – ever knew what happened to her. Through analepsis, 20-year-old Alice recounts the days of her captivity in the Faceless Institute up until her miraculous escape in order to expose the faction. To Dakota Sterling, the little girl she was before she was recruited by the Faceless League has long since been dead. To ordinary girl Alice Grey, the past is the key to everything - she just doesn’t know it yet. As the Shadow does what is necessary to achieve justice and protect the people, she also struggles with her epic love for the equally-damaged Jasper. When Alice Grey sets out to find the Shadow's true identity, she opens old wounds, discovers even larger conspiracies hidden beneath the streets of the city she calls home and joins a dangerous game that she never meant to play.