I grabbed her hand, and my fingers intertwined with hers. “Are you okay?”
“I will be.”
I wanted to question her, to figure out what was going on, but I had an inkling I already knew. Jada had a name. Jessica had never received one. She would talk to me when we weren’t around the new girl who had no idea how important her name could be to Jessica.
“Get home safe,” I whispered. We always said it to one another.
“I will,” she said, and then, she was gone. The blackened smoke from her transportation was cold against my skin, but it disappeared faster than usual. She hadn’t even said goodbye to Jada.
The new shade stepped back as if the smoke could harm her. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m still getting used to it—to that.”
“It’ll be normal before you know it,” I said, wondering if the truth was a good or bad thing.
“Where did she go?” Jada asked.
“Home,” I answered, but she didn’t hear me.
“It makes sense now,” she spoke up, looking at the space where Jessica once stood. “Why they Named me Jada.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“They Named me after the third descendant. They wanted us to sound alike,” she explained. “The elders think we’re connected.”
My fist curled as I thought about the Naming room, the ceremony that changed my life forever. If they had just Named Jada, she had only been a part of the Dark for two weeks. This year, I had missed it, but it was the first year no one complained about my absence. If the ceremony was the same, the ancient ones—whoever they were—felt a connection between Jada and Jessica. In Jada’s eyes, it was innocent. In mine, it was everything but innocent. It was a bad sign.
Jessica was the third descendant, someone who existed by accident, and Jada was a new breed of shade, someone who existed, but shouldn’t. If Jessica had something to do with it, the prophecy did, too, and if the prophecy didn’t work, this girl’s powers weren’t going to either. Not how they should anyway.
“Are there others like you?” I asked, trying to avert the conversation away from Jessica. “Are there others that were Named after her?”
“Slow down,” Jada gave orders like she was born to do so. “There are more like me—new shades—but I’m the only one Named after Jess.” It was the only response Jada had given that relaxed me. “That we know of anyway.”
“Listen,” I said and sighed, “I know you’re not supposed to say a lot—”
“I’m not supposed to be having this conversation,” she corrected, “but I’m here, and I want to know what you want from me.”
Pierce cleared his throat. “You understand you’re different, right? That you shouldn’t have powers at all?”
“That I was human?” She nodded. “I’ve known that.”
“Known?” Pierce repeated.
Jada’s lips pressed together in a thin line, but it was too late to take back the singular word we had latched onto.
“You knew about the Dark before you had powers?” Pierce guessed.
Jada’s gaze moved to the forest like she could run into it and escape, but her feet dug into the ground like she was forced to stay. The expression told us everything we needed to know. She knew before she had powers. Her parents had broken the Dark’s law.
“This is fantastic.” Pierce straightened up like it was, indeed, fantastic. “She could have powers because she knew about the Dark,” he theorized. “It might be a good test to tell another child of a half-breed and see what happens.”
“We can’t do that,” I snapped.
“What?” Pierce defended. “We’re already crossing a line. Don’t tell me that’s where you want to follow the rules.”
“We can’t affect people’s lives like that,” I said. Telling someone they were born into a paranormal world was not something I took lightly, especially since the paranormal world was crumbling.
“For all we know, someone’s already told their kids,” Pierce continued to argue. “We’d just have to check—”
“Pierce,” I screamed in my friend’s head. He even stepped back. “You can theorize all you want—just not in front of her.”
“Got it, boss.” In all the chaos, Pierce found the strength to be humorous.
“My dad didn’t tell me by choice,” Jada’s defense split between our telepathic communications. “I caught him once—in his transformation. I thought I lost my mind.” Her rambling was almost too fast to follow. “But don’t tell anyone. He told me how much trouble he could get in. I don’t want him to get in trouble. He’s been in too much trouble before. He almost got killed by those Light people, and I don’t want to be ostracized—”
“Relax,” Pierce interrupted. “We aren’t going to tell anyone.”
Jada bit her lip, but her eyes were already watering. “I really shouldn’t have come.”
“Yes, yes, you should’ve,” Pierce said. “This is good. This is going to help us. We just need to know who your dad is.”
Jada pushed her tears back. “I can’t do that.”
“You don’t have to.” My words fell out of me, but I wouldn’t let her know the truth.
“I know who her dad is,” I told Pierce so he wouldn’t keep pressuring her.
Pierce faced me, but I focused on the girl. I had recognized the unusual length of her hair for a reason. Her nuances were familiar, just as her story reminded me of the one I was told a few months ago by the only half-breed I knew. He worked for the Light until they wanted to use his human daughter in battle. He killed lights to leave. The scars covered his arms. I would never forget the marks. I would never forget him.
“Luthicer,” I said. “He’s her dad.”
10
Jessica
When I fell out of my transportation, I was two blocks away from my house. I had aimed for home, but I hadn’t even gotten close. It was only when I remembered Eric’s training I figured out what had happened.
“You have to truly want to go where you’re transporting to, or you’ll end up somewhere else.” He had explained while setting up blocks in the training room. “It might be easy when you have a goal, but it’s difficult if you let your emotions take over. You might end up in school or in a car or somewhere else you enjoy. You don’t want that to happen. You want to focus.”
I was yards away because I wanted to be yards away. I wanted to walk. I wanted time to think.
My stomach squeezed when I thought about it. The Dark hadn’t Named me. They said they would, but no one had gotten around to it. They didn’t have time. But they had time for her.
Jada was beautiful. She was one of those rare girls that were both petite and curvy, the kind of girl society pressured us all to be, and she was nice. And scared. As much as I hated to admit it, her confusion reminded me of myself when I met Eric for the first time.
He was a dream, translucent, yet whole, and the way he touched my face was the only way I could believe he was real. Even now, one year later, I found my hand on the cheek he touched all those months ago. I had to touch Jada, too. That was why I grabbed her arm.
She hadn’t been cold like Eric had been. She was warm, and she sizzled beneath my palm. Her powers tempted me like sin did. Every desire I had focused on her. I wanted to know her, to figure out who she was, to harness whatever power she had. I wanted to rip her apart.
Her name wasn’t even half of it. It was mostly her powers, and they had reminded me of one thing. The Light realm. The fire burning. The stone. The red room Camille had died in.
I hadn’t wanted to leave Camille, because I didn’t want her to die. The memory of how her skin had flickered away like pieces of metal was my worst memory, yet I held it close now. Maybe I didn’t want to leave because of Camille, but maybe there was more to it. Maybe I didn’t want to leave the Light realm for another reason altogether. Maybe I wanted to stay for the same reasons I wanted to keep my hold on Jada. I recognized the Light power the way I cherished my Dark powers.
T
hey felt the same.
My head screamed, and I grabbed my hair, wishing I could tear the thoughts out of my mind.
The Light was not the Dark. If it were, I would’ve wanted the powers when I met Camille for the first time, the night of prom, but I didn’t. Camille’s powers had nauseated me. Fudicia’s Light powers had torn me apart. They had burned. The feeling was torturous. Yet, it felt different now. Something had changed.
I dipped back into the shadows, letting the blackness cool my skin, and I sank into the darkness of the night. I remained there, floating in nothingness, levitating in a pool of molecules until I fell out.
My knees hit the lawn with such force that blades of grass waved out in front of me. I stared at the frostbitten tips, sparkling an iridescent purple beneath the winter moonlight. A rain of my violet power fell from the cloudless sky, but it never touched my body. It bounced off me as if it didn’t belong to me, and it flickered red before soaking into the ground. The water became yellow when he arrived.
Darthon.
He was standing in front of me. He was on my front lawn.
I leapt to my feet, tearing my sword out of my arm, but it flickered like a hologram.
Darthon never took his blade out. He only smiled.
“What do you want?” I growled, clenching my fist, begging for my weapon to work, but nothing changed. It even flickered on and off.
The black pits he called his eyes followed the hologram’s shaky appearance. “It’ll only work if you want it to work.” Just like the transportation. “You don’t want to kill me.”
His entrancing voice broke what little concentration I had on my sword. It zipped back into my arm, searing my bones, and breath seethed between my teeth. The only hope I had was the energy it had put out. Eric would sense it. He would know I was in trouble. He would come.
Darthon laid out his arms as if he were asking for a hug. “You’re the one that called me, Jess,” he said. “If you want to bring Eric into this, fine. Do it.” His voice dropped. “Go ahead.”
“I already did.” My knees bent, but I didn’t survey my surroundings like training had taught me to do. This was the real world. There was no time for looking away from the target.
“Great.” His grin stretched. “We share the same goals.”
Eric. Darthon wanted him to come. He wanted us both. I was right. The Light had always wanted us both.
“Don’t come,” I tried to warn Eric, but it was too late.
“We’ve got company,” Darthon said it just as two shadows split the front yard in half.
Pierce appeared, and so did Eric as Shoman, his sword in full view. But he didn’t last long.
Darthon flicked his hand, and the yellow rain splattered over us as if a bubble had been placed over our heads. Pierce smacked against the outside, pounding on the force field as he screamed. I couldn’t hear him. Shoman, though, was on the inside, and his sword was gone. He wasn’t even standing. He was on the ground, screaming, and I could hear him. The screech pierced my ears.
I rushed over, falling down next to him as the Light energy prickled against my arms. Darthon had us trapped in a room full of his energy, the same energy that hurt shades, the energy that was torturing Shoman. Not me.
“Eric,” I tried to get his attention, but his eyelids squeezed shut. His screams didn’t stop. He never stopped squirming. Pierce never stopped pounding on the walls. I never felt a thing.
I looked up at Pierce, and my guard’s green eyes met mine. His pupils widened, his hair wild, his expression dropped with every millisecond. Burnt flesh curled off his knuckles. The blackness behind him began to open up, and I knew the elders were coming. Everyone was coming, and I stood, knowing I would have to face Darthon until they did.
“You don’t have to worry,” Darthon said before I could speak to him. “You won’t be the dead one.”
A bright light shattered from the ground, filling the bubble, and it blanketed us in a fire I had only felt a few times. It was the fire in Jada’s veins. It was the burning sensation of my desires. It was the Light realm.
“You’re coming with me.” Darthon’s voice was all I heard. “Both of you.”
11
Eric
The floor was hard, uneven and cold. My shoulder dug into the ground, and my skin grated against the concrete. When my eyes opened, I expected a flood of light, but murky shadows met me. In the corner, a single candle flickered, and a miniscule wave of illumination darted across my jeans.
I was human.
“About time.” The voice was the only sound in the small room, but it didn’t echo like it should’ve. It came and disappeared like it had never existed at all.
My neck stung as I arched my back, trying to find the source. It didn’t take me long. He was sitting right next to me—except he was in a chair, and I was on the floor.
Darthon.
His blond hair was the brightest part of the room, but he was untouched by the candlelight. His dark eyes sucked it all in like a black hole, and his grin showed how much he enjoyed it.
“I’ve watched you die four times now,” he continued to speak, “and each time, you wake right back up.”
Only then did my memories return. I was with Jada when Pierce and I sensed Darthon. We transported to Jessica, and it was over. We were taken to the Light realm, and I couldn’t handle it as Shoman. Shades died in the Light realm, but so did humans. I had already lost consciousness a dozen times. I expected to die. I even waited for it. But I kept waking back up. This wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last, but it was my first time seeing Darthon.
“Humans can’t exist here,” he continued, standing from his chair only to kneel down next to me. He reached down, twisted his fingers through my hair, and yanked my head up off the ground. “So, tell me how you can.” His hot breath skimmed my cheek.
I couldn’t answer, because I didn’t know. He was right. I should’ve been dead a long time ago. I shouldn’t have existed. But I did. Shoman was obsolete in the Light realm, but Eric Welborn remained. My only hope resided in how our powers had shifted.
“Where’s Jessica?” I managed, ignoring his question.
When he removed his grip, my cheek slammed against the floor.
“Jessica,” he repeated her name like it was a dirty thing. “She’s alive,” he said. “No thanks to you—her hero.”
Of course she was alive. If she weren’t, Darthon would be dead, too. The question wasn’t about her life. It was about her location because she wasn’t with me. I had no clue where she was, or how alive she was. She might have even been in the same state as I was.
“She’s the one who called me, you know,” Darthon’s words halted my thoughts as his hand rose, and glitter rain fell from his palm. Aside from the golden coloring, it looked exactly like the power Jessica used—the only power I didn’t recognize, the only power I didn’t have control of.
When the rain disappeared, Darthon’s face appeared in front of mine. “I just didn’t take her as the type to call on two men at once.”
I reached up to choke him, to grab him—anything—but he disappeared only to reappear on the other side of my torso. He kicked my face, and my jaw cracked. My neck sizzled. My spine was melting.
But a scream didn’t escape me. Not this time. I had been expecting it.
His knees popped as he kneeled down again. “You’re used to pain, aren’t you, Welborn?”
“I’ve had training,” I spat, removing my mental state from my body. I had felt this pain too many times to count—thanks to Urte’s torture machine. I would have to thank his foresight if I ever saw him again.
“Look how much good that’s done you,” he mocked, but he focused too much on his words.
My fingers latched onto his ankle, and I yanked as hard as I could manage. My bicep ripped, but he fell backward, slamming onto the ground. He was up before I could do anything else, and he had kicked me again. This time, my ribs were breaking, and I felt my car wreck all
over again.
As I curled up, he cursed. “I would think twice before starting a fight in this realm, Welborn,” he spoke as his foot pushed against my side. “You’re nothing but a human here.”
But my human side lived. Despite all the rules we abided by, I could live in the Light realm, and he couldn’t hide the truth.
“I don’t have to fight you,” I spat back, knowing I could only overcome him with words. “You can’t kill me, not even in your own realm.”
His boney face hardened. “Oh, I can kill you,” he said. “I already have.”
“Then, why am I alive?”
“Because she’s protecting you,” he spoke through gritted teeth.
For a millisecond, I saw Jessica, but the knowledge stayed with me longer. I was safe. For now.
Darthon’s foot dug against my side, and my lungs squeezed. “She won’t protect you forever,” he threatened. “She’ll stop. She’ll run out of energy, and I’ll be here when she does,” he continued. “You will die—permanently—but until then, I’ll enjoy watching you die again.”
With that, his foot flicked from my ribs to my head, and it slammed against the side of my skull. The crack was the last thing I heard before I drew one last breath and succumbed to darkness.
12
Jessica
“Pierce,” I called for my guard one hundred times, but I never received a response. “Urte—Bracke—Luthicer—anyone!” My mind sizzled out with a deafening static, and my attempted connection broke.
Still, I planted my feet on the ground and laid my hands on the far wall. The concrete room was a prison with one door—a locked door I had tried to break too many times to count. The only thing I succeeded in breaking was the skin on my knuckles, and I had been awake for thirty minutes.
The room looked nothing like the one I had previously seen in the Light realm, but I knew I was there. The lack of temperature gave it away. I would never forget the heatless fire, and it was impossible to forget Camille—the woman who died to get me out of the same realm I found myself in again. This time, I would get out on my own, and I would find Eric, too.
Death Before Daylight Page 6
