Death Before Daylight

by Shannon A. Thompson

Her son was under an illusion. Noah wouldn’t know I was even gone. He probably had false memories of me living right next to him. My presence would be nothing unusual to him.

  “How is he doing?” I asked, knowing he was at a friend’s house. I would only get to see him for a minute before I had to return to the shelter.

  Mindy’s low hum made me look her way. When a red curl fell from her bun, she blew it out of her face. “He’s a little different,” she admitted, “but it won’t be long.”

  I sat all four legs of my chair on the floor. “You didn’t have to agree.”

  “Yes, I did.” She picked up a tray and slid it into the oven. “It’ll be fifteen minutes,” she said. “Think you can stay that long?”

  “Sure.”

  She beamed as she walked around the kitchen counter and came into the dining room. She brought tea with her, and she slid a mug toward me before sitting next to me. There were six chairs at our table, mainly because we always had Urte over, but she sat in the chair closest to me. Mindy didn’t even hesitate to put her hand on my shoulder.

  “I am glad you’re home.”

  “You can stop saying that,” I chuckled.

  “Sorry.” Her face was as bright as her hair. “It gets lonely here sometimes.”

  My dad was practically gone, too. He rarely left the shelter. I doubted they had seen one another much at all, and the house was too big for two people. After my mother died, it had echoed from my father’s silence. It hadn’t been loud again until my stepfamily moved in.

  “I know I don’t say this a lot—if ever,” I hesitated and had to stare at the table to continue, “but I’m glad you married my father. He’s happy now.”

  Mindy didn’t talk until I looked up. “He’s happier when you’re safe.”

  My jaw locked, and then popped as I shifted it around to speak again, “I’m sorry your son isn’t.” It was all because of me that Noah had to be under an illusion.

  “He’s safe because of you,” Mindy said, and her squeaky voice had never sounded so comforting. “I know you didn’t know him before, but he was really quiet until the marriage.”

  “He loves my dad—”

  “Noah loves you,” she emphasized. “Really. The boy doesn’t stop talking about you.” She took a sip of her tea, and her bangs became frizzy in the steam. “He toughened up a lot after he started spending time with you.”

  “He’s a tough kid.”

  She agreed. “And if Jess’ parents can go through it, then my son can.”

  My chest sank. Noah wasn’t the only human affected by my life or Jessica’s existence. The entirety of Hayworth had succumbed to the danger, even if they were oblivious to it.

  “I’d like to meet them one day,” Mindy continued. “I bet Jess’ parents are as sweet as she is.”

  “We broke up—”

  “Please,” she interrupted. “I know better than that.”

  I couldn’t fight a smile, but the smile did fight me. It felt wrong to be grinning in such a time over such a topic. “I’m sure you’ll get to meet them,” I finally agreed.

  “I’ll have to make lasagna.” Her face glowed as she dreamt of the day we could be together. “I’m known for that meal, you know.” She winked. “I think it’s why your father married me.”

  Before I could respond, the door burst open. “I’m home.” Noah’s shout traveled over us as he ran up the stairs.

  “I’m making lemon cakes,” Mindy announced as she stood up. “I should check on them.”

  “Why?” Noah asked as he stopped at the top of the stairs and saw me. “It’s not your birthday.”

  A chuckle escaped me. “That’s a good thing.”

  Noah’s face twisted. “You’re weird,” he said, but he walked to the table. He dropped his bag on the furthest chair, and just like his mother, he sat in a chair right next to me.

  I stared at him. His face hadn’t changed much, but he had gotten a haircut. Even then, his short hair was a mess.

  “You got a haircut,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Where have you been?”

  Dishes clattered together in the kitchen, and Mindy apologized. She had dropped something, and I imagined it was from Noah’s question. It was perfectly natural, but in the situation, it felt uncomfortable.

  “School,” I spoke up anyway.

  Noah’s brow furrowed like he didn’t believe me. “I thought you might have been with Jess.”

  My face went hot. “We aren’t together,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah. Yeah.” He stood up from the table. “I’m going to my room.”

  “Good to see you,” I called after him as he started walking away.

  Right when I thought he would disappear into his room, he spun around. “Good to see you, too.” And then, he was gone.

  Mindy leaned on the counter. “He’s had an attitude recently.”

  “The spell will wear off.”

  She smiled. “It’s not the spell,” she said and reclipped her hair. “He’s almost a teenager now.”

  I stared at the hallway like my stepbrother was standing there. “Yeah,” I breathed. “I guess he is.” Noah, somewhere along the way, had a birthday. He was eleven. I had completely forgotten the date.

  Before I could speak again, a chill ran over my skin, and nausea consumed my insides. My heart slammed into my chest, but it didn’t beat. It froze.

  I fell over, and the ground spun as I hit the floor. Pain seethed down my spine, but the pain in my chest was worse. Much worse. Everything burned. Everything squeezed. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

  “Eric!” Mindy’s scream shattered through the fog. I clung to the noise to prevent myself from losing consciousness.

  My vision was blurry, but I could see her red hair through my misty vision. “Eric—”

  I was going to die.

  The darkness was creeping over the sides of my vision, and my chest was caving in. The only thing I could feel was the cold, and it was a cold I had only felt once before. In the Light realm, I had died, but this time, I wasn’t there. I was in the human world, and nothing was here to bring me back.

  Right when I thought the darkness would win, everything brightened. The world buzzed, and my mind spun, and the ringlets around Mindy’s face solidified. Her face was pale.

  “Eric.”

  I wheezed, but my heart raced, beating against my ribs as if it had been shocked into living again. I coughed as air rushed down my esophagus. I was alive.

  “What’s going on?” Noah. He was walking toward us.

  “It’s fine,” Mindy called over her shoulder, but she never took her eyes off of me. She placed the back of her hand on my forehead. “Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

  “No. No.” That was the last thing we needed. “I’m okay.”

  I laid my head against the ground as it thundered with blood returning. I hadn’t been wrong. My life had almost left me.

  “Is Eric okay?” Noah peered over his mother’s shoulder.

  “I’m all right,” I promised again and shoved my arms under me. I took a breath before pushing myself up. “I just got dizzy,” I said, even though my thoughts were consuming me.

  My ring kept me alive in the Light realm, but I hadn’t considered that it kept me alive in the human world, too. Jessica. She must have taken hers off.

  “I have to go,” I said, but when I stood up, I fell into my seat. My strength wasn’t returning as quickly as I wanted it to.

  “Just sit for a minute,” Mindy said. As she rushed into the kitchen, she told Noah to watch me. He sat down, but not as close as he had sat before.

  “Are you—”

  I shushed him. I didn’t want to, but I had to concentrate. I unlocked the block I placed on Jonathon’s telepathic thread to my mind. “Pierce—”

  My mind burned before I could even finish my sentence. I didn’t have the strength. I had one last resort. I yanked my phone out of my pocket and dialed his number. It rang and rang an
d rang again, and then it clicked.

  “Jonathon,” I spoke before he could. “Where’s Jessica?”

  He was silent for a millisecond too long. “Eric?”

  “It’s me,” I ranted. “Where is she? Is she okay?” If her date had taken a bad turn, I needed to know.

  “She’s fine.”

  “Where is she?” I growled through my pain.

  “I—um—Crystal is driving her right now.” I could hear his car’s engine in the background. He was following them. “She’s fine. They both are.”

  I didn’t care about Crystal. “Are you sure Jessica is okay?”

  “Positive,” he answered, but his voice moved into his next sentence without a breath. “Why are you calling? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I said right before I hung up. I dropped my phone on the table, and all the muscles in my hands tingled. I had to draw in a breath to prevent them from shaking, but the pause allowed me to see what was in front of me.

  Noah and Mindy were staring.

  “I have to go,” I said as I stood up. My legs didn’t fall beneath me this time. I would be okay in minutes, and I had to meet Jessica back at the shelter. I had to see her for myself.

  “But Mom made cake—” Noah started, but Mindy interrupted.

  “Go,” she said. “Do what you need to do.”

  I nodded. “I’ll come back for cake soon,” I said, but as I started to walk away, Mindy cut me off for a hug. She wrapped her arms around me almost as quickly as she stepped away.

  “I can always cook more,” she said. “Stay safe.”

  “I will,” I promised before I raced down the stairs toward the darkness that had almost taken me minutes before.

  39

  Jessica

  Crystal drove me to my house, but I never went inside. I waited on the front porch until she left. I had to tell Jonathon what she told me in the car, and every second that passed seemed too long to bear. It only took two minutes for Jonathon to appear. I jumped in the passenger side, but he didn’t take off like I expected him to.

  “Is everything okay?” his voice rushed in the same way I wanted his car to do.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted before I corrected myself. “No. Something is wrong.”

  Jonathon reached up to put his car in park, but I grabbed his hand. “Not here,” I said. “We need to go to the shelter.”

  He blinked, but obeyed. When he rotated his wheel, the front tires squeaked, and the small car lurched as he stepped on the gas. “I don’t drive a lot.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, collecting my thoughts. “The jewelry. It—” I couldn’t fathom what I was thinking. “We need to make sure Eric is okay.”

  Jonathon gripped the wheel, but he didn’t increase his speed. “He’s fine.”

  “But—”

  “He called me, Jess.”

  My heart was beating faster than normal, and my hand curled into a fist. My ring was back on my finger. It no longer burned, but it did glow. The sapphire was bright, and I wasn’t imagining it.

  “Does that happen a lot?” Jonathon asked.

  “You can see it?”

  He nodded, even though he had kept his eyes on the road. It was that bright. “Why is it back on your hand?”

  “I took it off,” I admitted. “Robb—” I thought I would lose my breath. “He took it off, and I felt it. I felt Eric leave, and—”

  Jonathon’s breath was sharp as he pulled his car over.

  “What are you doing?” I nearly screeched.

  He put his car in park and switched off his headlights. “You need to calm down,” he said it like his father did—as a trainer instead of a guard. “Acting on emotions won’t get us anywhere. It’s dangerous.”

  I only stared back.

  “Take a breath.”

  His voice was the only thing I heard, so I obeyed, and every racing part of me simmered down. Every part of me but my heart. It thundered.

  “Feel better?” he asked.

  “A little.”

  “You and Eric both,” he chuckled. “You’re both so hot-tempered.”

  “It’s kind of a tense situation,” I started, but Jonathon shushed me.

  “Just breathe.”

  I did.

  “Eric called me,” he spoke while I calmed down. “He’s fine. He sounded fine. He was just worried about you because you went out on a date. That’s it. Okay?”

  He waited for a response, but I kept my mouth shut. I was sure my nerves would heighten again.

  “Did you get a chance to test him?”

  I shook my head because I knew he was talking about Zac. “He walked away.”

  “And you left when he came back,” he finished. “I thought something might have happened.” His tone dropped, and it was only then that I noticed the sweat on the side of his face. He had been worried about me, too.

  “Something happened,” I confessed. “I took off the ring.”

  Jonathon’s eyes shot down to my hand. “You said Robb did.”

  My nod almost hurt my neck. “He wanted to be alone with me,” I explained. “He told me that Zac and Crystal wanted to be alone, but Crystal told me it was the other way around in the car.” I told him everything that happened—how Crystal had rushed us to the car, how she thought Robb was acting strange, how he had asked them if he could have a minute with me. She had cursed at herself in the car when I told her about the ring, and an apology had escaped her before she drove off. She was in a hurry.

  “I think the ring kept Eric alive in the Light realm,” I said without telling Jonathon the other part. It had kept me alive, too. When I had tried to kill myself, I hadn’t died. If there was any explanation, it existed in a tiny piece of metal a mother had left behind. “Darthon can’t kill him, and that’s why.” I even told Jonathon about what I learned in the realm, how I had accused Darthon of being unable to kill Eric and how he had confirmed it. “Eric can’t die.”

  Jonathon didn’t move, but his face paled. “But you took it off.”

  “Only for a minute,” I promised, but I grabbed Jonathon’s arm like I needed to hear more from him. “Are you sure he is okay?”

  Jonathon pulled away from me so he could start the car. “He said he was all right before he hung up on me,” he confessed. My blood ran cold. “We should check on him.”

  He took off without waiting for my confirmation. The shelter was only ten minutes away, but it was long enough for me to ask the one question I could manage, “Do you think—”

  “That Robb could be Darthon?” Jonathon knew what I was thinking. “Definitely.”

  My palms were sweating, but I brought them up to my pounding forehead. “Oh, God.” Robb had been so close. All along. Both of them had been. But I hadn’t considered Robb as much as I had thought about Zac. Even though Robb had hit me at the bar, Zac was the only one who remembered it—that we knew of—and Zac had threatened Eric from the beginning. Zac had also left prom when I had. Robb had stayed behind with Linda, so it made sense for Zac to be able to be Darthon that night. Zac also didn’t seem to care about his parents, but Robb hadn’t mentioned his in depth. Still, Linda was around both of them. So was Crystal. Either of them could be Fudicia. Either of the boys could be Darthon. And both Zac and Robb had used force against me at some point. Even then, it was Robb who had taken my ring. He was also the one trying to get closer to me. And yet, at the beginning of our friendship, he had encouraged me to get closer to Eric. None of it made sense.

  “I don’t know anymore,” I said before I cursed.

  “Calm down,” Jonathon reminded me.

  “I didn’t even get a chance to test them,” I admitted, knowing my plan failed. I was sure I could use my powers to feel his. If I had the chance to touch him, I was positive I would feel it if I concentrated, but I had lost all concentration. When I had the opportunity to touch Robb, I was too busy trying to get my ring back. I had lost my chance. “I didn’t get a chance to test him,” I repeated
.

  “Maybe he was testing you.”

  I couldn’t breathe.

  “Relax,” Jonathon kept repeating the same phrase like it could change our circumstances. “You figured out something, right?” His voice raced as fast as his car took the last corner. “That’s enough. That got us a step further, so stop questioning it.”

  I stared at Jonathon. The scrawny boy who was so built as a shade seemed more powerful than he ever had before. His squinted eyes were focused, and he wasn’t even using his shade vision. Even though he was telling me to concentrate, he couldn’t either. What we had learned was deadly. The problem rested in the fact that Darthon could’ve learned it, too.

  40

  Eric

  I was only five yards away from the shelter when I saw him. Darthon was standing by the edge of the river—next to the railing where I had first met Jessica—but he wasn’t in his light form. He was Robb, and I was Eric. We were both humans, and I knew why. The Dark could sense him if he were a light. As Robb, he wouldn’t even hit their radar.

  I froze, but his stare was already on me. He even knew what direction I would be coming from. He was waiting. “Eric.”

  Every part of me told me to run, but I didn’t. I stood my ground. The forest was my territory. Not his. He could take a part of my freewill away, but he wouldn’t take everything. Not Jessica. Not my place. Not my life. I wouldn’t die as long as we had our rings on.

  “Go ahead and scream,” he said. “Call for your elders. Call for your guard.”

  His words were empty because they were dead. He had killed Camille, his people had killed Eu, and he was here to kill me, even though he couldn’t.

  “I guess your date didn’t go well,” I said.

  He walked toward me, and right when I thought he would hit me, he threw something at me. It hit me in the face before I realized what it was. Jessica’s necklace. The chain that held her ring no longer hung on her neck.

  “Why is she wearing it?” he growled. “I told you to stay away from her—”

  “I have been,” I snapped. As I picked it up off the ground, my fingers shook. If it wasn’t on her, she had taken it off. The reason I had almost succumbed to darkness was clearing. In the human realm, the spell wasn’t as strong. I would die if she simply took off her ring. Darthon didn’t even have to try to kill me.