by W. J. May
“I’m a witch living among Druids, werewolves, and vampires, being hunted by some hybrid monstrosity,” Atlanta replied. “You’re going to have to define stupid.”
James shook his head and smiled, then began running in the opposite direction.
The three of them headed in separate ways, each bolting towards the roof of one of the three buildings.
Oddly, even though she knew she was heading into a trap, she could not have felt more confident. She thought she’d prepared herself for whatever creature was waiting for her. Atlanta knew if Skylar was up there, she only had to get her away from him.
Then I’m really going to make that thing suffer! It wants me? Well, it’s not taking me down without a fight. Get Skylar out, and if I can’t kill the beast, die before I let the door open.
The main gate of the building slid sideways as it opened. The place was empty; she could hear the echo of her footsteps. The marathon of thoughts in her head was silenced by her composed confidence as she forced herself to expect a sudden attack at any second. The building was nearly twenty stories high, so the stairs weren't much of an option. The elevator, on the other hand, was waiting for her, its grey metal door opening before she even had the chance to press the button. She stepped inside, knowing that every move she would make from now on had been previously orchestrated for her, perfectly set.
But she knew she was one step ahead of the hybrid.
She had seen it coming, she knew the trap.
For a brief second, she wondered if it was intelligence or plain stupidity. She shook the thought away, realizing that the only advantage knowing this was a trap gave her reflexes a split second to react faster, her thoughts would not be scattered while she fought. She wouldn't be shocked. The adrenaline would be controlled, directed, and mastered.
The elevator dinged.
Atlanta looked up as the number twenty flickered in digital black on the blue screen. The doors slid open.
The lights on this floor were on, and to the side she saw a white door with a wide metal handle. Above the door was a green fluorescent sign that signaled the emergency exit. She opened the door and found the narrow staircase that led to the roof.
She remembered the place; Skylar had dragged her up there to show her the lake and the city from above. This time, however, she had a feeling she’d be seeing a much less pleasant scene.
She climbed the stairs and held her breath as she reached the final door. She exhaled slowly and pushed the door open, prepared for anything. The sound of the wind softly bombarded the air coming out the vents. The roof’s floor was filled with pebbles that she could hear being forced into one another as she walked over them.
“Skylar,” she called out. She heard an adjacent sound of moving pebbles across from her. There was no reply.
She took careful steps forward and slid her blade from its sheath on her back. Her fingers curled around the hilt, holding it tight. She followed the sound of the pebbles cracking, making sure she made as little noise as possible.
When she slid around a large vent to the other side of it, she froze.
He stood a few yards away, his left side towards her. He was wearing a grey coat that fluttered about in the wind. He stood next to the flashing red light, his hood pulled over his head. He seemed to be staring out at the lake, lost in its serenity.
Got you! She approached him with the blade in her hand. She knew his movements had to be swift, especially if he could take Louis and Colin. She focused her eyes on his legs, waiting for a leap. He moved his head towards her, his face shadowed by the hood.
Her heart raced and her grip on the blade tightened. He walked towards her, slowly and confidently, his face downward.
He lifted the hood off his head.
Atlanta felt her heart stop. “Michael?”
Chapter 21
Atlanta stood in paralyzed astonishment. Michael?
For what felt like an eternity a dreary silence would hover by, then the wind would continue its slight hammering. The light of the moon was a brilliant white that overcast the dim, glowing stars. Atlanta felt a sudden shiver race through her, her senses scattered, her confidence shattered. Nothing could have prepared her for this.
Over the many years of friendship with Skylar, she hadn’t interacted much with Michael. He kept mostly to himself. He never missed a day at school, and even there his voice was barely heard. He blended in, almost into the shadows. He was one of those kids who was excessively silent. She had always traced that silence back to the feelings of abandonment he must have experienced when his parents left.
His skin was a pale white, his hair a dark shade of brown slightly darker than the color of his eyes. His shoulders were broad, which was unlikely for his young age. She knew that he was always the highest achiever in his grade growing up, and even when he and Skylar were left to fend for themselves the grades on his transcript didn’t change the smallest bit.
There had always been a peculiarity in his behavior, but Atlanta always related it to the lack of parental guidance in his life. However, he seemed to be the one who knew where to find Skylar before they did.
Or not? Is he here for another reason?
Atlanta fought back the doubts her mind was throwing at her. Michael was just a boy. There was no way he could be anything else. Surely, they would have seen that before.
He was leaning onto the ledge of the roof as Atlanta approached him. He was looking straight down, and then he turned around to face her. When his face appeared in the moonlight, Atlanta half expected to see the face of the hybrid there instead, the lurking visage from her nightmares. But it was Michael. His face was pale and he looked swallowed in a state of distress. He was speechless for a while as he stood paralyzed and stared at Atlanta with wide eyes.
“Michael?” Atlanta’s tone was not as strong as she had hoped it would sound. “Where did Skylar go?”
His voice was thin and shaky; the words were rising from beneath a turbulent heart. He was trying to say something, but his tongue was tied in a weird kind of hesitance and shock.
Atlanta sheathed her blade. “Michael, can you hear me?”
Michael turned away from Atlanta and walked back to where he had previously stood. He looked down from the roof and then back at her. It felt as if he had been forced into silence by something that was on the ground.
Atlanta hurried toward the ledge, her heart skipping a beat, scared of what she might see. The pebbles echoed her footsteps as the night was beginning to fall into dawn. She stood right next to Michael, the wind howling and roaring, his coat slamming against her body. She put her hand on the stone ledge and looked down. She searched for whatever was scaring Michael, but couldn’t identify a single thing that was out of the ordinary.
A circular cobblestone floor occupied the space between the three buildings, with a bench parallel to each. Further behind that area was a metal fence that was missing pieces in many areas. The forest behind it was darkened, and the lake was moon-lit. When the wind would cease, the sound of the crickets would rhythmically echo.
She gazed at the lake for a moment and back at the area in between the buildings, but there was nothing to be seen.
“What is it?” she asked, shaking her head in bewilderment.
He looked at her and uttered an incoherent word. When she frowned at him in confusion, he breathed in and leaned his head down again. Then he pointed with his fingers at the benches underneath.
“S-She j-jumped,” he said in a shaking voice. “I saw her jump.”
Atlanta’s heart jumped into her throat, and she held back a startled gasp. Her nervousness drove itself into the pit of her stomach then rose again. Her eyes widened and she hurriedly and frantically searched where Michael’s finger was pointing to, but she could barely make out anything.
The area below was well lit, with three posts beaming white light. Even though she was on the roof of the twentieth floor, every detail underneath was apparent. If there was something odd down there
, she should have been able to see it.
Suddenly all thoughts of the hybrid disappeared, her readiness for a fight dispersing at the thought of Skylar jumping. She thought that it wouldn’t be far from Michael to hallucinate what he said he saw, it wasn’t far from him to think he saw his sister jumping; it was Michael after all. The kid who once swore to his sister that he talked to the willow tree by their house. He was the kid who had an imaginary friend up until he was in seventh grade. He wasn’t an ordinary boy. But that would have been better to believe at that moment than the thought of her best friend jumping.
She didn’t. He’s imagining it.
Then why is her car here?
Atlanta quickly looked at the roofs of the other two buildings, but couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t know if Skylar was on either one of them, or if Ryan or James had found her. She turned back to Michael and held his arms.
“Michael, are you sure you saw Skylar jump?” she asked, her voice trembling as tears began to roll down her cheeks.
Michael gazed back at her, stupefied. It was almost as if he didn’t understand her, like she was speaking a foreign language far from his comprehension. His body was shivering and his arms were curling onto his body as if to escape her touch. He stepped backwards, then took several more. He was blindly heading towards the ledge. He stopped and put his hood back on.
Atlanta knew that, whatever had happened, she had to find out for herself. She had to go back downstairs.
“Wait here,” she said assertively.
You can’t leave him here. Not like this.
“Maybe, come with me,” she whispered, and held her hand out to him.
A sudden thundering sound came from the roof of one of the other buildings. It was a quivering echo of something that was slammed hard against the stone, followed by the sound of rocks breaking and falling.
Michael immediately stepped forward and away from the ledge at the sound. Atlanta dashed towards the side of the roof that was closer to the other building. She couldn’t see anything.
The sound thundered through the night sky again, and this time it was accompanied by a deep growl.
“It’s Ryan,” she whispered to herself.
Atlanta quickly turned to Michael. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”
But Michael didn’t move.
A peculiar grin took over his face, and his features began to darken grimly. He walked towards the ledge and picked something up. Atlanta immediately recognized the patterned sneakers.
They were Skylar’s
Michael turned to her, his grin widening, and then propelled the sneakers through the air. Atlanta followed the trajectory, and as she watched the world around her shifted.
The darkness around her intensified, almost as if the night were trying to take over every ounce of light that existed. It rested heavy on her shoulders, and with it came a sharp pain in her chest that brought her to her knees. It was almost like a stabbing that made her struggle to breathe.
What’s happening?
Croaks of ravens echoed, and when she looked up dozens began to appear by the red light next to Michael. Flashes from her nightmares followed and made her scream. It was almost like every single haunting image was a piece of a melancholic puzzle that was being pushed together before her eyes. And that one last piece of that puzzle, the one that had been taunting her all these nights, was not going to come to her sleeping, subconscious mind, but was going to be revealed in the very moment she was in.
Flashes of green light burst through the sky.
Uncle James!
She wanted to call out to him. She wanted him to come and save her from the evil that she felt crawling into her veins. She could feel her veins bursting from the inside, her nerves pumping the darkest of emotions and bleeding into her mind flashes of glaring red eyes.
The ravens ascended and swirled around the moon in circles. They paraded the night sky and their flaming red eyes dripped green rain that burned the pebbles on the floor.
Her knees were trembling and her head fell to the ground as she struggled to hear a stillness in her thoughts, fought to grasp onto a single image that wasn’t blurry. Her eyelashes were closing onto one another and she fought to keep them open. She was blacking out. She lifted herself to her knees and felt the ravens a tiny distance away from her head, swirling around her as if casting a spell of everlasting agony over her body. Pain burst through her, touching every inch of her body, leaving no part of her at peace.
In between the vagueness she thought she saw Skylar’s face next to the red light, but there was no way to be sure. She couldn’t even be sure if the moment she was in was a dark and grim reality, or just a shadow of another nightmare.
Ryan never came to the house. Skylar isn’t missing. This is all a nightmare. I’m dreaming, and I’m going to wake up now. Any minute now. Now!
But she didn’t. The nightmare had managed to set its claws deep into her senses and nearly dragged every bit of sanity out of her.
The wind howled but could not mask her screams as they pierced the night. She tried to stand up. She placed her hands on the pebbles and squeezed hard, but she was only barely touching them with the tips of her fingers. The muscles of her fingers were numb. She gathered all her strength and pushed herself up on one knee, but the wind pushed her back down.
She looked at the blood on her hands, but it wasn’t the usual red she expected to see.
It’s green. I’m bleeding green.
She looked past the blur, her eyes sharpening as she took in the one image that had always failed to appear in her nightmares.
Skylar was standing on the ledge, her hair flickering behind her brother’s broad figure. The ravens cast a growing shadow behind Skylar’s shoulders. Another round of croaks whistled and, far behind them, a slow- burning sun was beginning to rise from behind the forest.
She’s alive! She didn’t jump!
Atlanta tried to speak. A tiny fragment of her heart was trying to sigh in relief of finding Skylar, but she couldn’t even understand what was happening to her own body. She was being torn from the inside out and every muscle inside her was relaxing and contracting involuntarily.
And suddenly, as if someone had flipped a light switch inside her head, everything made perfect sense.
She saw Skylar clearly now, the ravens all around her, her deep green eyes glowing greener in the morning light. She was smiling at Atlanta, a sinister smile that quickly turned into manic laughter.
No! It can’t be!
Michael stood completely still in front of his sister, and through the shadows of his hood his true form was beginning to unravel. The malice that was the root of his silence. The disheartened truth behind his never-present smile began to reveal itself in the fangs that protruded from his jaw.
He began moving towards Atlanta, his eyes blazing red.
Chapter 22
In Atlanta’s mind Skylar’s very name was breaking down, its letters cracking and falling into a pit of a lie that she so much lived rather than just believed. It was more convenient to call Skylar not with the name that she had adopted in that decade, but rather by the name that she was known for.
Adelaide.
The witch let out a malevolent laugh. Adelaide was surrounded by a green mist as the ravens engulfed the perimeter of the roof. Her forest-green eyes were fixed on Atlanta, paralyzed on the ground in agony.
“Did you come to save me, dear friend?” Adelaide whispered as she bent down and brought her face closer to Atlanta’s.
She laughed as she slid her long nails down Atlanta’s hair and moved them around her face. Atlanta struggled to control the movement of her body, but she failed miserably. She was feeling her legs move involuntarily, as if she were compelled.
I thought Druids couldn’t be compelled. How is this possible?
A shiver raced through her. She had begun to completely understand the gravity of her situation. Of every time that she thought she was hiding the nature of her
life from her best friend to protect her.
It was all a trick. It was all a game. From the very beginning. They’ve been planning this for years.
She couldn’t help but think back to every day that led to this final, dark moment. Skylar has been her friend forever, and the fact that she was Adelaide all this time made Atlanta doubt her own sanity.
What else have I been blind to? What else did I miss?
Years of training and late-night missions all boiled down to one thought in her head: She was not prepared. She knew nothing of the world around her, and for all these years had lived under the illusion of control. She had been played from the get-go, pushed right and left until this final moment, lying on the ground in front of the one person who meant her the most harm.
Atlanta tried to move, but it was pointless. Whatever sort of compulsion she was under it had a complete hold over her, and try as she might she couldn’t break free of its spell.
In the distance, the growls grew louder. She tried to turn her head towards them, but it was like she had been frozen in place. There was a sound of hovering like that of an approaching airplane, and she could feel the winds bend to whatever force was arriving.
From the corner of her eye a green light burst in bright glory, crashing into the pebbles on the roof. Two bodies slammed onto the ground, hovered in the air, and then fell once more.
Adelaide smiled and moved her hand slowly, forcing Atlanta to turn. “Watch!” she hissed.
Atlanta felt her mind instantly go blank at the sight of James and Ryan fighting. Ryan had shifted fully, his fur torn in places and his claws in James’ back. James held a blade that was glowing a bright green and was holding Ryan down.
Stop! she tried to scream, but her voice was lost.
Ryan was pinned down, his claws piercing James’ body. Still it seemed that James was a second away from killing the boy. Ryan’s eyes were glowing red, and Atlanta knew instantly that he was being compelled.
She watched in horror as her uncle lifted the blade, ready to stab Ryan, and she wanted to scream at him to stop. She tried to force herself out of the spell she was under, but the more she tried the more agonizingly it held to her. She called out to her uncle and Ryan over and over in her mind, but her screams were whispers that wouldn’t escape her lips.
