by G. Bailey
“What war?” I ask.
“The one you and Maxx are going to be central to winning,” he replies, looking over his shoulder with a smirk that I just want to smack off his face. “First though, we need to make sure you can be useful at all, or we will get rid of you so our enemies cannot use you either.” Austin stops and presses a button on the wall by a door. It beeps loudly before the door opens, and Austin waves a hand for me to pass him. I keep my eyes on him as I slowly walk past and stop dead in my tracks when I see who is in the room on their knees.
“Landon?”
Chapter 5
Aura
I shake my head out of my shock before running into the room, falling to my knees in front of Landon, and wrapping my arms around him. He hugs me back, pulling away to search my face as I flinch at the cuts on his own face that are healing slowly, by the looks of it, but there is dried blood all over him. Landon looks scared for a moment as he meets my eyes, but he quickly puts on a brave face when he sees who is stood behind me.
“Are you okay?” Landon asks me, though it should be me asking him that with the cuts and ripped clothing I can see on him.
“Yeah, I am. Maxx was with me, and he is alive,” I explain to him, seeing the relief on his face for a moment before it turns to pure anger as he looks over my shoulder once more.
“You killed Abby. You bastard!” Landon growls as he stands at the same time I do, and I move to his side, turning to look at Austin who leans on the door frame. I don’t know how Landon knows, but the emotion in his voice is hard to bear. I wish I could have saved her somehow.
Landon stands up and offers me a hand so I can do the same. It’s only then I notice the limp of his right leg and that most the blood looks like it is coming from there.
“Yeah, what of it?” Austin carelessly replies, and I grab Landon’s arm as he goes to step closer before he does something that very well could get him killed in here.
“I want to kill him more than anything too, but not now. Not in this moment,” I whisper to Landon who doesn’t reply, but he does stand still. “Trust me, this is not what Abby would want. She wouldn’t want you to die.”
“Why did you bring me here?” I ask Austin who just grins.
“The best way for a dark to learn their powers and get stronger is to drain a light. Both of you need to learn, and neither one of you is leaving this room until you do it,” he explains.
“I’m not draining anyone. I don’t use my powers,” Landon replies.
“Oh, you will. My sister has taken a shine to you, Landon, and your family is a good bloodline. I won’t have a powerless dark at my sister’s side,” Austin says, grinning.
“I don’t—” Landon geos to reply, and I nudge his side, shaking my head. I suspect the only reason Landon is still alive is because of Aliana, Austin’s sister, and if Landon tells him he likes guys instead of Aliana, it won’t go down well. I can’t lose him, so if he has to play this game for a bit, so be it.
“We don’t even know how to use our powers, and I know it kills someone. I won’t do that to anyone,” I spit out.
“You will” is all Austin says before he closes the door, and there is silence in the room as I stay close to Landon's side, neither one of us wanting to say a word. It’s only a few moments later when the door opens once again, and a woman is pushed into the room, falling to her knees. Both Landon and I rush to her, pushing her onto her back to see her stare up at us, completely dazed. She is a light, I can just tell now like a second sense or something. The woman must be in her late thirties, at least, with brown hair that is slowly going grey. She is wearing a black dress with rips on it, and a blank expression. I glance at her arms, seeing lots of tiny needle marks, and I point at them to show Landon.
“Whatever they gave her seems to have her out of it for a little while,” Landon comments, stepping back. I move some of her hair out of her face and try clicking my fingers in front of her eyes, but she just stares.
“They want us to kill her,” I whisper, standing up and looking over at Landon.
“I’ve learnt how to not use my powers around lights for years. It’s not me I’m worrying about,” Landon whispers, making me swallow the knot of fear in the back of my throat.
“Maxx said Austin activated my powers somehow. I don’t know how to use them anyway,” I counter, desperately trying to make myself believe I can get out of this somehow.
“It’s an instinct,” Austin’s voice comes into the room, sounding like he is talking through a loudspeaker somehow.
“I know where you can shove that instinct. I am not killing anyone!” I shout into the room, and there is just the sound of Austin’s laughing before Landon screams. I turn in horror as Landon falls to the floor, holding the back of his head. I rush to him, trying to get him to look at me, but he is in too much pain to focus.
“What is wrong?” I question as Austin finally stops laughing, and I go around Landon when he doesn’t answer, seeing a glowing red dot on the back of his neck.
“That glowing dot is an implant. Every minute you don’t drain the light, the implant increases Landon’s pain. At the moment, I am feeling nice and have it on an easy setting. Go to the woman now, or I will increase it until he dies an extremely painful death,” Austin tells me, ordering me to do something or Landon will pay for it.
“I-I can’t! I don’t know how!” I shout, getting frustrated.
“Aura don’t do it! Just let me die,” Landon begs and cries out, wriggling in pain on the floor as I shake my head, tears streaming down my cheeks onto the floor as I stare down at him. There is no way I will let him die, I know that and so does Landon as he meets my eyes.
“Don’t make me do this! Please, Austin. Please stop this. I will do anything,” I beg, moving my eyes from Landon to the woman on the floor. I take in every part of her face from the little dents near her nose to the wrinkles on her forehead. This is a real person, and if I kill her, what does that make me?
“Aura, you know how to make the pain stop for Landon. It’s simple. Drain the light,” he replies, the amusement clear in his voice. Landon lets out another cry that is so painful to hear that it breaks my heart. I feel my feet walking to the woman, hearing Landon’s cries to me, him begging me to stop, but I block it all out to ask a question that feels like it costs me my soul.
“How do I drain her?”
“Place your hand on her chest, right in the middle and pull with your mind. She won’t resist you,” Austin replies smoothly, sounding impressed while I feel nothing but sick and dead inside. I fall to my knees at the woman’s side and meet her eyes, though it’s like she can’t see me anyway.
“What is her name? Tell me that at least?” I ask quietly.
“Aura! Don’t do this!” Landon screams, and I look over to see him attempting to crawl to me before Austin must turn the pain up, and he collapses on his back, letting out a howling scream.
“I don’t know her name. It isn’t important. Just get on with it!” Austin snaps. I cry as I place my hand on the middle of the woman’s chest and glance at her dazed eyes once more.
“I am forever sorry for this.” The words don’t seem like enough as I close my eyes and try to pull like Austin said. Nothing happens for a moment before I feel the pull, the same one I have when I’m near Maxx…but this time I don’t resist it. The light blasts into me from her, feeling like a cold drink of water on a hot summer’s day. It’s addictive and makes you feel like you are the best thing in the world, despite the horror in my mind. All I can feel is revulsion and sickness about what I am doing. I keep my mind on Landon and Maxx. On my father and even my mother. I try to think of anything to keep myself from falling to pieces. I know the moment I’ve killed her as the light stops and my hand feels nothing but cold skin under it. I open my eyes to see the woman’s head rolled to the side, and my hand glowing pink like the rest of me.
“Good work. See, training wasn’t too difficult was it? We will do this every day for a while
until I feel you are strong enough to fight,” Austin says as I weep into my hands, knowing I want nothing more than to die in this moment. I feel Landon wrapping his arms around me, holding me close, but nothing anyone can do will stop the guilt rising in my throat. I killed someone. “Guards will take you back to your room, Aura. Landon, it is your time to train now. Except I will make it easy for you. If you don’t drain the light I bring in next, I will kill Maxx.”
Chapter 6
Aura
I walk back into my room, standing still for a moment until I can do nothing but run to the toilet, throwing up until my throat feels raw. I burst into tears on the floor, wrapping my arms tightly around my knees as I curl up into a ball, feeling nothing but wanting to die like the woman I just stole a life from. I don’t know how long I rock back and forth, imagining the woman’s dead, cold skin under my hand. Remembering how she is dead, gone, and it is all my fault.
“Freckles?” Maxx’s voice comes through the haze of my tears, and I look up, staring at the white wall on the other side of my bed. The white, clean room only makes me feel more disgusting. Dirtier. I killed someone. I break into tears again, feeling like I will never recover from what happened. I feel like Austin has broken me, and there is no one that can put me back together. “Talk to me.” Maxx’s plea is soft, kind and full of warmth in what feels like a cold state of shock I am stuck in. I don’t move for a little while, not knowing if I can even make myself get up until I find the strength as I remember Maxx is on the other side of his room. I stand up and flush the toilet before washing my face with some water and avoiding my reflection all together before climbing onto my bed. I pull the wrinkled sheet around my legs, trying to get warm.
“I’m here,” I finally say, hoping he is still listening out for me. Some part of me makes me hold my breath for a long time, waiting to hear his voice in the silence.
“What happened?” he asks me.
“I saw Landon. He is okay,” I reply, leaving out anything else because I just can’t bear to say it to him. I can’t stand to hear him judge me or worse—pity me.
“Good. That’s good, but what else happened?” he asks, and I freeze with my hand on the wall, feeling a slight pull from the other side of the wall where Maxx must be pressed close for me to able to feel him like this.
“Nothing,” I whisper, the one word lie is not even sounding believable to my own ears.
“What did they make you do?” he asks me firmly, sounding angry. I sigh, shaking my head.
“I can’t tell you. I don’t want to tell you and say it out loud,” I admit to him. “At the moment, it feels like a nasty memory of someone who wasn’t me.”
“I can guess what they have done. What you don’t want to tell me. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out,” he replies to me, and I just stay silent. “Let me tell you a story.”
“A story won’t make everything better,” I reply, my voice catching in my throat and more hot feeling tears stream down my cheeks.
“No, but this one might help you. It helped me once,” he explains to me.
“Whose story is it?” I ask, slightly interested. A distraction will help me forget.
“My mother’s,” he replies quietly, but I still hear him, thanks to the thin walls. “When my mum crashed here many years ago, she went on a crusade to destroy darks for what she thought was the right thing to do. They helped destroy her planet, her home, and dozens of people she loved died. Mum was powerful, unusually so, and this helped her drain hundreds of them. Over time, she created a small army of lights to fight, while others went into hiding. She told me she didn’t even remember what the darks looked like after a while, she forgot the emotion of killing actual people. Even if they did deserve their deaths.”
“I hope I forget,” I reply. “Forgetting sounds less painful and guilt-ridden than right now.”
“Mum said, on bad days, she can never forget the look in their eyes. It was always the eyes, and when I killed to protect my clan, I knew she was right. Something about the people you kill does stick with you,” he goes silent for a while. “One day, my mum and her clan were finishing off a group of dark. She went into a van where there was a couple who were not fighting. They were scared and lost. A man stood in front of a pregnant dark woman, and the first words he said to my mum changed everything.”
“What did he say?” I ask.
“He begged my mum to kill him and leave his mate alone. That he would do anything my mum wanted, even die without a fight to make sure his mate survived,” he replies. “Mum never saw such love and devotion in a couple. It showed that they were anything but heartless.”
“Did she kill them?” I ask.
“No. They were Landon’s parents. They became very close friends until they died with my mum trying to protect them,” he explains.
“I don’t see why you told me this story, as nice as it is,” I muse after a while. “Though it was a good distraction.”
“Don’t you see? Even if they make you kill thousands, you still have morals, and it doesn’t change the core of who you are. My mum wasn’t heartless, she wasn’t cruel. That moment with Landon’s parents showcased that. My mum killed because she had to make sure our clan would live,” he explains. “You have to kill to make sure you survive.”
“I wish I was heartless because maybe then I could forget the look in that woman’s eyes as I drained her,” I say, my voice catching at the end, and I burst into tears once again.
“Freckles, you won’t forget, but you can fight to live and remember that woman forever. You didn’t choose to kill her, you were forced. It isn’t your fault, and somewhere deep down, you know that,” he says, being firm, and it’s just what I need in this moment. If he was feeling sorry for me or comforting, it wouldn’t stop the tears.
“I do know that,” I reply quietly.
“Then listen to me and stop crying. This isn’t just a human world, and that will not be the last person they make you kill. I need you to be strong so they keep you alive for now,” he tells me.
“Do you think they will kill me if I don’t get strong?” I ask.
“If you cry all day, don’t use your powers, and overall fall to pieces, they will kill you. I can’t let that happen. Hate me for being the bad guy, hate them for what they have made you do, but do not fall when I am trapped in here and can’t catch you. I need the stubborn, pain in the ass girl who lives across the street and never lets anyone, even me, get her down,” he demands, and I chuckle. I’m far from the girl who was messed up by a car accident and confused. I miss being worried about swimming correctly and math class. I miss crushing on the boy who lived across the road from me, even though he was mean. If I want that life back, Maxx is right. I cannot fall to pieces.
“Maxx, can we go to sleep?” I ask quietly. “I like my dreams.” What I want to say is that I want to be close to Maxx. I want to be able to see him.
“Me too. They are all I have to hold onto at the moment and what I spend every hour thinking of,” he replies, making me smile somewhat as I lie down on the bed. I keep my hand on the wall, imagining he is doing the same thing as I drift off to sleep.
Chapter 7
Aura
A loud beeping noise wakes me up from my long sleep where, unfortunately, I didn’t dream of anything. I wonder why that was? The disappointment of not having those moments and the sick feeling from yesterday about what happened is not great to wake up to. Neither is the fact the room is freezing, and my eyes feel drier than the desert. I hear movement in Maxx’s room, and I quickly scoot nearer the wall, keeping the thin sheet around me.
“Maxx…did you have a good sleep?” I ask, knowing I can’t ask him why we didn’t get to see each other.
“No, but then again, I don’t dream every night,” he replies, sounding pissed off and trying to explain to me that the power must not work every time we go to sleep, just sometimes. There is a scraping noise that makes me sit up, staring at the wall when I hear Maxx’s bed spr
ings squeak as he must get up.
“What was that noise?” I ask, just as I hear the lock being turned for my room, and the door opens, followed by a guard who walks in. I scoot further back on the bed as the guard places an array of food on the end of my bed and then walks away, closing the door behind him. I crawl to the end of the bed as the door is locked and see a bowl of red soup, two pieces of bread that look stale, and a bottle of water. When I place my hand on the soup bowl, it’s freezing to touch. Great.
“Did you get soup that is cold too?” I ask Maxx, who grumbles for a reply which I take as yes. “Do you think it is safe to eat?”
“Yeah. I doubt it’s worth them poisoning us when they clearly need you for something and me to make sure you do as you’re told. My soup and the other stuff were pushed through a gap in the door, whereas I heard yours open, which makes me think they are growing to trust you,” Maxx replies, sounding so angry, and it annoys me that there isn’t anything I can do. I make the mistake of glancing at myself in the mirror, seeing the light pink glow all over my skin, and I look super healthy. My hair has an almost natural looking glow to it, seeming much brighter than it has ever been. Every feature on my face seems more defined, from my freckles to the colour of my eyes.
“I look different,” I mutter.
“I bet. Less human and darker,” Maxx comments. “It’s what happens.”
“I don’t like it,” I reply, staring at myself but not really recognising my own reflection anymore. The more I look, the more it really sinks in that I am not all human, and this side of me is coming out to play. Well, more like being dragged by its hair by Austin and his psycho friends.
“I know. We will get out of here, Freckles. I promise I will save you, and you will never have to do that again,” he promises, but I don’t have a clue how he plans to keep to that promise. The only one that stands a chance of getting us out of here is me, and that is not a good chance. I pull my eyes away from my reflection to pull the tray closer to me, the rumble of my stomach telling me I need to eat. Hidden underneath the tray are some clothes and a bottle of something that looks like shampoo.