Creatures of the Night

by Grace Collins

  “I’m their leader. I keep them safe. Caring about them isn’t part of the job description.”

  I put a hand on his arm to halt him when he moves past me.

  “And what about Cassia and Eric? You expect me to believe you don’t care about them either?”

  “You can believe what you want.”

  “You care about what happens to them and they care about you.” There are only inches between us now. “Is that really so bad?” He shakes free of my arm as he turns to extinguish the fire. “And Ana, you cared about her. And you care about what will happen to Nella, and all the others the hollowers have killed.” He continues to ignore me while I stand there blabbering away like an idiot, the voices of insecurity warning me to stop talking as the fire hisses and dies. “You have nothing to say?”

  His eyes meet mine, cold and hard. “Go to bed, Milena.”

  One part of me wants to listen, to run to my room with my tail between my legs and bury my face in my pillow in shame.

  But the other part of me replays the past few days. It reminds me of the way he stared down at me during the bonfire, of his light and warmth.

  “I care about you too.”

  He freezes. He turns and looks back at me. “You shouldn’t.”

  “But I do.” I take hesitant steps toward him, afraid he’ll turn and walk the other way. His face is devoid of emotion. It’s so different from what I saw at the bonfire, even different from the past few days. It’s the expression he wore the first few days I knew him. But I don’t back down, because in the midst of all this chaos, Elias is the only one who makes me feel like I can breathe.

  With the hollowers coming after me, murdering shifters every chance they get, I have nothing to lose. I reach him and put my hand on his arm, searching his eyes. “And I think you might care about me too.”

  Flecks of amber ignite in his eyes. He’s silent, his body rigid in place as he towers over me and stares. It takes everything within me not to step away and cower in a corner.

  “I care about you, Elias.”

  “Milena, you can’t.” His voice is low, husky. He steps back so that my hand falls between us.

  “Why not?” He has nowhere to go, his back to the bookshelf behind him as I inch closer. He grips my forearms but I can’t tell if he’s trying to pull me closer or push me away. His eyes blaze, our noses touch, and his hands drop to my lower back.

  “Why do you push everyone away?”

  “Milena—”

  “Tell me you don’t feel it.”

  He doesn’t. His face dips closer. My eyes flutter shut when his lips brush against mine. A burning sensation spreads from my lower back, where his fingers touch my skin, to my chest. He’s so gentle, but the mere grazing of lips is enough to set my stomach on fire. I want to wrap my arms around his shoulders; I want him to hold me to him like he did that night with Darius, but before I can even fathom what’s happening, Elias spins us so that my back is against the bookshelf and he’s a few feet away, not touching me.

  His eyes are a hundred shades of a storm, a roaring blaze ready to be unleashed. “You’re wrong.”

  “What?”

  He leans forward, his body close but eyes so far away. “I don’t feel anything for you.” He’s gone from the room before I can blink.

  Chapter Twelve

  I wake up to a pair of silver eyes and white hair in my face.

  “What in the world are you doing sleeping in the training room?” Cassia asks. I shoot up so fast we bump foreheads. She steps back with a groan and I rub my throbbing head as memories of last night sift through my mind.

  After Elias left me humiliated in the library, I stormed back to the training center and tried to do anything to distract myself from what had happened. As a consequence, my body now aches, and cuts and scratches litter my arms from badly handled daggers. If I stopped moving, thoughts of Elias crept in and made me want to hide in a corner.

  “Milena?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Early morning.” She frowns and looks around the room at the various mannequins with knives in their chests. “How long have you been here?”

  “I must’ve fallen asleep here last night.”

  “Have you seen Elias?”

  My eyes sting but I blink back tears. I refuse to cry over what happened. “No.”

  “You were with him last night—”

  “I said I haven’t seen him, Cassia. Just leave me alone.” She takes a step back, her eyes flashing hurt. “Cassia, wait, I’m sorry.

  I’m just—”

  “Tired, I get it. I wanted to invite you to lunch with me and Bastian, but I can see that you’d rather be alone.”

  “Cassia, wait.” But she’s already storming up the staircase, leaving me with my thoughts in the cold and dark training center. I follow her, burying my hands in my hair in frustration as unwanted thoughts creep back into my mind. To my complete horror, I run into Eric and Aliyah in the hallway.

  “Milena!” Aliyah calls. I force a smile before turning to continue upstairs. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

  “I was just going to have lunch in my room.”

  “Don’t be silly, come with us.”

  I look at Eric. “I don’t know if—”

  “Come on.” She ushers me to the door. “We’re going to be late.”

  The village looks different in the daylight, the sun beating harshly on the stoned path. Aliyah pulls me toward multiple circular tables lined up just outside the castle, platters of food placed in the center of each.

  “What’s all this?” I ask as she has me sit beside her.

  “Elias organized it. It’s sort of a continuation of last night’s celebration, since it was cut short.” I glance around at all the people taking seats. They embrace one another and offer each other warm, comforting smiles. The smell of food rises in the air, but it only serves to make me feel nauseated. “Do you want soup?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” Elias stands on the other side of the clearing.

  I avert my eyes to the bowl in front of me, my cheeks burning with humiliation. Cassia sits at another table with Bastian, but she doesn’t look at me. I don’t know if she doesn’t see me or if she’s intentionally ignoring me, but it only makes the guilt expand.

  The air in the village is filled with chatter as people share food and smiles in the aftermath of last night’s chaos. Aliyah tries to make conversation with me but I can only manage one-word answers. The fleeting comfort immediately evaporates when the tree line begins to rustle. I tense in my seat, looking at the trees as chatter turns to silence. Four men appear dressed in the same clothes Smithe had worn last night, all torn and covered in dirt.

  But it’s the body draped over the man at the front’s shoulder that causes me to shudder.

  Aliyah slaps a hand over her mouth as people stand from their tables. When the group reaches us, the man gently lays the body on the ground in front of Elias. It’s a woman with fiery red hair fanning around her, and skin stained red. Nobody breathes a word as the older woman from last night stumbles through the tables and stares in silence at the body on the ground. “Nella.”

  “We didn’t get to her in time.” The man who was carrying her lowers his head. “They left her hanging in the forest. They—they carved into her skin.” He kneels down to lift her shirt. Bile rises in my throat at the marred sight of her skin, the bloodied marks all curved into the shape of the letter C.

  C for Charles.

  The older woman falls to her knees, her body collapsing as her haunting wails fill the air. “My Nella. ”

  “Why now?” the guard asks. “Why all this torture?”

  From the crowd, Harrison steps forward and looks at me.

  “Because we’re keeping—”

  “Harrison.” Elias’s voice is low, a warning that makes my stomach flip in fear.

  Harrison snarls. “This is a democracy. That means we should get a choice in what happens around here.” People liste
ning begin to nod. “It means we should get a choice in whether or not she stays here.”

  People turn and look at me with tears in their eyes and murder written on their faces. I hold my chin high and clench my fists so they can’t see me shake. But I can’t stop my eyes from watering. “We offer refuge to all humans, Harrison,” Elias says.

  “We always have and we always will.”

  “At the expense of our own people? At the expense of our children’s lives?” Harrison raises his fist in the air and some shout in agreement. “When does it stop? Why is her life valued above the lives of so many others?” Harrison’s expression is terrifyingly calm as he meets my gaze. “I think someone has overstayed their welcome.”

  Elias steps forward but I don’t give him a chance to reach me—I turn and race toward the castle. My mind screams as I shove the wooden doors open and head upstairs, stumbling over the uneven surface and scraping my knees. When I burst into my bedroom, I head right to the closet. The people here hate me, and they have every right to—people are dying because of me. And Charles will never stop.

  “What’re you doing?” I jump. Eric stands in the doorway. He watches me as I fumble through the closet, tugging out coats and shoving them into the backpack Cassia left.

  “What does it look like?” I snap. “I’m leaving.”

  I need to get to the training center and then the dining hall—I need a weapon, food, and something to carry water in. My mind races but I try my hardest to organize my thoughts into coherent ideas.

  “All because of some rumors?” Eric says.

  It’s the death, it’s the rumors, it’s the rejection. I can’t stand being here any longer. I can’t stand being ostracized, I can’t stand being around Elias, I can’t stand being the reason for people’s unhappiness. I need answers.

  “Leave me alone, Eric.”

  “Or is it because Elias rejected you?” he says. I glare at him as my cheeks begin to burn. I thought Elias’s rejection couldn’t sting any more than it already did, but I was wrong. “If so, you’re more pathetic than I thought.”

  “Why do you care? You’ve wanted me gone from the moment I got here.”

  “You can’t leave.”

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “You’re being stupid.” He steps in front of the door, blocking my exit. “You stab a kid once and suddenly think you can take on an army of hollowers?”

  “What is wrong with you? You’re nothing but cruel to me, begging me to leave, but when I try to actually go, you threaten to stop me?”

  “Where are you going to go?” he asks.

  I don’t know. I have nowhere to go; I have no one to go to.

  The only person I trust anymore is Cassia, but her kindness isn’t enough for me to justify staying here when each day someone new dies and being around Elias stings even more. I can’t be here anymore; it isn’t good for anybody—not even me. “Away. ”

  I sit on the backpack to try and zip it up. “Away from here.”

  “And what are you going to eat, huh? How are you going to look after yourself?”

  I try to think of anything I might be forgetting. Aside from getting a weapon, food, and water, there’s nothing else from this place I need to bring. Taking a deep breath, I sling the backpack over my shoulder. But when I try to get past Eric, he doesn’t move. My memory flashes, remembering Eric tied to that pole, Charles stabbing a stick into his chest as Eric roared in agony.

  The shot Darius gave him. How we drugged and tortured him.

  And still, he’s standing here, defending me, wanting to keep me safe. “Eric, move.”

  “No.”

  I shove him with my shoulder. He’s only a fraction taller than me, so we’re nearly eye to eye. “Move.”

  “You’re not going through this door.” Tears of frustration prick at my eyes. I hit his chest so hard my fist aches. He doesn’t care; doesn’t even flinch.

  “Eric. . . . Please. I can’t be here anymore.”

  “Not everything is about you, Milena. Toughen up.”

  “This is about me and that’s the damn problem! Everything keeps happening because of me, and the only way I can stop it is to get the hell out of here. That’s what you want, isn’t it? For this to stop. Isn’t that what you all want?”

  He clenches his jaw. “You’re not leaving, Milena.”

  I glare at him, anger burning inside me. Eric isn’t tall, but he’s solid and can shift into an animal, whereas I’m nothing but a human with a week’s training. There’s no way I’m getting past him. “Or what? Are you going to physically restrain me? Chain me to the castle so that I can’t leave?”

  “Unlike the hollowers, we’re not barbarians.”

  “You’ve got nothing but your words then. And you call me pathetic.”

  He snarls. “You’re not leaving through this door.”

  Raising my chin, I step toward him, so close that I barely have to speak above a whisper for him to hear me. He’s completely unintimidated by me. But I don’t care; I wrap my hand around the door handle and get right in his face. “Then leave me the hell alone.”

  I step back and slam the door with as much force as I can muster. Eric doesn’t try to open it, but I’m not foolish enough to believe he would just leave it unguarded. When I try the window, it doesn’t budge, the lock on the hinge still rigid from the last time I tried to escape. I go to the bathroom, snatch the soap holder off the basin, and throw it at the window, shattering the glass all over the floor.

  Slinging the backpack over my shoulders again, I clamber out the window and carefully use the uneven stones in the wall to climb down. A reckless idea, but I don’t have enough time to create some sort of rope. The sky is still bright though the sun retreats behind the hills. I have hours before it disappears altogether, and though my natural instinct is to hide from the night, I know now that it’s my very best friend.

  Making my way around the side of the castle, I reach the entrance and wind down the staircase to the training center, freezing in the doorway when I see the figure perched by the wall. Cassia stands against the endurance course with a book in her hands. She looks at me before I can escape.

  “Milena? What’re you doing?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “What? ” She drops her book. “Where?”

  “I need to see Charles. I need to talk to him.”

  “He won’t talk to you, Milena. He’ll kill you.”

  I stare at the weapons lining the wall and reach for the dagger—the only one I know how to actually use. Cassia puts her hand over mine. “Stop, think about this for a few moments. You’re being impulsive.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it ever since those children died.”

  “That wasn’t your fault.”

  I march over to the weapons on the wall. “Maybe I didn’t kill them, but they’d be alive if it wasn’t for me. So would Ana, and so would Nella.”

  “That’s not—”

  “What would you do?” I turn to face her, a dagger in hand.

  “What would you do, Cassia? If you were me, if people kept dying because of you, if someone was after you and they kept killing your friends until they had you, what would you do?”

  “That isn’t—”

  “What would you do?”

  Her eyes meet mine. “I’d give myself to them.”

  “Exactly. You can’t stop me from doing the same.”

  “Does Elias know?”

  “That doesn’t matter.” I turn and head back up the staircase, taking them two at a time and barging out of the entrance to reach the forest. A shiver trills through me, the daylight warning me to turn around. Swallowing my fear, I press on, ducking my head to avoid branches.

  “I hope you have some sort of plan because I really value my life.” I nearly fall face first into a tree, spinning around to find Cassia staring at me with amusement. She holds two large knives, similar to the ones Charles held against my throat that day in the forest. “I can’t st
op you from leaving and you can’t stop me from coming, so don’t even try.”

  And even though I know it’s selfish, I don’t. I try to convince myself that it’s because I know that I can’t stop her and that if she gets hurt, it won’t be my fault. But deep down, I know that isn’t true. Despite the deaths, the ostracism, and Elias, the selfish seed inside of me wants to stay and hide in that lavish room forever. But with Cassia by my side, facing Charles doesn’t seem so scary.

  ~

  A frigid wind trails after us through the forest. The air bites at the exposed skin of my wrists. Cassia’s a silver flash in front of me, all animal. Though walking with her while she’s a wolf is a lot lonelier, it’s safer for us both as her senses are heightened.

  As soon as the sun disappeared, she told me to turn around.

  When I faced her again, a silver wolf stood in her place, her weapons on the ground. I scooped the knives up, shaking as I remembered the way the creatures closed in on me as I lay in front of the kitchen shack that night in my village. The night I met Elias.

  We walk for hours. My feet ache and my knees tremble but I don’t stop. The silence gives my mind room to scream, to run over scenarios in my mind, to play out situations that keep ending with my blood draining from my chest and painting the forest floor. I don’t even realize how much time has passed until the sky begins to lighten again and birdsong bounces off the trees. My stomach rumbles but I push on until the sun rises and Cassia pauses.

  “How do you feel?” Cassia asks.

  I stop moving and Cassia crouches low to the ground. She’s been talking in my head now and then, telling me to walk quieter, to go more to the left or to stop walking altogether. This time, however, her tone is wary. “I’m okay. You?”

  “I’m starving. Hold on.”

  She walks behind a tree and seconds later comes back as human, her clothes rumpled and dirty. She grins as she fixes her hair. “I tried to stay that way as long as I was able but that sun is really getting to me.”

  “It’s all right. Maybe we should take a break, anyway. I could really use something to eat.”

  “Good idea.” She walks over to me and takes the knife from my hands. “I’ll be back in a moment.”