Harsh Light of Day

by Jaye A. Jones

  **

  During my short walk back to Will’s apartment, I considered what I should do next. I’d been so unconcerned about Colin and the others coming to claim me before when Annabelle confirmed they were on their way. But I realized finally what it really meant.

  Not for me. Colin could kill me if he wanted. Somewhere along the line I resigned myself to my fate. Whatever was going to happen to me, fine, I could take it.

  But the humans I’d met. Their lives meant something to me now, and I could not stand by and wait for Colin to come kill them.

  Will in particular would be a target because his apartment smelled of my blood.

  Now that I was back at his door, I wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was. He and his friends needed to run.

  Or did they?

  Spencer and Julia would be fine. It’s not like I bled all day long, everywhere I went. But that didn’t satisfy my worry. I thought, maybe irrationally, that they would know where I’d been.

  They were not all-knowing. They couldn’t know about everything I’d done or everywhere I’d been today. Just because they always knew before didn’t mean they could know now.

  As I leaned in to knock on the door announcing my return, a familiar feeling arose in me. As before, I obeyed immediately without question. I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew what the feeling meant.

  Walking away again from the apartment building, I felt him before I saw him, only more intense than when I felt Annabelle’s presence. He called to me, lured me outside to find him, across the street to the park, almost like there was a rope around my waist and he was on the other end, pulling me to him.

  “We must talk,” Declan said as I approached. His body looked relaxed with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the oak tree, still dented from yesterday.

  I smelled my blood on it. Annabelle was right. This town must reek of me.

  “I won’t go back. There’s nothing you can say. I’ll die before I return to that life.”

  “That might very well be the outcome, Lena. But this is not why I am here.”

  His body may have looked at ease, but his expression didn’t. His face looked different than I remembered. Or maybe it was his demeanor. Something about Declan was out of the ordinary, but I couldn’t place what it was.

  “Why are you here then?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest. It was a very human gesture, and I liked how naturally I was able to pull it off.

  It would have infuriated Colin. Declan hardly noticed, and didn’t care anyway.

  I’ll admit I wasn’t upset to see him. Some part of me had missed Declan. I couldn’t believe it was true, but it was. There was a bond between us that would probably always be there. He was a part of who I was, not just what I was. Acknowledging that made me understand what Annabelle was trying to explain. I knew that now.

  Doesn’t mean I had to like it.

  Declan looked away. If he were human, he’d be fidgeting with nerves. It was a strange thing for me to watch.

  “I do not know how to begin.”

  “You sound like Annabelle,” I blew out a puff of air. “Just get on with it.”

  “—’kay,” Declan said, and it startled me. It was so casual, so informal. So relaxed. He didn’t use slang, or shorten his words. Usually he sounded like an encyclopedia from the 1800’s.

  “There are…things. About you…before. I just—” he threw up his hands and turned away so his back was facing me. “You understand how hard this is for me. Telling you about your human life, no matter how important the information might be, is strictly forbidden.”

  “I know,” was all I could say. I’d never seen Declan act like this. If it were in any way possible, I would be absolutely sure it wasn’t him at all.

  He took a drawn-out breath, but continued to face away as he said, “You and I…we were in love once, Lena.”

  If I were human, I would have burst out laughing.

  “I do not expect you to believe me. Someday I hope you will know it is true. Somehow.”

  “We first met right here, in this park. There were picnic tables along the sidewalk and you would have lunch there with your school friends. This was your university, Lena. You were studying to be a doctor one day.”

  “But we fell in love, and there was a choice. And we chose…” he bowed his head, then growled, “poorly.”

  Declan faced me then. Our matching eyes met, and his glistened in the moonlight. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought there were tears in them.

  “Colin came, eager to move things along, because I was sent to find a consort, and it had been a long time since I last checked in with him. I had to lie and say I had not found anyone, but he knew me too well.”

  “He did not know we were lovers,” I felt a stab in my stomach at the word, “for many months before he arrived. He still does not know that, and I desperately hope he never finds out. But he knew I was lying about finding someone.”

  I realized my mouth was hanging open, and forced my expression to be more composed.

  “I wanted to run, to get you away from him and this world, but he found us together and…assumed I was ready. He knew you were different, Lena, and did not like it from the beginning. Not even when you were still human. Your natures are too different. Colin does not like uncertainties.”

  “And you made the decision,” he took a moment, then shook his head. “No, it was the both of us, because if I had refused, it would not have been done. But you said there were no alternatives, and at least we would be together,”

  If Declan was telling the truth, and I didn’t believe he was, then human-Lena sounded like a sappy, naïve child. I felt like I’d remember being such a silly, little girl.

  “You chose the day,” it seemed to pain him to say.

  “I was weak, and stupid. I was never as strong as you thought I could be. I never deserved you, Lena. And what I made you into, that is the price I have to pay every single day for being arrogant enough to think I had a right to keep you forever.”

  There wasn’t anything I could say. This was outrageous. He had to be lying. It didn’t feel true. Wouldn’t I have some hint of a memory of this? Yes, I believed I would. Declan learned this trick from Colin. I was sure of it. Find the right thing to say to plant doubt, uncertainty.

  Well, I wouldn’t be that easy to discourage.

  My mind was made up. I would die before I returned to Colin’s family, to play Declan’s dutiful partner again.

  “Lena,” Declan said sharply, looking into the clear night sky.

  But I didn’t want to hear any more of it. I shook my head emphatically, not wanting Declan to have to interpret my feelings at all. Especially since he wasn’t looking at me.

  His expression hardened reluctantly as he stared off, focused on something. As if he heard someone, but I couldn’t.

  “Hmm,” he made the noise deep in his throat.

  It was a noise he only used when something was about to happen.

  Something I wouldn’t like.