by M. Leighton
As I watched, all the water gushing from the sprinkler heads diverted toward one central spot in the air. Every drop collected in the middle of the field, hovering in an enormous liquid ball mere inches from the grass. I pushed with my mind, willing the orb toward Nadia.
She turned just in time to see it upon her. I couldn’t help but note that the expression on her face was no longer smug. It was terrified.
The globe of water overtook her, swallowing her up until she floated at its core, helpless to escape and without air to breathe. The Jackal had only minutes before Nadia’s body would die.
When Dustin saw her, he cried, “No!”
“You can save her, Dustin. All you have to do is tell me how to save Jackson, how to put back what you stole.”
He turned vicious eyes on me, eyes not of a teenager, but of a deranged madman. He was no longer Dustin. He was Hyde. Even his speech declared it. “I’ll die first.”
“No, but I can arrange for you to die second if that’s what you’d like.”
Dustin tried ineffectively to reach inside the liquid mass and extricate his mate, but the water moved and shifted as she did, not allowing him to drag her outside its grasp.
“You can’t save her. Only I can. Now tell me before she dies.”
“You can’t kill her, only the body she inhabits. You think I won’t just find her another? One you’ll never be able to identify?”
“I’d love to see you accomplish that from Atlas.”
It was Dustin’s turn to look smug. “You think you can capture me while you’re trying to contain her? You’d better think again, Princess. If I lose something today, you will lose twice as much. Best not forget what a precarious position you’re in.”
His barb struck its mark. I had so much to lose. There was so much at stake. I had to persevere. I had to call his bluff.
“But I have you both. Who will carry out your plan now? Who will exact your revenge? No one, that’s who. I hold all the cards, Hyde.”
Dustin growled. Whether in anger over my bravado or in pleasure over my use of his real identity, I couldn’t be sure.
“You think we weren’t smart enough to put in a failsafe? Do you really think that you—a girl, a simple princess—could best two of the greatest minds in the history of mankind? Surely you cannot be that arrogant. Or that stupid.”
At his words, I felt myself blanch. “Failsafe?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dustin threw back his head and laughed. “Of course. Do you think this is the worst we can do to Jackson? To you? My sweet, innocent child, this is only the beginning. You haven’t even begun to realize the world of pain we have in store for you. And you are the only one who can stop it, who can make things better for yourself.”
We both glanced at Nadia, who was visibly struggling for air. What was I to do? He wasn’t cooperating and I couldn’t actually kill Nadia. It was the spirit inside her I was after.
“I know you don’t want to kill her. She’s just a human girl. You couldn’t live with yourself. Let her catch her breath and we’ll talk. Let’s see what we can work out.”
I looked at Nadia. She was went limp inside the transparent ball. Panic caused my mind to flutter about uselessly. It flailed and floundered. I was out of time. I didn’t want to kill Nadia, and if I put off releasing her any longer, she’d be dead.
Holding back a sob, I let the water fall away from Nadia. She landed in the grass and flopped about like a fish for a few minutes as she caught her breath. Dustin rushed to her side.
With a flick of my wrist, I raised a wall of water between them. “Not so fast. She’s fine. You don’t need to be any closer to her.”
Although he smiled and nodded, there was a tightness about Dustin’s mouth that belied his otherwise casual expression. He was furious.
“Let her go and I’ll set Jackson free. Simple as that.”
“I don’t believe you. Tell me how to reverse it and I’ll consider letting her go.” Even though it would probably be considered an act of treason, I realized there was little I wouldn’t do to have Jackson back, including purposely leaving one of the Lore free for a little while longer.
“Of course you won’t,” he snapped.
“Just let her take me,” came a weak croak from Nadia. Dustin looked as surprised as I to hear those words.
“No, my love. You can’t. We’ve worked too hard for your freedom. If anyone must go, it shall be me.”
“I couldn’t bear to watch it.”
Looking at Nadia through the liquid barrier, Dustin moved forward. He flattened his palm against the wall of water. Nadia raised her hand high, as if she were pressing her palm against his. They remained like that for nearly a minute, looking longingly, desperately at one another.
I was the slightest bit lulled by the scene. For that reason, when Dustin lunged toward Nadia, my reflexes were slower than they should’ve been. Slower than they needed to be. Their hands were joined before I could react.
I was too late.
The magic hit me square in the center of the chest. It knocked me off my feet and sent me sliding across the wet grass on my back. I hurt as though I’d been hit by a Mac truck.
I struggled to get up, but they were already upon me, standing at my feet, holding me down with something I couldn’t see.
“You foolish, foolish girl. Did you think we were completely helpless against you? Completely without power?” Nadia snickered. “Like you, our power is amplified tenfold when we are together, touching.”
They held me so tightly to the ground, I felt as though I was sinking into the dirt. I could barely speak, but I managed to eke out the most pressing thing.
“Let me have Jackson back,” I breathed. “Please.”
“I think not, dear girl. We’re going to kill you both, but not before you know the full extent of what you’ve done. At this very moment, Jackson is learning to hate you. Not just ignore you. Not just feel irritated by your presence, but to hate you. Abhor you. Despise you. You will wish to have yesterday back. Every minute of your life, which won’t be many, you will wish for yesterday or for death. But death won’t come quickly. No, there is a failsafe eating away at your insides, too. After you’ve suffered, you will be slowly incapacitated, every muscle deteriorating in agony until you suffocate. No one will be able to stop it. No one will be able to ease your pain. You will die a horrible death, my dear.”
At that moment, death sounded the better option to living without Jackson. I could think of nothing worse. Until Nadia continued.
“Not only will you know your lover, your husband died hating the ground upon which you walk, you must also take his death with you to the grave. It won’t be a death like yours. Poor, poor Jackson will take his own life. Day by day, he will drift steadily toward insanity until he can’t bear his own reflection any longer. Then he will end his life and move on to an afterlife far from you. You will never see him again. Do you understand me, Princess? You will never see him again.”
She looked at Dustin and smiled. “Let’s ‘flip the switch’ as they say, shall we?”
Dustin brought Nadia’s hand to his lips and smiled into her eyes. It was like watching two cobras smile at each other. If I’d been capable of shuddering at their cool, evil visages, I would’ve.
They both closed their eyes and began chanting—age old words that I didn’t understand but didn’t need to in order to know what they were doing. They were cursing my life, as well as that of the person I loved most in the world. And I was lying mere inches from their feet, unable to even help myself up off the ground, much less stop them.
As they mumbled, images of my time with Jackson flitted behind my eyes in a bittersweet slideshow—Jackson airplaning Jersey, Jackson laughing at something she said, Jackson kissing me for the first time, Jackson telling me he’d die thinking of me, Jackson standing on the beach with the weight of Atlas on his shoulders, Jackson swimming alongside me, Jackson diving into the Pool of Neptune, Jackson calling me hi
s wife, Jackson making love to me for the first time, and again and again after that.
Those images shifted through my mind on a loop. I couldn’t abandon the man I loved to these monsters. I couldn’t let them take his happiness and his life from him, to steal them away with a few sips and a few words. They could have my life. I’d gladly give it over to save his, to know that he’d been spared another moment of pain and heartache.
I looked at Dustin. He stared straight ahead with eyes glazed over by his evil intent. In that moment, I knew a rage I’d never experienced before. It filled my heart, my lungs, my blood vessels, my mind and every cell in between. It washed away everything else in a haze of red fury.
My mind, my will took over in a way that felt separate from my consciousness. I was vaguely aware of the water from the sprinklers parting from around the Jackal and Hyde. The haphazard spray came into obedience and formed a wall of water that towered above them like a skyscraper of sparkling diamonds.
Next, my hair went up in flames, flames that came from within me. They burned my scalp and crackled in my ears. Like a freight train passing, I couldn’t hear past the dull roar. I felt it rumbling in the ground beneath me. All the while, I let my anger feed it, nourish it into rich, hot, all-consuming life.
Dustin started to pant just before sweat popped out on his brow. I kept my eyes trained on him, my hatred of him like black death in my soul. From the corner of my eye, I saw Nadia drop his hand as if burned. I felt pleasure at what they must be feeling, at what I knew they would soon feel. They wouldn’t take Jackson’s life, his future. I wouldn’t let them. I’d die a murderer before I’d let them win. They would not take anything else from me, from my husband, from my people. I would not allow it.
Fury built within me and Dustin began to moan. I saw smoke rise from the collar of his t-shirt and I felt heat emanating from him where I lay at his feet. The smell of hot, sweaty flesh teased my nostrils, adding fuel to the rage that burned in my belly.
Dustin’s face began to blister and his knees buckled, bringing him down closer to my level. Despite his determination, it wasn’t long before a scream was torn from his lips. I heard it with someone else’s ears, felt a small amount of pity for him with someone else’s heart. But I didn’t listen to either. All I could think of was saving Jackson.
Nadia’s pleas and threats barely penetrated the blinding haze of anger that held me in its grips. I wanted to laugh at her, to tell her I knew how it felt to be forced to stand by and watch someone toy with the person you loved. But that didn’t scratch the surface of my focus either. Nothing did.
Until I heard Jackson’s voice. It rang inside my head with crystalline clarity.
Don’t hurt them, Madly; capture them. Use your bracelet.
Whether like a splash of cold water in my face or a splash of kerosene to the flames of my wrath, it was hard to tell. It almost had a sobering effect, but that was quickly followed by a worsening effect. At first, it brought me back to the reality of what I was doing, long enough for me to see Dustin’s braces as he cried and to see Nadia’s mascara running with her tears. These were humans I was torturing.
…even if I were actually able to set fire to someone, I could never do that. Burn someone. Never.
My words taunted me, triggering the guilt and the reluctance to harm that I should’ve been feeling.
I heard Jackson’s voice again.
Use your bracelet.
His voice was angry and it only served to remind me of all I had lost, which only fueled the dark magic at work inside me.
When I heard his voice a third time, I really heard it. With my ears. It washed over me like a calming flood, releasing me from the grips of something…malevolent.
“Madly, stop! Don’t kill them! Use your bracelet!”
Instantly, Dustin collapsed, his breathing, though labored, returning to a more normal rhythm. Nadia knelt at his side, whispering soothing words from another language into his ear.
I sat up and looked around. Jackson was running toward us. Oddly, the first thing I noticed was that he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. The second thing I noticed was that he carried a rose. A single, blood red rose, like the ones I’d seen at my door a couple times. Although confused, more than anything I was relieved to see Jackson alive and well and running toward me, not away from me.
“Capture them now!” he yelled, coming ever closer to our trio.
I wanted to argue, to explain to him that I had only wanted to make them put him back to rights, make them put us back to rights. But rational thought reminded me they were far too dangerous to reason or bargain with. They could do much more damage than just making Jackson not love me anymore. And they very nearly had. I only hoped that they hadn’t succeeded in triggering their fail safes.
Scrambling to my knees, I sat back on my haunches and met the eyes of my nemeses. Dustin looked more subdued, but not Nadia. She looked less smug, yes, but she looked furiously determined, too. But why? What card could she possibly have to play at this point?
“You are poisoned, Princess. Toxic. You don’t know what you’re capable of. You will be death to those you love and to those who love you,” she spat.
Although her words jarred me to my core, I closed my eyes against her beautiful, sneering face. It didn’t matter what she meant. I had but one choice, one option. I had to capture them and return them to Atlas. It was the only way.
Abandoning all else, my concentration settled on the bracelet at my wrist. I opened myself to it, let the power of my people and my birth flow through me, connecting me to the tiny pearl at its center.
I felt Jackson when he moved in behind me. I felt his strength. I felt his power. And, once more, I felt his love. It radiated from him like a nuclear power source, scorching in its intensity. Despite my focus, I sagged a little, tears stinging the backs of my eyes. This was all I had wanted. And I’d nearly killed a boy to get it.
Pushing the thought aside, I opened my eyes to the black stains in front of me. Like Wolfhardt, I could see them arise from the humans, like ebony smoke emanating from their pores. They formed two separated entities, two writhing masses of darkness.
They hovered like ominous clouds above the heads of Dustin and Nadia. I could see their hollow eyes. I could feel their menace. Within their diaphanous bodies, they held all manner of maliciousness, viciousness, evil, and rage. Like hemlock with fangs, it chewed its way up my arm. It climbed inside me with needles and knives.
Necrosis filled my body for one brief moment, eating away at something. Smothering it. It silenced a tiny voice, leaving me a little colder than I’d been before coming into contact with it. But then my mind went blank as my bracelet leeched the spirits from my tissues and trapped them inside the burning, stinging, pulsing pearl at my wrist.
Sorrow filled me, inexplicably. I listed to one side and felt Jackson’s arms come around me. The tears that had been waiting for release began to fall, leaving warm tracks on my cool cheeks. Jackson’s chest was hot against my back and shoulder. I felt his lips move in my hair as he whispered things I couldn’t understand. I smelled the sweet scent of the rose he carried. And I mourned, deeply. For what I didn’t know, but I felt the loss of…something.
Tenderly, Jackson picked me up, cradling me against his chest. I wrapped my arms loosely about his neck, happy to be in his care once again, praying I’d never be without it.
As the sun bathed the still-quiet campus in early morning light, Jackson carried me all the way back to our dorm. I saw Clary and Gere. They’d no doubt gone back the way they’d come and gotten Jackson.
Gere opened the front door for us. I expected to see anger in his eyes, but there was nothing. He was a stoic Sentinel through and through.
After quietly issuing instructions for Clary and Gere to send medical staff to the football field to collect Dustin and Nadia, Jackson unlocked the door to his room and carried me inside. Gently, he laid me on his bed and sat beside me. He said nothing as he rhythmically brushed
his hand over my hair, staring down into my eyes. I’d missed the pale blue pools that could so easily whisk me away to a better place.
“Why did you come for me?” I finally asked when I could no longer tolerate the suspense.
“I will always come for you, Madly.”
“But you’ve been so different lately. I thought…”
“I know and I’m sorry.”
“What happened?”
“They did something to me. I don’t know exactly what. In a way, it was like being in a fog. It’s like they tampered with parts of my memory, but only the feelings part. I could remember that you and I had a relationship, remember the things we’d done and the time we’d spent together, but the feelings were…muddled. I knew I was supposed to be drawn to Nadia, but at the same time, something inside me couldn’t get you out of my mind, out of my heart.”
“Well, it seemed that you did a bang up job with that,” I snipped, unable to keep the bitterness from my tone.
“I knew when I woke up something was different, that something had been done to us. That’s why I went along with it. I mean, I did feel a little different, but it was very superficial. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t real. I never stopped feeling you, Madly. Never.”
“But you were so cold.” It still hurt to remember the way he’d acted, the way he’d treated me after we’d shared so much.
“I had to be, Madly. I knew I wasn’t supposed to have feelings for you, so I fought them. That’s why I wore the glasses. I knew if you or anyone else could see my eyes, it would be obvious that I had feelings for you. Still,” he added and then, more softly, “always.”
I gulped, trying to swallow the lump in my throat the mere thought of my next question brought about. “Did you and Nadia…um…”
“No! Of course not! How could you even think that?”
I shrugged. “Well, you seemed awfully attentive to her, attracted to her.”
“I told you I felt like I was supposed to be. I had to see why I had the sudden change of heart. I’ve never been attracted to anyone else like I am to you. I’ve never felt about anyone else the way I feel about you. Can’t you see that?”