Death Before Daylight

by Shannon A. Thompson

  I had lost my chance. My lie was exposed for everyone to see.

  My back pressed against the wall when I stepped back.

  “They won’t hurt you,” Shoman spoke as quietly as he did when he broke up with me, only reminding me of how the Dark hadn’t hurt me, but how he had.

  My fingers curled into a fist as I confessed the words I didn’t want to say, “It’s true.” I was half-light. Not a half-breed. But a full-breed, depending on who lived. I saw it in the red rain.

  “What?” Pierce stepped away from his father to lay a hand on my shoulder. His green eyes searched my face in a way his human eyes never did. They were focused, and his expression fell when he looked at me. He turned around to face the elders. “Come on,” he groaned. “This is just more shit Darthon is trying to confuse us with.”

  “It’s not,” I stopped him before he got yelled at again.

  Pierce laid a hand on my shoulder like he didn’t mind if he was scorned. “Jess—”

  “It’s true,” I promised.

  I half-expected his hand to drop, but it didn’t. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak either.

  “So, are you absorbed, then?” Luthicer’s monotone voice broke the tension.

  “No.” My head shook. “Not entirely,” I clarified, thinking of Darthon’s words. “He asked me to come back if I wanted to be absorbed, if I accepted it.”

  Shoman choked, but before I could see his expression, he had covered it with the unreadable face he had when I first met him—when he insisted on being called Welborn instead of Eric.

  “I won’t,” I spoke more to him than anyone else. “But Darthon wants me to.” I turned back to the others. “He thinks I’ll love the Light power now that I’ve felt it.” The words escaped before I realized I had told them more than I intended.

  I covered my mouth, only to drop my hand to my side. I couldn’t undo what had been done. If I could, I wouldn’t have a scar on my chest.

  “What are you saying?” Urte asked.

  My eyes landed on Shoman because I could feel his powers. They vibrated through the room like the chilly wind on his birthday. For once, he looked back at me, but his stare was one I had never seen before. It wasn’t warm like the time I had met him on the river’s railing. It wasn’t the confusion I had seen in his car when he told me his middle name—James, after his father. It was the sharp sting of a glare from one enemy to another.

  I stepped behind Pierce as if instinct had taken over. The uncontrollable need for comfort consumed me.

  “It’s okay.” My guard finally let me go. “No one is going to hurt you. Right, guys?”

  Everyone nodded. “You’re on our side, Jess,” Urte said.

  “No matter what,” Luthicer seconded.

  Jada was smiling. It was that reason I stepped to Pierce’s side, the side furthest away from Shoman. I couldn’t worry about him anymore. I had to take action for myself.

  “Darthon—” My voice shook as I swallowed my decision. “Darthon said Camille started the process when she gave me her powers in the Light realm.”

  Luthicer snatched his beard like it would fall off.

  “Absorption started because I felt it,” I continued, knowing I had done everything to protect the people in front of me, and they would do anything to protect me back. That was what made us a team. Darthon had always been wrong about them, but he had been right about one thing. Me.

  I raised my tingling hands. “I can feel it, not as much now that we’re out, but it’s there,” I said. “Darthon’s telling the truth about everything. We’re connected.” I thought of the bruises we had shared. “My powers will shift over to the Light if he dies.”

  I couldn’t say the other part, but Luthicer did. “And you’ll stay a shade if he dies?” His forehead pointed toward Shoman, but I couldn’t look at him. Not again.

  I nodded.

  “How do you know this?” Bracke asked.

  I stared at my hand as it fell to my side. “I used the powers.”

  “What?” Pierce’s voice squeaked like he was a human.

  “I had to,” I stumbled over the three little words. “I didn’t have a choice. Darthon was blackmailing me, and—” Eric’s screams repeated over and over in my mind. I couldn’t speak.

  “Use them again,” Luthicer ordered.

  I focused on his black eyes. “I can’t,” I said before I corrected myself, “I don’t want to.”

  “Use them,” he repeated.

  Bracke stood up. “Don’t force the girl.”

  “With all due respect.” Luthicer kept his stare on me. “I want to know she isn’t lying again.”

  “Luthicer.” Urte’s tone sounded more like a curse than a name.

  “If we’re going to be a team—a real team—then we have to stop lying,” Luthicer’s bellow echoed around the meeting room, and he stood, towering over us all. “That includes the elders.” He took two steps toward me, only to stay a foot away. “I’ll help you if something goes wrong,” he promised, “but you have to use them. Burying an ability doesn’t help anyone.”

  “I don’t want to,” I repeated, but my hands were already warm. Just like the red color, the Light powers felt like exposed blood.

  “We all have to do things we don’t like.” Luthicer’s voice dropped into a husky tone I hadn’t heard before, and I wondered if he had used the same voice when he trained Camille. “That’s war.” He reminded me of the battle we hadn’t won yet. “And if you want any chance at winning this—at getting him back.” His head swung to the left toward Shoman again. “You’ll show us.”

  I only looked away to glance at Shoman. He wasn’t arguing, but his jaw bulged out.

  I raised my hand toward Luthicer before I tore my gaze away from the guy I had kissed too many times to count. I couldn’t look at him if I had to remind myself of his screams, the sounds of his torture that had tortured me, too. The Light had forced me by using Eric against me, and now, the Dark was, too.

  “For the record,” I managed to speak as the memory flooded me. “Darthon used the same tactic to get me to use them.”

  It was in that instant, Shoman finally stepped toward me, but it was too late. Red. It fell from my fingertips, and the dark room glowed with the fire I created. The color melted across the shades’ faces, and they grimaced as I curled my fist. I wanted it to stop, but my heartbeat raced, and my body warmed as if I had been chilled before. I had to suck in a breath to shut it out. Everything inside of me felt like it had frozen.

  I shivered and wrapped my arms around my torso as if I could hide it from the others. “He might know I used it,” I whispered, knowing it was the only way I could call him.

  Luthicer’s black eyes had widened into large pits. “Your hair.”

  I glanced down, but the black strands were the same as they had always been when I transformed into a shade, straight and sleek. “What about it?”

  “It was white,” Pierce explained. He was standing further away from me than he had been before.

  I touched my face. It felt the same, too, but I wondered if anything else had changed. Were my eyes black? Only the others knew what I couldn’t see, including Shoman. He was the only one who hadn’t stepped away.

  “Well, now we know.” Bracke coughed as he sat back down only to stand again. I waited for him to pace, but he didn’t. He smiled at me. “You don’t have to worry. We’ll figure this out.”

  “Until then,” Urte interrupted, “you are both to live here under observation.”

  “Both?” Shoman asked.

  “Don’t act like you are any better,” his father snapped. “We know you’re under an illusion.”

  Shoman’s shoulders fell like he had expelled a breath he had been holding. Whatever Darthon had done to him, Shoman had confirmed it without arguing.

  “But we can’t take it off of you,” Luthicer added.

  Shoman’s face dropped, and his hair covered his eyes. He only did this when he didn’t want anyone to see them. I
knew him well enough to understand that, but I also knew him well enough that I wanted to fight it. If he were under an illusion, then Darthon had the power. It meant Darthon was winning. It meant my powers were the only way we could fight back.

  Bracke finally began to pace. “We’ll just have to observe you two until we can figure out our next steps.”

  “I can’t live here,” I interrupted.

  Bracke’s neck snapped up at my argument. “You’ll be allowed to leave, go to school, and see friends. With permission, of course,” he said it like it was a comfort. “We don’t need you two getting kidnapped again.”

  “That was my fault,” I argued.

  Bracke inhaled a large breath. “We don’t need to risk anything right now.”

  “So, why allow us to go to school?”

  “We can’t create that big of an illusion,” Luthicer explained. The elders had thought about the situation before speaking with us. “It’s for your own good.”

  “You’re imprisoning us,” I snapped.

  Everyone gasped, like I had accused them of treating us like the Light had, but they were. The concept of being forced to live in the shelter was no different from Darthon keeping us in the Light realm without our permission. Torture or not, the Dark couldn’t tell us where to be, especially given the circumstances it would have to fall under. My parents would have an illusion placed on them again. Everyone would succumb to the pain of confusion I had to deal with, but I had chosen it. My parents hadn’t.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Bracke was the first to break the silence. “But this is different.”

  “How?”

  “Darthon obviously wants you, and he’s done something to my son, so we need to know everything we can if we’re going to fight him back, if you are going to fight him back.” He knew I had to fight, too. “It’s also better for you two to have a place you can rest without the concern of being attacked.”

  “And my parents?”

  “We’ll have to use another spell,” Luthicer confirmed my biggest concern.

  “It didn’t even work last time,” I pointed out, remembering how my mother hadn’t believed the news any more than anyone else. The only successful one we knew about was the one on my friends, and even they were acting strange. “Who knows what will happen with our powers acting weird. You could hurt them.”

  Luthicer’s face dropped, and for a moment, I saw brown eyes peek out from his black gaze. His cheeks had even softened. “I won’t hurt your parents.”

  I turned to Eric. “What about Noah?”

  His eyebrows shot up at the name of his stepbrother. Even I knew the Dark had decided to keep the preteen oblivious. He would have to be controlled, too.

  “Aren’t you worried about him?” I asked.

  “Of course I am,” Shoman snapped, but a rumble escaped his throat. He stared at the wall before he spoke again, “I think it’s a good idea, Jessica.”

  My full name. He hadn’t used it in days, and the sound of it felt more like a promise than anything else. If he was under an illusion, I wondered if it were his way of telling me to trust him again, even if he were telling me to do something I dreaded. Even if we weren’t together, he was on my side, but I had to listen more if I were going to understand him.

  “Fine,” I agreed, unable to take my eyes off him. I wanted him to look at me, to flat out say what he was thinking, but his jaw locked, and I knew he wouldn’t speak. Not again.

  “Then, it’s settled.” Bracke clapped his hands together once. “Go home and pack. We’ll pick you two up tomorrow.”

  Luthicer and Jada left in a beam of light as if they had been waiting for the signal all along. Urte grabbed Pierce’s arm and dragged him out as if he knew he would have to force his son to leave, and Bracke followed the two as if he understood Shoman and I needed to be alone. But Shoman started to leave like he didn’t want to be alone with me.

  I slammed my left hand on the doorframe to block the exit. Shoman nearly hit my arm as he came to stop.

  “How could you tell them without talking to me?” I hissed.

  Shoman lowered his face so he was inches from me. “Why didn’t you tell me Darthon forced you?”

  Eric’s torture. He knew that part now. He just didn’t know the rest of it. I had kept more secrets than he did, and I still was.

  My hand curled against the wood, and Shoman’s eyes moved over to my grasp. His chest dropped. “You took off your ring.”

  I hadn’t. It was strung on my necklace, nestled right against the scar that burned my flesh, but when I opened my mouth to tell him, I couldn’t find the words. He wasn’t the only one who couldn’t speak. We were both being controlled in one way or another.

  “I guess that makes us even,” I said and dropped my hand so he would stop staring at my empty finger.

  As I walked away, I grabbed the necklace and pulled it out of my shirt. Mine was on, but I had seen Shoman’s hand. His ring was on, too. We were the same, even when Darthon didn’t want us to be. We were still together, but we would have to fight separately.

  29

  Eric

  Neither of us had to go to school the next day. Jessica was packing. I only knew because Urte told me after I moved in. Jonathon was staying with her, and the day passed comfortably. The opportunity gave me a chance to avoid Robb, but more importantly, it gave Jessica time to avoid Darthon, too. But I spent my time differently than Jessica did. After I finished moving, I forced myself to walk to the front of the shelter to the one place I had been avoiding.

  Camille’s grave.

  The marble room was coated with diamond dust, and it glittered against the rows of candlelight that lit up the wide space. Candles were colored the various shades of the Dark—green for guards, blue for warriors, white for elders. Only one purple candle existed, and I wondered if the Dark would change it to red if they ever learned about Jessica’s other powers.

  A stone larger than any memorial I had ever seen towered against the back wall. Shadows curled up the sides, but the golden candlelight licked the front. Cursive letters spelled out her inscription.

  Teresa Young.

  Guard of the first descendant and protector of the third.

  She has saved us all.

  As I read the last sentence, my kneecaps slammed against the floor, and the noise ricocheted through the room. Saved. She had saved us by giving Jessica her powers, and Darthon had tortured them out of her by torturing me. Why she hadn’t told me wasn’t the question. I knew why. I had pushed her away like Darthon had ordered me. Despite that, she fought for me like Camille had. Still, Jessica was alive, and Camille wasn’t. I was the reason she was dead.

  “Camille.” My hand shook as I touched her gravestone. When I stared at it, my own face reflected back. My human face. I couldn’t bring myself to transform after the night before, but my brown hair looked black in the shadows. My reflection was melting into my other half.

  I closed my eyes. “I need you.” I used our telepathic line even though it no longer had another side. It buzzed with white noise.

  I wanted to hear a scorning, a lecture followed by her sweet laugher, but silence met me. I wanted to see her long hair as half-breed and her short hair as a human. I wanted to point out she looked like a shade as a human. I wanted her to flip me off before she painted her nails again. This time of the year, she usually chose pink. For spring. It was her favorite season, and she was always too eager for its arrival.

  My fist slammed against her grave. Usually, she would tell me to get my anger in check, but she couldn’t now. I was alone. The first time she ever told me I wasn’t alone was at my mother’s funeral. It was that moment she became my friend instead of a guard.

  Now, my friend was dead.

  I hit her grave again, only to fall backward.

  When my back hit the ground, I saw him. Even though my position made him look like he was upside down, I recognized Luthicer. He was standing in the entryway.

  I sat b
ack up before I said anything. “What are you doing here?”

  Luthicer’s footsteps echoed as he approached. “I thought I would ask you that.” He sat down next to me, and I met his eyes in the reflection of his greatest student’s grave. “But I think we both know the answer to that.”

  I was finally accepting it.

  “Coping is a complicated thing, Eric,” he continued to speak, “I would ask you to stop hitting it, but—” He paused. “I think Camille would have a great laugh at that.”

  A chuckle escaped me, but I had to rub my burning eyes. “She’d be glad I was venting this way instead of crashing another car.”

  “We both would be.”

  I stretched out my legs and pressed my feet against the stone in the same way we had when we practiced stretches. “How’d you know I was here?”

  “As quiet as this place is, the sounds break into my office.” He pointed at the left wall. “I was just glad it wasn’t screaming for once.”

  “Screaming?”

  “Pierce. Urte, too.” Luthicer shrugged. “Your father practically lived here last week.” He didn’t have to clarify that it was when Jessica and I were in the Light realm. “The other half-breeds come here, too. They looked up to her a lot.”

  I hadn’t even thought about all the other lives Camille touched. She was Luthicer’s student, but he had dozens, and she had helped them just as much.

  “She was a remarkable person,” Luthicer said.

  I nodded. “Camille was stronger than anyone else I knew.” Including me. I remembered every time I had pushed her away, too many times to count throughout childhood. “I didn’t deserve her as a guard.”

  Luthicer drew in a breath. “Do you know who chose her to be your guard?”

  “No.” My throat hurt, but for once, it wasn’t from Darthon’s spell. I was still fighting my pain. “But I’m guessing you do.”

  “Do you want to know?”

  I stared at my reflection as I nodded.