I slid the chain into my pocket. Knowing she must have put it back on was my only comfort, but my biggest worry stood right in front of me. Whether Robb had figured it out or not was still a mystery.
“Take your ring off,” he barked.
“No.”
He punched me, and I stumbled back. Even though he was a human, he was fast. Just as fast as me. He had trained in both forms, too.
“Take it off, Welborn.”
I rubbed my face, but I kept stepping back. He followed me. “I gave you an order.”
“You can’t force me,” I growled.
“I own you.”
“You control my voice,” I said back. “Not my physical movements.” My hands rose in front of my chest. I would fight him. Unlike me, he could die, and all I needed was a moment like this—clouded in darkness, we could both have powers. “You sure you’re not the one who should be calling your elders?”
He didn’t step toward me. “I came on my own.”
If he had brought lights with him, the Dark would’ve sensed it, but I didn’t believe him. There had to be others waiting nearby. Other humans waiting to transform.
“Where are Linda and Zac?” I asked, but I didn’t dare search the trees with my eyes. If I didn’t look at him, he would attack. “You don’t fight alone. Not in this world.”
Robb didn’t argue.
“You can take me back to your realm,” I suggested. “Go ahead. See if anything changes.”
“I’ll figure it out,” he snapped, “and if I don’t, I’ll just kill her instead.”
His words were the opposite of what they should’ve been. He wanted to threaten me when he had told me everything I needed to know. He still didn’t know the jewelry kept me alive. He only thought it kept Jessica’s powers tied to the Dark.
“I felt it,” he said. “She took it off, and I felt it.” He took a step toward me. “Her powers. They shifted when it was off. It’s stopping her from coming to me—”
“She’s never going to come to you,” I interrupted.
When I took a step toward him, he froze. “You can’t fight me.”
“I can,” I said because I knew he wouldn’t kill Jessica. “And I will.”
“I gave you orders—”
“And I haven’t broken them yet,” I pointed out, never dropping my hands. Every part of me wanted to transform, but the smallest slice of my soul held me back. If I transformed, he would, and it would be war. The shelter wouldn’t even have time to prepare. More people would die. I needed to get Darthon alone, and I needed him to be as far away from the shelter as possible.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” I suggested. “Battle this out for good.”
He smiled, but the corners of his mouth shook. When a breeze passed between us, he actually looked away from me—toward the woods, toward the place I was sure his comrades were hiding. “Have you spoken to your father yet?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And I don’t care.”
His face was as red as his jacket. “They lied to you.”
“People lie for a reason.” In all the years I thought my dad had hated my existence, I now knew my dad had tried to protect me, even though he couldn’t. “I stand by their decisions.”
His fists curled as he raised them, and his shoulders broadened. I half-expected him to transform, but he didn’t. “I’m not going to lose this, Welborn.”
“You need Jessica to win,” I pointed out, “and she’s figuring you out on her own, Robb.” I used his name to emphasize his identity. “She only went out with you to test you guys.”
It was the last sentence that did it. He shot forward, and punches were thrown. When he hit me, a pain seethed down my neck, but my fist landed on his jaw. We stumbled back, only to move forward again. In seconds, we were on the ground, and a tangy liquid filled my mouth.
Blood.
I didn’t bother to breathe as I hit his ribs, and he reacted by kicking my shin. We scrambled against the cold grass, and dirt flew up as we stood, only to fall again. It was the fall he took advantage of.
His fingers wrapped through my hair, and he slammed my face into the ground. His foot was on my back before I could even fight back. “Why you?” he screamed at the back of my head. “What’s so great about you?”
My cheek burned as I squirmed beneath him.
“You’re pathetic.”
Robb had trained more as a human than I had. I knew that now. My spine stung as he twisted my head. He was attempting to break my neck, but it didn’t work. I swung my arm up and held my head in place. Urte had taught me more defense than anything.
Robb’s breathing was all I could hear as he tried again. Every part of me hurt.
“You can’t kill me,” I seethed, and blood escaped my mouth. It mixed with the dirt.
“Go ahead. Transform.” His voice was ear splitting. “Declare war.”
He wanted the blood to be on my hands.
I squirmed under his foot, unable to gain control again, but I wouldn’t do what he said. I wouldn’t allow any more of my people to die, but for once, I didn’t want more of his people to die either. If Jessica was one of them, if Luthicer and Camille had been a part of the Light, then I didn’t want anyone to die. I only wanted Robb to see it, too.
“Why don’t you do it?” He let go of my head, only to kick me in the back of it. “Do it, Welborn. Just do it.”
“Why don’t you?” I formed a response before he slammed his foot into my ribs. I braced for another, but he didn’t kick me again. The ground shifted as he stepped away.
Thinking it was my only chance to gain control, I rolled over, but Robb wasn’t in a fighting stance. He was walking away.
“That’s it?” I called after him as I stumbled to my feet. Even my knees were weak. “You’re giving up?”
“Far from it,” he said and continued toward the trees. “You have company.”
Before I could chase him, a beam of light—brighter than the sun—shot out of him, and he transported away. Robb used his powers, and his force vibrated through the trees. The Dark would know he was here, and he wasn’t even trying to hide it.
That’s when I heard it.
“Eric!” Jessica’s voice.
She was running toward me, but she was too far away to see what had happened. Darthon wasn’t giving up. He still wanted her, and he wanted me to know it.
41
Jessica
Eric was bleeding, and he spat out more blood when he sat up on the ground. He didn’t even look at me when I called his name. He simply laid his forearms on his knees and hung his head between his limbs.
“Eric.” I landed next to him and grabbed his arm like it would make him see me, but he never moved. “What happened? Eric?”
When Jonathon screamed for help, his voice was deeper, and I knew he had shifted into his shade form. Even over his shouts, I heard Eric grumble, “I’m fine.” He stood up like he actually was, but limped when he started to walk. Someone had hurt him, but I didn’t understand how it was possible.
“I was with them,” I ranted as I followed him. “I was with Zac and Robb. How did he do it?”
Eric stopped walking and finally looked at me. His right eye was already bruising.
“It was Darthon,” I spoke for him because I knew he couldn’t. “Wasn’t it?”
Eric never responded. Bracke and Luthicer were already outside. They hadn’t even bothered to run outside. They had transported together, and Pierce was next to them.
“What’s going on?” Bracke started to speak before he really looked at his son, and then, he sucked in a breath. “Eric—”
“I’m fine,” he repeated his promise, but he never stopped limping toward the shelter.
“You’re not fine.” Bracke grabbed him, and Eric didn’t fight it. He stopped walking. “Who did this?”
“It was Darthon,” I said.
“Jess,” Eric spoke my name like it was a curse. “Jessica
.” His voice softened. “Wait until we’re inside.”
It was then that I felt it. The air was hot. The trees were shaking. Everything reeked of fire. Darthon had been here—briefly, but here. Everyone else must have sensed it, too, because Bracke wrapped his arm around Eric’s torso, and he helped his son walk to the shelter. Everyone else rushed ahead of them.
“Lock the place down,” Luthicer barked as we entered, and a group of shades scattered.
“You can do that?” Pierce asked.
Luthicer shot him a glare, but the moment was clear. The shelter had security that was beyond what we had previously believed. Within minutes, the ground was shaking, and Bracke sat Eric on a bench as if he couldn’t hold them both up during it.
“Looks like we’ll have an earthquake on the news tomorrow,” Pierce muttered.
Even in the darkest times, my guard joked, but his face didn’t cock his usual grin. His expression was one I had seen on Urte. The squinting eyes gave away Pierce’s true feelings. If we had rushed, we might have been able to prevent it. We might have been able to help Eric. He had been in trouble all along.
Eric stretched his arm in front of him like he had simply been training, but his face was swelling. Even when he winced, his cheek moved unnaturally. He only became a shade when his father put up a silence barrier. All of his injuries began to melt away, but not as quickly as they usually did. His jaw even made a noise, but he rocked it like it was nothing. His blue eyes were burning.
“What happened?” Bracke repeated, but his voice hadn’t calmed. It shook with his fingertips, and small shadows spiraled out of his skin. Apparently, Eric inherited his emotions from his father. “Is it true? Was it Darthon?”
Eric opened his mouth, but only a squeak came out. He shook his head.
Darthon still controlled his speech.
“It was Darthon,” Luthicer agreed with me. “We all felt it.”
“But not until we were outside,” Bracke argued. “We should’ve sensed it before—”
“Unless he was human,” I interrupted, keeping my eyes on Eric.
He looked up at me as if to confirm it. Eric—all along—knew who Darthon was. He knew if Darthon was Zac or Robb, or someone else entirely. He knew everything, and he couldn’t tell us.
“That’s impossible,” Bracke said, but his tone was quiet. “Right?”
Eric didn’t respond.
Before anyone saw the elder move, Bracke grabbed Eric’s shoulders. “Why wouldn’t you kill him if you know? Why wouldn’t you tell—”
Luthicer pulled Eric’s father back. “Don’t.”
“Don’t tell me how to raise my son,” Bracke argued, inches from Luthicer’s face.
Luthicer never looked away from Bracke. “You won’t have a son if you keep acting like that.”
Bracke’s chest caved in as if the man had slapped him, but I tore my eyes away from the two men. I only looked at Eric, who had yet to move, yet to speak, yet to explain. He couldn’t tell us anything.
It was Pierce that changed everything. “There’s going to be another war, Shoman,” he said, calling Eric the name I hadn’t heard anyone use in weeks, the name of the first descendant. “You can’t stop that. It has to happen again.”
Shoman disappeared back into Eric almost as quickly as he had shifted before. He cringed as his angular face shifted and squinted as his black hair sprang up into brown waves. Shifting quickly was painful. Everyone knew it, but Eric did it anyway. He wasn’t even completely healed. His lip was bleeding.
“I’ll handle it,” he finally spoke, and all of the tension in the room dissipated.
Pierce was right. Eric hadn’t shifted for one reason. He knew Darthon, and they would’ve fought, but Eric knew it would’ve declared war. He knew people would die, and he knew he couldn’t die, and—now—I did too. The elders, for once, were the oblivious ones.
“Darthon was here,” I spoke to Bracke and Luthicer. “He’s either Zac or Robb.”
“We aren’t sure,” Pierce agreed, “but we are sure it’s one of them.”
Eric was on his feet like he could stop us from speaking, but he hung back because it was too late.
Bracke’s gaze flickered from his son to Pierce to me. “I thought you were going out with friends.”
“I did,” I said and stepped to Pierce’s other side. I didn’t want Eric to stop me. I explained what I knew. I told them everything—how the bar fight had happened, how Zac had threatened Eric in the beginning, how Zac remembered everything, how Robb took off my ring, how they wanted me to leave Eric behind. I even mentioned Linda and Crystal. “So, we know they’re involved.”
“We just aren’t sure which ones they are,” Pierce finished.
Eric never budged.
“We can’t kill them all,” Luthicer spoke directly to Bracke. “Not without knowing.”
“We know one of them,” he said.
My breath caught in my throat. “What?”
“This isn’t your responsibility,” Luthicer was clear. I was not to question him.
“The elders said no more lies. You guys promised—”
“And you promised to fight with us, and you went behind our backs to do something alone.” As Luthicer argued, his white hair spiked up. “Look where that got us. You could’ve been killed. All of you.”
I was silenced.
Bracke laid a hand on Luthicer’s shoulder. “Calm down.” This time, Bracke was holding Luthicer back. “Go find Jada.”
Luthicer lingered, staring only at me, before he disappeared without a word.
“What does Jada have to do with this?” Pierce asked. While Eric and I didn’t speak, Pierce never let anyone silence him. “She didn’t come with us. She—”
“Pierce.” Bracke was loud.
“We did what we had to do,” Pierce spoke over the elder. “If you guys had done something, we wouldn’t have had to do it.”
Bracke stared him, and Pierce looked directly back.
“No one died,” Pierce said, “and we got closer to winning.” He unfolded his arms as if he were prepared to put himself in a fighting stance.
I grabbed him, and his arm shook beneath my touch. “Breathe,” I reminded him of everything he had told me in the car. Emotions wouldn’t get us anywhere. We were only turning on one another.
Pierce took a sharp breath as if he realized the same thing, and Bracke did, too.
We were a team. We couldn’t fight one another if we were going to win.
“I’ll accept any punishment you give,” I spoke up for my guard and me. “We both will.”
Bracke nodded, but his blue eyes flicked over my shoulder. I knew he was looking at Eric, but I didn’t know what he saw. “No punishment,” he said, “but no one leaves. Not even for school. Not now.”
“That’ll just give us away,” Pierce started.
“We’ve already been given away.”
Pierce stopped speaking.
“We understand,” I said again only because I knew the order couldn’t stick. In the morning, things would calm. We would miss two days at most, and a lot could happen in two days. War could happen. The elders wanted to prepare. I could tell that much.
Bracke looked at his son. “Get yourself checked out.”
Eric stood up to go to the nurse’s quarters. When he started walking, Bracke walked in the opposite direction. I waited until the elder was gone before I chased after Eric. Pierce’s footsteps echoed behind me. Both of us were following the only person we wanted to help.
“Wait,” I spoke up, but Eric had already stopped.
He had heard us coming. “What?”
I searched his face, expecting to see a glare, but his eyes were heavy. I had to use all of my energy to say what I had held back before, “It’s the rings.”
Eric’s lip twitched, and the movement caused his injury to burn brighter. The blood reminded me of the blood he had on his face in the Light realm where he had been tortured, where we had both been tortured in
different ways.
I had to close my eyes to speak again, “It kept you alive, didn’t it?”
His hand was heavy when he laid it on top of my head. I opened my eyes to see a small smile escape him. “Just,” he whispered as he dropped his hand. “Just don’t take it off again.”
He knew. He had felt it just as I had. His heartbeat almost stopped. He started walking away like it was nothing, like his life had always meant nothing.
“I felt you leave,” I called after him, and he froze in the hallway. “I took it off, and I felt you leave.” My voice cracked. “It’s my fault he attacked you. I’m sorry—”
Eric crossed the hallway. Before I could finish my apology, his arms wrapped around me. His tight hold was suffocating, but it was the deepest breath I had felt.
“Don’t,” he spoke against my ear. “You did the right thing.” As his fingers moved across my spine, shivers traveled over my body. It was the warmest I had ever felt, warmer than any power the Dark had given me, warmer than any slice of Light energy, and when he pulled away, his words kept the warmth on my skin, “He’s losing because of you.”
He walked away without saying another word, but this time, he didn’t limp. He marched, and I knew I was seeing Shoman—the first descendant that trained me in the beginning. I had done well because he had taught me, but it had never occurred to me that I was the same strength for him.
Darthon wasn’t getting me on his side any more than he was defeating Eric, and it was because we couldn’t be broken. We were together even when we were apart.
42
Jessica
I was right about two things. Eric knew who Darthon was, and the elders couldn’t keep us away from our enemy. After today, the Dark had to let us go to school, and if I had to make another guess, they had protection in place. Even then, we had missed one day, but it had dragged on longer than the February day should’ve been. I hadn’t even been allowed to step outside. The only reason I knew it was dark out was the sizzling in my veins. Nighttime always brought on the urge to shift into my shade form, but below that feeling was another desire. After I had taken off my ring, transforming into a light had never felt so close. I painted to distract myself, and for the first time in months, I used the color blue.
Death Before Daylight Page 24