"I think you already know the answer to the question at hand, Kayden,” I whispered, the smallest smile I could manage on my lips. Slowly my eyes started to shut, my head lowering as the darkness began to swallow me whole. All around me my dream began to flicker as my subconscious fought to keep it alive. Another hand pressed on my free cheek, the shock from the sudden intensive cold pressure bringing me back to my dream for but a moment.
"Essallie, you need to stay with me. Just for a little while longer," Kayden whispered with a strong tone.
As much as I wanted to agree and stay with him in a perpetual dream-land forever, suspended in time, the darkness was coaxing me with a better offer. Everything around me felt so comfortable, so warm and soothing.
My eyelids fluttered. “Why?” I mumbled, my voice thick with sleep.
A hand ran through my hair as I heard a soft chuckle echo around me. “Because I am a foolish demon, driven by desire.”
"I don't think that’s foolish,” my whisper was barely audible as I fought to stay awake. It felt like weights were trying to keep my eyelids down, but I strained against them so I could see his face one more time before sinking back into sleep. “I call that bravery, or ballsy.”
This time when my eyes opened I knew it wasn't just another dream. My body had a dull ache to it, the kind that told me that somehow I had managed to survive to see another day. That, and because Kayden was sitting at my bedside looking like he hadn't slept for several days straight.
"Hey," I said hoarsely, and immediately winced at the sound of it. I tried to swallow but it felt exposed and raw. "It's all good. I'm still alive."
Kayden snapped up from his chair with enough force to rocket off to the moon. His eyes were a bright brown as he stared at my face for a moment before breaking into the hugest, most awkward smile I think I'd ever seen on him.
"What," he began. "Is your freaking malfunction? I've been sitting here for nearly two days thinking I was going to have to call your brother and make up some wild excuse that magically turned you comatose." He sank into the cushioned tan chair that matched the bedroom decor of wherever we were with a grand sigh. "At least now I can take you home in one piece."
Every inch of me felt like I'd been kicked in and rolled around in a bucket of glass shards for good measure. Somehow I was still able to smile. "Where the heck are we, anyway?"
"Charon's Hospital. It was only a block away once we cleared everyone out of the tent. No one really noticed your super-saiyan transformation, too. Mostly everyone just wanted to know if you were dead or alive."
A small, tentative knock came from across the room. Ursula stepped in, visibly uncomfortable, and handed Kayden a coffee. She gave me the faintest of nods before promptly turning around and exiting faster than girls moving in on sale items.
"What's wrong with her?" I asked in a clipped tone, then immediately thought of Leo. "Is Leo-?"
Kayden nodded, his expression turned grim. "He was just one of a dozen or so that were gravely injured and killed, yourself included. If it wasn't for," he trailed off, eyes looking back to the door frame. "If it wasn't for really good timing, you wouldn't be alive right now."
I thought about Jayson dressed in his Sunday best, sobbing over my casket, and shuddered. One of my hands reached up to touch the pendant that still hung around my neck. "He said he was my Watcher," I tried to not let my voice break. "That it was all coming back to him just before the circus performance. What if he was?"
He looked down to the ground below to advert my gaze. "If he really was, then it means you'll die. Not today or tomorrow, but soon."
My stomach sank even further. "There's only one way to find out," I said with a hard face. "I'll have to check my birth certificate for the time on it. Here, help me out of bed."
"Uh, how about no?" He stood up and gently pushed me back down onto the bed. "You've still got poison running through your system. Healers said it would take another day of rest before it would all clear from your blood."
I sat up again, pushing against him. "Look, I so do not want your pity party and sympathy bullshit. The fever was worse than this." I swung both legs over to the side of the bed and did a test wiggle of the feet and toes before I made an attempt to stand.
"You know he's right," a male voice said from the doorway. "You could re-draw the venom back into your system if you keep that up. Then it'll go back down to having only one Nephilim on the planet again."
Kayden and I both looked over at the same time, no doubt to say something rude, only to stop. The man in the doorframe looked around my age, maybe a little older. His hair was a bright, brilliant platinum blonde identical to Ursula's, and his teal colored eyes instantly reminded me of a stormy sky. Dressed in a brown leather jacket, jeans and a oil smudged t-shirt he looked like someone who came in with the tumbleweeds and stepped out kicking ass and taking names.
"Wait a minute," I held up a hand and bit back a wince. "Did you just say Nephilim?"
A raw, edgy smile came to his lips. "Yes ma'm. It's about time I found you, Essie. My name is Ari, and we're the start of the army."
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I'd like to say thank you to my family for holding onto the dream that I might actually finish 'that book she's always writing' one day! (See, Mom? I can do it!) I absolutely have to say thank you to my original RPG buddies; Katie, Sammi, Amanda, Alex, Karen, and Kelly, I think I've put you all through hell by constantly replying to your posts by the minute and always thinking up new drama for our characters to endure more than once.
To my BFFF Stephanie, I love you so freaking much for letting me vent every problem I had along the way with this. I hope all the text messages in caps was worth it in the end.
I hold a huge surge of gratitude to the people on Writingforums.org for their support when Illumine was still in its first blush of life and probably sounded like it, too.
Without my huge and completely unrelated list of authors who have inspired me I never would have finished this or hit the 'submit' button either, so thank you Jonathan Stroud, Libba Bray, J.K. Rowling, and Eoin Colfer for creating worlds I was eager to get sucked into, and thank you to writers like Addison Moore, SM Reine, and Amanda Hocking for showing me that it's okay if you take the hard route, sometimes it's much more worth it.
And finally, thank you to my loving boyfriend of almost two years, Tim. Thank you for the 4am phone calls where I screamed that nothing made sense, that I would never finish this and probably be better off hiding in a hole in the desert, for every draft you read between here and the beginning. You are my rock, and like the one volcano said to the other, I lava you.
About the Writer
Alivia Anders was thirteen when she fell headfirst into the world of internet fanfic and RPG-forum board sites that showed her the 'back door' into the world of writing. Four years and many hours spent glued to a computer screen later she found her true calling in writing.
Alivia currently lives with her family in her hometown of Coopersburg, PA. She frequently admits that if she wasn't so intolerant to dairy she'd live at her local ice cream shop called The Inside Scoop.
You can keep up-to-date on her new releases on her blog:
http://aliviaanders.blogspot.com
Or on her Twitter handle @aliviaanders
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