Silence.
The night seemed quieter, like it was waiting to see what would happen. Probably expecting some sort of explosion. I sure was. I hoped Cicero and Sonya were heavy sleepers.
It was Alex that eventually interrupted the silence. “I know you don’t want me here, but I need to know something.”
I waited and tried to distract myself with picking the dried mud off my boot.
“What did I do to make you hate me?”
I looked at him then. Into that face—that hurt and troubled face. He was such a good actor.
“How can you even ask that?” I glared.
“I wouldn’t be asking if I knew the answer.”
“But how can you not know?” I couldn’t believe it. “Unless you really do think that highly of yourself and your ideas on what friends…”
He clamped his hand over my mouth, nodding towards his sleeping parents. “That’s not the only reason,” he whispered. “Please, think hard about what you’re about to say and see if it’s worth it, because chances are, it’ll take awhile for both of us to get over it.”
There was pain in his eyes, one so poignant it made me forget what I was about to say. He slowly removed his hand. And I was silent.
“I just…all I want is to know what I’ve done.”
His humility breeched my defensive wall.
“Alex.” I had a difficult time keeping my volume manageable. “I trusted you with everything. Everything! If I’d been in your shoes, I would’ve told you. You’ve lied to me my entire life, and you expect to just show up…after three years, and I’m supposed to be fine with that?”
His features were strained. “No…I don’t expect…look. I am sorry. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Then why did you?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
“Not with your dad.”
“What does my dad have to do with any of this?” I fought to keep my voice low.
His face moved close to mine, his features hard. “He made me swear…swear that I would never to say a word to you about it. When I told him I couldn’t, he said I wouldn’t be allowed to see you again. What would you have done?”
“But I never saw you again anyway!”
“And that would have happened sooner if I’d told you.”
“Then you should’ve,” I said. “It would’ve saved you the misery of my company all those years.”
He moved his head back an inch, tilting it as his eyes searched mine. “What…are you talking about?”
This wasn’t at all a topic I wanted to discuss. Not now. Not with him sitting so close. Not ever.
I looked away. “Nothing. Never mind,” I said a little too quickly.
Alex placed his hand on my cheek, turning it so that I was forced to look at him. There was something in his eyes that made my heart ache, and I couldn’t take it.
“Don’t touch me!” I ripped his hand down, staggering to my feet.
He stood beside me. “Daria, please. Just talk to me.”
His tone froze me in place. It was vulnerable and honest, like he used to be.
“I know,” he continued, “you refuse to remember I understand you better than you do. Just tell me what I’ve done, and…I swear I won’t ever ask you again.”
The look in his eyes, on his face. It was too hurt, too pained. Too believable.
Step by slow step I walked back to him, peering up into his face. “Why do you keep pretending you care?”
His expression changed from hurt to perplexed. “You think I don’t?”
“I know you don’t. It was hard enough when you just up and left. But then to find out I meant nothing to you? All those years you’d been trying to find a way to tell me you couldn’t stand me. You had to be my friend—because of our parents. Because you were sworn to protect me—like now. Just…stop pretending.”
His parents stirred. He grabbed my arm and yanked me out the door. “How did you get that ridiculous idea into your head?”
I yanked my arm back. “I heard you say it yourself!”
“When?”
“The last day I saw you.”
He frowned. “You went home sick.”
He remembered.
“Of course I went home sick! I wasn’t going to stay anywhere near you after hearing how you really felt. I just don’t understand how I was so oblivious—”
“Hold on. Hear what? What are you talking about?”
I was so frustrated by his willful ignorance I could’ve punched him. He was going to make me spell it out for him. Replay the memory, detail by painful detail.
“I was standing in your doorway, Alex.” I said each word slowly and deliberately. “I heard the whole thing. You were talking to someone on the phone about me. Your exact words, in case you forgot, were that you were going insane and your parents made you be my friend my whole life.” My throat constricted. “There. Are you happy now? You can end the charade. I may have been stupid then, but I’m not now.”
Alex’s lips parted as I fought back my tears. I couldn’t believe I’d admitted all that. I knew it needed to be said, but not now. Not when it was still unbearable for me to deal with.
He searched my face, and so many emotions crossed over his before he settled on one: comprehension.
“For three years,” his voice was so low I barely heard it. “All this time, you believed that? That none of it was real? That I never…cared?”
My strength was crumbling like the walls around me. “What else was I supposed to think? It’s not like you were around to prove anything different.”
“No.” He grabbed my hands in his. “I wasn’t.”
I tried to break free, but he only squeezed tighter.
“Daria,” he sighed. “I remember that day. I was anxious to see you because I thought it would be the last. They were going to send me here. My parents. When you arrived, I was on the phone with…someone from this world, and I was talking about you.”
My palms sweated in his. I was so angry I was shaking.
“But it wasn’t what you think.” He stared into my eyes.
“Stop—“
“No,” he cut me off, squeezing my hands. “Listen to me. I was going insane. Because I couldn’t tell you the truth about this world. That I was going to leave soon. My parents—the only thing they ever made me do was keep this world from you. What I couldn’t stand was knowing I was leaving without telling you why. I was afraid, well, you’d treat me like this.”
I was still, unable to speak.
Was everything he said true? It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. Except when I filled the gaps in my puzzle with the pieces he laid out before me—without bias—they fit. All of them. The way he’d been acting, his silence, his distance. It all made sense. For once in my life I could step back and see the entire picture the way it really was, not the way I’d drawn it.
He continued. “When I saw you standing outside my door, I was so worried you’d overheard me talking about this world, that I’d broken my promise to your father. I won’t lie, part of me hoped you’d overheard. Maybe your father could forgive me if it was an accident. But when I saw your reaction, I knew you hadn’t heard anything. There was no…life in you. I believed you were sick.”
With every word he said, I felt more and more ridiculous. And angry, at myself. “The note,” I whispered. “The one you left in the Count of Monte Cristo.”
“It was what I’d decided—how I would tell you while not completely dishonoring myself in the eyes of Alaric. I was so certain you’d find it that day since you’d been turning to it every time you came over. I wanted you to find it. I wanted you to find it with me there, and when you left, I’d hoped you’d find it on another trip to our house.”
“I didn’t find it till a few days ago.”
“I realize that now. I thought you found it and were still furious. I guess I didn’t consider you’d be so angry with me
you’d never set foot in our house again.” He shook his head. When he looked back at me, his eyes were so penetrating I had to force myself to hold his gaze. “But why were you so quick to draw those conclusions about how I felt about you? After everything we shared, everything we did, why didn’t you just ask?”
See! I told you that you should’ve asked him. This is your own fault.
I sighed and glanced at my hands that were hidden in his. “I’d been noticing a difference in you for a while. You were withdrawn and more private. It wasn’t like you, and I…took it personally. It makes sense now, with everything you were dealing with.”
He didn’t speak, but his frustration pulsed through me. The past three years had affected him just as much as they had affected me. I could feel it burning inside of him. And that frustration was slowly chipping away at the stones of my emotional barricade.
“If what you say is true,” which I knew it was, “then why didn’t you say something sooner?”
He sighed. “It’s been hard for me, knowing what to say to you after everything that’s happened. Especially after seeing how angry you were. And I know you. Once that fire burns, only time can put it out. I wanted to talk to you about it—alone.” He squeezed my hands gently this time. “At first I thought I’d be patient—give you time to adjust before apologizing with even the smallest hope that you’d forgive me. But you seemed more resolute than ever with your anger and even I have a threshold.”
I couldn’t stop my smile. “You? A threshold?”
He returned my smile, and then leaned against the wall, tilting his head back towards the night sky. “I hate that I’ve become a liar to you, but I couldn’t leave this world. I couldn’t contact you without being caught. The only reason I was able to see you a few days ago was because I finished my training, and your dad was planning on telling you the truth.”
My breath stuck in my throat. “He was going to tell me about this world?”
His eyes found mine as he nodded.
That close. Dad was going to tell me everything that night at the Del Contes. “What stopped him?”
“He received word there was movement by the portal. Of course he decided it wasn’t safe yet, and took you home, away from any possible danger.”
“But the danger was waiting at our home,” I whispered.
Alex stared into my eyes. “I’m so sorry.” He placed his palm on my cheek, the warmth melting the rest of my anger. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to. Three years of hurting from a ridiculous misunderstanding.
“I give you my word—if there is any part of you left that can trust it—I will never lie to you again. Will you ever forgive me?”
I was lost, staring into his eyes. Eyes that I’d trusted, eyes that made me feel…whole, again. I was overwhelmed with so many emotions, his hope and my joy, his relief and my regret at how I’d acted. It was so much I almost didn’t hear the horses.
And they were whinnying. Frantically.
Alex snapped his gaze to the forest, intent on the blackness ahead. He dropped his hand from my face and yanked me behind him.
The horses were in a frenzy. I’d never heard them make such noise. But what startled me even more than that was the shear amount of terror I felt from Calyx.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Shh.” He focused on the trees, my hand clutched in his. “Wake my mom and dad. Now.”
And then, just between the shadows, emerged a pair of glowing blood red eyes. My entire body went numb as relentless hunger and death filled my senses from the creature hidden in the shadows.
Chapter 15
The Shadow’s Creatures
The deep crimson glow smoldered in the shadows. All I felt was the absolute hatred of the creature before me—its lust for death and thirst for blood. Our blood.
It took a single step into the moonlight, and I forgot its hatred, because I was consumed by my own fear.
It was a dog from hell. Four long, sinewy legs supported a thick muscular frame. Striated muscles flexed as it prowled, the breeze lifting a few strands of wiry hair from its taut, black leather skin. Gnarled bat-like ears stood erect from its fury-wrinkled forehead; nostrils flared at the end of a long lipless snout, boasting a wall of razor sharp fangs. A whip for a tail lashed at the air as it took another step forward, sharp black claws raking at the earth. It was the creature from the book, the one I’d seen in the Del Contes’ hidden room.
“My parents,” Alex hissed as he pushed me back through the doorway.
I was paralyzed with fear. The horses were going berserk, drowning in terror, and then they bolted into the forest, disappearing in the shadows.
But the feral beast didn’t go after them. Its eyes were intent upon me.
Alex was sprinting towards it with his blade overhead.
What was he thinking? I tried to scream at him, but no sound came. The monster took a single powerful swipe, but Alex rolled away and jumped to his feet, sweeping his blade around himself. His sword jarred into the beast’s chest with a thud, grazing its thick, leathered skin. Alex leapt away, the monster’s enormous fangs snapping at the space he had stood just seconds before.
Those same jaws snapped me back to my senses. I reached for my dagger and started towards Alex. I didn’t know how, but I wasn’t leaving him alone. Not with this creature.
“Get back!” he yelled.
“You need help!”
But before I was able to go far, a flash of white light shot out from the end of Alex’s sword. It hit its target and enveloped the beast, absorbing into its skin. The creature tensed, eyes shut tight, its entire body contracting as it curled into itself. It flexed in a surge of rage, eyes burning, and the white light rebounded in all directions. Alex dodged a beam and I dropped to the ground as one flew inches over my head, blasting the rock wall behind me into shreds.
Dust and debris fell everywhere as the monster lifted its nose to the air and opened its jaws. The night filled with a horrible scream; layers of dissonant sound blared, compressed in one voice. My soul turned to ice as my ears tried to block out the horror that filled them.
“You can’t kill a barghest with magic!” Cicero leapt over me, his sword in his hands. “What are you thinking? You’ll get us all killed! Sonya, get Daria out of here.”
Sonya gripped my arm and pulled me back into the shelter as Alex and Cicero darted forward, blades extended.
“We have to help them!” I yelled.
“You’re not doing anything.”
The creature tried to rush past Alex to get to me, but Alex jabbed at the beast’s leg. It leapt in the air and landed behind him. Alex spun around with his blade, but creature’s hind deflected it.
“How am I supposed to kill this thing?” Alex shouted, barely missing the beast’s jaws as they ground into the earth where his feet had been.
“With the skill you’re supposed to have.” Cicero brandished his sword.
I felt a surge of Alex’s irritation as he rolled across the ground, thrusting his sword at the beast’s underbelly. He missed as it leapt and landed closer to where I was standing, right inside the doorway.
“Well, are you going to help me or not?” Alex panted.
“I’m still thinking about it,” Cicero smirked. “That beam almost blew my head off.”
“Stay where you are.” Sonya released my arm and busied herself beside me, an arrow ready on her bow; her eyes locked on the beast.
“Sonya?” Cicero glanced back at his wife.
I felt a surge of strength and saw a flash of steel as Cicero bounded toward the monster. His movements were so quick and fluid my eyes could barely keep pace. Pure enjoyment filtered through me. There was a loud clang, and one of the beast’s bloodied claws sailed through the air, landing at my feet with tufts of wiry hair and bloodied skin still attached.
“Nice of you to help,” shouted Alex. “I was beginning to think you’d lost your nerve.”
“My nerves aren’t nearly as fickle as your foc
us when—” Cicero dodged a claw “—a certain person is around.”
The beast was furious, thrashing its head in the air, trying to get at the Cicero. But Cicero was too fast. He charged at the monster with a powerful yell, and at the last second, dropped to his feet, sliding beneath it with his sword and emerging on the other side, unscathed. The tip of Cicero’s blade was dripping with fresh black blood.
The monster’s agony coursed through me as it let out another bloodcurdling scream.
“I was focused! How was I supposed to know not to use magic?” Alex yelled at his father as he charged the wounded monster. Only this time, it sideswiped him and Alex went flying through the air.
“I think,” Cicero shouted at his son, dodging the large fangs he had jumped in front of, “that I need to take more interest—” Cicero brought his sword down, sending another claw sailing through the air “—in your education. Or were you just showing off?”
I couldn’t believe they were arguing right now. The beast was injured. Why didn’t they just finish it off?
“No, I was—“ Alex started.
“Now!” Sonya yelled.
Together, Alex and Cicero jumped clear of the beast and the roof above me burst into flame. The beast charged, and Sonya shoved me from behind through a back window.
Air and light exploded as a wave of heat wrapped around me. I flew through the air and hit the ground, hard. Pain exploded through my spine and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. The fire roared in my ears, its heat wafting over my skin, but I couldn’t move. It took a moment for my lungs to start working again, but when they did, they kept choking and coughing on the smoke and rot. It was like breathing in an ashtray. When I glanced up, a fire blazed where the building had stood.
Where were the Del Contes?
Coughing, I scrambled to my feet, searching for the others, when another burst of fire shot from the flames. It knocked me over again, shoving me to the ground, except this time, I didn’t stop falling.
Round and round I went, sliding down a steep decline. My hands grabbed at the ground, trying to find something to hold on to, but every small branch and vine gave way and slid down with me.
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