“Get out of my head!” I screamed. I found it hard to drink down the bitterness, but in its wake a burning sensation rose up from my stomach. I knew the taste of dark craft working its way up and out of me. I held on to the wall before me, not being able to ignore the faint beating of the now dying, synthetic beings. Thoughts spilled through the liquid fire burning its way up my throat. I doubled over as the dark liquid forced its way out, it bit at my insides; scorched my entire face as it came pouring out of me. The potion left me cold and numb. Dizziness gripped me with ironclad fists. This wasn’t me. The anger, the regret and mortification crept in – this wasn’t me! I closed my hands around the hilt of the sai. I fell with my back against the hard, stone wall, wiped my mouth with the back of my forearm and drew in a breath, my broken arm shaking violently as I slowly released the blood-shift; its claws unhooked. I had to fight it, even if it meant for an eternity. I will not let it take me again. Troy. Troy was my salvation. I would stay pure for him. My arm trembled, and my body felt each and every injury as the shift disappeared. I stared at blood and bone. I had to save these beings!
“Hold on,” a voice said.
I looked around pointlessly because I knew that voice, the voice that had pulled me from the darkness before. His heart was beating so close. I slowed my pulse, closed my eyes, thought of Arriana’s words. “Block it all out, the fear binds you.”
I could feel my pulse, a slow drum beating within my mind, a solid thump within my body. My breathing slowed, a soothing silence flowing into the corners of my mind, wiping away the fear, the shift, and then I felt Maya – she, too, was so close. I was saved, and we could save these beings from dying a cold, lonely death. I had to run back, find my way to that golden pipe and plug them back in. The second I opened my eyes, a hand pinned me to the wall.
“I know what you are going to do before you even do it!” Enoch sneered at me, hitting the weapon from my hand.
I suddenly realized that the sirens had stopped. Did the silence mean the beings had died?
“You cloned me you sick, twisted, freak!”
“Why do you think I created her? All in the name of research.” He smiled. “I used her to gain knowledge of you and him. I know what your true purpose is, and now I know what he is. What he is to things like us.” He chuckled. “The only way to destroy the disease is by knowing it, being it. And now you know it, and you know its antidote. If you two don’t ignite…” He continued to smile wickedly. “You know what you will become right?”
I stared at Enoch, trying to figure out if he was pushing images into my mind. I glared into glacier eyes. Was it really him with metal extremities so cold it scalded the very skin he touched? His metallic arm held me to the wall, the icy burn spread through my veins, slowly searing up into my throat. I started to choke on icy tendrils. My breath came out in white frozen wisps. I closed my eyes, pushing the frost from my mind; he had tricked me before, and I was not going to let it happen again. He couldn’t push me anymore, it was my choice not his. There was no ice, and I was not dying!
“I am going to enjoy taking all of this away from you. Who do you think you are, you have no right,” I said to Enoch, opening my eyes so I could stare into his solid glare. The ice around his touch slowly started melting.
“You are the queen carrier, so this is for you, my destiny is to deliver all of this to you!”
“You have no right,” I repeated, feeling so delirious from the pain I wanted to laugh.
“You gave me that right and lost yours the moment you took from the Shadow to kill me, and by killing yourself you only sealed your fate; by killing me, you became my Ignited one.”
His grin was chilling, but his words ripped through my mind. What was he saying?
I swallowed, summoning courage.
“You gave me full rights to your body, to your soul, when you gave it to me willingly. You are responsible for our bond. You made who you are by your own hand, and you are the Shadow we were warned about. You have brought this war.”
“Liar.”
“No. I know what you are. I have always known. You will become the Alpha of Darkness. This is why the spirit wanted you. Now that you’ve taken over from him – you are compelled by blood, and by your choices to infect and carry the Shadowing disease to its fullest potential. Your divinity only gives it strength. You have made our kind indestructible.”
“No!” I whispered.
His metal hand, cold and solid grabbed my jaw and he shoved his face into mine. With his human hand, he traced his fingers up the side of my face, and slid them through my hair. I summoned up any fluid I could from my parched mouth, and spat it in his face forcefully. He only grinned.
“How can you forget that night, your naked body against mine? Your desire so pure and intense, it took from me.” He pressed himself against my body.
It became difficult to breathe, to think.
“You wonder how the Shadow is a part of you. You, Ava, asked for it to come,” he said simply.
“You tricked me!” I shouted, feeling the heaviness of that mistake fall down on me repeatedly.
“I’ve said this to you before – I will take everything from you,” he said on a whisper as he turned my head to speak into my ear, and then sharply inhaled my scent.
“Let her go.” Troy stood at the entrance.
My body shuddered in cold and hot sweats. He stood in the doorway, fists clenched in hard, white balls of fury, his eyes bleeding into a distant, dark, midnight-ink. My blood ran ice into the pit of my stomach. He had heard everything. He now knew what I was, what I had done, and what I would become. I was a disease. The disease. I had ignited Enoch. I had killed the prophecy. Worse, I had ruined our destiny to be together. Turning my glare to the floor, I felt so ashamed knowing that he knew how I had welcomed the darkness which had ruined us, how I was becoming addicted to the shift. When I looked back up, his eyes clung to mine for answers, where I could give him none. I was fallen.
I took in every inch of all that was gorgeous – Troy, from his golden halo of hair, to his divine face, a perfect square jaw, his tender lips, and etched it all into my mind, my skin, my chest, and pushed it into my soul. In case I never got to see him again. This way, I would remember him with all of me. My salvation. Then I saw the wound in his side, no wonder I smelled him so fiercely. Troy’s eyes flickered from mine and pinned on Enoch, but Enoch only squeezed my jaw tighter and laughing, lifted me from the ground with one hand. I kept my eyes on Troy, I was no longer scared of what was to come, there was nothing left to lose. My clone emerged behind Troy, her hand reached for his. Troy registered this as if it was all new to him – who I was, and who she was. I guess seeing both of us in the same place at the same time, was a certainty. Enoch smiled, his grip slipped upon Troy’s next firm warning, but only to tightening around my windpipe. Troy stalked closer, his wound bleeding profusely, but still he held on to my clone’s hand. I knew he had too much to do. How could he keep her from shifting and save me without injuring himself any further?
“Troy,” I called for him.
His gaze collided with mine. I told him everything I wanted to say in just one stare. I had to. I was sure I was never going to get the chance ever again. When his eyes met mine, it froze everything, and I was with him for that moment.
This is love; when it feels like your insides are going to come out, so intense that it breaks all enchantments. The moment when we know that this was the closest two people could ever be. There was no touch and no words. In that moment, I knew him. He was beautiful, strong, gentle, solid and real. I wanted to let go because it was so strong. I thought it would kill me.
“I will not tell you again Enoch,” he threatened.
The itchy sensation crawling beneath my skin was building into a crescendo of clear, unadulterated anger, sharp and powerful enough to steal my breath. I was fighting the blood-shift with all I had. I was fighting for love. Looking into Troy’s eyes as they darkened upon his realization, the fire behin
d them was a look of solid madness. He was holding back too, but he was also paling by the second. We kept our eyes locked, waiting for the perfect moment. It was heartbreaking that this kind of damaging love was dangerous enough to move the most rigid hearts, the intensiveness turned my stomach. I closed my eyes, because I couldn’t stand that he was feeling this way too, especially after everything I had done. And because of that kind of deep love that burrowed itself into every inch of me, I was able to withstand every push Enoch forced on me. The shift was slamming against any restraint I could manifest. Enoch’s words pierced through me, burning their way into my head, seeking somewhere to slip in and slay me from the inside. I had ruined everything with one stupid mistake. And now it fell upon us all. “Hang on.” The words were clear, the voice unmistakable. Troy had found a way to push words into my mind. I felt a second wind take me and forced my lids open. Enoch was so close I could almost taste him, and I hated that. He was my mistake, he was my ruin, and I would not let it decay my hope. The Truth Seekers had come far, our kind had a way out. Troy’s pulse thumped inside me. We steadied each other with our rhythms, we connected through the distance between us. I felt him, we thought as one and it lifted me. Enoch looked from me to Troy and then back, grinning so wickedly it cut. He knew my weakness. My blood boiled, stomach churned, and anger flared white-hot through me. My skin tingled. The shift was coming. It all happened in slow motion; Troy lunged at us, sweat from his brow fell to the floor, his hand gripped his side when the flesh of his wound tore open as he closed in on us. I was watching everything slowly slip away. Enoch turned toward Troy, and his mechanical arm shot out whilst still holding me. Enoch snarled like a beast. Out of his mechanical arm, a short-handled spear escaped. It released a poison that splattered over the entire room as it spiraled through the air. Troy had missed the drops. I swayed in Enoch’s grip. I was having a hard time keeping the shift at bay, but when I saw my sister and Rion enter I screamed, “Get oooout!” as the poison took to the air around the twisting spear.
My eyes trailed the last of the poison’s spray as it landed on them both. I tried to kick Enoch as I dangled from his grip, but my legs were too short to reach. Troy slid to the floor moments before the tip planted itself in his heart. The spear sliced above his head and as he slid, he kicked Enoch’s feet from under him and slammed me with him. My breath left me as I thumped, chest first to the ground, my fingers desperately trying to twist the material out of his claws. But somehow Enoch managed to strike Troy when he was distracted by my well-being. Troy grunted getting to his feet again, his gray shirt a bloodied mess. His breath ragged and broken.
“I can wait for the moment you lose. It’s going to be the sweetest taste.” Troy grinned wickedly.
I pushed against the wall behind me and twisted out of Enoch’s grip, trying to take him down with me. I watched Troy take to the air as the force of Enoch’s bionic arm hit him right in the center of his wound. My vision flared crimson, and I found myself on top of Enoch clawing at his face like a ravening monster. Enoch simply stood and flung me from his back. I quickly found my legs again, ready to strike, when my very own clone came at me. All I could think about was that if she had poison on her, I didn’t want her to touch me. I managed to miss each punch, each claw grabbing for me. With Enoch so close, she did not have the ability to keep the Shadow from overpowering her. She had almost fully shifted when I managed a hard blow with a nearby iron tool to her head. I hated doing it, but she needed to go down. It was safer for her, and everyone else that way. Maya and Rion’s moans and grunts filled the tiny, gray, walled room followed by the clatter of metal tools slicing through air as they kept drones at bay. Enoch swore as Troy got a very good punch right in his mouth. Enoch spat dark blood. Looking up, I bit down harder on to an already clenched jaw. Enoch had Troy almost jammed into a wall, but it was what happened next that caused me to waver; I was just not strong enough to stomach it. From his mechanical arm, a gas excreted. I screamed and it echoed through my head, pounding into my chest. Blood rushed into all my extremities. Troy got a good solid uppercut to Enoch’s jaw, before he started choking on the deadly gas. Enoch stumbled back, released Troy to fall onto all fours, blood pouring from his mouth and nose. I rushed to Troy. When I touched him, my breath came away in golden wisps, twirling around my body and into Troy. I would heal him! Suddenly I was pulled back, slammed against something hard. My vision blurred, my flesh instantly bruised. My insides knotted together, and then froze as I stood watching it all fall to pieces. Troy’s heart was giving in.
“What did you do?” I screamed at Enoch as he found his balance.
I choked back searing tears, held my chest so tight, frightened it would cave in. The gagging and gargling noises coming from Troy turned my sanity, certain it would kill me. I ran at Enoch and slid between his legs before his arm punched down, missing my head by inches. I stood, kicking him in the back of the knee. I was going to rip his head off. Enoch stumbled, almost gave, but his metal arm came around and shoved me into the wall, threatening to crush me. Maya and Rion helped Troy from the floor. My clone got to her feet suddenly, but Maya held the clone in mid-air with only as much as a gaze. Rion pulled his dagger and flung it at Enoch, but he only gave the slightest twitch as it pierced his back. He laughed as his hand started to crush my windpipe.
Enoch shoved me closer to the wall. “You don’t listen too well. After today, you will have nothing left, and it won’t be my doing.”
My world spun upside down.
“Get him out of here!” I tried to shout. Troy wasn’t healing this close to me, his guardianship wouldn’t allow his powers to work when I was in the vicinity.
“We won’t leave you,” she shouted back, her eyes still focused on holding the clone locked in mid-air.
“I… am… coming,” I forced out.
They turned away with Troy dangling between the two of them. The clone dropped to the floor and looked back, her stare dark, yet there was something else – she was scared.
“Say your goodbyes.” I closed my eyes to the darkness.
Troy’s scream faded, but it was too late for him to bring me back. Darkness fell. Everything fluttered away like black ash.
I had to have faith. I was meant for light, and it would always pierce the dark. I would come back from the shift, I would beat the darkness – it was my providence.
“See you on the other side.” I exhaled into the reflection of my face on Enoch’s metallic shoulder plate, and released the shift. This time it flooded in, waves overpowering me, the power had me, pleased me, it was like taking a hit from something so sweet and numbing. I smiled as everything dulled over, and the black curtain of the blood-shift wrapped its shadow around me. At least there was no fear, and the shock on his face as Enoch registered what I was about to do in front of Troy was precious. But instead of the blood-shift it was something else, it took me with flashes of every single emotion, thought, feeling and sense I had ever had the grace to feel. For one second only, I bared my soul before it imploded, replaced by something hungry, and with a hollowness that nothing could fill. He thought I would never shift in front of anyone but him. The time had come, and I was ready to show Troy all of me, even if by then it was too late. Failure was all I had known and I let it all go, accepted that my actions had led to that moment, to me losing everything; the good and the bad. That moment was what Enoch had meant when he had said that he would take everything from me. I had just realized I would be the one that was the cause of my own destruction. And I would do it again, just to see to it that Troy was unharmed. The cold filled my heart. Unhinged from all reality, I drew in the shift. With dangling feet against the wall, I pushed against it taking Enoch with me and slammed into the opposite wall with the crushing of bones. My body moved of its own accord. I cartwheeled away from Enoch, picked up sharp tools from the floor, and kept them flying toward him as he descended upon me, his bionic arm shielding him from each sharp, glinting object. I ducked beneath his swing, but my hair ca
ught on the sharp metal cuff and with my downward movement it ripped, making me howl out in pain and rolling over on the floor. Crouching, I waited for him to come and get me, but noticed instead he was holding his ears. My scream was like a siren. Stones and dust engulfed us from above. He came at me once again, I spun, rolling off his back, punched into the wall and pulled out a sharp shard of rock as the wall obliterated beneath my fist. Time burned past in what felt like an eternity, and I drew in my last sober breath. I flew through the air, a handless cartwheel, my legs locked around Enoch’s neck. I flung him to the ground and shoved the shard into the side of his chest, unprotected by the bionic plate. I twisted the fragment, my blood dripping into his. He grinned, coughing blood. I looked up, took a sharp breath, and released all I had ever felt right into the spike pegged into him. As emotions raked through me, I felt it; the pain of anger, love, loss. It all rippled through me with sorrow and I released it all into him, unraveling it all. For the deceit – I stabbed him, for my anger – I stabbed, grief – I stabbed, for making me a fool – I stabbed, for my remorse, my death, my failures; stab, stab, stab. He would feel every last raw emotion I had ever had, the pleasure and displeasure of feeling. For Troy – I stabbed. I knew that because of the short time I had experienced feelings, the intensity was extreme, this was my design. If I had trouble as the White Devine to bear it, it was going to kill Enoch. The shockwave obliterated everything in its path. It felt so good as it released me. I watched dark smoke clash with golden light, a fire show of my inner turmoil. I was ready to give in, and in order for me to beat our kind I had to let go of everything. Yet, there something holding me back. Faintly, I heard Maya shout out and looking up, I barely registered they had all come back for me. As the shift started to dissipate, a surge hit me – I, once again, had the hollow numbness as my only companion when everything around me crumbled. I didn’t want to be this. This time, however, the shift used me, caught me off guard. A pulse-wave rippled through the air, and pushed everyone from their feet. I had no control! I didn’t mean to. Troy’s eyes pinned mine. The roof caved. I had tattered all of me. I had fallen to the Shadow.
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