Until Dawn: Last Light

by Simas, Jennifer Nicole

  My mind raced back to when we’d first met. There was always something about Alec, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He was so easy to trust – to love. It was as if there was some type of unspoken bond between us, pulling us together.

  “Is it what we are that makes us so attracted to each other, Alec?”

  “I like to think that it’s more than that,” he said, those gorgeous honey eyes warming me to the very core. “Our kind, we were made to fit together like pieces of a puzzle. We complete each other. I believe God created us as men and women to be companions. Forever is a long time, after all.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I breathed into the nook of his neck. He shivered. I loved evoking such a response from someone so hard.

  “You and I, we’re destined to be together, Zoë,” Alec whispered.

  His hands found the small of my back, coarse fingers slipping beneath the hem of my shirt. They rounded my narrow waist and slid up my ribcage, his thumbs stroking the lace bra, fueling the need within me. His lips met mine with lustful intentions. They traveled hungrily over my jaw and down my neck. His permanent five o’clock shadow scratched at the sensitive skin of my breast and my breath hitched. He must have taken that as a sign because his body began pushing mine toward the bed.

  I hit the brakes.

  “Alec, no.”

  I pulled away from him. I couldn’t lie to myself – it wasn’t easy. I was thoroughly intoxicated with his body, his masculine scent; the air of mystery that surrounded him. His caresses awoke things in me that I didn’t know existed. Words couldn’t express it. Everything about him captivated me, and I found myself believing that we were indeed destined to be together. I didn’t care how he knew that. Santa Claus could’ve told him and I’d still believe it. It felt good to be wanted.

  “What’s wrong?” His breath was hot on my neck as he reproached me. His hands slithered around my waist.

  You will look at me. I want to see those pretty eyes of yours.

  “Stop!” My voice echoed against the thin walls. Alec dropped his hands, watching me with careful eyes. I covered my face with my hands, shaking my head. “I’m sorry. I-I just can’t.”

  “You know I love you, right?”

  I nodded, still avoiding eye contact. I could feel where his hands had been, my flesh still tingling. “I’m not ready,” I whispered. My voice sounded so small, so human.

  Alec eased his arms around me, breathing me in. He ran a hand over the top of my head, his fingers tangling in my long hair. “You’re far from the monster you think yourself to be, Zoë. You’re the light of this world and I will see to it that you never burn out.” He smiled softly, kissing the palm of my hand. His scent consumed me, his taste still lingering on the tip of my tongue. He and I were right; we were one and the same. As he headed for the door, I wondered if I’d made a mistake turning him down.

  He opened the door and Josh was there with clenched fists, waiting for him. He grabbed Alec by shirt and shoved him up against the wall. “What did you do to her?” he growled.

  Before he knew what hit him, Josh was on his back, Alec hovering over him.

  “Leave him, Alec,” I ordered.

  Alec and Josh stared off, nostrils flaring. Alec finally stood up, straightening out his shirt. He kissed me hard on the lips, like he was trying to prove something. “Watch yourself, human,” he said as he stepped over Josh and headed into the living room.

  I rushed to Josh’s side. “What were you thinking?” I started. “He could’ve killed you.” I offered a hand to help him up. He didn’t take it.

  Josh pushed himself off the ground and grabbed my wrist, dragging me back into the bedroom. When the door clicked shut, he turned on me. “Are you alright? I heard you shouting. What did he do to you?”

  “Josh, I’m fine.”

  He stared at me for a long while, ice-blue eyes searching my face. Dark circles under his eyes told of his sleeplessness. His clothes were crinkled and his hair was messy in all the right places. Something was bothering him and I didn’t think it had anything to do with Alec and I being alone together.

  I plopped down on the edge of the bed, patting the spot beside me. He took his cue and sat down.

  “Protect me from what?” he finally asked, his eyes never straying from my face.

  “You don’t want to know. Trust me, Josh. Things will make sense soon.” I tried not to think about all the people that would soon die. Cindy and Tony, even Josh – they could just as easily be next. But, not me – I’d survive. I’d always survive. “Very soon,” I breathed.

  “Why can’t you tell me what’s happening? Silence isn’t protecting anyone,” he pointed out. That was true, it hadn’t done much good for me thus far.

  “Things are going to be changing. I guess ‘changing’ is kind of an understatement. A lot of people are going to die, and I mean a lot. The incidents on the east coast and in LA and around the globe are nothing compared to what’s to come,” I paused, taking a deep breath. “I’m talking total apocalypse.”

  He digested the information for a moment. “I should have told you about Samantha. It wasn’t right the way you found out. I’m sorry.”

  “You have no reason to apologize. You were right, you don’t have to tell me every detail of your life if you don’t want to. I haven’t really been forthright with you the past few years.”

  “I still should have told you. You and Tony have been the closest things to me for as long as I can remember. I should have known to tell you, I just…” he trailed off.

  “I can’t die,” I blurted, looking down at my hands as the smoothed out my pant legs for the tenth time.

  Josh shifted on the bed. His eyes were on me. I could feel them. “You don’t have to worry about that, I won’t let it happen. I can protect you. We’ll keep each other safe, just like we always have.” He got quiet. I peered up at him and saw the hurt on his face. “I failed you six years ago, Zo, but I’ll never let anything happen to you again,” he whispered.

  He sounded so sincere. The waves of emotion returned, crashing over me once more. Everything about him reminded me what it was like to be human.

  “No, Josh,” I sighed, “you don’t understand. I literally can’t die. My kind, we’re immortal. We don’t die. I haven’t aged since I was eighteen, since William took me away.”

  Josh went stiff, his shaky breath the only thing letting me know he was still alive. “And those other people?” he stumbled over his words, jabbing an unsteady thumb at the door.

  “They’re like me. William’s over a thousand years old. Alec’s well over five hundred. Jade’s been blessing the world with her sarcasm for just over three hundred, and Ryuu over two hundred and fifty. And Annie, well, she’s new. Our kind, we don’t die easily.”

  “And Tony?”

  “Don’t get me started on Tony.”

  Josh put a hand around my waist and leaned me into his body, my head resting perfectly against his solid shoulder. I could feel each breath he took, the sound of his heartbeat. He didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. He just held me. He held me the same way he did six years ago in a lonely hospital room, whispering that everything would be all right.

  There was a strict rule that night. Guys would stay in the hotel living room while the girls slept in the bedroom. As much as I hated the idea of sleeping in the same room as Samantha, it was better than the idea of her sleeping with Josh.

  –

  The roar of thunder shook me from my sleeplessness. The unfamiliar room lit up rhythmically with flashes of lightning. Rumble. One, one thousand. Flash. After each crash of thunder I counted seconds until lightning electrocuted the night sky. Another roll of thunder roared, rattling the windowpane. I tiptoed over Annie’s body and peeked out the blinds. I’d never seen it rain so hard.

  I slipped out of the bedroom, not wanting to wake Annie, Jade or the snoring Barbie. It had to be four or five in the morning. I walked through the pitch-black living room. It was ni
ce to know that my heightened senses came in handy sometimes.

  I flinched as a gust of wind screamed at the patio door. Lightning illuminated the dark room, disclosing the location of the three men. William and Ryuu were still M.I.A. I approached the glass door and pressed my right hand against it. It was as cold as ice, glazed over by a thick layer of frost, condensation leaching down its smooth surface. A chill traveled through my fingertips and into my body. I shivered.

  Thunderstorms had always terrified me and it seemed that that hadn’t changed much since my transformation. I shuddered each time the glass shook. When I was young, still living in Washington, my mother had five dogs that would hide under my bed during thunderstorms, howling in pain. I sympathized with them. Their sensitive ears cringed the same way mine did now.

  Another gust of wind and roll of thunder smashed into the door. I recoiled my hand. Eerie sounds traveled through the air ducts in the hotel walls, whistling a haunting tune. The sky lit up, black clouds turning to purple as a bolt of lightning struck the lone light pole illuminating the parking lot. Sparks fluttered through the air.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. My forehead tingled as I pressed it up against the glass. A shadow passed through a row of cars and disappeared once more. I flipped the tiny lock on the door and slid it open as quietly as I could, stepping out into the moist air.

  Water poured down as if the floodgates had just been opened. “Poured” didn’t quite do it justice; it was more like a monsoon. I peered through the haze of rainfall. Something slithered around the back end of an old pickup truck. I hesitated at the railing, fingers hovering over the cold steel.

  “That’s right, warrior. Come out, come out wherever you are,” a voice in the wind hissed. It was familiar. I was sure I’d heard it before.

  My hands made contact and I vaulted over the railing and into the parking lot. In a matter of seconds, I was drenched from head to toe.

  “Show yourself,” I demanded, scanning the dozens of parked cars.

  A horrible sound, like nails on a chalkboard, filled my ears. I looked behind me but no one was there. A long scratch was carved into one of the car doors. I backed into the center of the parking lot, the water reaching up past my ankles. A large black mass scurried over the vehicles. Car alarms sounded and my heartbeat quickened.

  “I bet you taste delicious.”

  Something licked at my neck and I turned fast. There was nothing there. I made a break for the nearest car, smashing my fist through the window. I grabbed the largest piece of glass in the pile, my blood splattering on the passenger’s seat.

  “Aren’t you a brave one?” the voice sneered. A long black tail tucked under one of the cars. “But, you weren’t always so brave, were you? Six years ago, in a dark parking garage?”

  I clenched the glass in my hand. Blood spiraled down my fingers and dripped into the pool of water at my feet.

  “Yes, I see it now,” it hissed. “You gave up. You begged for your God to give you death. Coward!”

  I grabbed my head. I could feel it crawling through my memories. “No!”

  “Not so brave after all, are you, warrior?”

  Something whipped out from under one of the cars, too fast for me to dodge. It slammed into the back of my legs, knocking me off my feet. I scrambled to my hands and knees, crawling toward the patio door, spitting out muddy rainwater. As I moved between vehicles, something moved along side of me, chuckling.

  Every fiber of my being was telling me not to look.

  I held my breath, turning my head. Red eyes peered out from the underbelly of the car, the same eyes that belonged to the beast I’d encountered in my bathroom. The head of a dragon and the body of a snake, long bat-like wings dragging across the pavement as the beast crept forward on short legs. Its elongated teeth glistened with saliva. It was hungry for blood. My blood.

  I scrambled onto my feet and backed into something hard. It took a breath. I spun on my heels, slicing at the creature with the jagged piece glass.

  Alec grabbed my wrist, stopping my hand mere inches from his face. “Whoa there. It’s only me.”

  Panting, I broke away from him, trying to put distance between the vehicles and me. I pointed at the ground but he obviously didn’t understand. He walked toward me. “Zoë, it’s okay.”

  “No, it was just there!” I shouted, throwing the bloody glass into the water. “I felt it in my head. It was there, it was real!”

  Just to prove his point, he bent down, checking under the rows of vehicles. “There’s nothing there.” He approached me with caution, pulling my wet body into his and leading me back into the hotel room.

  I glanced back over my shoulder, blood-red eyes peering out at me from the inside of a parked car. I thought I heard laughter.

  Once in the safety and warmth of the hotel living room, Alec grabbed a towel from the bathroom.

  He stepped back, taking in my accentuated curves as the clothes suctioned to my body. He smirked, hesitant to cover me.

  “Wouldn’t want you to get sick,” he murmured.

  His hands traveled over the thin towel, massaging away the moisture that had absorbed into my skin. Suddenly, without warning, he was wrapped around me, his body molding itself to mine. The kiss was uncontrolled, his lips hard against my mouth. He pushed me up against the wall, lifting me up so my legs wrapped around his hips.

  Someone cleared their throat behind us. I looked over Alec’s shoulder, startled to see Josh staring at us, his jaw clenched. But, it wasn’t Josh that cleared his throat. It was the bulky man standing in the doorway, rain dripping from his soaked clothes.

  “Get a room,” Jade hissed, slipping out of the bedroom. She hit the light, illuminating the small room. Was there anyone not watching our little show?

  “Gees, Fido,” Tony teased, still half asleep on the pullout sofa sleeper. “Hope you brought enough to share with the class.”

  Well, that answered that question.

  “Max,” Alec said, sounding relieved. “I’m glad you were able to find us.” Alec didn’t seem the slightest bit embarrassed as he released me to embrace the stranger. That shouldn’t have surprised me, we didn’t embarrass easily.

  “Well, I got your message late last night. Took me a few hours to get here from Sac. Traffic was ridiculous.” The man Alec called Max had a deep, masculine voice that I felt rumble all the way down to my toes.

  “Zoë, this is Max. He’s a shift, like Tony.”

  I half expected the two shifters to start conversing in some type of native language. Instead, they nodded to one another casually, as if it wasn’t unusual to run across others of their kind. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, I felt slightly cheated.

  “The storm is getting pretty bad out there,” Max stated the obvious, kicking the door closed with a muddy shoe. Before it could completely shut, it flung back at him, smacking him in the back of his shaved head. Max mumbled something obscene under his breath, stepping out of the way.

  William and Ryuu walked into the room, rainwater pooling at their feet.

  “It will not be long now,” William announced. “Gather what belongings you have. We must depart immediately.”

  “Zoë, I think it’s time for them to go as well. And I don’t mean with us,” Alec glared over his shoulder at Josh and Samantha. “I don’t trust them.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Josh declared, taking an intrepid step in our direction. “I’m staying right here with Zoë.”

  I thought I saw Sam snarl. She dug her well-manicured nails into Josh’s arm and yanked him back to her side.

  Josh locked eyes with me and I smiled weakly at him. I didn’t want him to leave me. I needed him. I had to protect him. And although I could care less about Samantha’s well being, Josh cared about her and I’d protect her just the same. That’s what friends were for, right? It was all about sacrifice.

  “Maybe we should see where your loyalty lies, human,” Alec sneered. He was in Josh’s face in a fracti
on of a second. Alec gripped my friend’s arm in his hand, Josh’s face twitching as he fought the pain. Just when I started to worry that he’d break the bone, Alec furrowed his brow and grunted, dropping Josh’s arm.

  “What did you see?” William asked.

  Alec glowered at Josh. “Nothing. I can see nothing. I can’t read him.”

  Josh held his ground as William approached him. He searched Josh’s eyes for a minute. “Interesting,” William started, walking a full circle around him. “Very interesting indeed.”

  “Perhaps the woman,” Alec said. He lunged at Sam. I snatched his arm out of the air, pulling him away from her before she even realized he was there.

  “Enough. The witch hunt is over, Alec,” I snarled. “They’re staying. Tony and I will take full responsibility for the both of them”

  William patted Alec’s shoulder. “Zoë is right. The humans may stay. I think they might prove useful to us. There is strength in numbers, after all.”

  The old hotel walls moaned and howled as they split open, the ground quaking fiercely with the rough tremors.

  “What’s happening?!”

  The lights flickered twice before darkness fell.

  Chapter Ten

  "Earthquake!”

  The humans stumbled around, blinded by darkness. Every few seconds, lightning illuminated the hotel living room. In the small kitchenette, cabinet doors opened and closed as the building shifted on its unstable foundation. Sam cried out as she tripped over the coffee table. My responsibility or not, I didn’t rush to her side. I figured that was Josh’s job. Besides, one little bruise on her flawless skin wouldn’t be the end of the world. No pun intended.

  The ceiling crumbled above us. I dodged large chunks of drywall, shoving Annie out of harm’s way. She obviously wasn’t as familiar with her abilities as the rest of us were. We had far more practice, especially the others. Hundreds of years’ worth of to be exact.

  Max rushed over, scooping her up in his arms with ease. “We can’t stay here,” he hollered over the roar of the Earth. “The building can’t take much more. Come on!”