Rise of Midnight

by SARA FREITES

  “Thanks for standing up for me,” I said to try lessening the growing awkwardness between us. “I appreciate it.”

  “It’s not a big deal. Just doing what I’m supposed to do, I guess,” he replied.

  “And thanks for the idea of the dress. I don’t know what I would’ve worn without it,” I admitted.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, then stammered, “You look...it looks nice on you.”

  I felt my face grow hot and tingly. I’ve never been good at taking compliments and especially never expected one from Blake.

  “Oh, wow. Thanks,” I said, quick and bashful.

  As the song continued, I felt him relax around me a little. My palms became clammy on his shoulders, and I felt his hands loosening up on my hips now. I let the side of my face lightly rest against his chest. There, I was shocked to hear a heartbeat. That, along with his warm skin, brought me comfort. To me, he was human, familiar in that sense. In the new life I was forced into with the vampires, I knew there would be more changes to come, but there was nothing except familiarity that could put me at ease. Blake was annoying and loud and reckless, but somehow I felt oddly safe there in his arms.

  I closed my eyes. With the song like a rhythmic lullaby, the moody lighting and the carousel of dancing people, I almost dozed off on him as we swayed to the music. I felt a subtle smile spread on my face.

  This is kinda nice, I thought. My eyes ripped back open, my smile fading. Wait, what the hell am I thinking? Stop it, I scolded myself.

  I lifted my head from his chest. As the song slowed to an end, so did my rambling thoughts. We parted.

  “Autumn!” a familiar voice called to me just before I could look up to see if Blake’s face had turned purple from holding his breath for so long.

  I spun, breaking our contact. Gemma popped up between two couples ahead of us and waved.

  “Come to the lobby!” she gleamed. “We’re about to leave!”

  I waved back to her, but as I started to ask Blake to come with me, I found he was already gone. I squeezed my way through the crowd after Gemma.

  “After this song, we will announce the prom queen and king!” a voice said over the speakers.

  Everyone around me cheered. An up-tempo song blasted through the speakers. When I left the ballroom, the fluorescent bulbs of the lobby blinded me.

  “Who was that cute guy you were dancing with?” Gemma asked and winked at me.

  “Uh…just a friend,” I faltered.

  I caught a glimpse of my prom group posing for a picture by the water fountain. Marcus, who held his phone up to take a picture, said something about how dumb one of the other guys looked. They all laughed as the flash on his phone went off. My eyes hunted around before I joined the group.

  “We were looking for you!” Jericho exclaimed.

  “Oh, Autumn! What happened to your dress?” Gemma droned and pointed at my waist.

  I’d already forgotten about it.

  “I spilled a drink. It’s okay,” I assured her.

  “Don’t worry about that. Come get in the last picture!” Jericho nodded me over.

  We huddled together like a group of colorful penguins. Marcus asked a student who passed by to take the picture.

  “Are you guys ready to go? I’m having fun, but I’m exhausted,” my sister yawned once the picture was taken.

  “Yeah, me too. Let’s head out,” Marcus announced.

  “I’ll call the limo driver,” Gemma volunteered and scrolled through her phone.

  Enthralled about the evening, I replayed moments of the night in my mind on the drive home. Even the worst of the memories weren’t so bad in hindsight. Blake had surprisingly made them tolerable.

  It was late when the limo parked in front of my house. Jericho and I waved goodbye to everyone while it pulled away. We went inside where Mom eagerly greeted us. When I hugged her, I noticed Dad sound asleep in the armchair, his buzzed head propped up against a pillow. The TV blasted just a few feet away from him. That and all the commotion we’d made coming in hadn’t disturbed him one bit. If an eighteen-wheeler crashed through the living room he probably would have slept right through it.

  “I’m going to bed,” I whispered to Mom. “These heels are killing me.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Jericho chimed in.

  “Okay, babies. Sleep tight,” Mom beamed.

  “Love you,” we both said to her.

  I kicked off my shoes, gathered the bottom of my dress and went with Jericho upstairs. We hugged, something Jericho and I never used to do. Our relationship had changed so drastically since Jacoby’s passing that I felt like I had a whole new sister. I’d never tell her that, though.

  I went to my room and closed the door. I could already see Blake’s eyes spearing through the windowpane and sheer curtains. At first glance, it was terrifying to see those little sunflower yellow orbs. I turned on the lamp and rushed over to pry the window open. Blake smiled out of the corner of his mouth. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Hey,” I greeted him.

  “Did you have fun at your little dance or whatever it’s called?” he asked.

  “Prom. Yes, I had a blast. Glad you came,” I said sincerely.

  His smile faded. He stared down at his hands, then his wild eyes moved to study my room. With him distracted, I let my eyes drift over him like two curious butterflies. They explored the surprising softness of his face and eyes, into the muscle crevices of his shoulders and arms. I stopped myself. And then, the phone conversation Eden and I had only hours before popped into mind. This made my stomach ached. My eyes bounced back and forth from the houses in the distance to the street in front of my house. My carefree environment and loving friends and family were all about to disappear forever.

  My eyes rose and met Blake’s. I ripped them away, embarrassed that he’d been watching me.

  “What are you thinking about?” he sort of laughed.

  I hesitated. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I forced myself to reply.

  “Do what?” he asked.

  I lifted my head and our eyes met again, this time under less awkward circumstances.

  “Eden called before the dance and said they’re closer to finding Arlos,” I began. “Which means I’m closer to losing everything.”

  Lightning cobwebbed against the clouds. It turned the sky into cracked shards of smoky black glass. A low rumble surfaced in the distance.

  “You want to take a walk?” he seemed to hesitate.

  I stared at him, unsure of his offer. I thought on it. “Yeah,” I answered. “That would be great. If it doesn’t rain.”

  “It won’t for a little while longer. Put some warmer clothes on first,” he advised and faced his back to the window to give me some privacy.

  “Warmer clothes?” I questioned.

  He peered back over his shoulder. “You’ll need an extra layer for what we’ll be doing.”

  His warning left me curious as he looked away. I turned out my bedroom lamps and threw on a hoodie and a pair of faded jeans. I laid the dress on my bed. Broken-hearted, I eyed the massive stain that ran down to the hemline.

  “Are you ready?” Blake asked over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, just a sec,” I stalled.

  When I went back to my bed to grab my wallet and phone from my purse, the dress had vanished. In its place sat the sweetheart satin top I’d sacrificed for the spell to work, along with the peony, now wilted, atop it. I reveled over it before easing myself through the window.

  “Let’s go,” Blake said quietly.

  “You never said where we’re going,” I reminded him.

  “I know,” he replied with a smirk.

  “Wait, what about Thade’s men?”

  “They’re a little further out tonight. Eden has them checking on some weird activity going on just outside of the city,” he explained.

  “Uh oh,” I shuttered.

  “I don’t think it’s anything serious,” he assured me. “They’ve be
en out there for a good minute, but Eden has kept them out there a little longer, a ploy to keep them away for the rest of the night so you could go to your dance. You can thank her for that later.”

  “Oh, I definitely will,” I grinned.

  He scooped me up into his arms, and as if we’d shot from the barrel of a gun, we blew across the sky. I lost my breath. He landed gracefully on my neighbor’s roof.

  “Sorry. It’s called roof-bounding,” he told me.

  I‘d heard that term used several times by now. It never dawned on me that the vampires traveled by rooftop to avoid being seen. Roof-bounding, as I soon learned, was a lot like free-running, only a far more extreme version of it and performed much higher up.

  “We’re doing this all the way downtown?” I asked wide-eyed.

  “For the most part. It’ll be fun. I promise,” he assured me.

  Fun, yes, but also extremely terrifying. It felt like my heart stopped every time we left a rooftop. The fear of being dropped never left my mind. My stomach tied itself into knots as we moved from two-story house rooftops to the tops of skyscrapers. I forced my eyes straight ahead, away from the ledges and streets far below while the wind blew in my face. The sky was perfectly lucid ahead of the storm front with the stars fully visible. But in the distance, the storm loomed like a slow-moving cloud of smoke.

  The city itself was like a grid of never-ending lights. It stretched to the horizon with a handful of buildings standing taller than the rest like dark and motionless titans over the city. The city lights cast their bright colors all across the lakefront, the surface of Lake Michigan, turning it into a darkened foggy mirror of wavering reflections. Blake had been right about the temperature. With the wind teetering between refreshing and uncomfortable, I actually wished I’d worn my puffy white coat instead of a hoodie.

  At one point in our journey, we dropped from a building into a vacant alleyway. Blake set me down and led me to the street with me shivering the whole way. I stopped and pulled him back into the shadows of the alley as a couple passed by.

  “You left your sunglasses, didn’t you?” I asked him, noticing his obviously glowing eyes.

  “Yes,” he admitted and put a hand up to his eyes to hide the glow.

  “Just keep your eyes down and don’t look at anyone directly,” I advised.

  “Okay,” he said.

  I guided him back onto the sidewalk. There didn’t seem to be as many people out for a Saturday night as I’d expected, but this part of town was normally dead anyway. We walked down to Fifth Street, which was far busier. I didn’t look at another street sign the rest of the night as we became lost in conversation. Blake showed me some scary alleyways that I dared not walk down, even with him at my side. He also pointed out some of the oldest buildings, telling me the ghost stories he’d heard about them. In fact, he knew more about some of the buildings than I did, and I’d lived in Chicago all my life. My favorite ones were the old derelict buildings only because they looked like they were taken right out of a post-apocalyptic movie—the roofs caving in, the walls cracked and crumbling apart like a wet sand and everything inside hollowed out by erosion, some by fire.

  When Blake ran out of old buildings to show me, we kept walking. He asked me to tell him about school. I told him about my classes, my closest friends and about my family, but I refrained from bringing up my brother. Maybe one day I’d be able to talk about Jacoby without teary eyes, but for now, I kept the conversation light and airy. I asked Blake about the Sanctum, how everything was going for him so far. He appeared to enjoy his time as a recruit for Thade’s clan.

  “What kinds of things is he training you on?” I asked.

  “Mostly fighting techniques,” Blake explained. “I know how to fight. It’s instinct for me, but he’s trying to teach me how to direct my energy a little better.”

  I giggled. “You know how to fight?” I teased.

  “I can hold my own,” he said with a grin.

  “Sure.”

  “You say that now. One of these days, I might have to save you from some haviden,” he returned the tease.

  I playfully nudged him with my elbow. Used to his standoffish personality, joking around with him made me feel a little nervous. Watching him smile and be so approachable definitely felt weird.

  “We’ll see who can kick more haviden ass when I’m a vampire.” I puffed up, trying to make light of the situation.

  But instead of making me feel better, it made me feel a little nauseated—way too soon for me to joke about it.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he teased me.

  We passed the Red Emerald, and I was reminded of the night I was abducted by the havidens. I was so scared and confused that night. If someone told me I’d walk down the street having a casual conversation with a being like one almost two months later, I never would’ve believed it.

  “What’s Thade doing tonight?” I wondered aloud.

  “He took his son on a hunt,” Blake answered. “Garrett hasn’t been consuming enough blood these past few days, and it caused him to fall into a blood-rage. It’s a good thing you don’t live there right now. That guy truly thinks he’s a vampire or something. Someone like him can’t go for more than a day without feeding.”

  “And you didn’t go on the hunt with them?” I asked and wheeled around with a frown. “You better go catch up with them. I don’t want to see you fall into another one of those blood-rages again.”

  “I don’t have to feed like the others,” he informed me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I feed once every six months or so.”

  “But I thought—” I began, but my attention was instantly drawn away. “Oh! I can’t believe that store is open this late!”

  A small boutique caught my attention. I’d been inside several times with friends but never bought what I’d always had my eye on—a butterfly pendant on a glimmering and thin adjustable snake chain hanging by the register. It taunted me from behind the glass every time I came in. This simple pendant, only a dainty silver outline, intrigued me. This time, if it still hung there, I'd buy it.

  “I’m going in for a second to buy something,” I told Blake. “Do you want to come? Oh, wait. You better stay out here with those eyes of yours,” I retracted my invitation.

  “Okay,” he gestured for me to go ahead of him.

  “I’ll be right out,” I promised.

  A raindrop hit my arm. I’d forgotten about the coming storm.

  “I’ll be on the rooftop until you come out. We should leave after this before it starts raining,” he suggested.

  “Afraid you’ll melt?” I teased.

  “No. I’m afraid you will.”

  “Get out of here,” I mumbled playfully and shooed him away.

  He disappeared into the nearest alley, scaling the wall. I darted inside the boutique and briskly made my way to the counter. I spun the necklace display around slowly to study every glistening piece of jewelry inside, searching for the one I wanted.

  “Hi!” the store clerk greeted me after she appeared from the back.

  “You’re open late tonight,” I observed.

  “We’re having a midnight sale. We close at 1:00 tonight,” she told me.

  “Oh, okay! Well, I came to buy this!” I exclaimed while pointing at the necklace in the case. It had been moved from its usual hook.

  “I’ve had a few girls come in here looking at that necklace,” the clerk told me. “It’s half off tonight, too. You got lucky.” She pulled the necklace from the case.

  I paid while listening to the rain, thanked the woman and headed back outside.

  “Hope you enjoy it!” she called after me.

  I waved and dashed out into the storm. Blake was nowhere in sight. Through the now pounding rain, I searched the edges of nearby buildings. I ducked under the boutique’s overhang and slipped the necklace over my head. I adjusted the chain to choker length, and this left the little butterfly resting in the valley of my collarbone as if it
had been carved out just for that pendant.

  A voice whispered something from the nearest alleyway. I started toward it, calling Blake’s name. I rounded the corner but found that no one was there. I faced the street again. This time, a man stood in my way. I knew instantly by his posture that this man wasn’t Blake. He tilted his head at me. His shoulder-length hair brushed over his collarbones.

  “Excuse me,” I said apologetically.

  I tried walking around him, but he moved in my way. Lightning flashed. I caught just a glimpse of his arms—black veins against muted bluish skin. I jumped back, losing my balance. He took hold of me and reeled me into him. I couldn’t make out what he looked like in the gloominess, but I panicked when his eyes, like thick rings of spilled blood in the snow, gleamed backed as he moved me deeper into the shadows.

  “Hey! Let me go!” I shouted.

  “Is that her, Vex?” a voice boomed.

  “Can’t you tell by her aura? We need to get rid of her,” the one named Vex ordered as his grip on me tightened.

  “You know, I hear Arlos is searching for her,” the man who remained hidden said. “He will be angry if we kill her.”

  “So?” the red and white-eyed man questioned. “Since when do you care how Arlos feels? Are you afraid of him or something? Scythe, Arlos is a fool. He underestimates her. He knows she is a danger to him, yet he thinks he can control her. He is in this for power. He’s putting his life, as well as ours, at risk by letting this girl live. She can stop us from getting back to hell, possibly even follow us there. Don’t you realize that? We cannot allow her to live. Now, hurry up and do it. The vampires might catch on to our presence in the city soon. We still need to confiscate the other dagger from Arlos before we can leave this earth.”

  I felt a sharp pain in my lower back, but only for a second. I tried ripping my arm from the man named Vex with the snow and blood-colored eyes, but he held me tight.

  “Nothing happened,” the one called Scythe snorted and came into view under a wall lamp.