by Jenna Black
“Aleric says my dad is still alive.” It was a total lie—Aleric had told me no such thing—but I knew it would keep Luke talking, at least for a while.
The look on Luke’s face softened, and his voice came out gentle as he said, “You and I both know that’s a lie. There was no way he lived through that.”
“I was sure Piper couldn’t survive after I shot her.” Luke winced at the reminder, and I realized I probably could have been a little less blunt—and a little more remorseful-sounding—about it.
Then again, Luke knew I didn’t feel bad about it, so what was the point of pretending?
“She wouldn’t have survived if she hadn’t gotten lucky,” he said. “From what I hear, her heart stopped a couple of times on the way to the hospital. But I don’t think there’s any chance your dad could have survived even if he’d gotten immediate medical attention.” He frowned as if he’d just caught up with the conversation. “Wait a minute. Why do you even care?”
Oops. He was right, and if Aleric had told me my dad was alive, I’d have been happy to hear it, but wouldn’t exactly be dwelling on it. Nor would I feel the need to tell Luke about it. But I was committed to the story by now, so I stuck with it.
“I just do,” I said. “I mean, I’m not going to start weeping and pulling my hair out or anything, but I would prefer it if he was alive.”
Luke nodded. “Piper was right, then.”
“About what?”
“She said you weren’t really suited for the night. She said you probably weren’t as Nightstruck as the other Nightstruck.”
She was probably right, though I wondered if she’d have felt the same way if she’d seen what I let happen to Stuart. “I’m still a creature of the night now,” I said, putting my hand against the invisible barrier that kept me trapped in the darkness. “I know that if I hadn’t been Nightstruck, I wouldn’t want to be here. But I was Nightstruck, and even if I’m not as suited to it as the rest, the last thing I’d want to do was go back to how I was before.”
It was true. I wasn’t on some kind of continuous high like most of my fellow Nightstruck, and Aleric was getting on my last nerve, but my life was a hell of a lot better here and now than it had been before. I would never admit it out loud, and I planned to hold a grudge against Piper until the day I died, but I was glad she’d helped Aleric trick me.
Luke startled me by reaching out and wrapping his strong fingers around my wrist. I tried to pull away, but he didn’t let go.
“Stop it!” I said, jerking my hand back. “You’re not safe inside the square.” I pointedly stared at his hand, which had crossed into the square’s perpetual night. I hadn’t seen or heard any constructs following me, but by crossing the plane, Luke had apparently triggered some kind of alarm. There was a chorus of growls and howls and hisses from the darkness behind me.
Instead of letting go, Luke reached over the border to grab my other arm.
“What are you doing?” I shouted, once again jerking backward. Not that I had any hope of freeing myself. Luke was way stronger than me. “You’re likely to lose any body part that’s on this side of the border.”
Luke didn’t answer me. His eyes practically glowed with intensity, and his chin was set at a determined angle. He pulled on my wrists, hard, and I slammed into the invisible barrier. The impact knocked my breath away, and I could only gape at Luke.
“Sorry,” he said. “But I talked this over with Piper, and she thinks it might work, so it’s worth a try.”
Thought what might work? I was too stunned and breathless to ask the question. Still holding on to my wrists, Luke jerked backward again. It felt like he was pulling me into a thick pane of glass, one that refused to break. I tried to free myself from his grip, but I wasn’t going anywhere unless he let me go.
I was pressed hard against the barrier, and when he jerked on me, my forehead slammed into it and I saw stars. My knees went wobbly and refused to hold me. I was sure that would convince Luke to let go.
He didn’t. Instead, he leaned his body over the border so he could wrap his arms around my waist for a better grip.
“I know I’m hurting you, and I’m sorry,” he said, his lips intimately close to my ear. “But I have to try.”
I made an incoherent sound of protest and tried to pry his fingers open. The roars and snarls were getting closer, as was the sound of metal hooves and paws pounding like hammers on the pavement. Fifteen or twenty yards away, Leo catapulted out of the darkness.
“Let go!” I screamed at Luke. Bad enough he’d put his hands over the border—he would at least survive if he lost those—but now his whole upper body was on the wrong side.
He lurched backward, and my entire front slammed into the invisible wall. My nose crunched, and pain exploded in my head. I could feel the pounding vibrations of Leo’s paws on the pavement, hear the hissing of the snakes in his mane. Luke was going to get himself killed trying to save me when I didn’t even want to be saved.
And still the idiot kept pulling, smooshing me against the barrier. I turned my head sideways so my throbbing nose was no longer taking the worst of it. I realized my nose had to be bleeding, though everything hurt too much for me to feel it. The bleeding had been caused by my own friend, someone not affiliated with the night, and I feared that meant the blood might have power. I was seriously considering donating some blood to summon another Night Maker, but if I did it, it would be on my own terms, when I was ready.
It hurt more than I can describe, but I buried my face in the bunched-up shoulder of my coat, hoping all the blood would be absorbed into the fur and not land on the pavement. Leo was so close I was sure his venomed stinger would whip past my ear and into Luke’s chest any second now. I was half-smothering myself in my own coat, and my eyes were watering with pain, but I both felt and heard Luke sliding his legs past the barrier, one on each side of me. He planted his booted feet firmly on the pavement, then gave a tremendous heave, pushing with all the strength of his legs.
A thousand knives pierced my body from head to toe. I tried to scream, but there was no air in my lungs. My vision went black as those thousand knives ripped through my flesh and bones, flaying me alive and then setting me on fire for good measure.
And then the worst of the pain stopped and I collapsed in a groaning, crying, barely breathing heap. In a patch of warm, bright sunshine.
CHAPTER TEN
The moment I realized what Luke had done, that he’d somehow dragged me kicking and screaming back into the light, was the worst moment in my entire life. Every ugly, awful, painful emotion that had felt so comfortably distant when I was Nightstruck came rushing back in, hitting me with the force of a tidal wave, a Mack truck, and a sledgehammer all at once.
Images of my dad’s dead body, bloody and torn and limp, being dragged away by Piper’s minions filled me, the grief suddenly fresh and sharp as if it had happened yesterday. Then I remembered Piper collapsing to the pavement in the square, her hands clasped around a gunshot wound in her abdomen. It had been night when I shot her, but in my memory the blood that welled from the wound and streaked her hands was a brilliant, accusatory red.
Thanks to being Nightstruck, I hadn’t had to live with what I’d done, and now all those wonderful layers of protection were gone.
Close on the heels of those memories were images of the Night Maker entering the square through the gate Aleric made with my blood, of Stuart’s body after Leo was done with him—and of his agonized screams while I stood idly by and watched him being brutalized for my amusement. The worst part was knowing Aleric had done it because he believed I’d enjoy it, and I’d let it happen because he’d been right. In some dark corner of my mind I never wanted to peer into again, I had wanted Stuart to suffer for what he’d done to me as a child.
I curled up on the pavement in fetal position, wailing incoherently. There were voices talking to me, and the constructs in the square were all howling and snarling with rage, but I didn’t care about any of tha
t. When I felt hands on me, I kicked and flailed until they went away.
I got up on my hands and knees and lurched toward the entrance to the square, too mindless to realize—or care—that merely getting back inside the square wouldn’t be enough to make my demons go away. For that, I would have to be Nightstruck again, and the only way to do that was to be outdoors at dawn.
I doubted I could have made it into the square anyway, but the moment I started to move that way, a crushing weight landed on my back, pushing me into the pavement and pinning me so thoroughly I couldn’t move. I let out a shriek of fury, struggling like some wild thing, but I couldn’t get free.
My litany of horrors wasn’t over. While the grief and the guilt still battered at my fragile psyche, I had yet another vivid memory that threatened to make me go mad. I remembered the glittering triumph in Aleric’s eyes as he lay on top of me and took the virginity I freely offered him. Bile rose in my throat, and it took every scrap of my willpower to keep my gorge down.
I’m not some medieval maiden whose virginity is her most prized possession, nor did I feel like losing it made me a slut. But for the rest of my life, I would have to deal with the fact that my first time had been with a guy who was evil to his core and wasn’t even human, no matter what he looked like.
My gorge rose again, and this time I couldn’t keep it down. I puked all over myself and the insanely expensive fur coat I had stolen because I’d somehow felt entitled to have it just because I wanted it.
I was making quite the spectacle of myself, and a small crowd had gathered around me. They must have been some brave people to come that close when the creatures of the square were going apeshit. I don’t care if you know the creatures can’t get out during the day—they are terrifying, and no one in their right mind would want to get anywhere near them. I didn’t remember seeing anyone on the street or sidewalk when Luke grabbed me, which probably meant they all thought I was just some random girl having a very public nervous breakdown.
Someone pulled my hair away from my face, though I doubted they’d gotten to it before I’d fouled it. Someone else patted my back comfortingly, and I no longer had the energy to bat that hand away. My vision was blurred with tears, my throat burned, my mouth tasted vile, and my nose was throbbing steadily to the frantic beat of my heart.
A strong pair of arms slid behind my shoulders and under my knees, and suddenly I was off the pavement. I knew it had to be Luke who’d picked me up, and I was vaguely aware of him making soothing cooing noises as if I were some frightened stray he was trying to rescue, but I was far too miserable to care. I closed my eyes tightly and prayed that I would soon wake up from this mother of all nightmares.
I didn’t open my eyes when Luke slid into a car with me cradled on his lap, nor did I respond when I heard Luke’s mom say my name. I presumed Luke had called her while I was having my fit of hysterics, and she had rushed to come get us.
I thought they were going to take me to the hospital—or at least to a psych ward somewhere—but somehow I’d forgotten that Luke’s mom was an emergency room doctor herself. When we got to Luke’s house, she had Luke carry me into the guest bedroom where I had spent many a night. She rattled off a list of supplies she needed, and then when he brought them to her, she shooed him away.
I wasn’t exactly calm by now, and if left on my own I probably would have crawled under the bed to hide in the dark, but I was no longer a raving lunatic. When Dr. Gilliam asked me gently to take off my coat, I did so without any help from her. I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with her, so I mutely slid the coat off and handed it to her while staring fixedly at the floor.
Dr. Gilliam dipped a washcloth into a basin of water, tipping my chin up and dabbing at the blood and puke that were drying on my face. I still couldn’t handle eye contact, so I closed my eyes as the warm, wet cloth cleaned the filth from my skin.
“Are you hurt anywhere else that I can’t see?” Dr. Gilliam asked.
My psyche was one gaping, bleeding, festering wound, but I didn’t suppose she had anything in her medicine cabinet to fix that. I shook my head. Dr. Gillian probed the area around my nose and promptly pronounced it broken.
“There’s not much I can do for it, I’m afraid,” she said. “We’ll put some ice on it to help with the swelling, and I’ll give you some ibuprofen for the pain, but other than that we’ll have to wait for it to heal on its own.”
Like I gave a shit about a broken nose under the circumstances. I was back to being my old self again, however, so I kept my opinion to myself as Dr. Gilliam fetched me a bag of ice. Touching the ice to my throbbing nose was pure agony, but I firmly believed I deserved it. I might not have personally killed anyone while I was Nightstruck, but I was unquestionably responsible for at least one death, and I had done plenty of other things that were going to be hard to live with. And the worst part of it was that while I could blame my actual actions on the effects of being Nightstruck, the person I had become hadn’t been made up out of whole cloth. She had come from inside me, was in actuality a part of me. Just knowing I had that inside me somewhere was almost unbearable.
Dr. Gilliam sat on the bed beside me. I liked having her beside me instead of in front, because that made it easier not to look at her without feeling like I was being rude.
“Becket, honey,” Dr. Gilliam said, “I know this is going to be an uncomfortable question, but I have to ask for your own good. Is there any chance you might have become pregnant or picked up an STD while you were Nightstruck?”
I flinched, because yup, that was an uncomfortable question all right.
“You have to know I won’t judge you,” she continued. “You’re not responsible for anything you did while you were Nightstruck. I just need to know if there might be something we need to treat you for. We’ll do it discreetly, of course. And don’t you worry about Luke—anything you say to me is going to be strictly confidential.”
I realized she was already convinced I’d had sex, probably with multiple anonymous partners. It was a reasonable conclusion to draw, considering how promiscuous the Nightstruck were. If I tried claiming I was still pure as the driven snow, she’d never believe me.
I cleared my throat before I spoke, but even so my voice came out weak and scratchy. “The only guy I was with was Aleric.” I kept staring at the floor, wishing I could disappear into it. “He’s not human, so I don’t think I could have gotten pregnant or … caught something.”
“We should probably do some tests just to be sure,” Dr. Gilliam said. There was no hint of judgment or disapproval in her voice, and I knew she was suggesting it because she wanted to protect me from any potential consequences. I was almost 100 percent positive it wasn’t because she didn’t believe me.
I didn’t know what kind of tests would be involved, but I knew I wanted no part of them. “I’m sure,” I said.
“You said you don’t think you—”
“I’m sure!” I said more firmly and nerved myself up to meet her eyes. “Aleric isn’t human. When I shot him, he didn’t bleed. He can’t carry blood-borne diseases or make me pregnant if he doesn’t have blood.”
“But he has magic,” she reminded me. “Are you really so sure what he is and what he’s capable of?”
Of course I wasn’t. “No tests,” I said. I hoped she couldn’t force me to get tested, but since she wasn’t even my legal guardian, I doubted she could.
* * *
“Luke says you tried to get back into the square after he pulled you out,” Dr. Gilliam told me after she was finished with her examination and pronounced me basically whole. She said it cautiously, and although I wasn’t yet up to making any sustained eye contact, I was very aware of how she was looking at me, with great intensity and scrutiny.
I shuddered at the memory and wished it would all become an indistinct blur. But the visceral physical sensation of being ripped from the darkness was very real and vivid, and I had no trouble remembering my desperate attempt to escape from the
realities that had come crashing down on me. Even now, I thought about the emotional distance I’d had as a Nightstruck with a sharp longing that made my chest ache.
I started when I realized why Dr. Gilliam had brought it up and hurried to reassure her. “It was just a shock. Being pulled out and suddenly … feeling everything again. I panicked. But I’m not going to go running back to the night the minute you turn your back.” I hugged myself and shivered. I hated everything I was being forced to feel right now, but I knew I was back where I belonged. If somehow I went back and became Nightstruck again, I knew I would eventually end up letting more Night Makers into the city and getting more people hurt and killed. Now that I was back in my right mind, I could never allow that.
I shuddered violently as I remembered seeing the darkness growing from my blood. I don’t think I’m a particularly naive person, but how had I not seen at the time that I was giving Aleric exactly what he wanted—and that he’d keep pressing me for more? I’d been considering the possibility of summoning another so I could have my house back. I wondered what excuse Aleric would have tried next, but whatever it was, it probably would have worked.
I gasped, dropping my bag of melting ice and jumping to my feet as my mind continued following the trail I’d just set it on. “What time is it?” I cried, forgetting my reluctance to make eye contact as I grabbed Dr. Gilliam’s arm.
Her eyes widened, and I could see she was fearing for my sanity. I suppose it did seem like an odd question to ask with such urgency at that moment.
“What’s the matter, honey?” Dr. Gilliam asked. She was back to using that frightened-animal-handling voice of hers.
I sucked in a deep breath to calm myself so I could talk without making her think I was a raving lunatic. “He’s not just going to let me go. Aleric, I mean. He’s going to come looking for me the moment the sun goes down, and this’ll be the first place he looks.”