Eyes in the Darkness (The Coveted)

by Ripley Proserpina

  It moved through me. Kelly could be bratty, difficult. Oliver was overconfident because he covered his pain. Aaron wore his insecurity because it made others more comfortable, he was perfectly aware of how smart he was. Colton had to wear his façade like it was his fucking job thanks to the rest of the world’s expectations. Thorn had wavered, but that was because he didn’t want to disappoint anyone.

  And me? I’d done just what I should do. I’d become exactly what everyone expected me to be. I’d gone cold inside.

  Or at least I used to be.

  The girl in the legend, she’d called upon the darkness to put him to sleep. I had all the tools. The incense was here to knock him out. The circle to keep him out. My blood, I’d added that myself. Blood had started this, blood would end it.

  The good news was I didn’t have to look hard for the darkness. It was always with me. It lived inside of me, in my soul. Slut. Stupid. Poor. Loser. He doesn’t want you—he never could.

  Erdirg created the circumstances of my existence, but I stepped right the fuck into it. I knew darkness, because right then, I was the darkness.

  I stepped out of the circle. I wasn’t afraid of him. Not even a little bit. “Most children revel in the love of their family and friends. They know how to exist in a state of adoration. They have it from the moment they are born. People look at them with love.” I shook my head. “I haven’t a clue how to be that person. I don’t know if my parents loved me. I think my mother did, but I can’t feel it anymore. I don’t know how to accept that kind of emotion. Everything in me pushes against it. I have to fight to feel what should be easy. People who love me have to practically hit me over the head to feel it. That’s because where I exist? Where you put me? It’s dark and it’s ugly. Guess what? I’m good at this.”

  His face changed. He wasn’t Thorn. He wasn’t any of them. No, the demon wore his own shape as he stared at me. “What is this?”

  I stared at him, letting my disgust and revulsion show through my expression. He was horrifying.

  And pathetic.

  Thin to the point of emaciation, Erdirg could barely stand straight. He was tall, but so hunched I came to his chin.

  “You’re nothing to me,” I said, and even to my ears, my voice was dead. “You made me feel like nothing. I believed I was nothing. The only thing I feel for you is hatred. And pity.”

  His ugly face twisted, revealing broken, rotting fangs and a black tongue. “You love me. You’re mine.”

  I laughed. “Yours?” My whole life, people spoke to me with barely veiled contempt. I let him feel the full force of it now. “No. You made certain I could never be anyone’s. And I’ll never ever belong to something as easily defeated as you.”

  All those emotions that swirled inside me, that had built like pressure inside a volcano, erupted with my declaration. I wanted Erdirg dead. I wanted him smothered and alone, just like I had been.

  The darkness flew out of me, blacker than night, and covered the creature who had given me this power. It surrounded him, blotting out any sign of him as it rushed like the wind across the desert.

  He gave a cry, but the darkness pulled him away too fast, and it quickly faded.

  Weak-kneed, I dropped hard to the ground, staring at the place far off in the distance. He was gone.

  A weight lifted off my shoulders, and my chest opened up, like I’d had something constricting me and hadn’t even realized it.

  He was gone.

  Really and truly.

  And I was alone.

  Twenty-Four

  As I sat in the dirt, shivering as night fell and the desert cooled, my mind struggled with what had happened.

  Everything everyone said about me, that I was bad and dark. It had been true. That darkness had been the thing that destroyed Erdirg.

  But it had been too little too late to save the people I cared about.

  I had no doubt that The Chees, Aaron and Oliver, Kelly, Colton and Thorn, were dead. Erdirg had to have killed them. My heart ached thinking about the terror they felt.

  Those guys had become my best friends. Yes, Thorn had been there since I was little, but it wasn’t until he returned with Colton that we dropped all pretenses and became the people we’d always hidden from each other. With those guys, I’d been myself. And they’d accepted me.

  Now they were gone.

  It took all of my concentration and strength to stand. I didn’t know how long I’d sat there, but my muscles were tense, almost frozen in place. I groaned as the blood rushed from my core out to my fingers and toes, making them itch and burn.

  The wind blew sand across my face, into my eyes and mouth. It shrieked like it was alive, but it didn’t frighten me. Turned out the scariest thing in the desert was me.

  I managed to pull myself up. I should have been crying. Weeping. Yelling at the top of my lungs, but I had nothing. I was done, spent. Empty.

  And I was glad for it, because the pain of losing an innocent family, Oliver, Aaron, Thorn, and Colton was too much for one person to bear. My thoughts were slick and sluggish as I stared at the incense. The amethyst. Oliver’s bag. I reached for it, pausing to examine the cut. My hand had stopped bleeding, and I wiped it over the knee of my jeans.

  What was I supposed to do now?

  An entire family and two of the town’s favorite boys were dead. Erdirg was gone. There would be nothing to stop the police from coming after me now, and I didn’t care. Nothing could hurt worse than having lost everyone I cared about.

  As I trudged toward the truck, a memory crossed over my mind like wind blowing across the back of my neck.

  It was the gym, and the closet where Colton and I had hidden out the afternoon that I’d forgotten. It had been right near where the janitor was killed.

  That had to be significant somehow. Trust your instincts. That was what Oliver had told me, and then Colton, Thorn, and Aaron had hammered it into my head. If I was seeing that closet, then there was a reason for it.

  I had nothing to lose except more hope.

  What if… what if Erdirg hadn’t killed everyone? What if that story from so long ago, the one about the girl who’d put him to sleep the first time, had stuck with him and rather than kill everyone, he’d put my people to sleep?

  I’d asked Erdirg to not kill them when I told him I was coming. He’d spared Colt and Thorn for me once. Was it possible he’d done that for me? Trapped them somewhere?

  The day had faded. It was dark, and I’d hardly noticed. But I wasn’t worried, because as I’d just shown Erdirg, I was just as comfortable when the light was gone. I didn’t have a lot of redeeming qualities, but if somehow I could find them—all of those who were missing because of me—then I would do so.

  A horrifying but real possibility occurred to me: if they weren’t alive, then I’d bring their bodies home.

  I jumped in Oliver’s truck. Why did it always come back to the high school? Truly, it was where all nightmares began and ended for me.

  The high school was closed, long locked up for the night. We’d all be back tomorrow for another day of hell. It wasn’t lost on me that the principal ranked among my problems when Erdirg showed them to me. He was a real piece of shit.

  My list of sins was long, so I didn’t even pause as I drove over the curb, across the grass to the back of the school, right up to the gym doors. I hurried to the doors and gave them a hard shake, but they were locked.

  I considered, briefly, running the truck through the doors, but that would only alert the police. What if I called the cops? But they’d never helped me before, why would they help me now?

  Yanking open the back door, I studied the floor of Oliver’s truck, searching for something to break the glass and get into that school. In the dim light from the dome, I peered under seats and opened bags. I’d almost given up when my fingers touched a cool metal cylinder.

  A car jack.

  Finally. A win.

  I was getting in that building.

  Half of the
door was metal, but the other half was glass. I pulled my hand back and let it fly. Like a windshield, it spidered, but didn’t shatter. I took off my sweatshirt and wrapped it around my hand, pushing the sheet of glass into the building. Then, using my sweatshirt again, I placed it over the jagged edges and climbed inside.

  For a moment, I paused, waiting to hear an alarm or something that would give away my presence. But there was nothing. The school was silent, except for the hum of the water cooling system at a nearby drinking fountain.

  I closed my eyes, trying to picture what it was I saw in the desert. The closet I hid in, yes, but there was something else. A door within the closet?

  I hurried through the locker room into the gymnasium and over to the supply closet. It wasn’t locked, so I ripped the door open.

  Was it too much to hope for that Erdirg hadn’t killed them? All I could do was pray that he’d been in such a hurry to get to me, or to collect everyone I cared about, that he didn’t have time to murder them.

  Why hadn’t I gone looking for the Chees? What the hell had I been doing, going to school? Pretending like I wasn’t facing down pure evil?

  If the Chees and Thorn and Colton were dead, it would be my fault.

  The supply closet smelled like bleach and wet mop. The walls were lined with shelves. I pushed aside the bottles of bleach and bags of hand soap and dragged my hands against the wall. All I felt were cinder blocks, but I wasn’t giving up. I trailed my fingers along each wall and studied the edges, looking for a door.

  The shelves were at chin height and went all the way around the room. There was nothing here.

  That vision I had was garbage.

  Overcome with exhaustion and sadness, I sat. There was nothing left to do. No one left to save.

  I’d saved myself, but at what cost?

  Tears stung my eyes and ran down my face. Fuck! I wiped them away and rested my cheek on my knees, turning my head toward the wall.

  What the fuck was that?

  Beneath the shelf, about three feet high, was a small metal door. It reminded me of the door to an electrical box. I crawled forward, pushing against it with my hand. And it swung open.

  It was dark inside, illuminated by nothing but the small red light of the fire alarm.

  I crawled through. I’d put Erdirg to sleep. I wouldn’t become a coward all of a sudden. Whatever faced me in there, I would deal with it. I had no soul, no future, I existed only for places like this. The people who were probably dead in there? My only real friends, the closest I’d ever have to love? Their deaths were on me.

  I was able to stand once I got inside. It wasn’t pitch black, but it was still dim. I studied the interior. I’d expected to see everyone as soon as I walked in, but the only things in here were electrical wires, pipes, and what I thought was an ancient furnace.

  I walked around the perimeter, and froze. An old door, rusted with age, was built against the opposite wall from where I’d come in.

  Where did it lead? I didn’t even know. It couldn’t be far. What was this place? We didn’t have basements. The rocks were too hard for us to dig down into them or something. I didn’t understand it really. Yet, when I pushed open the door, a blast of cold air hit me, and as I started down the rocky path, I had the sense of moving deeper into the earth. I could even feel the pressure in my ears as I walked. How was this possible?

  I shook my head. Who the heck knew what was or wasn’t possible? It was dark, but the path was narrow, and with my hands outstretched, I could feel the stone on either side of me.

  I didn’t know what I was walking toward, but if it was demons, I didn’t care. No demons would get in my way. I’d taken on Erdirg. They’d be begging me for mercy by the time I was done with them.

  My ears popped and my breath echoed through the tunnel. I turned a corner, and the darkness was suddenly gone. For a second, all I saw were stars, but then I saw them.

  They were all out cold, heads hanging forward as though their necks couldn’t support their weight. Their hands were cuffed to the wall, and for a second, I couldn’t move. Then Kelly breathed. Jacinda. Ray. All of them were breathing. They were unconscious, but they were alive.

  I rushed forward. I still had the tire jack. Who should I take down first? I didn’t have the slightest idea what to do. I…

  Oliver’s eyes opened slowly. “Lacey?”

  “Oliver.” I rushed to him. He was awake. I couldn’t think past that.

  “You. Have. To. Go.” His words were stop-and-go. “Coming back.”

  “No.” I hit his restraint with my tire jack. “I got rid of him.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “I did. Don’t worry. You’re going to be okay.”

  When I freed him of his restraints, I helped him to the ground. He slid to the floor, staring up at me. “Did you say you got rid of him?”

  “I did.” I kissed his cheek. “You’re going to be okay.”

  He visibly swallowed. “How?”

  “The darkness.”

  He blinked. “Huh?”

  “I’ll explain more. I’ve got to get everyone down.”

  One by one I helped them. Colton woke up, but passed out again when he was on the ground. The best I could imagine was that encountering evil hurt. It knocked them out like it had Aaron. Ray. Jacinda. They both mumbled. Kelly didn’t stir, neither did Aaron. Thorn remained out cold. Oliver’s gaze never left me as I walked around. They were all down. How was I going to get them home?

  “The darkness?” Oliver said. “What were you talking about?”

  “It was inside me,” I replied almost off-handedly as I studied the small room that seemed carved right into the earth. “I should go back to see if there’s a dolly or something I can use to help you out.”

  I could feel Oliver’s gaze on me as I paced the circumference of the room. “We came from outside. From the desert.” He cleared his throat. “There’s nothing we can do. Nowhere we can go until everyone wakes up. If what you say is true and he’s dead.”

  “Asleep,” I clarified. “At the very least.”

  “If he’s asleep, then we’re not in any immediate danger. Just sit.” He held his arm out like he wanted me next to him. I studied the room. I couldn’t just stop, could I? I should be moving. Acting.

  “Lacey. Trust me.”

  Hesitantly, I lowered myself next to him. Oliver didn’t wait to put his arm around my shoulders. “Everyone is alive.”

  I let out a breath. They were alive. Their deaths weren’t another thing to add to my already bursting-at-the-seams guilty conscience. “Thank God.”

  “I found Mom and Dad here, but Erdirg brought back Aaron and Kelly. Colton and Thorn almost saved us, but he was just playing with them. Letting them get close, only to show them he was more powerful than they were.”

  “Did he hurt you?” I asked. His face was dirty and clothes stretched and torn, but I didn’t see cuts or bruises on his face.

  “His evil is painful. In order to take our forms, he filled our minds. It was overwhelming for an instant before I passed out. It’s no wonder your grandmother had a stroke. Anyone the least bit fragile wouldn’t survive him. But you did.”

  I did. Because of the evil—the darkness—inside me.

  As if he knew what I was thinking, Oliver asked again, “How was the darkness inside you?”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it.” It was one thing to be aware of its existence and another thing to share it.

  “Tell me, Lacey. I’ll tell the others. It will be the last time you have to mention it.”

  I stared at him, studying his features. All I saw was honesty, but he couldn’t know what I was about to say. “You will look at me differently.”

  “I couldn’t see you in any way other than I see you now.” He took my hand in his, linking our fingers. “Brave. Beautiful. Compassionate.”

  “Bad.”

  He shook his head and squeezed my hand. “Not bad.”

  I shifted sli
ghtly so we faced each other. “That’s what the darkness was, Oliver. My anger and hate. The way I felt toward the world. It was strong enough to defeat a demon.” I voiced the question that turned around and around in my mind. “Do you know how evil I must be in order for my darkness to blot out his?”

  He grabbed onto his forehead. “Hold on. Sorry. Dizzy.”

  “You guys all need a cleanse.” Like the ones I’d had when Colton and I went through the gas, and Aaron had needed after he held Erdirg out.

  He laughed. “Probably.”

  I knew he said we had to just wait this out, but he was in rough shape. “Oliver, I’m going to find something and get you out of here. Okay?”

  He groaned. “I really want to help.”

  “You’ve helped me more than you could possibly know.” Now I would help him. I would get them somewhere safe. Erdirg was gone, but that darkness inside me wasn’t going to go away.

  There were six people in this tunnel who had saved me by just existing during a time when I’d needed help more than anything else in the universe. I would probably be pregnant this very second with demon babies without them. Not to mention, they’d made me feel things I’d never imagined possible.

  I rushed out the door that I’d seen on the way in. I was a distance from the school, but I could see it. If they’d come in from the desert, then the tunnel must stretch further than this. I sighed. What to do?

  That was when I saw it. We were by the local vet. Oliver did work for them, and I’d have bet money that they had carts to move heavy material. I ran forward. Once again, I was glad for my tire jack. As dark as I was inside, I might have an actual career in crime ahead of me.

  It took almost no time to break into the vet and leave with a rolling medical table. It was like the whole city was asleep except me. Erdirg’s sleeping must be affecting everyone. Or not. What did I know, really?

  I pushed the gurney down to the tunnel. Why hadn’t I ever noticed this door? Where had I thought it went? Some city locker or something? I’d never given it the slightest bit of thought.

  Sweating, I reached my people again. Oliver was asleep on the floor. I still had something to do to make this work. I had to move Oliver’s truck. How else would I even transport them once I got them outside? That meant back inside the school.