Ethereal: The Light in the Shadow

by Zoe Knights

  Devna stared at her, honest and confused surprise in her eyes. “Oh…” she frowned slightly. “That wasn’t… what I expected.”

  Eddie sighed, standing up, her loose, curly hair swinging over her shoulders. “It generally isn’t…” she muttered. “I’m going to bed. Night guys,” she added before turning away and strolling briskly from the hall.

  She travelled quickly down the hall, frowning to herself as she passed the boy’s dormitories when suddenly,

  “I’m sorry,” Sam’s voice made her jump.

  She swung around, pausing in the middle of the hall directly before Sam, her eyes wide, for he had seemingly appeared from nowhere. He looked at her with hooded, dark eyes that were infuriatingly impossible not to forgive.

  She huffed at such a thought just as several girls walked by, giggling and smiling at Sam. Eddie glared after their backs and opened her mouth to speak, but Sam grasped her hand before she could and pulled her abruptly down the hall.

  “What are you doing?!” she spluttered, tripping over her feet to keep up.

  “I want to talk,” Sam told her, looking over his shoulder before leading her to a door and opening it. “Away from all the… giggling.” He let go of her hand and gestured inside.

  Eddie stared at him.

  “I don’t have a roommate,” he added with a slight frown when she remained silent.

  “Wha- well, why not?!” Eddie found the words tumbling from her mouth as a strange surge of nerves rose in her stomach at the prospect of entering his bedroom alone with him.

  Sam quirked an eyebrow. “Because my dad has far more persuasion than I possess and he wasn’t about to have his devil-angel-human hybrid son in a room with some mortal at all hours.”

  Sam explained it so simply that really it made sense.

  Eddie sighed lowly, glancing around furtively for onlookers before quickly striding through into his room.

  To her initial surprise, it was full of colour. Several stunning paintings that she was certain Sam had made leant against walls, or atop his set of drawers. His bed sheets looked smooth and soft, the colour of lilac. Then she figured, like his clothing, he really did like to add colour to otherwise dull places.

  Her eyes travelled over his other possessions before she could help herself.

  Several books lined his shelves, along with CDs, old records and an acoustic guitar was propped up in the corner. Her heart did a little jolt when her eyes landed on the shadowy wall of the room beside his bookshelf where two ruby eyes glimmered up at her.

  “Hello, Neeshka,” she said quickly, offering a small smile to the hellhound.

  “Leave, Neeshka,” Sam said abruptly, walking around Eddie with his eyes on the beast.

  “She doesn’t have to go!” Eddie said quickly.

  “No, she does,” Sam replied lowly while Neeshka slowly stood, though a low growl gurgled from her jaws. “Don’t,” he said sharply, and Neeshka huffed lowly before her body began to shimmer and ripple into nothingness within the shadow.

  Eddie licked her lips, feeling far too nervous and on edge for this conversation right now.

  But, Sam appeared ready for he turned that instant and strode two steps back over to her.

  He took a quick breath, his dark eyes swimming. “I apologised to Elliot earlier,” he said, holding her gaze earnestly. “I… know I had no right to react the way I did.”

  Eddie swallowed. “Sam…” she began hesitantly, her eyes flickering down as she tried to build her courage for what she needed to say to him.

  But, Sam ploughed on before she could. “I was jealous, Eddie,” he said firmly. “And I…” he broke off, biting his lip in frustration. “I know how unfair that is of me,” he continued in a rougher voice, his eyes unable to hold her gaze. “But, I hated seeing some guy that wasn’t me holding your hand and making you blush,” he pushed out, “so I… I flipped out. And I’m sorry.”

  Eddie stared at him with a furrowed brow, her heart pattering against her ribs as nerves rose quickly in her stomach. “Why?” she asked finally, her voice steadier than she felt.

  Sam stared at her. “What do you mean why?” he repeated, his brow pinching to mirror her frown. “I just told you-”

  “No, I mean why did you feel that way, Sam?” Eddie urged, desperate to hold her burst of confidence. “I… what am I to you if… if that’s how you feel?”

  Sam’s brow contorted further and Eddie could tell he was biting the inside of his lip. He exhaled suddenly, looking down. “Eddie…” he murmured. “What do you want from me?”

  Eddie frowned at his bowed head. “I… I just want the truth…” she said softly.

  Sam’s head snapped back up, his eyes locking with hers. “What if the truth doesn’t change anything anyway?” he demanded quietly. “What point is there in going there when it will only end up hurting us both?!”

  Eddie’s stomach jolted violently, and her eyes briefly fell to the floor. She breathed out slowly before looking back to him. “I… I guess that answers my question then…” she murmured, and the hurt in her voice was clear. She went to turn away, wanting only to leave his room and hide in her own, but Sam stopped her instantly.

  “Eddie,” he lay his hand on her arm, his voice earnest. “Please-”

  But, Eddie pulled away from his touch, hurt tears prickling behind her eyes much to her infuriation. She held them back, but her fierce glare glistened when she turned it on him. “If you can’t even talk about it, then it’s clearly not worth that much to you,” she hissed thickly. “So… so from now on you… you can’t keep flirting with me or… or touching me, or giving me any more mixed signals! Alright? You won, okay? I… I couldn’t ‘actively ignore’ your stupid charm forever. I… idiotically have feelings for you,” she admitted in a bluster, hating the tears that threatened to spill past her lids and the blush that filled her cheeks. “And they can’t just be shut off or… or ignored because that’s easier. So if you care about me in the slightest then please…just… just…” she shook her head roughly, unable to hold his swirling gaze. “Leave me alone,” she muttered, spinning once more and this time grasping the doorknob.

  “Eddie, wait!” Sam stopped her, his hand flying out to push back against the wood and he darted in front of her, blocking the exit. His eyes were wild as they stared between hers, his breaths coming just as fast as hers. There was a moment of silence before he said softly, “Please don’t go.”

  Eddie’s brow pinched tightly as she tried to hold back her wretched tears. “You’ve made yourself perfectly clear, Sam,” she managed in a thick voice. “Please move.”

  Sam didn’t budge.

  And Eddie couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. She huffed in embarrassed frustration and turned away from Sam to hide her face, never having felt so vulnerable in her life.

  She heard him move from the door, his footsteps chasing her back into the room.

  “I… I didn’t know…” he said finally, and his voice shook slightly. “I thought… I thought if you’d ever had feelings for me they couldn’t possibly still be there now that you… know what I am…” he continued, his tone unlike any Eddie had ever heard from him. Sensitive and unsure. “I didn’t think you could want… I mean how could you? When you know the truth?”

  Eddie bit her trembling lip, glaring at the polished wood floorboards beneath her feet. “I told you that doesn’t change anything for me…” she whispered. Slowly she looked at him over her shoulder, a frown still firmly in place on her forehead. “Look – I don’t want some half-hearted pity to make me feel better, Sam,” she added stiffly. “I-”

  Sam took another step closer, his dark eyes swirling and he cut her off. “That’s not what this is,” he said so firmly her breath nearly caught. “Eddie I…” he paused, biting his lip, struggling over his words. “I’ve never felt like this before,” he said finally, with utter sincerity coating his voice. “I… I don’t know how I’m supposed to react, or what I’m supposed to do!” he continued wit
h heated earnest. “All I know is that you are all I think about. I haven’t been with anyone else in weeks because you are all I want. I think about you before I sleep, in my dreams, and when I wake. You… you mean more to me than I can ever describe and yet you are utter torture!” he was so close now that Eddie could feel his own heat emanating from his skin and her breathing picked up in her chest. She turned to face him, her feet moving of their own accord. Sam continued, his dark eyes torn, “Because I can’t ever be with you,” he murmured roughly. “Yet I don’t want to stop being around you… I can’t stop. But, being around you when I can’t-” he broke off, exhaling roughly and looking down. “It’s impossible,” he muttered. “The… the only thing that keeps me sane is knowing that at least yours will be the last lips I kissed before I’m forced back to Hell.”

  Eddie stared, her heart pounding in her chest, blood ringing in her ears while nerves chorused through her belly. “Sam-” she began, but Sam looked back up, apparently not finished.

  “You’ve no idea how much I’ve wanted to kiss you again since that night,” he whispered roughly, his eyes dropping to her lips, hesitating there before meeting her gaze once more. “And knowing… knowing you feel the same is going to drive me to the peaks of insanity,” he added lowly and with heady earnest. “But, no matter how selfish I am… I’ve already burdened you enough with this world. No matter what I do, my every road leads to Hell… I won’t take you down with me.”

  Eddie didn’t know what to say. Her heart almost hurt with these tugging sensations going wild, disbelief seizing her vocal cords.

  “That is how I feel,” Sam finished in a softer tone this time. “And that’s… the truth.”

  Eddie finally found her voice, her green eyes darting between Sam’s brown irises, seeing the hurt and the confusion, but his words had succeeded only in fuelling the fire already lit in her heart. “Can’t you see?” she whispered earnestly. “You… don’t want me to go to Hell. But, can’t you see I don’t want you to either? Why is the only option that you must go to Hell, and not me?”

  “Because – Eddie, there’s no choice for me!” Sam pushed urgently. “But, there is for you. There’s no good that can come from me. And you-”

  “But, there is a choice!” Eddie cut in madly, her eyes wild as she had never felt so strongly in her life. “If… if Rae could hide and not be sensed, then you can too! So if… if what you want is here on earth then-”

  “All that I want is here,” Sam cut in so firmly it took Eddie aback. His eyes blazed. “But, I cannot have it. Even if I could hide from all of them. I cannot take away the one, tiny life you are given to live, just because I’m too selfish to stay away from you!”

  Eddie’s brow puckered, but determination lit her eyes. “It’s not selfish to care about someone, Sam!” she urged firmly. “And it is my life. And my free will. I will choose how I live it, and I’m not afraid,” she said firmly. “If that is what God sends people to Hell for, then I’m already on my way.”

  “Don’t say that,” Sam shook his head, moving even closer. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t… you don’t know what Hell entails!”

  “Does it matter?” Eddie whispered earnestly. “You said yourself you wouldn’t ever let me rest there.”

  Sam stared at her, and Eddie was taken aback, for she wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen such sadness in his eyes. “And what do you think it is that I am trying to do?” he murmured.

  Eddie’s brow puckered further, but her determination was not stunted. “How can you think keeping your distance from me should make any difference?” she murmured urgently. “My feelings are already there, and they’re not going to change. Regardless of if we are… are together or not! If there is a way to make it work… a way to keep you from going to Hell, shouldn’t we at least try to find it?!”

  Sam stared at her with torn, dark eyes. “How can you want this?” he whispered. “With so much uncertainty? When you know all that you do? How could I ever be worth it?!”

  Eddie stepped closer to him, leaving them only inches apart, her conviction unyielding. “Why do you think so little of yourself?” she demanded, anger entering her tone now. “I told you that you make my life better – and I meant it. You’re the first person I have ever been myself around. You make me laugh, you make me happy, and you let me be me! I look forward to every moment I get to spend with you. And I hate the thought of not having you in my life. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. Because then maybe you’d realise, with or without me in the equation, that you deserve happiness. You deserve to be able to live whatever kind of life you want, and not… be forced into being something you’re not.”

  Sam stared at her for a long moment, his breathing coming faster than it should have as they stood with such little space between them. “I never expected any of this…” he admitted in a rough whisper. “I especially didn’t expect you to… to be like this…I thought, if anything, you’d agree… that it was for the best to stay away from me…”

  Eddie held his gaze, but a small, hint of a smile touched the corner of her lips. “When have I ever agreed with you?”

  Sam exhaled a short laugh, his brow puckering. “Eddie… you’re too good for the likes of me,” he muttered, but his tone lacked conviction, his eyes teetering on the edge of this line he was toeing.

  Eddie shook her head slowly. “I don’t see it that way…” she said softly, but her eyes were still unrelentingly fierce with what she felt. “But… but this doesn’t come down to me, Sam,” she added seriously. “You need to decide what you want from your life. You… you know what I think. Now it’s up to you.”

  The way Sam looked at her in that moment could only be described as loving. Eddie’s breath caught in her throat, her heart stumbling in her chest. And Sam leant closer, capturing her in his tender gaze.

  “You… make it worth trying…” he murmured to her after a long moment of silence, his tone taking on a husky edge that clenched something in Eddie’s abdomen. “I still think I’m being selfish…” he continued softly, almost wantonly as he continued leaning ever closer, his dark eyes slowly flickering to her lips. “But you… are taking my self-control to its limit…”

  “If you are selfish, then I am too…” Eddie whispered back, the heat in her body urging her closer too. “Because I want you to break your self-control…”

  Sam exhaled roughly, another ounce of restraint waning as he took his hand to Eddie’s cheek, dark lashes fluttering around his eyes as he watched his fingers graze her cheekbone, his thumb brushing her bottom lip tenderly, making her tremble.

  “How do you do this to me?” he whispered, the yearning in his tone betraying his want for her. Their lips now so near Eddie could feel Sam’s heady breath tickle her skin while every part of her body begged for him to kiss her. The temptation had her stomach curling into a knot, her abdomen clenching tighter. “I can’t resist you…”

  Eddie’s heart missed several beats in her chest, and she raised her hand to his cheek, feeling his pulse thundering beneath his skin as her fingers teased the line of his jaw. Half her mind pounded with surreal disbelief that this was happening, while the other thought of nothing else but Sam’s overwhelming presence all around her.

  “Then don’t…” she whispered before her eyes fluttered shut, and finally she went to close the gap between them.

  Her lips just grazed his, sparks lighting up her skin and shooting through her body.

  But then, reverberating through the room, a growl sounded, low and warning, yet so sharp it was like a whip of reality harshly slapping them across the face.

  Sam pulled back so suddenly Eddie nearly stumbled, feeling unsteady on her feet with the abrupt lack of his touch.

  Her eyes fell to Neeshka who had appeared through the shadow, her growl so frightening the hairs on Eddie’s neck stood up.

  Sam turned away, running his hand roughly through his hair and Eddie heard him swear under his breath.

  �
�Fuck…” he hissed lowly, before turning his dark, lustful eyes back on her. “You should go…”

  Eddie struggled to gain control of her speeding heart and heavy breath. “Sam-” she began, surprised by the wanton tone to her voice.

  Sam huffed roughly, his eyes darting to Neeshka. “Please, Eddie…”

  Eddie exhaled slowly, swallowing down these excessive feelings. “Okay,” she insisted quietly, glancing hesitantly at the hellhound. “Okay…” she repeated.

  She took a breath, before turning quickly and heading for the door. She hesitated before opening it, glancing back to lock eyes with Sam.

  He held her gaze.

  “They can’t make you be someone you’re not…” Eddie said quietly, her voice barely louder than the heavy beating of her heart.

  Sam’s brow contorted, longing coating his gaze. But, he remained silent.

  Eddie broke their gaze and finally turned the handle, disappearing outside, the door closing behind her with a dull clunk, leaving her in the empty corridor where it felt several degrees colder than within Sam’s room.

  She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she had never felt so flustered, the heat in her face still burning her skin.

  She took another breath, feeling as though Sam was directly behind the closed door. She shut her eyes for a moment, before finally dragging herself away.

  By the time she made it to her own room and bed, the inkling of dreams far more intense than the previous night already teased her subconscious.

  White Wings and Dark Eyes

  24

  The next day, Eddie woke to sun streaming through the blinds. Mr Hibert had been right. The warm rays confused her as the air was still so cold, but she wasn’t about to complain. She missed the sun.

  She peeked out the window, looking over the white grounds that shone so brightly in the warm yellow light.

  “Did you speak to Sam last night?” Quinn’s tired voice sounded from the bed to her left.