Darkness Fades

by Jessica Sorensen

  He doesn't seem convinced and I get up from my chair and stride towards the door, pausing to look back at Mathew. "Work on figuring it out. I'll make sure nothing gets in or out of here."

  He swallows hard and then nods, but I can tell he doesn't think I can do it. However, I have to, no matter what. "Kayla, wait," he calls out before I step out.

  I pause, turning around. "Yeah."

  "Would it be all right if I drew some of your blood," he says. "To study and for..." He rubs his neck tensely. "Just in case something happens to you, I'll still have something to study."

  "Oh, of course." I return to him and hop up onto the table, rolling up my sleeve as he grabs another syringe. "But Mathew, as far as I know, I don't... well, I haven't figured out a way that anything could happen to me."

  "You don't think you can die?"

  I shrug. "As far as I can tell, no. It makes me wonder if the cures living inside me if... if I can ever be human again." I'm not sure how I feel about this revelation, if I like the idea that I'll always be different. Honestly, I don't think I do. How can we ever change back the world if I stay the same; if I'm always there to study and replicate, like the Highers want to?

  He offers me a smile. "Maybe your right... maybe Monarch did create perfection in you, but then again, if I've learned anything, it's that everything has a weakness."

  ***

  After I'm finished giving Mathew some of my blood, I walk out of the building. It's quiet for the most part. Most of the people have barricaded themselves inside the buildings and homes while the rest stand their posts at the wall. Just a ways to my right, Nichelle is standing by the wall, noticing me as I make my way down to the street.

  "Kayla," she calls out, heading over to me with a torch in her hand. She has a thick leather belt strapped around her waist and a sword secured in it. "What were you doing in there with Mathew? And why was he so sketchy?"

  "I..." I trail off as I see them moving towards me.

  A row of different collections, people who carry different powers, yet share the same genetics for the most part. They stand out like a sore thumb; dark clothes, leather, their hair colors like fire and ash. Their skin is smooth, features flawless and the sounds of their hearts are still.

  Sylas stands in the middle and uses his long legs to stride over to me. He has an arrogant look on his face, but it vanishes when he reads my face like an open book. "What's wrong with you... you look upset."

  "There's nothing wrong," I reply, pulling myself together.

  "Is it about the cure?" he asks, folding his arms.

  Nichelle's head whips in his direction. "Cure?"

  "Yeah..." Sylas's eyes stay on me and I wonder if he can sense my uneasiness. "They found a cure... maybe."

  A big grin spreads across Nichelle's face. "Yes!!" she exclaims, throwing her hands in the air. "I knew Mathew would figure it out. God, it's so great! We finally have some good news!"

  "You're making a lot of noise," I tell her as people start glancing in our direction. She settles down a little, but still has way too much energy. "Mathew thinks he might have found a cure, but there's still a lot of other stuff to figure out," I say, and their moods deflate a notch. "What we need to make sure of is that he's protected at all times. Nichelle, I need you to put a lot of guards around his lab and make sure they're there always... it's important that he can keep working no matter what happens... and that him and his lab are safe."

  She nods and turns around, jogging off towards a solider-looking group of people who aren't nearly as strong as the Day Takers, but probably as close as you can get in human form. She says something to them and then they head over towards the lab with swords and knives in their hands. I wonder if it's enough; if they'll be able to stop the abominations from getting in if they do show up. I wonder if Mathew will figure it out in time. I wonder a lot of things at that moment and all the answers make me feel... well, hopeless. The feeling sucks.

  I glance over at the Day Takers who are just standing there, watching me. All six of them. I don't know any of them except for one; a tall girl with red hair, wearing a long, flowing skirt and who has the powers to dip into people's heads.

  "Emmy," I say cautiously, remembering how she's slightly off her rocker. "Can you come here for a minute? I need to ask you a favor."

  Her deep red lips spread into a smile and then she struts forward, swishing her skirt.

  "Do you really want to go there?" Sylas questions amusedly. "You know how she can get."

  "Yeah, but I need her to help protect the lab," I say to Sylas. "Mathew... he's the one who can figure all this out."

  "But it's your blood?" he states. "We should be protecting you, too."

  "Mathew has some of my blood just in case something happens to me," I reply. "Besides, I don't think anything can. I've died plenty of times and I always heal."

  "You say that like it's a bad thing."

  "No, I say it like it's a thing that'll be a problem in the future if things do go back to the way that they should be."

  He opens his mouth to say something with a strange look on his face, but Emmy interrupts us, stepping unnecessarily close to me.

  "Well, well," she says. "If it isn't the beautiful Kayla." She taps her finger on her lips and then breathes in my scent. "Looking for me to dip into your head again." She strokes my hair with her fingers and Sylas chuckles from behind her.

  "Actually, no." I step back out of her reach. "I just need you and two other Day Takers to go help guard that building over there." I point over my shoulder at the lab.

  She frowns. "You want me to help protect a building; one that humans are already protecting?"

  "Please," I say. "It's really important."

  She crosses her arms and stares me down. "And what do I get out of this."

  Sylas nudges her in the back, a little rough. "Emmy, stop being a pain in the ass and go."

  She huffs and stomps her foot. "God, this is so ridiculous," she whines, but ends up obeying, going over and getting two other Day Takers to come with her. One of them is really tall and muscular while the other is shorter, though equally as strong in appearance. When they walk by us, they all give me a dirty look.

  "Glad to see they still feel the same way about me," I say, tracking them with my gaze until they arrive at the lab.

  I return my attention to Sylas when he brushes the inside of my wrist with his fingers before taking my hand. "Come with me for a bit," he says. "I need to talk to you about something."

  "What's wrong?" I ask as he starts to pull me down the path.

  He doesn't speak as we head deeper into the shadows of the town and farther out of the eyes of Day Takers and humans. He only lets go of my hand when we arrive at a section where the ground bowls inward and all that's around us are hills and the wall of cars.

  "What about Aiden?" he asks as he releases my fingers from his hold and steps back to look at me.

  "What about him?" I ask, glancing around, wondering why he brought me down here.

  He considers something and then starts to circle around me with his hands behind his back. "All this talk about protecting everyone in here, especially Mathew, but what happens if Aiden shows up here with them, too?"

  Through all the chaos, this detail had sort of slipped my mind and the only solution pains me. Yet, saving the world is the most important thing at this point.

  "We'll have to stop him," I say quietly. "If he gets in the way."

  "Can you do that?" he questions, stopping in front of me, inspecting my reaction closely.

  I swallow hard and nod. "I can if I have to." I pause, gathering my voice. "Can you?"

  His eyes hold mine, like he's pretending it's no big deal, but I can see in his eyes that it is. "I'll stop him if he gets in the way."

  We grow quiet and eventually he turns to stare at the wall with his hands stuffed in his pocket. We can hear the sounds of voices drifting down to us as the people in town and on the walls talk way too loud.

&nbs
p; "You know, they make a lot of noise for someone who's in trouble," he remarks, looking at me again; his dark eyes look even blacker, like coal.

  "They're human," I say. "They don't know anything else."

  "You think they can handle this?" he wonders with zero confidence. "If they can fight against the abominations and stand a chance?"

  I shrug, being honest. "I'm not sure... Maci seems to think I can do something about all this... protect everyone, or at least Mathew." I sit down on the ground in the dirt and he joins me. "But at the same time, I'm just one tiny person going up against a herd of large, vicious monsters. Yeah, I can't die or become infected, but I also can't make sure everyone else doesn't either."

  He sits down beside me and bumps his shoulder into mine. "I wasn't asking if you can handle it... I know you can." He leans back on his hands and we stare at the hillside. "I was asking if you think they can handle it." He nods his head at a group of humans standing just above us on the wall.

  I want to say yes, but deep down I know that'd be a lie. "I honestly don't know," I say. "But I guess we'll have to hope for the best."

  "You're basing a lot of this on hope." He leans into me, wetting his lips with his tongue. "But you're forgetting one thing."

  "And what's that?" I glance at his lips as he gets closer.

  He pauses just as his lips almost connect with mine. "That you're the perfect soldier." Then he kisses me and I want to pull back as I tell him he's wrong. That I'm flawed. That I can't die. Can't change. That I'm pretty much motionless.

  Instead, I keep kissing him because, for a moment, it makes everything easier.

  Chapter 22

  Sylas and I continue to sneak off and kiss for the next few days, trying to distract our minds from what we face ahead. I check on Mathew, make walk-throughs around the town and generally check on everything. With each day I start to wonder if something has happened; if maybe Aiden didn't make it to them or if the Highers couldn't agree to send out the army. Deep down, though, I know that's not true. They'll come. They always do.

  People have started to let their guard down by staying out later or not keeping such a close eye on the desert land when the sun goes down. Some even bail out and head for the hills; not wanting to protect their colony, but hide. It's driving me mad, but there's nothing I can do. They won't listen to me because I'm not human; something which I try not to think about.

  On the fourth day, when I stop by to check up on Mathew, I decide to talk to him about it; to see if he'll talk to them about being more careful.

  "You need to talk to your people," I announce as I enter his lab. "They're..." I trail off at the sight of the mess that surrounds him. Empty vials are strewn everywhere, flasks, garbage, spilt liquids on the floor, and Mathew stands in it all with his eyes pressed to that strange device he pointed at the other day; the one he said would help him study our blood.

  "What on earth," I say, maneuvering around the mess. "Don't you ever clean up in here?"

  He falters back with his hand pressed to his heart, his elbow bumping the counter and putting a dent in it. Strange. "Goodness, I didn't hear you come in."

  "I said something as I walked in," I say, glass crunching under my boot, eyeing over his extremely healthy state. I mean, he's been looking healthier and healthier by the day, but he's almost glowing with strength. "Didn't you hear me?"

  He shakes his head, looking distracted. "No... no... I was..." He drifts off as he puts his eyes back on the strange device, turning the knob on the side. "Well, I was having an epiphany."

  "Over what?"

  He glances up at me, his eyes shining with excitement. "Over a cure."

  I rush up to him. "You figured it out?"

  "Well, yes and no." He gestures at himself as he squares his shoulders. "I've been studying my blood and well..." he trails off, glancing around with a puzzled look. Then something clicks in his expression and he hurries back to the wall.

  "What are you...?"

  I trail off as he rams his fist through the wall. Bits and pieces of brick shatter and fly through the air. My jaw hits my knees as I gape at him, stepping back as my hand moves to my knife.

  "What are you?" I ask, drawing my knife out of my back pocket.

  He surrenders his hands in front of him. "Kayla, relax. I'm still me, simply stronger... just like you."

  My arm falls to my side. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

  He lowers his hands and rushes towards me, beaming from ear to ear. "Yes," he says. "You're blood didn't just cure me; it turned me into a Day Walker."

  "That can't be possible," I argue against the bluntly honest truth in front of me. I can see it in his eyes; the power, the strength, the confidence. "Sylas didn't..." I trail off, remembering how he seemed to be stronger as we ran here and how, when he kisses me, there is so much more behind it I thought I'd bruise. I've never felt like I could bruise before. Unlike Mathew, however, I'm not happy. "Well, that doesn't do us any good," I say. "Because we're not trying to turn the world into a bunch of Day Walkers. We want to be human again, right?"

  "Of course," he says and I can tell he means it, that he wants the world to return to what it was. "And we're one step closer to it."

  "How so?"

  "Because..." He hurries over to the cabinet, unintentionally smashing things in as he goes. "Now I understand the way the virus and the cure work." He takes out a few vials and the leftover papers of Monarchs with his handwriting scribbled all over them. "Monarch kept rambling in these," he says, staring down at the papers. "How he managed to make you immune to the vampire virus even before you were changed into..." He peeks over at me with an apologetic face. "Well, before he turned you into whatever you were before you were a Day Walker." He taps his finger on the papers. "It means at one point you were still in human form and withstanding the virus." He gathers the papers and vials and then moves over to the table, arranging them out.

  "When I was injected with your blood, my blood took on the structure of yours," he says. "Therefore, I became a Day Walker, so if I can return you to your human state, then your blood could turn any person back to their human state."

  "But wouldn't you be making a cure by turning me back into a human?"

  He shakes his head. "There's something in your blood, Kayla; something that kills the virus instantly. So if we can break down the various viruses in you and eliminate them, then we might be able to get you back to your human form," he says. "It would make you a viable host and cure because your blood would not only heal the infected person and change them back to human, but it would also protect them when getting bit again."

  "But what if when you turn me back," I say. "Then I'm no longer the cure; what if it's my Day Walker blood that's the cure."

  He shakes his head. "I already told you, Monarch said you weren't responding to the virus even when you were a child," he says. "But honestly I don't know, not until we try it."

  "But what if you try it and then I change back and I'm merely useless."

  "I'm not going to lie to you, Kayla. It's a risk. You just need to decide if you want to take it. And I'd make sure to have a lot of your original blood on hand as backup."

  I'm not sure how to respond. He acts like he's playing mad scientist, which is what started this entire problem in the first place. So many things could go wrong. "And how would you even do it?" I ask. "Figure out how to turn me back to human?"

  He swallows hard, his cheery demeanor darkening a little. "There was this thing we used to do called a fading," he says. "Back in my experiment days, after a subject had been tested and tested on, we'd try to wipe the virus out of their bodies so we could start the testing process on them again; make them usable again, like a clean slate."

  I give him a dirty look. "And did they live?"

  He bites on his lip, looking guilty. "Most didn't, but a few strong ones did," he says.

  "And what were they like?" I say coldly. "These people that you faded. Were they normal humans again?"<
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  He runs his fingers through his hair then reclines back against the table. "I'd try to lie to you, but from what I understand from Monarchs notes about you, he made it so you could tell when someone is lying." He releases a stressed breath. "So the answer is yes, they were human, but no they weren't the same. They lost a lot of their function, although their bodies still thrived."

  I step forward in a threatening manner, wondering if I can take him now or if his strength will match mine. I'm curious to find out. "So what you're saying is that if I take this fading, then there's a good chance I'll be gone."

  He wavers then gets to his feet and walks over to me. "Gone, but for the greater good. I'm sorry I have to say this, but sometimes it takes a huge sacrifice to make things right again. Not everyone can survive."

  His words almost match Monarchs words; the ones I constantly hear in my head. Is that what he's trying to tell me? That this is the sacrifice."

  "I have to think about it," I say then turn for the door.

  "Kayla, wait," he calls out. "I need one more thing from you."

  Shaking my head, I turn around. "What?"

  He looks taken aback by my anger, but shrugs it off. "I need to inject you with the original vampire virus."

  "Why?" I gape at him.

  "Because I need to see if I can get your blood to replicate like the virus does. And I want to start by seeing what will happen if I add it to your blood."

  "But I've already been bit. Nothing happens."

  He shakes his head, his expression laced with stress. "The virus itself works a lot different... and it's more potent when you shoot it straight into a vein."

  "So you're saying I could turn?" God, what does this man want from me? First he's asking me to risk my existence and give over my body for the hope of mankind and now he's asking me to take a risk and turn into a vampire.

  "I doubt it," he says. "I just wanted to let you know that it's a risk because I don't want to lie to you."

  "Can't lie to me," I remind him, annoyed. I consider it for a moment, wondering what the right choice is. I could turn into one. Let my flesh rot. Do I want that for myself? Then I remember that there are risks that need to be taken in order for things to change and then decide to do it. "You have some of my blood, right?" I ask, sitting down on a chair. "As backup, so you can hopefully change me back with it?"