Darkness Fades (Darkness Falls Series, Book 3) (19 page)

I hold up my finger, struggling to breathe,
not ready to give up. I force my body to fight against the potency
and desire to let the virus take control. After a few inhales and
exhales, my strength returns to me and I manage to stand up
straight, releasing a breath.

“I think I’m going to be okay,” I tell him,
squaring my shoulders.

“You don’t feel like your skin is peeling
off or anything?” he asks cautiously. “Or are you filled with a
hunger for blood?”

I shake my head, breathing freer and freer
by the second. “I feel perfectly fine.”

His whole body sinks as he sighs with
relief. “Thank God.” He moves over to a drawer and gets an empty
vial and syringe. “I’m going to take some of your blood now and see
what it’s doing. Have a seat.”

I do what he says as he prepares to draw my
blood. I eye his pocket, wondering what the other vial is. “What
was that other thing you grabbed?” I ask.

He touches his finger to my forearm, finding
a vein. “What do you mean?”

“That vial that’s in your pocket. What is
it?”

He puts the needle into my arm and begins to
fill the syringe up with blood. “That’s the fading.”

I don’t say anything as he finishes up and
then I get up from my chair, heading to leave.

“Wait, where are you going?” he asks as I
reach the doorway.

I pause. “To think.”

Now, he pauses. “Kayla, I know this is a
hard decision but—but we’re running out of time.”

“I know that,” I say through gritted teeth.
“But I need just a few minutes.” To think. To process. To find out
what Sylas thinks.”

I walk out the door, knowing if Mathew
wanted to, he could probably chase me down and try to put the
fading in me, but he doesn’t. He’s giving me a choice. When I think
about it, though, I know it’s really not a choice. Deep down, I
know what I’m going to do because it’s why I was created. To think
without emotion, to think about what’s important, to not base my
decisions on greed.

In the end, I’ll go through with it. I just
need to say good-bye.

Chapter 23

The first thing I do is find Sylas. Then I
tell him everything I found out, including that he might be a Day
Walker now. We do a few tests and determine that he probably is,
which seems to excite him. I just hope the power doesn’t go to his
head, like it did with Aiden.

Then we move onto the bigger problem. The
fading. I’m nervously pacing a section of the wall, telling myself
it’s time to say good-bye, move forward and hope for the best,
however it’s hard. I’m conflicted and I don’t like it because it’s
for selfish reasons and I don’t want to be selfish like the
Highers.

“How can we be sure we can trust him?” Sylas
asks. He’s leaning against the wall with one of his knees pulled up
and his arm resting on it.

I shrug as I continue to pace. “I know he’s
not lying, but at the same time, I know that he knows it might not
work and I might just end up becoming a useful body in the
end.”

He rubs his eyes as he stares at the ground.
“So then, is it worth it?” he asks. “To do that to yourself when
you’re so perfect right now.”

I stop walking and try to stay neutral.
“Sylas, perfection is what got the world in trouble to begin with.”
I gesture around at the colony hidden behind a wall of cars as
vampires cry out on the other side. “None of this would be here. If
it wasn’t for perfection, you and I’d be…”

He glances up at me, his dark eyes filled
with heat. “We’d be what?”

I shrug. “I don’t know… walking around and
living our lives… normal.”

His brow arches. “Together.”

I press my lips together and shrug again.
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”

He slowly gets to his feet, his eyes glued
to mine as he inches towards me, reducing the space between our
bodies until we’re nearly flush. “And if we were together in a
normal world, what would we be doing?”

“I’ve never really thought about it,” I say.
“Because I can barely remember what the real world was like.”

“Hmmm…” He considers something thoughtfully.
“Would we be doing this?” He leans in and brushes his lips against
mine, tasting me softly.

“Maybe,” I whisper against his lips and then
he kisses me again, much deeper. His hands slip around my waist,
forcing me closer, pressing us together. I don’t fight it because I
want it; want to be close to him for a moment. We kiss until it
becomes too hot, too intense, too emotional, then we pull back. His
eyes are still shut and he touches his lips with his fingers.

“Kayla, I’m not going to tell you what to
do,” he says. “No, I don’t want you to do it, but at the same time,
I don’t think you could live with yourself if you didn’t do it.”
His eyes open. “You have too good of a heart.”

I put my hand over my hollow chest. “It
doesn’t even beat anymore.”

He places his hand over mine. “It’s still in
there though, and it’s full of good.”

I’m about to open my mouth and tell him the
same, even though I know he’ll argue, but then we hear a loud thump
followed by a scream. Sylas and I trade a look. I think we both
know the moment our eyes lock that this is it. They’re here. We can
sense it in the air, hear soft thuds in the distance, and the cries
of the vampires have faded.

Seconds later, we hear someone yell,
“They’re coming!”

“Shit,” Sylas says, taking off for the
wall.

I run after him, my footsteps still quicker
and I end up passing him. I scan the top of the wall as I move and
then head towards a rounder man holding a weird glasses looking
thing to his eyes that supposedly helps humans have vision like
vampires, although I’m skeptical.

Sylas is right at my heels as I move
effortlessly up the stack of cars, running up pieces sticking out
like they’re stairs. When I reach the top, I summon a breath and
take in the sight before me. Barreling at us at full speed are a
large group of abominations, moving on all fours, tearing up the
sand and rocks and creating a dust storm as they plow over any
vampires in the way. There’s more than I expected. Way more. And
they move so much quicker out in the open, hilly land then they do
in the city streets.

And they’re not alone.

Moving beside them are white figures, their
robes blowing in the wind along with their snowy white hair.
There’s also one figure wearing all black that blends in with the
night, yet his hair has streaks of white. When I squint closer and
examine them closely, I make out Gabrielle and Monarch in the crowd
along with… Aiden. He’s starting to change into a higher, too,
which means he’ll be less like himself and more like them.

I start to see the bigger picture at the
moment; the things I could change if Mathew can make the fading
work. That sweet boy I first met would never have had to go through
this; no one would ever have to again.

Sylas must see his brother, too, because he
reaches over and takes my hand like he needs to hold onto
something. I give it a squeeze since it’s all that I can do. I feel
a slight twitch of his fingers as his firm jaw tightens.

“I hope we’re ready for this,” he mutters,
letting go of my hand and collecting one of the many sharpened
sticks on the top of the wall. “God, there’s so many of them.”

I slowly nod, taking in the people around
us. I hate to think it, but I can’t help seeing how easily the
abominations could destroy them. They weren’t built for this.
They’re weak and one bite will ruin them. So fragile. So helpless
against the virus. Everyone except for me. I stand tall in the
crowd, the single thing that could possibly save them.

If I can convince myself to go through with
it.

“Well, it looks like we’re going to need
more people on the wall,” Sylas says in a fake joking tone. “God,
this is worse than I thought it would be… there’s just so
many.”

I nod, turning around and hating what I see.
All the guards and the people of the town have gathered around me
on the wall or below the wall, waiting to fight as they look at me
with their eyes pleading at me to say something, do something… help
them and tell them what to do.

Some of the Day Takers have migrated to
them, too, not looking afraid, but entertained. Thankfully, Emmy
has managed to keep herself over by the lab so Mathew’s protected.
Does it even matter? Can he cure the world without me? Do I need to
survive? Can I even die?

There’s a pause in the chatter below me as
they wait for me to tell them what to do. I turn and glance at the
stampede heading for us then turn back to the unmoving crowd.

I want to tell them to run.

Run for the lives.

Flee.

I summon a deep breath then slip my fingers
out of Sylas’s and step forward to the brink of the wall. “The
Highers, the ones who started all this—the virus and the whole
crumbling of the world, will be here soon. And they’re
strong—stronger than the vampires,” I tell them. Shocks and gasps
follow as they all look around at each other. Their fear instantly
gives me a headache. “And the abominations are with them...” I
remember they have no idea what abominations are so I add, “They’re
the things caused by a Highers bite. And these monsters are more
animal than human... and they’re fast, large, and complicated to
fight.”

“How many are there?” Nichelle calls out
from the crowd below, stepping up to the front.

I glance at Sylas for help, wondering if we
should lie—if it would be better if they didn’t know how little of
a chance they stand against the army. “What should I tell them,” I
hiss.

He moves forward and his voice booms out
over the crowd, “A lot.” I cringe against his truth and he shrugs.
“They need to know, Kayla, otherwise they won’t prepare themselves
for the worst.”

“We’re all going to be killed!” a person to
the left of me says, dropping his spear onto the ground. It hits
one of the metal cars below us and then suddenly everyone starts to
panic.

“We should flee while we can!” a man from
below shouts, looking around at the others as he hurries to the
back of the crowd, ready to bail. “We should go! Go to the caves or
the hills like the others did earlier.”

“Even if you did flee, they’ll chase you
down; the Highers don’t just give up,” Sylas informs them in a
bored tone. “There’s too many of them and they are too fast. Run
and you’ll be killed.”

“I’d rather run than sit here and wait for
them,” someone says and then suddenly everyone is agreeing, nodding
their heads and turning to run away.

“Wait,” I call out, not knowing what to do.
They need something to keep them here. Something to give them
motivation. “You have to stay and fight… if not for yourselves then
for Mathew… and the cure.”

They pause, some turning around. One man, a
gangly one with curly brown hair and long limbs, strides forward.
“There’s a cure?” he asks, pushing his way to the front of the
mob.

A woman with jet-black hair says,
“Impossible. She’s lying.”

“I never lie,” I say, which is a lie, but
it’s called for at the moment. “And if you leave, then it’ll be
gone. So please. Stay. We must protect Mathew and the cure. It
could save humanity. Change it back to what it was.”

“But what was it?” a lanky man asks,
glancing around at the crowd who are all intently listening to him,
ready to believe the next thing out of his mouth. “Was it this? Or
was it something else? How do we know it’ll be better than
this?”

I glance over my shoulder at the
abominations and Highers getting closer, the cloud of dirt on the
outskirts thickening. “Because it has to be.”

They chatter amongst each other and then the
sounds slowly fade away. When I return my attention to them, most
of them are watching me except for a few who are running towards
the street, bailing out on the fight.

“For the cure!” one of them shouts out,
raising his hand in the air.

The rest shout out the same thing and then
people start to climb up the walls with knives and swords in their
hands, lining the top of the wall with their bodies. Some have
sticks, some have spears like Sylas is carrying. Others just have
their hands as their weapon, but it’s all we have.

I let out a breath of relief. “God, that was
hard. It’s like they wanted to listen to whatever anyone was saying
at the time”

“That would be human nature.” Sylas pats my
back. “But you did good convincing them with a cure.”

I look up at him. “Yeah, I guess… now I just
have to figure out a way to give them a cure if they make it
through this.”

“I think you already know that will happen,”
he says sadly.

“You have a lot of confidence in me.”

“Because I know you well enough to know
you’ll do what you believe in, and saving the world is what you
believe in.”

I wish I had his confidence because he seems
so sure and I seem so uncertain.

“Stop worrying,” he commands, eyes darken as
a slow smile spreads across his face. “How about one last kiss
before we die?”

I roll my eyes again, yet then, knowing he’s
right, knowing that we might not make it through this—that none of
us might—I stand up on my tiptoes and kiss him passionately,
letting my emotions temporarily take me over as I thread my fingers
through his hair. In response, his tongue slips into my mouth and
twines with mine. We might have gone for a hell of a lot longer,
but then someone screams and we pull away, knowing it’s time.

I give Sylas a look that I hope conveys
good-bye and he nods his head in a silent understanding. Then, at
the same time, we spring to the edge of a wall. He hands me the
long, sharpened stick that he’s been carrying around and I take it,
knowing it’s not going to help me that much against the forces
before us.

Knowing all this, we still step forward and
join the line.