Death Before Daylight (10 page)

His foot collided with my stomach. I curled
up, but he didn’t stop. His attacks escalated, one after the other,
no stopping for air or rest. My arm, my leg, my shoulder, my head.
That’s when I lost count of what was happening to me. The injuries
that once burned like wildfire now fogged over one another.

I didn’t have time to count the amount of
times the teenager kicked me, breaking ribs or other parts of me,
but I didn’t need to. Every time I woke up, I was healing—slowly,
like a shade would—only I was human. The difference was how my body
felt every bit of the healing as it happened. I stopped counting
the injuries a long time ago. I only waited to die.

“Stop it, half-breed.” Another voice
shattered through the attacks. At some point, the door must have
opened, because the room was bright.

The kicking halted, and the half-breed
exhaled as if he had forgotten to breathe. “He deserved it.”

“Don’t justify yourself.” The other man was
Darthon. “I’ll take over from here.”

The half-breed nodded. “Yes, sir.” With that,
he left without another word or so much as a glance, but his shoes
left blood on the floor as he walked away. My blood. I stared at
the spots until the door shut, leaving Darthon and I alone.

“Stupid mutt.” He dropped a piece of bread on
the ground, and the crust soaked up the blood I had lost. “Do you
know why we don’t Name our half-breeds? Because half of them aren’t
worth a life.” He chuckled like he had made a “this guy walked into
a bar” joke, but the information was news to me.

It explained why Fudicia didn’t care if I
hurt the half-breed the day she attacked Jessica and me. She didn’t
care if he died. Half-breeds weren’t a loss to them. They were
simply another body to clean up. Just like how Luthicer’s daughter
would’ve been.

The Dark didn’t share that belief with the
Light. Half-breeds were among the thirteen-year-olds at the Naming
like the full-blooded shades. It was something that separated us
from them. Everyone was a person to the Dark—even half-breeds, even
humans. The Light only cared for their own.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Darthon asked,
like we were two buddies grabbing a sandwich after soccer
practice.

I didn’t see the point, so I ignored the food
by rolling onto my back. I half-expected to see an endless
ceiling—like the one Luthicer created for the training room—but the
ceiling was short. My eyes tore away from the sight only to land on
Darthon. He stared back, and I knew he wasn’t here to hurt me, or
he already would’ve.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Darthon sat down in the chair. “I want to
talk to you.”

“I doubt you kidnapped us to have a
chat.”

“Actually,” Darthon rested his chin on his
hands. “I did.”

I couldn’t prevent the laugh from escaping
me. “You’re joking.”

“Well, I technically took you to kill you,”
he admitted, “but there’s a hole in that plan.”

“You think?”

“I did take Jess to talk to her,” he said it
like he hadn’t done so yet.

I watched the boy—someone who wasn’t much
older than me, someone I had been raised to kill, someone whose
blood was already supposed to be on my hands. I never thought I
would actually talk to him.

“What do you want with her?” I concentrated
on my words to clear my thoughts about the pain of healing. My skin
was inching itself together.

“I have lots of plans for her.” As he spoke,
his expression illuminated only to dim as he lowered his face to
study me. “But I want to know what you know first.”

The look in his eyes was one I had seen
before. It was the same look I held after the Naming. After I
learned who I was and what it meant, I returned home. My father
didn’t speak to me about it. He didn’t even come out to greet me,
so I ostracized myself in the bathroom. The mirror was the first
thing I broke. It was the reflection I hated—the widened pupils,
the pale cheeks, the shaky lip. I hated myself. Apparently, it was
something Darthon had in common with my thirteen-year-old self.

“You don’t want to kill me,” I stated.

Darthon didn’t nod, but he didn’t have to.
Being destined to kill wasn’t easy to accept. It was a curse.

“This has never been about you, Welborn.” My
name slipped off his tongue as if he had said it a million times.
Of course he knew me. We probably went to the same school. “It’s
always been about Jess.”

I knew that. She was my weakness, but she was
his, too. We shared it in different ways—with my love, and his
demise—but we shared it nonetheless.

“I only need to get you out of the way to
move forward,” he said, his eyes flickering over me, “and I will
once I figure out how you’re surviving.” My life had a deadline.
“Once your connection is severed, her power will drive the Light to
succeed.”

“And you’re telling me this because?”

“Because, Welborn,” he hesitated, “we’re
going to make a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“Not yet.” Everything was on his terms.

When he didn’t speak, I found the strength to
succumb to my only hope for survival—understanding. I cleared my
throat. “So, what do you want to know?”

His hands moved to his mouth, and his fingers
tapped his lips. Even Darthon had nervous habits. “Where does your
bloodline come from?”

“You know that—”

“I do,” he agreed, “but you don’t.”

“My father—”

“Jim?” he chuckled. “You still believe he was
the first descendant’s bloodline?”

My chest squeezed, and I wheezed out a shaky
breath. “He is—”

“Your mother was.”

The woman flashed before my eyes even though
I didn’t want her to. I tried not to think about her. I fought the
urge to remember her face, but it was impossible. Her short, black
hair framed her round cheeks like a disfigured China doll. The
whiteness of her skin had been blinding, and I knew I inherited her
intense gaze. That was her shade form—Evaline—but I couldn’t see
her human face. I only saw the time she took me to the woods to
witness the bats. She was a shade then, and she was dead shortly
after.

“She was the head of your bloodline,” Darthon
finished with a hardened stare. His silence waited for my response,
but I didn’t have one. “You didn’t know, right?”

“You’re lying.”

Darthon grabbed his chin like he could force
his expression to relax. “Let me guess.” He ignored my accusations.
“Your father already told you not to have a kid.”

He had warned me. The morning after I lost to
Darthon, he had spoken against it to Jessica and me, but I only saw
it as a thing of embarrassment. “Every parent says something like
that—”

“Your dad had other intentions,” he
interrupted. “Your mother lost her powers when you were born, and
when you have a child, you will, too.”

The memory of the bats flooded through me,
the night sky melting away with the pastel colors of the sunrise,
the silhouettes of the scurrying creatures I visited. My mother had
been a shade, but I was a human. I was five years old. I knew that
much.

“You’re wrong,” I argued. “She was
transformed—”

“And any shade can transform since birth.
Full powers are given later,” he pointed it out like the Light
shared our Naming ritual. “Tell me, did you ever see her use her
powers? Did she ever protect you or teach you how to fight or—”

“I was five,” I spat, managing to sit up. My
spine snapped into place like it had been broken. “She couldn’t
have taught me yet.”

Darthon leaned back. “Perhaps.”

“There’s no ‘perhaps’ to it.”

His brow straightened out in the same way
Luthicer’s did when he confessed to his past. “Maybe you should ask
your father why she killed herself.”

“Since you seem to know everything, why don’t
you?” My voice ripped against my throat.

Darthon didn’t flinch. “I won’t keep you here
forever,” he said. “You can ask your father when you return.” He
wasn’t going to tell me any more than he already had.

“So, why tell me this at all?” I wanted to
punch him, but I didn’t have the strength.

Darthon stood, but he sat back down like he
didn’t have the strength to leave either. “As much as I hate to
admit this, Welborn, you and I are the same—”

“We are not the same.”

He stared at the wall as if he hadn’t heard
me. “You might die by my hands, but the least I can do is guarantee
you don’t go to your grave with lies in your head.” His words
silenced me. “I want you to understand your death when it comes.
You’ll find peace in it then.”

14

Darthon didn’t come that night. No one did.
But I found myself immune to sleep. My eyes propped open like I had
taped my eyelids to the arches of my eyebrows. I stared at the
door, and it wavered over my lack of sleep. When it clicked open, I
thought I was hallucinating, but Fudicia was as solid as the
overbearing walls.

“Get up,” she said, but she didn’t look at
me.

It took me a minute to realize I was curled
up on the floor. At some point, I had fallen asleep.

When I didn’t move, Fudicia stomped across
the room, and her hand wrapped around my bicep. “Come on.”

My knees wobbled as I stood to walk. I didn’t
ask her where she was taking me as she yanked me out of the dungeon
and into the hallway. The red walls might as well have been painted
with blood, and I was relieved when she directed me into another
room.

A bathroom.

The golden light reflected off the granite
countertops and marble steps. A shower sat at the top of the small
stairs, already running hot water, and the steam glimmered as a
bright mist.

“Get cleaned up.” Fudicia let me go to leave
the room. When she exited, a lock clicked outside of the room. I
was taken out of one dungeon to be put in another one, but this one
had a shower.

My skin itched, and my clothes were heavy in
the humidity. I waited, anticipating she might enter again, but she
didn’t. Instead, she spoke through the door, “If you don’t get in,
I’ll treat you like a child and bathe you myself.”

“Fine,” I snapped back, tearing off my
T-shirt. I dropped my pants and peeled off my socks before stepping
into the open stream of water. The hot water met my skin, and air
hissed out of me. The dirt trailed off my body in dark rivers.
Light hues of red spiraled into it, and I shivered. I was bleeding
somewhere, but I couldn’t find the source. The injury was gone. Or
it wasn’t mine at all.

Eric.

My hand slammed over my mouth to prevent me
from crying out. I couldn’t stop fighting now. I had to be strong,
and I had to do what they said if I wanted to get both of us out
alive.

I forced my mouth open, and the shower’s
steam filled my lungs. The dust and grime that had suffocated me
cleared out, and I coughed. My eyes closed as I lifted my face into
the hot water, letting it stream down my hair, my cheeks, my
collarbone, and my shoulders. I lost track of my body after
that.

The shower was warm, refreshing, and perfect.
It was serenity, and I almost forgot I was a prisoner.

My heart slammed against my chest as my eyes
popped open. Before I submitted to the comfort, I grabbed the
faucet and turned the water off. Cold air swirled in with the steam
as I stepped out. My toes curled against the marble floor.

“You done?” Fudicia spoke as she opened the
door. Her eyes moved over my naked body before she threw a towel at
my head.

I caught it, covering myself before she could
continue to look. If the shower made me forget, her stare forced me
to remember. But she didn’t give me a chance to get dressed. She
grabbed my old clothes and left me standing in the miniature
sauna.

“You have new clothes out here,” she called
over her shoulder.

I followed because I didn’t have any other
choice.

The bathroom was attached to a bedroom that
hadn’t been there before. The Light realm shifted as fast as my
thoughts did, but the room existed now. It was small, but it had
everything a bedroom needed—a bed, a nightstand, a lamp. A pile of
clothes sat on the end of the mattress.

My eyes focused on Fudicia, but my nails dug
into my towel. I didn’t want to move. I was positive she would kill
me at any moment.

Fudicia groaned as she turned her back to me.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” she grumbled, “so get dressed.” Even
though her back was to me, she would attack if I did. I could hear
it in her voice.

I walked to the pile of clothes only to touch
the silky fabric. The color was as rich as a sunset over the
Midwest. Golden threads stitched the pieces together, and designs
spiraled down the sides of the dress. It was long-sleeved, thin,
but bearable.

“Why is it so nice?” I asked. It wasn’t
everyday a prisoner was forced to dress up like royalty.

“Just put them on,” Fudicia said. “You’re
already late.”

“Late?”

“It’s dinnertime,” Fudicia explained, but I
wondered if it was the same time in the Light realm as it was in
the human world. If it was, that meant they had just returned from
school—from Hayworth—from the place I yearned to be.

I forced myself to get dressed because it
meant I was one step closer to returning to my family, to the Dark,
to my loved ones.

As if she could sense I was dressed, she
turned around. This time, her stare didn’t move over me.
“Ready?”

“Who will be there?” I asked, hopeful they
were feeding Eric, too, but her frown told me otherwise.

“Just come,” she said, opening the door. She
didn’t drag me this time. I followed anyway.

I tried to keep up with the tall woman. “Is
he okay?”

She was silent; the only sounds were our
footsteps as we walked down the corridor.

“Is he?”

“No.”

That one word was enough to kill me.