Death Before Daylight (13 page)

“You have one day to think this over,” he
said. “I’ll be back to make that deal.” Whatever that entailed.
“And then, you can enjoy a few weeks of life before I come to kill
you.”

“How gracious of you.”

He stepped away, but his expression was
stoic. “Just think it over.”

16

I picked up the knife Darthon discarded and
took it with me as I walked around. As far as I could tell, the
realm was empty, but I didn’t trust it. I never would. Even though
my heart was warm, I cooled it with my thoughts.

Darthon wanted me to be in the Light, and he
wanted me to govern a new Dark—after Eric was dead. The fact that
Darthon believed I would even consider it proved how insane he was.
I wouldn’t let Eric die. I would get him out. I only had to find
him first.

The hallways shifted as I walked down them.
When I opened one door, the red carpet curved into a new direction,
revealing a room I hadn’t seen before. It was a maze of madness,
but I relied on my instincts.

I pushed open the first door my eyes locked
on.

The first thing I saw was four sets of black
horns sticking out from the floor. The heatless fire in the corner
was too familiar. Camille. She had died here. I could picture her
face in the corner.

“You won’t find him.”

I knew it was Darthon before I turned
around.

He was soundless as he walked up to me,
stopping only a yard away. His black shirt made his skin glow like
an angel in the paintings I studied, but his smile was unlike
anything I had seen in art. It was unnatural. His pointed teeth
were more like an animal’s than a person’s, and his frozen demeanor
was that of a statue.

I found the words. “I wasn’t looking for
him.”

When he tilted his head, every inch of
movement seemed deliberate. “Have you thought about what I
said?”

It had only been hours, three, at most.
Knowing what he wanted was impossible to comprehend, let alone
contemplate. Even he had to know that, but Fudicia’s words flooded
through me. Darthon wasn’t as patient as she was. He didn’t have
time. He should’ve been dead, after all, and his empty gaze made
him look like he already had died. I wondered what his eyes looked
like when he was a human, if I would recognize the expression if I
had the chance again.

My silence was enough of an answer for
him.

Before I could react, his hand snapped up and
smacked me across the face. I hit the ground. His fingers wrapped
around my hair by the time I started fighting back. I tried to stab
him, but his free hand took my only weapon.

“What don’t you understand?” he hissed
against my throat, the same piece of flesh he held a knife to
during prom. “I have more power here than you—than him—but you
could be better if you just listened to me.”

I reeled back, kicking at his knees, but it
wasn’t enough.

He slammed me against the wall. “I have other
ways of convincing you to give him up.”

Eric.

“It isn’t about him,” I screeched as my cheek
scraped the wall.

Darthon’s grip loosened, but only for a
moment. “You love the Dark that much?”

Bracke’s face was the first one I remembered,
how his expression had softened over time. When I first met him, he
was cold, skeptical about how I wanted to be Eric’s friend, and
then, he had smiled at me in the hospital after Eric’s car wreck,
and I knew he loved his son more than anyone.

Pierce’s face was next, and Camille’s
followed. I had to fight the image of her death, skin tearing off
her bones.

I twisted, trying to escape Darthon, but he
pushed my arm against my back. “If that’s how you’re going to be—”
His voice trailed off, but he yanked me off the wall. He hadn’t
dragged me three feet before Fudicia came out of a door.

“Darthon?” Even her eyes were wide. “What are
you doing? You can’t hurt her—”

“I’m not,” he growled, dodging Fudicia as she
attempted to pull him off me. “I’m just giving her a new
prison.”

I dug my heels into the ground, but it wasn’t
enough. Darthon pulled my hair, and I fell forward. He had his hand
wrapped around my wrists in seconds. My skin burned.

“Let me go,” I screamed, but no amount of
fighting stopped him. I was too human.

He dragged me down the hallway in minutes and
kicked open a door as it appeared. He lifted me up only to toss me
to the floor. My legs scraped against the ground, so I raised my
arms to block him from hitting me, but he didn’t.

I only moved my arm when his footsteps echoed
away. He slammed his fist against the wall. “I’ll kill him,
Jess.”

“You can’t—”

“I already have.”

The words slammed against my chest like he
had hit me instead of the concrete.

“See this wall?” His forefinger was white
when he pressed the wall. “He’s one wall away from you.” Eric was
right next door. “And you will be able to hear him tonight when I
kill him again. And again when he comes back to life. And again
after that.”

Eric. He was dying. That was why his
heartbeat kept fading and returning. Darthon wasn’t lying. He
couldn’t kill him, even when he could.

“Wait—”

“I will wait when you become one of us.”

“I don’t know how,” I shouted back, every
part of me burning.

“Maybe you’ll figure it out,” he said and
marched over to the doorway, flicking the knife out so I could see
it. “The screaming might help you think.”

I stood up to chase him, but it was too late.
Darthon slammed the door, and I slammed against it, hitting it with
all the force I had left. Nothing happened. Nothing but my
desperation.

“Fudicia!” It was the first time I wanted her
help. “Darthon!” I shouted their names over and over, but no one
responded.

I ran over to the wall Darthon had hit and
hit it myself. “Darthon, stop!”

A shout was the only response I had.

Eric’s shout.

My blood went cold in my veins, and any heat
the realm gave me left. Even though he wasn’t speaking, I
recognized Eric’s voice as he screamed. The screams were constant,
more alive than my breathing.

I hit the wall until I couldn’t anymore.

Another scream followed the shattering of
what I could only guess was bone. He didn’t scream after that. My
tears might as well have been acid rain.

That was how I remembered the rain, a power
that came naturally to me, but one Eric couldn’t control. It was
the sign I had been different all along.

I squeezed my hand and drowned out my breath
as I laid my palm out. I waited, urged for it to come, and slowly,
just as Eric’s heartbeat began to return, the rain flickered from
my fingertips. The purple color didn’t stay purple for long. It
burned red and splatted against the ground like blood.

The door opened.

Darthon stood there, his hair as wild as his
eyes, but I stared at his hands. Eric’s blood was on his
fingertips.

“You called?” he snarled. “Or are you just
distracting me?”

The red power I had was theirs—the
Light’s—and it was also mine. I knew how to become one of them, and
it rested in my veins. The purple powers would have to die, but I
clutched onto it.

“If you leave him alone, I’ll—”

Darthon marched over. “I didn’t come to
bargain, Jess.” He spat on my face when he grabbed me, but this
time, his grip slipped. From the blood.

My stomach twisted before I threw up
again.

Darthon didn’t even notice. He dragged me
straight through it, and my vision blurred as he pulled me down the
hallway and into the room. Eric’s room.

Darthon let go of me then.

“This is your fault,” he said.

Eric’s body was mangled, torn and bloody. His
muscles were shredded, his skin was ripped, and his limbs were
shattered. The only sign of life he had was the sickening wheezing
that escaped his lungs. His chest inched up as he breathed.

“Eric.” I scrambled across the room on my
knees until I was by his side.

His face was barely recognizable. I lifted my
hands to touch him only to move away. “Eric.”
“Can you hear
me?”

“Get away from him,” Darthon ordered.

I didn’t move. I only searched Eric’s body,
struck by how his injuries healed, how his human body reconnected,
how the slice on his abdomen was closing. He was coming back to
life only for Darthon to kill him again, only for Darthon to
continue to torture the both of us—until one of us broke and the
Dark died. I couldn’t let the Dark die.

The knife lay by Eric’s ribcage.

I grabbed it.

Darthon chuckled. “We already know how bad
your aim is.”

“I’m not aiming for you,” I spat.

“Don’t,” Darthon screamed as he shot forward,
but it was too late.

I plunged it into my chest.

17

When I woke up, Darthon was waiting, but he
was quiet. He was never quiet.

I glanced around the room, half-expecting the
half-breed to be ready to attack me, but no one was there. We were
alone, and Darthon lingered in silence. When I looked at him, his
eyes focused on the ground near me. My blood had dried against it,
a reminder of how much I hadn’t healed. I had only just come back
to life. My chest was cut. As I moved, I sensed my ribs were
broken. I stopped moving out of the fear of puncturing a lung.

“The deal,” Darthon finally spoke, “I want
you to take it, and I want you to take it today.”

Be my slave.
I remembered his
proposition, even though I wanted to forget it.

Darthon looked at me, but it was the first
time I had seen his complexion so pale. “If you take it, I’ll let
you both go right now.”

Jessica.

In my delirium, I had heard her speak my
name. But her voice hadn’t sounded peaceful. She had screamed. It
was worse than the death I succumbed to.

I stared at the ceiling. “How is she?”

“Alive.”

His tone made my veins twist.

I only looked back at him to search his face,
expecting to see a threatening glare escape him, but nothing came.
He was frozen. But he didn’t have an injury on his skin. If he had
hurt her, he would’ve been hurt, but he wasn’t, even though he
talked like they both were.

“Just take the deal, Welborn.”

“I’m not going to be your slave—”

“If you don’t take the deal, she’ll die.”

“You can’t hurt her.”

“She’ll die.”

It was the look in his face—the way his jaw
popped into place as he locked it, the way his eyes wrinkled with
his brow, the way he didn’t look away from me.

“I don’t see how it will work—”

He shifted as if he had to move to loosen his
jaw. “It’s a spell.”

“An illusion,” I corrected, knowing how their
powers worked. “And if that’s the case, I can break it.”

“Then, take that chance,” Darthon said.

My fingertips pushed against the ground as I
forced myself to sit up. “Why would you want to control me?”

He laid his chin on his hands. “Because I
need you to leave her.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Welborn,” he said. “Stay away
from her, and she’ll be just fine, and if you break the illusion,
then, fine. I just need time, and as long as she has you, she’ll
believe in the Dark—”

“You don’t get it, do you?” I snapped. “She
isn’t fighting for me. She’s fighting for the Dark. It doesn’t
matter if I leave her—”

“Then, take the deal.”

I was silenced.

Darthon’s hands dropped to his knees, and he
leaned forward. “If you’re that confident in her, then, listen to
me, and do as I say,” his growl echoed. “Take the deal.”

I had to look away.

Leave Jessica? Stay away from her all over
again? I had done it before and failed. I had failed everything,
giving up when I thought she was dead. But she hadn’t given up on
the Dark or me. She came through, and she fought. She always would.
I knew that. And if it meant our escape, I would have to rely on
that. Our destiny was only a shadow of the bigger picture. Even if
our destiny died, the Dark wouldn’t. The Dark was what mattered.
Jessica had proven that to me when I told her I gave up. It was my
chance to do the same for her.

“I still don’t see how this will work,” I
managed, unable to tell him I agreed.

“I’ll put the spell—”

“The illusion,” I corrected again, “that I
will break.”

“Fine.” Darthon still agreed.

Something was wrong.

“I’ll put the illusion on you,” he said, “and
you will listen to my orders when I come to you,” he explained.
“You won’t be able to tell her about our little deal either. You
won’t be able to tell anyone anything.”

So, it was a sensory spell. Luthicer had
explained them in training. The Light couldn’t physically control
someone’s movements, but they could control parts of the mind,
trick them into thinking they couldn’t speak or hear or see certain
things. It was how they could attack in broad daylight without
anyone seeing.

As much as I hated it, it was a relief. I was
expecting something more powerful, something that wouldn’t be easy
to break, but I reminded myself it was Darthon’s illusion. He
wouldn’t make it simple to destroy.

“Why wait for me to agree to it?” I asked,
trying to understand as much as I could so I could relay it to
Luthicer in the future. He would know what to do. “Why not just do
it?”

Darthon’s eyes searched mine like he knew
what I was thinking. “It’s more powerful if you agree.” Darthon
might have been the most honest person I had ever met, and I hated
him for it as much as it fascinated me. “It also means that you
will live—Jess will live—and if you don’t agree, one of you won’t,”
he paused. “By that, I mean Jess.”

“Is the only rule to stay away from her?” I
interrupted, refusing to talk about her death. It wouldn’t happen.
I wouldn’t lose anyone else.