Out of the Dark (Light & Dark #1) (10 page)

Chapter Twelve.

#12. Our gift is the sun.

I wake with a start, my heart already hammering heavily in my chest, ready to burst out and escape through the broken space above us. Lilly’s arms tighten around me as I stare unblinkingly up at the bright yellow disc in the sky: the sun, our savior. The warmth of its rays are draped across our entwined bodies, and I take a small, self-indulgent moment to enjoy it, the warmth and the security that the sunlight provides. This is our gift. Our gift for surviving another night: the sun.

Lilly’s soft snores are all I hear, and my shattered nerves begin to soothe on their own accord. I relax myself against her, all thoughts of my nightmare subsiding. I remember singing to Honeybee when she had nightmares, the mellow and soulful tones I would produce to try and vanquish her sadness—her fear. She has a more beautiful voice than me, though I have only heard her sing once. One day when we were eating wild berries by the roadside, the warm sun on our backs and the delicious, bitter tang of berries on my tongue, she started abruptly. No warning, no slow buildup. She just opened her little heart shaped mouth and began to sing, the stain of berries still vivid on her chin. I had smiled, watching her as I continued to eat, listening to her sweet voice sing a lullaby that I had never heard before.

I smile now as I clutch hold of the memory as tightly as I can.

The smell of the sweat on our bodies and the hungry gurgle of our empty bellies brings me back to wakefulness. Back to the life that I don’t want to be in. I open my eyes and look down at Lilly, pushing back the tangles of her hair. The black lines of poison beneath her skin come into view, and I swallow. They trail down her throat, black and ugly and slowly changing her—killing her. I squeeze my eyes closed as I pull her tightly to me, kissing the top of her head. I work hard to suppress the sob that hangs in my throat, refusing to give in on her yet. I have the same poison running through my veins, but I don’t care about that. I only care about her.

“Mama?”

I open my eyes and see her pools of brown staring up at me. She’s still sleepy, and I realize that I must have been squeezing her too hard. I force a smile.

“Morning, Honeybee.”

She watches me carefully, blinking every now and then as she gazes upon my heartbroken face. Because she knows. She always knows. She’s so clever for someone so young.

“I love you,” she finally whispers.

I smile affectionately and stroke her cheek. “And I love you.”

She grins back, and like that—like a snap of the fingers—the mood between us is better. Our morbid thoughts are pushed away for the moment, because what good is morbidity to you? It doesn’t help. Though of course nothing really helps, but morbidity even less so. It is like an infection—a disease if, you will. It destroys you from the inside out, making you sick with sadness and rage.

I sit up and Lilly pulls away from me, giving a small stretch of her thin body. She lifts her arms above her head and her top lifts fractionally—enough for me to see that despite all the food she has eaten for the past week she is still all skin and bones, and enough for me to see that the black veins are slowly working their way across her stomach. I look away as she finishes her stretch and casts her glance back to me.

“I like it here,” she says, tipping her face toward the sun that is still burning down on us through the broken hatch. “It’s warm.”

“Me too,” I say. I give a small shrug. “But we can’t stay here, it’s not safe.”

She looks away from me, her eyes sad. Sad because she understands. She knows that today will be hard, that we have lost everything, and that we need to start again. Yet when she turns her sweet face back to mine, a small smile plays on her lips.

“What is it?” I ask, curious.

“I think I stink,” she says, the smile growing wider.

I can’t help but smile now. Our chances of survival, even for another week, are now minimal. Our chances of survival at all are nonexistent. Yet here she is, my sweet Honeybee, smiling—smiling because we smell bad.

I grab her and she giggles, the sound erupting from her mouth and making me laugh right back with her. We lie in the loft, rolling around in the hay and tickling each other, giggling insanely for several minutes until my sides ache from laughing so much. I look into her perfect little face, her beautiful, wide brown eyes and her rosebud mouth, and I smile. I feel the smile right down to my toes when she smiles back at me.

“I love you, Mama.”

“I love you too, Lilly. So so much.”

A low hiss breaks through our declarations, and my smile falters. The hiss comes again and I frown, hard, and scamper over to where the wooden ladders are and look down. I blink, once, twice, and then I give myself a small shake to make sure that I am awake and this is not another nightmare.

“Mama?” Her voice is a soft whisper, but it’s enough to get their attention.

The monsters lie beneath us, hidden in the shadows of the barn. Curled together like vipers ready to strike. Their nest a warm bed beneath the sun, hidden in the refuge of this barn. They pace back and forth, avoiding the square of light from the broken hatch in the center of their darkness. They stare up at me, their eyes glowing red and hateful, and a tremor runs through my body from head to toe. I push back from the ledge, stumbling to my feet as their growls grow louder. Lilly’s hand latches onto mine, and I look down into her face.

“They are here,” I say, quietly. Matter-of-factly.

She blinks in understanding. We are trapped.

I put a single finger to my lips and she nods. Her chin begins to tremble, but she doesn’t cry or whimper. We’ve been here before—she knows what to do: keep quiet and stay in the sun. I look around us, searching for an escape, a way out of here, but all I see are wooden walls and hay. The hisses are becoming louder down below as they alert one another to our presence, and my searching becomes more frantic. I grip Lilly’s wrists and pull her into the center of our small space so that the sun is shining directly down on her. This is where she will be safest.

I feel along the walls, testing the durability of each plank of wood, my fingers attempting to pry the boards loose, but they do not budge. The barn is old and rickety and yet I cannot pull out even one small plank of wood. There is a small window at one end of the loft, cracked, dusty, and small. I push on the lock, trying to free it, but it is jammed in place. I bite my lip, glance toward Lilly, and then I abruptly ram my elbow against the glass. It shatters noisily and the monsters below begin to screech and scream. I look out the window, seeing more hay on the ground below. It’s dangerous. The fall is short, but Lilly is fragile—humanity is fragile. I run back to Lilly and kneel down in front of her, but no words will come out.

She places a hand on my cheek, her chin still quivering as she seeks out the problem, stealing the truth from my eyes. Scratching of nails down below makes us both jump. Because this isn’t scratching, it’s clawing. Urgent and deadly as it—they—try to get up to us.

“Stay here,” I whisper, and I creep to the ledge and look down once more.

They are all awake now, bumping and jostling each other, all eager to get to us. Thirty pairs of red eyes stare up at me from the shadows, and it is all that I can do to not scream out in fear and anger. One of them attempts to climb the rickety ladder, but their limbs are not made for climbing ladders, and it stumbles and falls backwards, hissing in frustration as another monster takes its place.

I grip the wood and shake the monster free from it, and then I begin to drag the ladder up, pulling it away from their reach, cursing myself the entire time for not dragging it up after us last night. The ladder is heavy, but I eventually lay it flat amongst the hay. I’m hot and sweaty, and trying not to panic. I look at Lilly, who is still standing in the center of the square of light. She’s watching me carefully, picking up on my every emotion. Though she’s trying to stay calm, I can see her own anxiety peeking through the cracks.

I fall to my knees, gripping my head as panic begins to consume me. Every breath feels like it is poison, the stench of the monsters hanging thick in the air, so much so that I can taste them in my mouth, on my tongue, bitter and vile and evil. I fix my gaze on the hay and the wooden floor, attempting to get a grip on my emotions before I lose control completely. The noise from below is almost deafening now and I can hardly think, but I hear Lilly. I hear her call my name and I look up through the tears that blur my vision. Her eyes meet mine and she points her small finger toward the ladder.

I blink, looking at it and then back at her. And then I get it. I stand back up and grab the ladder, dragging it across the landing and toward the window. I have to angle it to get it out of the small gap, and I grip it with everything that I have so it doesn’t fall over. We only have one chance at this. The ladder is too small to reach all the way from the window to the ground. There is a gap of almost three feet that I somehow have to navigate. I lean out the window as far as I dare and hang onto the ladder as hard as I can, not letting go of it until I am absolutely certain that it is the best position for it, and it won’t just fall over. My fingers gently slide from the last wooden step, and I hold my breath as it clanks noisily against the side of the barn. I think it might fall, but then it balances and a small sound of thankfulness escapes my lips. I turn back to Lilly, gesturing for her to leave that small space of safety in the sun.

She does, reluctantly, once again putting her entire trust in me. When she is by my side, I hug her, using her to compose myself. Her body is trembling in my arms but I refuse to cry. Not now. She needs me strong, and I need her calm.

“Lilly, I am going to lower you as much as I can.”

She blinks at me, confused, so I get her to look out the window so that she understands.

“The ladder is too short. But it will only be a small drop. You can do this, Honeybee.” I kiss her forehead, holding back the words that I so desperately want to say:
You have to do this.

She nods, but her eyes show vibrant fear, so I pull her into another embrace and kiss her head. Her small arms cling to me almost painfully, but I don’t care. I would take any amount of pain for her. We finally pull apart and I take her hands in mine and kiss her knuckles.

“Are you ready?” I whisper, ignoring the screams that echo below us. The monsters that are calling for our blood.

She nods but still looks uncertain.

“Just be calm, concentrate, and hold onto me until the very last second.”

I help her up to the window and grip her fiercely as she turns around, letting her legs dangle over the edge. I can feel her small body trembling beneath my fingers, her ribs sharp and jutting. I grit my teeth and begin to lower her, stretching myself out as far as I can go. I lock my hips in place, my feet pressing against the floor to stop myself from slipping. She stares at me the entire time, her wide eyes never straying from mine. Her grip is firm, stronger than I could have hoped for her, and it gives me the belief that she will be okay. That she can do this.

A noise from behind has me breaking our stare, and I turn to see one of the monsters’ clawed hands gripping the ledge. The skin is bubbling, burning up in the glare from the sun. It screams loudly in pain but it presses on, almost as if it knows that we are escaping and it will be worth the pain if it catches us in time. It drags itself up, and I realize that the other monsters have sacrificed this one in favor of themselves. It drags its rapidly burning body toward us, the flames igniting and catching hold of the hay around it. Its eyes burn pure red and hateful as it holds my stare, its teeth snapping at me as it drag, drags, drags its body forward.

I turn back to Lilly, but the resolve has gone from her eyes, and now she just looks like a petrified little girl.

“You have to let go.”

She shakes her head at me.

“You have to, Lilly, you have to.” I try to free my hands from hers, but she starts to cry and clings to me, all the while shaking her head fearfully. “Let go, Lilly, drop! It’s there, it’s right there. An inch, two at best,” I lie. “You can do it.” I look away, checking behind me, and seeing the barn alight, the angry flames licking against the ceiling, and the monster, aglow with fire yet still coming for me—for us. I look back at Lilly, her knuckles white with the fierceness that she holds me with.

“I’m sorry,” I say, watching as her pupils dilate, and I finally pry my hands free from hers. “I’m sorry,” I say, breaking all the trust that she has in me as I let her go.

And then she’s falling.

The sun, our savior, is bouncing off her soft golden curls in the morning daylight. She’s an angel as she falls, her arms going wide, her mouth open in a silent scream. My arms are reaching for her, wishing I could take it back. And then her feet find the wooden step of the ladder and her hands are clawing against the side of the barn to hold herself steady as she screams painfully, fear filling her body. She stares up at me, frightened and happy all at the same time.

“Go, Lilly!” I yell to her.

She climbs down, taking the steps quickly but carefully, and I’m so proud of her. I turn at the sound of a growl, a growl far too close to me. And it all happens so quickly.

It lunges.

I move.

It falls through the open window.