Death Before Daylight (18 page)

“I know,” she said against my back before she
shoved one more time. “Just leave.”

And I did. I ran and never looked back.

24

“I screwed up back there, didn’t I?”
Jonathon’s head hung low as he muttered a curse at himself. He was
finally human again.

I grabbed his chin to force him to look up.
“You think?” I dabbed his sliced lip with a rag.

He winced, but he didn’t pull away. His lip
wasn’t healing like it normally would’ve. Everyone’s powers were
weaker, aside from Eric and me.

“He could’ve hurt you worse, you know,” I
said and set the rag on the countertop. The water had mixed with
his blood, but the red color only reminded me of one thing—how my
purple rain had shifted in the Light realm.

“I know that,” Jonathon admitted, leaning
over to open the curtain of the nurse’s room. Luthicer was standing
a foot away, grumbling on a phone. I couldn’t remember the last
time I saw a Dark member use a phone, let alone an elder. Their
telepathy was shaky.

Jonathon closed the curtain. “I can’t believe
he’s calling my father,” he said. “I’m not a child.”

“You sure acted like one.” Even I hadn’t seen
it coming. Jonathon never attacked anyone. Aside from the battle, I
hadn’t witnessed him throw a punch. I had only seen him paint.

“Doesn’t mean my dad should be called.”
Jonathon continued to rub his temples, but his veins pounded
against his forehead. He had to adjust his glasses. Fifteen minutes
passed, and Jonathon’s hands were still shaking.

“Is he at work?” I changed the focus to Urte,
Jonathon’s father and Eric’s trainer. The elder wouldn’t be happy
when he arrived.

Jonathon nodded.

“What does Urte do anyway?”

My guard let out a half-laugh, but he
hesitated to answer. “Cupcakes.”

“What?”

Jonathon nodded again, and we both broke out
into mild laugher. “Don’t tell him I told you that,” he said
between chuckles. “It’s a very profitable business, especially
during the holidays.”

I tried to picture George Stone baking, but I
could only imagine him drinking. “I didn’t even know Hayworth had a
cupcake shop.”

“We don’t. He runs it right out of our
house,” Jonathon continued, his mouth turned down. “My mom started
it.”

I stopped laughing when he mentioned his
mother, the woman who had left her family behind when Eric was
Named Shoman. She wanted to abandon the Dark, and Urte refused.
Eric had told me how the moment had brought Jonathon and him
closer. They had both lost their mothers at a young age. Camille
had been a fill-in for both of them. The fact that Jonathon had
thrown her in Eric’s face stayed with me.

I found something to say. “I didn’t
know.”

“It’s okay.” He fought his frown. “It’s good
to laugh at something.”

“Why’d you hit him anyway?” I couldn’t
prevent my next words, not when I thought about Camille. I had
barely known her, but she gave her life up for mine. In that sense,
she didn’t feel like a stranger at all.

Jonathon looked away from me as if I were a
stranger. “He shut me out.”

Eric.
The shaky telepathy they shared
was completely severed, and I recalled my own slicing pain when he
shoved me out.

“Me, too,” I confessed, trying not to obsess
over the time at the willow tree, but it consumed me. Eric’s eyes
were darker, quieter than usual, just like his voice was, and he
winced when he shoved me out. I knew enough about our powers to
know he had forced it. When someone wanted to do it, they didn’t
wince at all. Whatever Eric’s reasoning was, it wasn’t me, and it
wasn’t Pierce either.

Jonathon wove his fingers through his hair as
if he could read my thoughts. “He should’ve hit me harder.” He
cursed for the umpteenth time. “Camille would kill me for throwing
her in his face—”

“We’re all a little tense,” I interrupted as
I laid my hand on Jonathon’s shoulder. “Eric will be fine.”

“Will he?” Jonathon’s glasses slipped to the
bottom of his nose only for him to push them back up. “I can’t—” He
practically hit his thigh when he dropped his hands into his lap.
“I can’t believe I did that.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t slap him myself,” I
tried to comfort my guard, to protect him from his own actions, but
he stared at the floor like he didn’t hear me.

“I know you’re right,” he said. “Something is
wrong with him. Eric would never act that way. He’d never hit me,
but he sure as hell wouldn’t run away from fighting me.”

“He ran so he didn’t have to hit you
again.”

Jonathon shook his head. “He ran because you
told him to.” His words crushed me. “Eric would rather fight than
run. Even if it were against me, he was born to fight. My dad
taught him to fight. He only taught him to run from one
person.”

Darthon. I knew the rules. Eric was taught to
run only if he encountered Darthon before the battle. The Marking
of Change had already happened. There was no reason to run
anymore.

“You’re right, Jess,” Jonathon emphasized my
name. “Something is wrong with him.”

I wanted to continue to talk to Jonathon
about it, but Luthicer entered the room. The dark pits of his eyes
moved between us. As he leaned against the wall, he fiddled with
his beard, and it seemed to grow from his touch.

“Urte will be here in twenty.”

“What?” Jonathon huffed. “No express
transport?”

“Don’t take our powers so lightly.”
Luthicer’s voice was as tight as his grip on his beard. “Now, which
one of you is going to explain that little fiasco?”

“It’s my fault,” I started, but Jonathon
stood up.

“Eric broke up with Jess.”

“Jonathon.” I almost cursed at my guard.

“What?” He kept his back to me and focused on
the half-breed elder. “It’s true.”

Luthicer looked over Jonathon’s shoulder to
meet my eyes. “Is it?”

I couldn’t deny it any longer. I nodded.

Luthicer didn’t budge. “You seem extremely
calm, Ms. Taylor.”

“Because I know it isn’t me.” My fingernails
curled into my palm. “It isn’t us.”

“It’s him,” Luthicer agreed, but didn’t
elaborate as he walked past Jonathon to take a seat at the nurse’s
station. I stared at him, waiting for him to speak, but he only
picked up a clipboard to read it.

“You know something,” I accused.

Luthicer glanced up. “As an elder, I’m
supposed to hold meetings before I talk to warriors such as
yourselves, but—” He pointed to the chair Jonathon was near, and
Jonathon followed the man’s silent order. He sat down again.
Luthicer drew in a long breath before he continued to speak at
Jonathon, “I’m not sure I even see you as a warrior anymore.”

“Well, I’m technically a guard,” Jonathon
tried to joke, but Luthicer didn’t laugh. Jonathon’s shoulders
slumped. “That’s a little harsh.”

“Think about that the next time you attack
Shoman.”

Jonathon folded his arms and glared at the
wall, but he nodded.

Luthicer watched the boy with a parental
glare, but his brow softened when his attention turned to me. “And
I owe you for breaking the fight up.”

“You’re the one who held him back—”

“And you’re the one who got Eric to leave,”
Luthicer interrupted. “Don’t discredit your actions. You did well,
Jess.”

My cheeks burned. “I didn’t want anyone
getting hurt.”

“And no one did.” Luthicer gestured to
Jonathon. “Not much anyway.”

“It was a good punch,” Jonathon said.

Luthicer ignored him and held the clipboard
toward me. “I owe you.” He shook the wood until I grabbed it.
“Before you two got here, Eric came in, demanding to see me. Pulled
me right out of my office with his yelling.”

I wondered what job Luthicer had that allowed
him to stay in the shelter during the day, but my thoughts were
brushed aside when I looked down at the clipboard. A single paper
sat on top with Eric’s name etched onto it.

“He wanted me to check him for spells,
illusions brought on by your time in the realm,” he explained as I
read over the report.

Everything was negative. “I don’t
understand.”

“He’s clean,” Luthicer confirmed.

“Well, that wasn’t very helpful,” Jonathon
said.

Luthicer’s glare silenced him. “Do you ever
think of anything but joking around?” When Jonathon didn’t respond,
Luthicer sighed. “Although I’m an elder, I don’t have unlimited
powers.” He raised his hands as if to expose his chest. “I’m not as
magnificent as people think I am.”

“
Magnificent,”
Jonathon’s voice was in
my head.
“Right.”

“But I do know when someone is talking
silently,” Luthicer said and continued to glare at Jonathon.
“Really. I taught you better than that.”

“What are you saying?” I interrupted their
bickering.

Luthicer leaned over to tap Eric’s report.
“I’m saying there are other types of illusions—kinds I can’t
detect—powers Darthon has above everyone else, even me or a
full-breed elder.”

My heart pounded. “How do we break it?”

Luthicer’s long lips folded. “If he put an
illusion on Eric, I wouldn’t be able to break it.”

I almost dropped the clipboard. “But you did
before.”

“At the Marking of Change?” Luthicer asked
for clarification.

I nodded, but I also mentioned the time after
prom, when Eric had been strapped to a table the night I sacrificed
my memory.

“That was different,” the elder explained.
“Those are physical strains of an illusion. There are also sensory
illusions—a type that affects the way you see or hear things.”

The slice of information was just a reminder
of how much I hadn’t learned in my first seventeen years of life,
before I found the Dark.

“They’re small but effective,” Luthicer
continued as if he knew I needed him to. “They can be powerful
under one condition,” he paused as if I could guess. When I
remained silent, he finished, “If Eric agreed to it.”

“Agreed?” My breath squeaked out of me. “He’d
never do that.”

“He wouldn’t be able to say it if he
did.”

“But—”

“What I’m saying, Ms. Taylor, is this: if he
did agree, there’s a reason, and that reason is the key to breaking
the illusion down.” Luthicer leaned forward, placing his elbows on
his knees as his eyes dragged over my face. “If you’re not telling
us something about the realm, now is the time to do it because Eric
can’t.”

I swallowed. We were separated for the three
days we spent there aside from one moment, the single event I had
yet to confess. When we got back to the shelter, the nurse wanted
to check me, and I had practically attacked her to get her off me.
Her touch felt like a burn, and I knew what the burn was: Dark
energy. It was reacting to the energy of the Light in my veins. The
powers weren’t complete, but they simmered with the same warmth the
knife had when it entered me. To admit to my attempt would be
confessing to the truth: I was also a light. I wanted to tell the
Dark more than anything, but I was failing to find my words when
Eric’s sentence repeated through my memory.

I don’t like lights.

Maybe Darthon was right. Maybe they wouldn’t
trust me. Maybe they would kill me. I didn’t know, and I didn’t
want to risk any more than I already had.

“They tortured him,” I choked out, trying to
make a decision in the seconds Luthicer had given me. He was a
half-breed, and the Dark loved him, but my situation was different.
Too different.

“That’s all I know,” I finished.

Luthicer was silent as he continued to stare
at me, but he cracked his bottom lip open. “And you?” His voice was
a whisper, harsh and dark. “What did they do to you?”

Eric knew. He knew I was one of the lights,
but he obviously hadn’t told anyone. Not yet. The fact that he
didn’t tell them told me that my hesitation was correct. The Dark
had lied to us, but they had especially lied to Eric. He didn’t
trust them, and I knew I shouldn’t either. Not until I could figure
it out. Not until I could figure out what Eric was thinking. Even
if he left me, we were a team, and our connection was the only
thing I trusted to get us through it.

We had hope left.

“Jess?”

Luthicer was still in front of me, but he had
to repeat my name for me to realize it.

“They left me alone,” I lied.

Luthicer’s chest rose as he took in a breath.
“Okay, then,” he said as he stood up. “If we learn anything else,
I’ll let you two know.”

“Thank you,” I managed, hoping to have a
chance to talk to Jonathon before Urte came. In my mind, Jonathon
was always a part of the team. Even if he hurt Eric, I trusted him,
too. Somehow, in some way, I would tell him.

“Oh, and Jonathon,” Luthicer spoke up as he
left the room. “Your dad is here.”

“Fantastic.”

When Jonathon stood up to leave, I grabbed
his arm. “Wait—”

“I should go, Jess,” he said it without
looking at me. “I’ve done enough damage for the day.”

My grip dropped from his arm. “Can you talk
later?”

“It’d be better if we waited for the
meeting.” Jonathon moved away, but he flashed a grin. “You’re a
strong person, Jess. Thanks for helping me.”

I bit my lip, but I nodded before he left me
alone to my thoughts.

25

“I need to change my schedule,” I spoke
before I realized who I was speaking to.

The blonde behind the counter smiled when I
finally met her brown eyes.

I gripped the counter. “Linda.” She had to be
Fudicia. Her or Crystal. Either way, they were both guilty.

Linda tapped her nails across the keyboard,
but her smile never faltered. Apparently, in her transfer to our
school, she had signed up to be an office student, a duty offered
only to seniors. It was just my luck she was the one I had to speak
to if I wanted to switch homerooms and get away from Jessica.