Death Before Daylight (19 page)

I stared at the girl who had dated Robb for
as long as I could remember, and I tried to place Fudicia’s face on
her. Linda’s was soft, her cheeks as round as her eyes. But her
lipstick was as red as Fudicia’s lips were. For once, I could see
the light in the human, the innocent version of the sadistic woman
who had killed my first girlfriend.

“What class do you want to switch?” Linda
spoke as she flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“Homeroom.”

She peered up at me. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

Her hand flicked up as she placed a form on
the counter separating us. “I need a parent’s signature.”

I didn’t hesitate. I leaned over the counter
and snatched the pen right off of her ear. A gasp escaped her as I
scratched my father’s name on the form and threw both the pen and
the form back at her. “There you go,” I spat. “A parent’s
signature.”

“I can’t accept that,” she said as her eyes
darted down the paper. “Mr. Welborn.”

“Don’t bullshit me right now.”

Her thin eyebrows rose. “You are so lucky I’m
not a real secretary.” Her words didn’t make sense until she picked
up her pen and checked the approval box. She was letting me
transfer.

I lost my breath.

“There’s only one class open,” she continued
as she glanced at her computer screen. “You won’t be in the same
lunch.”

“Even better,” I muttered. “Are we done
here?”

“Not yet.” She stood from her desk only to
lean against the countertop. She stuck her hand out toward me. “I’m
Linda, by the way.”

I stared at her palm, forcing myself not to
hit her. The teachers would see Eric hit Linda, not Shoman hit
Fudicia, the murderer. “I know who you are.”

Her attempted handshake curled up. “I know.”
She didn’t even deny it. “Maybe we should eat lunch sometime.” Her
voice was like liquid, lucid and smooth. It was the same tone she
used when I first met her as Fudicia, tied up in the shelter after
she had killed more shades. How much blood she had shed was beyond
me, but a drop was enough.

When I didn’t respond, she stepped back to
put gum in her mouth, breaking one of the rules our teachers
enforced like it was a drug. “You should be in homeroom right
now.”

I picked up my bag. “While you’re at it, you
can mark me as absent.”

I started for the door, but she called after
me, “Would you mind straightening out Hannah Blake’s memorial?”

Abby. My palm coated with sweat as I grabbed
the doorknob.

Linda giggled behind me. “Someone might have
knocked into it this morning,” she continued. “I was just about to
do it, but since you’re leaving—”

“Fuck off, Fudicia.” The curse escaped me as
I left the room.

My body was on fire before the door slammed
behind me. I didn’t do as she said. I didn’t straighten out Abby’s
memorial. I grabbed it instead, plucking it off the wall to take it
with me. Fudicia wouldn’t get the satisfaction of torturing me, but
I would get the satisfaction of knowing she would have to explain
it to the office. The attention was another way I could signal to
the Dark that something was wrong. I hadn’t talked about Abby since
she died, let alone touched her memorial, but if she were watching,
I knew she would laugh.

Abby was like that. She always laughed, and I
found myself laughing for the first time as I left the school with
her photo in my hands.

Even the dead could help me more than the
living Dark could, and there were two more deaths I had to confront
before I could cause another. I knew that the second Jonathon threw
Camille’s death in my face. It was the only way I could fight back.
I would kill Darthon. I just had to resolve the past first.

26

His seat was empty. That was the first thing
I noticed when homeroom began. Eric wasn’t in class, and there
wasn’t a single sign he was coming. My attempt to talk to him about
how I was a light and a shade was put off again. I would have to
wait. But the second thing I noticed took over my worry.

Our teacher never asked me to move away from
Robb or Crystal. Even though I wasn’t supposed to sit at their
table, Ms. Hinkel didn’t question it. She never even looked at
me—unlike the rest of the class. Their eyes had been on me since I
arrived at Hayworth High.

Everyone knew. The rumor was too loud to
ignore, even when it was whispered. Eric had broken up with me, and
I was the desperate girl who hadn’t taken off his ring yet. I
stared at it until class ended.

“Here.” Crystal’s voice caught my attention
before I realized what she had done. A silver necklace sat on the
lunch table in front of me. When I looked at her, she forced a
small smile. “So you can hide it.”

She was giving me a necklace to keep his ring
on.

I pushed the necklace back. “I don’t want to
hide it—”

She picked the chain up, grabbed my hand, and
forced the jewelry into my palm. “You don’t want to listen to the
rumors either,” she pointed out. “Don’t give them a reason to
talk.”

The silver burned against my palm, but my
heart leapt. She was right. I took off the ring only to string it
around the necklace. Crystal helped me clip it on, blocking the
view of anyone who was watching. The ring pounded against my
sternum as I put it inside my sweater.

Crystal plopped down next to me and kicked
her feet up on the table. “You okay?”

I stared at the willow tree, half-expecting
Eric to be there, even though I knew he wouldn’t be. “Where’d he
go?” If anyone knew, Crystal would.

“You don’t want to know—”

“I do.”

Crystal fiddled with the ends of her hair.
“He transferred out, Jess.”

“What?”

“That’s why Ms. Hinkel didn’t make you move,”
she explained. “She’s probably trying to figure out where she’s
going to put you.”

I waved away her secondary information. “How
do you know he transferred out?” I couldn’t bring myself to say
Eric’s name.

When she bit her lip, her lip ring sparkled.
It was purple today. “Linda told me about it this morning,” she
explained. “She works in the office now. Handled his paperwork
herself.”

Eric wasn’t going to come to class ever
again. He was distancing himself. Even I couldn’t deny it.

“I didn’t know Linda and you were so close,”
I muttered.

“She’s my boyfriend’s sister.” Zac was
Crystal’s boyfriend now. “What do you expect? She’s going through a
hard time, needed a girl to talk to—”

I stopped her. “Hard time?”

“You didn’t hear?” Crystal straightened up.
“Robb dumped her.”

I huffed. “What’s new about that?” All the
drama seemed so mundane now.

“True.” Crystal laughed. “But it’s hard for
her.” She leaned against me. “You’ll both get through it.”

“I know,” I managed to reply, knowing I
didn’t have to get through it at all.

Eric and I were not Linda and Robb. We were
descendants with a destiny, one we had to fight for, even if we
weren’t fighting together.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” I spoke
again, but my voice came out in a whisper.

“Yes, I do.” Crystal grabbed my hand like we
were children. “Don’t tell me you forgot.” She beamed, only inches
away from my face. “We’re best friends. Lean on me all you want.
You don’t have to pretend to be strong in front of me. Just be
Jess.”

Her words were the first to reach me. I
cried. But it wasn’t from Crystal’s friendship. It was how white
her hair was, how it reminded me of the snowfall on the day I
almost lost everything. It was her purple lip ring, how the color
told me I would lose my own purple powers. If I were going to fight
back, my powers would be red.

It was only a matter of time before my powers
were the same color as Fudicia’s smile, or the blood Darthon had
taken out of Eric. It had only been three days since our escape—the
same amount of time we had been held captive. Three—the amount of
descendants that existed until one of us fell. It was then that I
realized why Darthon wanted me to come back. He wasn’t any
different from Eric or me. We were just three people who hadn’t
asked for anything but a chance to live.

27

When I returned home, I felt her—Jessica’s
heartbeat. Even though I had severed our connection, the feeling
hadn’t left my veins. Until now. When it disappeared, I almost fell
over. It returned in seconds, and it was the only reason I could
stand again.

My breath stabilized, but I fought the urge
to call her to see if something had happened to her. When the Dark
didn’t panic, I knew she was fine. It killed my own panic, but I
still had things to worry about.

I stared at Abby’s portrait, placing it in my
desk. Her auburn hair was all I could remember now. Her voice was
slowly fading. My memories were escaping me, or they were burying
inside of me. The feeling was foreign. Perhaps it was what Urte
called coping. I didn’t know, because I shut the drawer at the
thought of my trainer.

Jonathon had to have told Urte what I had
done. By now, the Dark had to know, including my father, but I
hadn’t faced my family yet. I had barely seen them. But I could
smell dinner cooking. It was ready, and Mindy was calling my name
before I could think of an excuse to stay in my room.

I walked into the hallway, kept my eyes down,
and sat at the table. I might have been able to avoid Jessica at
school, but I couldn’t avoid my family. I had to face something,
and I would, just like Jonathon had screamed. I lifted my eyes to
see my dad staring at me.

Mindy and Noah were quiet when he spoke.
“Your teacher called today.” His fork scraped against his plate.
“She said you skipped.”

“I did.”

Mindy leaned over to lay a hand on my
shoulder. “I’m sure he has a reason, dear.”

“I don’t,” I said.

Mindy’s hand dropped, mirroring her bottom
lip. If I didn’t know better, her red hair frizzed with her
confusion. Unlike her son, she knew about the Dark, but we had yet
to speak about it. Noah would be told when he was older. That was
what my father decided, and he was continuing to dictate everything
as he said, “So, come up with one.”

“I don’t have one,” I repeated, knowing if I
tried to tell him the truth, Darthon’s spell would stop me. For
once, not bothering to lie would be my only way to signal something
was wrong.

“Eric.” My dad glared. “It’s school. You’re
supposed to go.”

“Do I not have to go?” Noah chirped.

I stared at my stepbrother, the preteen who
was bordering on growing up. He was around the same age I was when
I learned about who I was, but he had years to figure out who he
was. For once, I envied his pudgy face.

“Go to school, Noah,” I said. “It’s
important.”

“Which is why you should go,” my dad
interrupted.

“I will,” I snapped. “I’m just
adjusting—”

“To your new schedule?”

He already knew.

“Why did you transfer out of your homeroom?”
he asked. Even he knew it was the only class I had with Jessica. It
was the only time we felt normal. I used to cherish it.

“I don’t like the teacher,” I mumbled, unable
to explain.

“Ms. Hinkel?” My dad’s eyebrows shot up to
his receding hairline. “You’ve never complained about her
before.”

I shrugged, hoping he didn’t focus on Ms.
Hinkel too much. It would be counterproductive if my dad started
suspecting her.

“So—” Mindy’s preppy voice slid between ours.
“Did anything happy happen to anyone today?” She didn’t want us to
fight more than we had already been forced to. As far as I
understood, she had been a mess when Jessica and I were taken. When
I finally came home, she hugged me tighter than she ever had
before. Noah made fun of her. He had the same illusion put on him
everyone else had. He thought I had gone on a trip with Jessica’s
parents. It made me sick.

“Anything exciting?” she pressed.

“I didn’t get any homework,” Noah
offered.

Mindy clapped. “That’s great.” Her eyebrows
pushed together. “I think.”

“I transferred out of homeroom successfully,”
I said it like it was a good thing. “That was pretty exciting.”

My dad hit the table. “What has gotten into
you?”

I wanted to scream Darthon’s name, tell him
my enemy was controlling me, but all I could tell him were minor
facts that didn’t matter. “Someone stole Hannah’s portrait.” I
never called Abby by her human name.

My dad’s face paled.

“It might have been me,” I added.

“Isn’t Hannah dead?” Noah asked before Mindy
hushed him.

“Let’s talk about something else,” she
offered. “Something nice.”

“Jess is nice,” Noah said Jessica’s name when
I least expected to hear it.

I stared at the boy, fighting my words as
they came out. “We broke up, Noah.”

My stepbrother dropped his fork, and the
clanging was the loudest noise in the room. I glanced at my dad,
expecting him to yell again, but he didn’t. His lips were a thin
line against his wrinkled face. Mindy was the last person I looked
at. Her face was as red as her curls.

“You’re just fighting, right?” Even she knew
I wouldn’t break up with Jessica.

“No,” I responded. “We broke up. We’re
through—done—for good.”

“Eric—”

“Well, I’ll be in my room,” I interrupted her
before she could question it. Out of all the people to interrogate
my actions, I didn’t want to see my human stepmother understanding
me more than my shade father.

I left before any of them could speak again
and shut my bedroom door, even though I knew I would have to open
it again. If my calculations were correct, my dad would knock in
thirty seconds. When he got in, he would put up a silence barrier
before he screamed at me like he was a banshee instead of a shade.
Noah would remain oblivious, but so would my father. No one would
know Darthon was Robb McLain.