Death Before Daylight (2 page)

“Let’s go,” I said, taking Pierce’s cold palm
as our molecules disintegrated into the darkness I called home.

***

Camille’s grave was the first thing I saw
when we transported into the underground shelter. I barely noticed
how cold the hallway was. I could only stare at the black room I
had yet to visit. Her funeral was the day after Eric gave me his
mother’s ring. My guilt had kept me away. Eric encouraged me to
grieve how I needed to, but he didn’t tell me how he was grieving.
He hadn’t even mentioned her to me.

“He hasn’t gone yet either,” Pierce spoke as
his hand slipped from mine.

I stared at my guard, trying to piece his
shade features into his human identity. It was impossible. Pierce’s
heightened cheekbones and slanted eyes were anything but close to
the artful and half-blind Jonathon Stone. But his grand smile was
the same.

“Has he said anything to you?” I asked.

Pierce didn’t have to shake his head. We both
knew Eric was in denial. Since the Marking of Change, he hardly
left the shelter. He practically lived there. But he hadn’t visited
the one room I thought he would spend his time in—especially since
the elders’ meeting room was across the hallway.

Before Pierce and I continued speaking, the
meeting room’s door cracked open. A boy slipped out, and his black
hair flickered in and out of the shadows, even though his blue eyes
burned through them. “Jessica.” His voice was unforgettable.

I sprang forward, and Eric wrapped his arms
around my torso. His usual earthy scent was gone. He smelled like
the shelter’s cold, hard stone. As his fingers drew circles on my
lower back, he spoke to Pierce, “How is everything?”

“Not good.”

I moved closer to Eric’s side. “My mom
started questioning the news.”

Eric’s back tensed. “Not her, too.” There had
been others.

“What did Luthicer say?”

“Not much.” The circles beneath Eric’s eyes
showed how little he had slept. “He’s weaker than usual, so that is
making it difficult for him to run experiments, but he can still
run individual illusions.”

He could make my parents forget.

“He can’t do that to the whole town,” Pierce
said.

“That’s the problem.”

“So, we haven’t gotten anywhere,” Pierce
always said what everyone was thinking. The Dark was weak. The
Light was weak. The prophecy hadn’t done anything. We were losing
our powers again—at least, most of us were.

“
Are you weak?”
Eric asked through our
telepathic line.

I glanced at him. “
No.”

“
Me neither.”

Unlike the others, our powers were intact.
The descendants were fine.

“What’s going on?” Pierce spoke up.

Eric stepped away from me as if our touch
changed our conversation. “Nothing.”

Pierce’s jaw locked.

“We can’t talk right now—” Eric began, but
Pierce interrupted him.

“Camille isn’t here anymore,” he said her
name like a curse. “If we don’t stick together, she won’t be the
only guard to disappear.” His sharpened tone dropped to a harsh
hiss, but his eyes softened. “You two are all I have.”

I couldn’t breathe, but I could move. I
stepped toward my guard. “He’s right, Eric,” I said, squeezing
Pierce’s arm.

I waited for Eric to say something, to
explain how our powers were intact, but his gaze focused on my
hand. “We’ll talk later.” He opened the meeting room’s door. “For
now, we have to talk to them.”

Behind him was a large table, an elongated
desk meant to hold ten elders, but only three chairs were regularly
used. Luthicer sat on the end, and Bracke sat next to him. Urte
stood by the far wall as if there was a window to look out. None of
the men glanced up at us. We might as well have not been there. We
couldn’t do anything either.

2

“I can’t do this.” Eric’s chest sank as he
gripped the brick wall. “I just can’t.”

“You can.” I held myself back from yelling at
him. Ever since the meeting in the shelter, Eric hadn’t spoken to
anyone. Even when the elders asked for his opinion, he kept his
lips pressed together. He acted like he had nothing to say. I knew
him well enough to know that meant he had everything to say. Still,
he remained silent.

“Come on.” I tried to pull him toward our
high school, but he dug his heels into the ground like a toddler
would.

“It’s not a good idea—”

“We can’t keep hiding,” I interrupted him.
“That’s not an option.”

But it was. Eric’s green eyes said it before
he did. “They know who we are, Jessica.”

I knew it. We all did. The Light was aware of
our identities, and we didn’t have one inkling about who their
soldiers were—not even Darthon. Unlike Eric, I was safe. According
to the Light, my death would bring Darthon’s. Hurting me was the
last thing on their list of priorities, but hurting Eric was at the
top.

“
If you hide, they will think you’re
scared,”
I spoke to him without touching him.
“And they know
where the shelter is.”

“I know I told you I would, but—” he
started.

“You promised me you would,” I corrected.

We spent our entire winter break discussing
whether we would return to Hayworth High. At first, the elders were
against it, but they changed their minds. Everyone knew our names.
The Light knew where we lived. They knew the shelter’s location.
They even knew where we slept. But Eric stared at Hayworth High
like it would be the place of the attack.

His eyelid twitched, but he never looked at
me. He focused on our school, the one place where he never had to
be a shade, but that time was gone. He couldn’t hide. Not even at
home.

“If anything happens—” I started, but his
voice entered my mind.

“
Nothing will happen.”
It wasn’t until
he rested his right hand on his ringed finger that he smiled at me.
My ring heated up on my hand. “Let’s go.” He started walking before
I realized he had come to a decision.

I had to jog to catch up with him. “Try not
to look like you’re going into battle.”

He shook his arms to loosen up. “It’s a
constant state with me.” He paused as we neared the doorway, but
his gaze flickered around the students flooding in for their first
day. No one gave us any more attention than usual. It
was…normal.

As Eric opened the door, he glanced back at
me. “It’s January, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, why?”

Before answering, he leaned in and placed a
kiss on my lips. When he pulled back, a flush spread over his
cheeks. “It’s been one year since we met.”

It had been. We had met at the river, and
then, we met in school—two people, disguised as other identities,
yet we found one another in both lives. Fate was tricky like that.
It consumed us when we thought we were free, and it freed us when
we thought we were captured. Our love was a river, always changing
under the mercy of nature’s elements, but we continued to flow,
even when we trickled.

“Happy anniversary,” I said as he took my
hand in his, and we walked into Hayworth High together.

***

I dropped Eric’s hand as we entered our
homeroom. “I was not expecting this.”

Zac and Linda were standing by the far wall,
talking to Robb, while Crystal was sitting by herself at her usual
table. In all the chaos, I had forgotten how the siblings had
transferred in. I hadn’t even told Eric, and Crystal didn’t know
Eric and I were dating—or engaged.

When she looked up, her eyes lit up only to
dim when she saw Eric standing by my side. She pursed her lips, and
I forced a smile. Over the break, we had spoken over the phone, but
not enough.

“Come on,” I said to Eric, and he didn’t
argue. He followed me over to Crystal.

“Hey, Jess,” Crystal’s voice strained against
her throat before she coughed. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Recovering
from a cold.”

My leg leaned against her desk. “Well, at
least you’re better.”

She rolled her eyes. Her signature move.
“Please,” she started. “I wasn’t going to miss the first day. The
school newspaper would be at a loss without me.” Pen marks already
littered her hands, but her usual notebook was nowhere in
sight.

“Where have you been?” she asked, glancing
over at Eric. “Uh—”

Eric tensed. “Hey, Crystal.”

I fanned a hand at him. “You guys have met,”
I stumbled over my words, unsure of where to go from here. The way
Crystal’s mouth hung open wasn’t helping. “Eric—he’s—um—Eric is—”
When I looked at Eric, his grin looked like it would break into a
laugh. He was enjoying my nerves.

“I’m her boyfriend,” he finished my sentence.
If I hadn’t known he was freaking out only a few minutes before, I
wouldn’t have believed it. He was calm now.

“Boyfriend,” Crystal repeated, glancing
between us. I recognized the look. She expected us to say we were
kidding, but we weren’t. “Boyfriend?” Her palms slapped the desk as
she stood up. “Since when?”

The entire classroom stared. Heat crawled up
my neck, but Eric laid a hand on my shoulder like drama was his
element. “December,” he answered as I said, “July.”

Our widened eyes met. Our lies didn’t
match.

“January,” we both sighed the truth.

Crystal gaped. “Like this January?” I
couldn’t hide my face from her. She read it with the precision only
a best friend could have. “Last January?” she squeaked as her
expression crumbled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Because I had my memory wiped
wasn’t
exactly an answer I could explain.

Instead, I settled on, “It was
complicated.”

Crystal bit her pierced lip. If I didn’t know
better, I would’ve thought she was mad, but she wasn’t. She was
falling apart.

Eric tiptoed backward. “I’m guessing this is
one of those girl talk moments?”

“Girl talk is a must,” Crystal agreed without
looking at him.

Eric ducked away before I could stop him. He
placed his headphones on his ears and cranked the music high enough
that I could hear it as he walked to our table. As much as I hated
to admit it, I didn’t know if the Light would attack us at the
school, and having him near me was the only comfort I had.

My fingers twitched at my sides. “I’m sorry,”
I whispered and dipped into the chair next to her. When she didn’t
sit, I pulled her down next to me. Our knees touched. It was the
closest we had been in weeks.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” She had
perfected the melodramatic whine. Her appearance only added to it.
Her white hair frizzed at the staggered tips, and her dark roots
peeked through more than usual. She was a mess, and I hadn’t even
realized it.

“What’s going on?” I ignored her question.
“What’s wrong?”

“Since when have you even liked Welborn?” She
ignored my questions, too. “I mean, I figured as much when you
danced at prom, but—” She squinted at Eric from across the room as
if he were an apparition. “Eric Welborn? I can’t believe it.”

“What about Welborn?”

I knew the voice.

Robb was standing behind us, but he was close
enough. Goose bumps traveled over my neck. He had attacked me weeks
ago. The bruises were long gone, but the pain remained. My fist
curled.

Crystal laid her hand on my arm. “She’s
dating Eric,” she whispered, oblivious to the fact that Eric could
hear a conversation from across the room. Even with his music
cranked, he had perfected his abilities, and he would be listening
since Robb was close. But that’s not what bothered me.

Crystal was talking to Robb like nothing
happened last semester.

“What?” Robb’s eyebrows squished together. He
didn’t seem uncomfortable at all. He seemed like Robb McLain, the
boy I met after he almost threw a coffee on me. “Since when?”

“January,” Crystal answered. “Last
January.”

Robb chuckled. “Knew it.” He sat on the desk
next to us and propped his foot on Crystal’s chair, but he looked
at me. “You always talked about him.”

But I hadn’t. Not unless it had to do with
the project. I fought the urge to look at Eric. Instead, I looked
behind Robb. Zac and Linda remained at the back of the room. They
hadn’t even come over to say hi.

“Oh,” Robb pointed behind his shoulder. “I’ve
been meaning to introduce you to my friends. They just transferred
in.”

“What?” Stomach acid rose up my esophagus. “I
already met them—”

“Really?” Robb glanced over his shoulder, but
his friends never looked back. “Well, that saves me an awkward
introduction.”

“
Are you okay?”
Eric’s voice crashed
into me.

My hand shot to my neckline, and my racing
heart burned through my sternum. Every beat was fiercer than the
last. Every breath was harder to grasp. I couldn’t move.

“Jess,” Crystal’s heightened voice shattered
my panic. Before I knew it, her cold fingers wrapped around my
hand, and she yanked my hand so hard I fell forward. My left hand
was in her grasp, and my ring sparkled under the florescent
lights.

I pulled away, but it was too late.

“Is that—” Robb started. “Is that from
Welborn?” All the amusement in his voice was gone.

“It’s not an engagement ring,” I half-lied as
I focused on my telepathy with Eric, “
Help.”

Eric was there before I even mustered the
strength to stand up. As soon as his hand wrapped around my arm, my
knees stopped shaking. I leaned against him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, playing the part of
a concerned boyfriend instead of who he was: my concerned fiancé,
the first descendant of the Dark.

“I feel sick.”

“Sorry, guys,” Eric said and turned toward
the teacher. “Ms. Hinkel, I’m taking her to the nurse’s
office.”

My vision blurred, but I heard Ms. Hinkel
ask, “Already?” Her question was replaced in seconds. “Okay, then.
Just get a note before you come back.”