Death Before Daylight (24 page)

My gut twisted.

Robb stared at me like he was seeing me for
the first time, and I wondered if he saw the boy I was when we were
friends. “You know how she’s protecting you,” he said.

He still thought it was Jessica, and I needed
him to believe that. As long as he believed that, he would leave
her alone.

“You can’t hurt her,” I played into his
suspicions. “You know you won’t.”

“No.” Robb took another drag, and smoke
filled my car. “But she won’t let you go until you prove you don’t
love her anymore.”

I dropped my left hand between the seats. If
he ordered me to take off the ring, I would have to find a way
around it. I would just wear a necklace, too.

“Date Linda,” Robb ordered the last thing I
expected.

I glanced over at the blonde. Her eyes
widened as if she hadn’t been expecting it either. “Robb—”

He raised his hand, and her bottom lip
snapped shut. I wasn’t the only one under orders.

“We’d rather not,” I said.

“You’ll do it,” Robb spoke, but I wasn’t sure
if he was ordering her or me. Probably both of us.

“Or what?” I tested. “You’ll punch me again?
Kill me? I’ll come back to life—”

“Jonathon Stone won’t.”

My sternum squeezed in my chest.

“I know he’s Pierce.” Robb ashed his
cigarette on the floor. “I saw him with Jess.”

“They just have a class together—”

“Outside of class,” he clarified. “And I
imagine Jonathon’s not a very good fighter as a human.” Robb’s eyes
darkened. “I have Zac following him.”

The half-breed. Linda’s brother. I glanced at
her, expecting a reaction, but she was staring out the window.

“Maybe I won’t let Zac kill him,” Robb
continued. “Maybe I’ll do it myself.” He chuckled, and smoke
bounced out of his mouth. “Maybe I won’t even kill him. Maybe I’ll
just put my cigarette out on his good eye.”

“Fine,” I growled, thinking of my best
friend. I had punched him myself, and I couldn’t protect him
either. “But only if you leave him out.”

Robb opened his door, speaking as he ducked
out, “I think we have a deal, then.” He slammed the door as if it
were equal to a handshake.

“See you around, honey,” Linda said and
mirrored Robb’s movements.

I watched their exposed backs as they walked
toward the school. If I waited five more minutes, Jessica would
arrive and see Robb’s car parked next to mine. If I got close to
her, she would smell his smoke on me. But if she were with Crystal,
there was a high chance Crystal would tell Robb. It was too big of
a risk. Either way, I had to make another move. And fast.

My foot slammed on the gas pedal, and my
tires squealed as I drove out of the parking lot. I wanted Robb to
hear my disobedience. I wanted him to know I was leaving and
fighting back. I wanted him to know I was going to the shelter to
train. My hands would end his life. When I looked in my rearview
mirror, he was staring.

I only wondered what look he would give me as
he died.

***

The training room was colder when I was a
human, but I didn’t want to strain myself by transforming before
sunset. Although it was possible to transform in the shelter, the
powers were weaker. It was one of the reasons Luthicer was
generally the only elder on staff most of the time, but I felt
another one as he entered the room.

“What do you want?” I asked, keeping my back
to him.

“For one,” Urte responded, “I’d like you to
look at me.”

I turned around. Unlike me, Urte was
transformed. His black hair hung against his neck, as wild as his
eyes, but the rest of him was tamed into forced stillness.

I raised my arms only to drop them at my
sides. “Better?”

Urte leaned against the wall as his eyes
skimmed my face. “Did you get in another fight?”

I didn’t have to touch my face to remember
the mark that was there. Robb had split my lip open. I could taste
the raw skin that was healing. I wanted it that way. It was just
another reason not to transform. Everyone could see it now.

“Who was it this time?” Urte asked.

It was impossible to speak Darthon’s name, so
I didn’t even try.

Urte stepped toward the control panel. “If
you’re going to train as a human, be careful.”

He thought my injury was from the disks. The
setting was one I generally used as a shade when I could shoot them
down with my powers. I was enjoying the challenge as a human today.
But I didn’t want Urte to think my injury was from the clay. When I
opened my mouth to correct his assumption, he spoke, “It doesn’t
take a wise man to know you’re fighting more than disks.”

As he said it, a disk shot out of the wall
and missed my face by inches. My bangs shifted from the wind before
the disk broke against the far wall, shattering into pieces.

Urte cursed and slammed his hand against the
panel. The room buzzed as it flipped off. “Eric—”

“I’m fine,” I said, stopping him and grabbing
my water. I took a drink and wiped my mouth before I spoke again.
“Go ahead. Talk about what you really came here for.”

“Darthon.” Urte didn’t hesitate.

“What about him?” I didn’t either.

“He tortured you in there.”

I dropped my water so I could stretch my arm
over my head. “I’ve had practice with torture.”

My trainer didn’t flinch at the reminder.
“That’s precisely why I know it isn’t the reason you broke up with
Jess.” His words lingered. “I also know that isn’t why you punched
my son.”

Jonathon. I remembered Darthon’s threat, even
though I didn’t want to. “Watch over Pierce,” my voice was quiet,
but Urte paled, and I knew he heard me.

“What does that mean, Shoman?”

I hated to hear my Dark name when I was a
human.

When I didn’t respond, Urte marched across
the room and grabbed both of my shoulders. He was shorter than I
was, but—somehow—his stare pushed down on me. “Eric, you have to
fight through this,” he said. “You need to find a way.”

“I’m trying.” My voice cracked. “There’s
nothing I can do right now.”

“Why not?” Urte’s eyes flickered over my
face. “Jonathon and you are best friends—”

“Not anymore.”

Urte’s hands fell away, but he didn’t step
back. “You’re breaking up with him, too?”

The question forced a chuckle out of me, but
it wasn’t light laughter. It stung my insides.

Urte shook his head, and his hair waved. “You
can’t break up with everyone, Eric.”

“Not when you’re forcing me to stay here,” I
agreed.

Urte choked.

I forced a smile. “Thank you for that.”

He kept his gaze on me as his feet shifted
backward, slowly making his way to the exit. “We’ll find a
way.”

“I know.”

He spun around and walked toward the door
like he was on a mission to solve it all, but he froze in the
doorway. “Eric?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever happens,” his voice wavered as he
opened the door. “Whenever you resolve this, I won’t judge you,” he
promised before walking out.

I didn’t try to stop him. I couldn’t. This
was my battle—just like the prophecy dictated—and I focused on that
as I walked to the control panel and flipped it back on.

32

Even though he was supposed to, Eric never
showed up for school. His absence was suffocating. I barely made it
through the day, and my concern only increased when I arrived at
the shelter. The elders were in a meeting, Jonathon was training
Jada, and I was alone.

I sat in my room, living through my paints.
The Picasso book sat on my lap, and a splatter of blue paint landed
on the open picture I was using as inspiration. I stared at the
edge of the liquid as it hardened and crusted onto the page. The
color was three shades off. Ever since my powers became red, I
hadn’t been able to see blue the same way. I slammed the book
closed.

When I stood, my feet moved as if they
weren’t attached to me. I walked across the room and placed the
book on my pillow. The heavy weight of the paper caused it to slide
down, only to land against the wrapped present I had kept for over
a month.

Eric’s birthday present. I still hadn’t given
it to him.

After his father had bought him another car,
it felt useless to give him something so trivial, but the pale
wrapping paper gleamed in the dim room. My fingertips skimmed it
before I picked the gift up and held it against my chest.

I knew what I had to do.

I marched out of my room and made my way
through the halls. In art class, Jonathon had already told me the
one thing I wanted to know. Eric’s room rested on the east side,
right between the library and the nurse’s quarters. It took me
eight minutes to get there, but I was sure when I saw the door. The
thick wood gave it away. It was the same door I had on my room.
What they had once been used for was the only mystery.

I knocked three times, and every knock
sounded louder than the first, but the silence that followed was
deafening.

I knocked again, even pressing my ear against
the wood, but no one came.

“I know you’re in there, Eric,” I said, loud
enough that my voice echoed down the hallway, but he didn’t
respond.

“I just wanted to thank you for the easel.” I
laid my forehead against the door. “I started painting, but—” I
couldn’t tell him I was struggling with the color blue. It was the
color of his powers. It was his eyes as Shoman. It was everything
he was. I forced a breath out to gain my composure. “I know I’m a
little late, but I never gave you your birthday present.” I placed
the package on the ground. “I bought it a long time ago—with
Crystal, actually.”

The memory seemed years away, but it had only
been six weeks.

“I know it’s not as good as the other gift
you got,” I added, “but I thought you should have it.”

I waited. For what, I didn’t know, because I
knew he wouldn’t come. I patted the door instead of knocking one
last time. “Okay, then,” I said. “Goodnight.”

I forced myself to walk away without looking
back, but it took me fifteen minutes to return to my room—double
the time it took me to get to his. I stared at the clock on my
dresser as I fell asleep, pretending we had all the time in the
world to figure out what had happened to him, and I let the time
take me.

***

When I woke up the next morning, I was late
for school. My alarm hadn’t gone off, and I rushed through my
morning routine in a foggy haze. It was my job to get back home
before Crystal picked me up, but today, someone else would have to
take me. Luthicer was my only bet, and I was thinking about him
when I ran out of my bedroom and tripped.

I fell onto my knees, but my feet hurt more.
I had kicked something and spun around to see what I had tripped
on.

A model car.

It was a build-it-yourself Charger, near the
same year Eric’s original car had been, and Crystal had found it in
an antique store at the mall. I had only bought it because Eric had
just lost his in a car wreck. I hadn’t given it to him until last
night.

The estimate on the box stated it would take
a week to assemble and another week to paint, but this one was
finished. I grabbed it, unsure it was real, but the metal was cold
in my hands. The paint wasn’t even damp, and the decoration on the
hood was all too familiar.

Eric’s willow tree pendant—the one Camille
had made for him—was sketched onto the hood in red. Eric had used
that color for a reason. My new powers were not a problem for him.
They were not a problem for the Dark either. It was only me who was
struggling, and I touched the symbol like I could absorb it instead
of having it absorb me.

33

“Maybe it’s not over,” I finished telling
Crystal about the car without mentioning how Eric and I lived
together in the shelter. I couldn’t even mention the willow tree
symbol he had painted, but I hoped she would see the
significance.

“Maybe he was just returning it, Jess.” Her
voice was a whisper among our fellow students.

Our homeroom was about to end, and then we
would go to lunch, but Eric wasn’t with us. He had a different
schedule now, but he had come to school. I already planned on
running into him between lunches. As his lunch ended, ours began,
and it would be the perfect time to confront him. I only had to
hurry.

“I don’t think so,” I responded, even though
I was focused on the clock. I only had a few minutes to get to him
before he went back to his new homeroom.

“Jess,” Crystal kept repeating my name. “I
really think you should let him go.”

I grabbed my necklace through my shirt. “I
can’t—”

“For God’s sake, Jess,” Robb interrupted from
his seat next to Crystal. I had almost forgotten he was there. “He
has a new girlfriend.”

Crystal smacked his arm. “I told you not to
tell.”

“It’s for her own good,” he grumbled, only
glancing at me for a moment. “At this rate, you’re never going to
move on.”

Move on. His last two words were the only
reason I heard what he had originally said. “Eric has a new
girlfriend?” My hands were already curling into fists. “That’s
impossible—”

“He does,” Crystal confirmed, but she didn’t
have her usual pen marks on her fingers. Even she didn’t want to
write about it for her student gossip column.

“Who?” I asked.

Crystal gestured to Robb. “He’s taking that
one.”

I stared at Robb as I repeated the question.
He shrugged like it was nothing. “Linda.”

Her name was the last one I thought I would
hear. She was Robb’s ex-girlfriend, and she had just transferred
into our school. Despite the day we all sat together at lunch, I
didn’t even know they had officially met or how Eric would decide
to date her. She was tall, blonde, and quiet. The opposite of
me.