Death Before Daylight (39 page)

Jessica didn’t even react. Jonathon was being
too cocky.

I had to grip the table to keep myself from
speaking to him out loud.
“What. Are. You. Thinking?”

“
Just take it,”
he said right before
shutting off our connection. It felt like he had punched a migraine
into my skull, and it only melted away when I grabbed the
plate.

Jonathon—in all of our years together—had
never blocked me, and he had done it now for a reason. It was the
only way I would accept his orders.

My fingers wrapped around the plate, and I
pulled it across the table before I realized what sat on the
corner. A single knife—just a butter knife—but a weapon,
nonetheless.

Jonathon had one near him, too.

My skin prickled with sweat as their
reasoning for coming in cleared. A war had already begun. My
concentration on Robb had blocked everything else. The Dark’s cloud
of power was sparking with the electricity of the Light. Everyone
was battling. It would be seconds before Robb made a move, even if
it were at the coffee shop.

The humans didn’t matter to him.

I hesitated and looked at the window. It
reflected all the people around us—the old couples, the teenagers,
the families—all the possible witnesses were also possible victims.
Innocent victims. But I saw Jessica’s reflection the clearest. My
fiancée, the only girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with,
could die, too. So could Jonathon. So could I. But we could no
longer take away our possibilities. We could only fight.

I grabbed the knife without looking back.

52

As soon as Eric picked up the knife,
everything changed. The coffee shop spun into a chaotic blur as all
four of us leapt up. Eric’s chair fell backward, and the wood
smacked against the floor with an ear-splitting shotgun blast. The
heat followed, but it dispersed as Robb transformed into the man I
never wished to see again.

Darthon stood in front of us, and he had a
weapon.

Instead of Jonathon reaching the knife,
Darthon had, and he held it against Jonathon’s throat. My guard
didn’t even have the time to transform, but now, he didn’t bother.
He stood there with a grin on his face. “Aren’t I the damsel in
distress?”

“Shut up,” Darthon growled.

“If you say so, boss,” Jonathon practically
laughed, and I didn’t realize why until I took a step back.

The rest of the coffee shop was acting
normal. The customers continued to chat, drink, and chat some more.
Not a single person looked our way. No one was moving. No one was
reacting to the fact that Robb had transformed into a superhuman.
Not even the people I thought might have been lights. Robb was
alone, but so were we. The shades couldn’t sense the illusion he
covered us with. Only we could see the truth.

“Let him go,” Eric started slowly, but Robb
only tightened his hold.

Jonathon wheezed as his glasses fell off of
his face. “It’s all right.” He finally transformed, but the
transformation was slow. It crept over his skin, and he winced with
every inch. Being so close to Darthon affected him more than I
knew. “I’m quite comfortable here.”

Robb nicked his neck. “I told you to shut
up.”

A bit of blood popped over the edge of the
blade. This time, Jonathon didn’t joke, but he didn’t flinch
either. He was Pierce now. Pierce could handle the pain.

“You’re trying to mock me.” As Darthon
screamed at Eric, his hair glowed. “All of you are.”

“I think that was me,” Pierce spoke up.

More blood trickled out as Darthon pressed
down, but he didn’t have time to slit his throat. I transformed,
and the powers shifted from the Light to the Dark. Even I couldn’t
breathe, but the moment extended the second Pierce needed.

I was a shade, and Pierce was free. He had
slammed Darthon against the window and gotten away as if we had
planned the movements together. In a way, we had. We were all a
team. It was in our blood. We reacted as one, and Pierce stood by
our sides like we could melt into one person.

Darthon stared at us like we actually had and
dropped his knife. Right when I thought he would pull out his
sword, he stared at me. “I don’t want to hurt the humans.”

He had put up an illusion, after all, but I
stood my ground. “You can’t change your mind now,” I spat. “We’re
finishing this. Right now.”

“Not here,” Eric spoke up, and it was only
then that I realized he was the only human among us. Even then, his
moss-colored eyes burned. “Not with the people around.”

Darthon shifted from foot to foot, and his
illusion shifted with him. I could feel it move just like the realm
moved, but it never fell. He only contemplated it. As much as I was
one with Eric and Pierce, I was one with Darthon, too. I was sure
of it, and I was positive about what end I wanted to slice off
me.

“We can fight like we were supposed to,”
Darthon spoke only to Eric. “Alone.”

“Deal,” Eric said before I could stop
him.

The room erupted into flame. The reddish pull
flew over the walls and drowned the floors with electricity. My
shade flesh sizzled, and I fell out of myself just as Pierce fell
into Jonathon. We were human again just in time.

Darthon was gone, so was his illusion, and
Eric was nowhere to be seen.

They had gone back to the Light realm—the one
place Eric had no power—the one place where only I could get him
out.

I started to rip myself into a light, but
Jonathon grabbed my arm. “Don’t,” he hissed. “Not here.”

The coffee shop was staring.

A gasp escaped me as I forced my molecules to
remain in place. My human skin had never felt so suffocating
before.

“He’s not doing this alone,” I managed,
knowing Eric would die.

Jonathon never dropped his grasp. “Of course
he isn’t,” he said and dragged me toward the exit. “Have a nice
night,” he shouted over his shoulder as we ran outside. The cold
air blasted us apart, but Jonathon grabbed both of my arms to face
me. “He expected that.”

I knew it before he said it. Eric had
practically asked for it. Why was beyond me.

We only had seconds.

“Go after him,” Jonathon spoke as he looked
over his shoulder. Crystal must have been hiding in the alleyway.
“We’ll meet you at the shelter.” The same shelter that was probably
under attack already.

Before he could run for the war, I latched
onto him. “Pierce.” His shade name was the only one I could
use.

He froze as if it controlled him. “Yeah?”

“Protect Crystal.”

“Like she needs it,” he joked, but his face
flinched. “Stop worrying about us.” He finally broke away from me,
and the world was cold again. “Just go.”

53

I was staring at myself. It was the last
thing I thought I would see in the Light realm. I was human, and so
was the Eric standing in front of me. He looked exactly like me,
down to the frayed bits of brown hair. Even his eyes were green.
Darthon—with an illusion—could be me, and we were both in the Light
realm. Even with my sudden pain, my shock took over.

“What…” I couldn’t fathom the words. “What
are you doing?”

His smile was even like mine. “You really
think she’ll leave us to fight alone?”

It was then that the realm erupted. If there
had been heat before, it was now burning. Jessica appeared in a
beam of light, and her hair flickered from white to brown to white
again. She had to be a light to enter the realm, but she fell out
of her transformation the second her eyes saw us—two Erics.

She was human again. We all were. At least,
we appeared to be. Darthon was still using his powers. He was only
using an illusion, and I hoped Jessica could decipher it, but her
eyes darted between us. Her powers weren’t beating his this time.
She only saw me.

“Jessica,” I started to speak, but so did
Darthon.

“Jessica.” He mimicked me. He even used her
full name.

She took a step back.

He pointed to me. “It’s him. That’s
Darthon.”

I couldn’t defend myself against Jessica, but
neither could Darthon. She was more powerful than both of us were,
and Darthon was using the only weapon he had against her—me—but it
didn’t work. She kept her distance. She never lifted a finger. Only
her eyes moved, darting between the two of us, searching for flaws
in one of us. The biggest downside was obvious. I had spent hardly
any time with her over the past two months, and Darthon had spent
every other day following me around. He probably knew me better
than I wanted to admit, but I didn’t have time to think about
it.

While Jessica remained still, Darthon
attacked me.

I didn’t even see him coming. Not as a human
in the Light realm. I was already in pain, but the pain vibrated
when I smacked the ground. My vision spun, but that didn’t stop me
from swinging at him.

My knuckles collided with his face, and his
fist cracked against my jaw. We weren’t two minutes into our
battle, and I already tasted blood. I was already losing, and the
circumstances were only getting worse.

I couldn’t breathe.

The air was hot, and my skin burned. Right as
I thought the Light realm was taking ahold of my body, Darthon
leapt off me. “What are you doing?” he screamed, and his scream
sounded like my voice in the same way he appeared as me, but it was
his actions.

Fire had erupted in the room, crawling up a
wall, and Jessica pointed her fingers toward it like it didn’t burn
at all. Only a thread of her hair was white. She had set the place
on fire.

The black smoke cascaded over the floors, but
I saw every movement.

Jessica didn’t speak. She shot forward and
punched Darthon in the gut. He didn’t budge, but the floor did. It
shook as she kicked him—not once, but twice—and this time, he fell.
He never even tried to hit her back.

She ran to my side, and her hands pulled me
up before I could even register that I was fine. The realm wasn’t
crushing me like it had the previous time. Jessica was helping. I
could feel it when her fingertips touched mine. It was the same
relief Linda had given me. She truly was one of them.

“Let’s go.” Her voice whisked past me as she
began to run.

I lingered behind to stare at Darthon. He was
lying on his stomach, barely moving. The flames were growing. He
was weak. I could kill him, but when I tried to step toward him,
Jessica pulled my arm.

“Not now.” She continued to tug. “Not
here.”

Darthon groaned, and his hands landed on the
ground in front of him. He was already pushing himself up.

She was right. He was more powerful here, and
I was just a human.

I ran, and we fled together.

The hallways twisted on forever, but they
didn’t move, and they didn’t disappear. Jessica wasn’t manipulating
the realm anymore, and I forced myself to look forward as we
sprinted through the place.

“Can you get us out?” I managed between
breaths.

“I’m trying.” Her high-pitched voice squeaked
the last thing I wanted to hear. “It’s not working.”

Darthon had probably collected himself. My
fears were confirmed when the floors creaked. The wood hopped and
bolted to either side. We came to a halt as the entire corridor
flipped, and there he was. Darthon stood in front of us—inches in
front of us—with black soot coating the side of his face, his teeth
barred.

Jessica scratched his cheek, and everything
changed again.

The floor was the ceiling, and the ceiling
was beneath us, but I recognized the room. Every wall was stone,
and the dim lighting reminded me of the days I had died beneath
Darthon’s touch.

“It was the only place I could think of,”
Jessica muttered, explaining what had happened. She and Darthon
were fighting with the realm. So far, she was winning. Another
strand of her hair had grown white, but it slowly faded.

I stared at it as I caught my breath. The
constant changes were disorienting. I couldn’t understand it. My
footing didn’t even feel right. It was almost like I was hovering,
slightly disconnected to the place, and I wondered if I was.

Jessica looked me up and down. “Are you
okay?”

“Nauseous,” I admitted. Every word I spoke
was difficult.

“We’ll find a way out,” she promised, but
only the lights flickered. She cursed. I didn’t ask why, because I
didn’t have to.

We were stuck, and we had bigger
problems.

The door opened, and a silhouette cut through
the light. The only good news rested in the fact that it was too
small to be Darthon’s. When the boy stepped forward, I already knew
who to expect.

Zac, in his half-breed form, cracked his
knuckles. His multicolored gaze was the only thing I saw as he shot
toward me. The movements were beyond my human vision. Everything
was a blur. But Zac never reached me.

Jessica leapt in front of me, and her white
hair sprayed out as she transformed into a light. A beam exploded
out, but they were stilled against it. Jessica’s hand wrapped
around his throat just in time for everything to rush forward
again. She slammed him into the ground, and when he leapt up, she
kicked him back to the floor, never allowing him to get near me,
but her first mistake was checking on me.

He took advantage of her focus. His foot
swung out and kicked her feet out from under her. When she hit the
ground, he grabbed her hair and yanked. She screamed as her body
dragged against the floor.

I shot forward, but someone else held me
back. I didn’t even have time to spin around before I heard her
voice, “Zac.” Fudicia had spoken, and her single word was enough of
a speech to freeze the entire room.

Zac stared, but his grasp never left
Jessica.