Death Before Daylight (41 page)

“Jada!” Luthicer’s voice bellowed as he shot
between Jada and Jessica. His hands were on his daughter’s
shoulders before we could move a single inch forward, but his eyes
had locked onto mine. “What are you doing here?”

Apparently, I was in the wrong place.

“We escaped,” Jessica breathed. “Where’s
Pierce?”

Luthicer flipped around only for a second,
and in that second, he slit someone’s throat. Talking was out of
the question, but he managed to shout over his shoulder, “Go to the
control room.”

The Dark was trying to lockdown again, but
time had obviously passed. Lights were in our hallways. Whoever was
in charge had failed.

My dad’s face flickered through me.

“Eric.” Jessica was in front of me.
“Eric.”

I didn’t know how many times she had shouted
at me, but she was shaking me. Her nails were dug into my biceps.
Her skin burned mine.

I yanked back.

“Where’s the control room?” she asked, her
voice loud.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

A hand smacked the back of my head. The pain
vibrated down my spine, but my reflexes took over. I flipped
around, and my hand wrapped around my attacker’s throat.

Jada cringed, her face reddening.

I let her go.

She gasped. “At least you’re back.”

My eyes darted around the room, and every
inch of the building zoomed into focus. There were more lights than
I originally thought. They had covered themselves in mud, drenching
their white locks with brown guck. The dark hair would throw
everyone off, and my eyes had to search their faces to see what
they really were. Dark pits for eyes were the only difference, and
in their eyes, I saw Darthon’s.

He would be here any minute. The control room
was our only hope.

Breath filled my lungs as I spun around. The
air tasted like bile, and I knew what it was. I was breathing
slaughter.

“Follow me,” I shouted, not knowing if
Jessica or Jada had already done so, but as I sprinted around a
corner, Jessica shot out in front of me and blocked an attack I
hadn’t seen.

She was always by my side, and now, I was her
shadow, following her through the destruction I would have to end.
But—for once—I believed I wasn’t alone. We were all together.

We didn’t waste any time.

We flew down the hallway, following the only
plausible direction I could think of. Changing to another hallway
would demand more time, and we were already fighting time. The
seconds were ticking into minutes, and the minutes would be
someone’s last. My blood was cold, but I squeezed my hand into a
fist to keep my strength.

I couldn’t forget my sword. If I didn’t
concentrate, it wouldn’t work, and I would die. We all would.

Art that had once decorated the hallway was
shattered on the ground, and Jada leapt over it, skimming my
peripheral vision. It was the next thing she jumped over that
caused her to get in front of me. A body.

After we passed, the vision solidified. The
person was a boy—a young one—and another body had laid right next
to him—an older woman. I wondered what Ida had looked like when she
was killed, and I knew Jessica was right. I had never killed
anyone. Not a single person. The thought squeezed my lungs into
unmovable sacks.

I had to grab the wall to keep myself from
falling over, but my hand slipped.

Blood. It was everywhere.

The only reason I didn’t fall was because
someone had grabbed me. I half-expected it to be Jessica, but the
grip was larger than hers.

“Pierce,” I breathed as I met his green
eyes.

Unlike everyone else, he wasn’t glaring at
me, but sweat shone off his brow. “What the hell happened to
you?”

“He got hit,” Jessica spoke, but it didn’t
register immediately—not until I tasted the sickening sweetness in
my mouth.

My fingertips rose to my face, and my skin
met a gash near my hairline. When it had happened was beyond me,
but I had to bet it was in the forest. I wiped away what blood I
could as I surveyed my surroundings. It was the only part of
training I could remember, and it was useless. The hallway was
empty—aside from the no longer living.

“I cleared it,” Pierce explained as he moved
into the nearest room.

I stumbled after him. Even my best friend had
killed, and he wasn’t even a warrior. He was Jessica’s guard,
and—in a way—Jada was, too. When I glanced at her clothes, I saw
the speckles of red soaking against it. Everyone around me had
murdered. I was the only one that hadn’t.

“It won’t shut down,” Pierce rambled and
pressed himself against a panel I had only seen on a number of
occasions. Only elders were allowed in the room. In fact, elders
were supposed to be the only ones who knew the location, but
Camille had found it years ago while exploring the secret
passageways. She had taken Pierce and me without hesitation, and it
had been our secret—a secret the elders must have known we shared
since Luthicer told us to go to it.

“Urte and Bracke went back to get you,”
Pierce was talking to me, but I didn’t realize it until I looked at
him. “Eric.” He wasn’t screaming. He was calm. Pierce was never
calm.

“I’m here,” I managed.

“You’re human.”

I looked down at my skin, my flushed tone,
and it tore apart as I transformed into Shoman again. In all my
thoughts, I had lost my concentration.

Pierce turned around like he couldn’t face
me, but he could face Jessica. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll figure it out,” she said and slammed
her palm onto the console. Her violet eyes moved over the board of
buttons and sticks.

Even in my spying, I had never learned what
they were all for. She flicked one anyway, and nothing happened.
Her hand curled around a joystick before she yanked it back. All of
the lights went off, but they came back on when she flipped it
back.

A curse escaped her. “Which one is it?”

“That one.” Pierce pointed to a single
keyhole, but the key shoved inside was broken. It was always a key.
“It didn’t work.”

“Obviously.” Jada pushed past the two.
“There’s another emergency one anyway.” Her mumbling was almost
impossible to hear as she yanked open a drawer and shuffled through
a pile of objects.

Even elders had a junk drawer.

“I swear—some organization around here
would’ve done some good,” she kept talking, and with every word,
her husky voice sounded more like Crystal’s high-pitched one. She
breathed as she pulled a slim bar out. It was longer than anything
I thought could be in the drawer. “Here it is.”

“That’s a stick,” Pierce screamed.

“Exactly.” Jada didn’t hesitate. She started
pounding on the electric board. Every thump was louder than the
chaos I had heard outside. It split the air with furious smacks,
and Jada huffed with every blow.

She only stopped to stare at us. “Are you
going to help me or not?”

“You can’t break it,” Pierce started to grab
her stick, but she swatted him away.

“If it breaks, the whole place will lock
down.” Her voice was as solid as her stare. “Trust me.”

Pierce stayed back, but Jessica didn’t. Her
sword ripped out of her arm—all purple and bright—and she slammed
the blade down on the panel. Her power, alone, caused my powers to
vibrate through my veins. It drew me to it. It grew somewhere deep
inside of me, and my own sword was out. I stepped forward and hit
the panel as hard as I could manage.

The piece of equipment didn’t stand a
chance.

All of the lights shut off, and darkness
enveloped us. Aside from the glow of our swords, I couldn’t see a
thing. The blue and purple blades illuminated the reaction on
Pierce’s face, and Jada dropped her weapon. The metal clanged
against the ground as the emergency lights flickered on, sputtering
electricity into the air. In the distance, I could hear the slam of
our entrance. The foundation shook, and the vibration sent the
first wave of safety through the air.

Pierce let out a sigh. “I cannot believe that
worked.”

“It didn’t,” Jada’s voice wavered as she
spoke, but her widened eyes told us more.

I spun around to face what she saw, and
everything in me froze like it did during the Marking of
Change.

Darthon was in the doorway—locked inside the
secured room with us. His blond hair glowed in the white emergency
lights, but his smile was brighter. His sword was worse. It drew
out of his arm, inch by inch, and his dark stare never left
mine.

“I knew you’d use your sword eventually,” he
said just as he shot toward me.

56

Jessica tried to jump between us, but Pierce
was faster than he had ever been before. His grip dug into
Jessica’s arm, and he yanked her back. A screech escaped her as
Darthon reached me.

My back hit the wall before I even realized
what had happened. Our swords clanged against one another. Even
though I hadn’t thought about it, my reflexes had protected me, and
my grip tightened as his face solidified in front of me.

This was it.

“How are the injuries?” Darthon glowered as
his sword pushed closer to my throat, but he shouldn’t have spoken.
His cheek was ripped. His right eye was swelling shut. He was as
injured as I was. He hadn’t gotten into our shelter easily.

I could hear the shouts, but there were too
many of them. I didn’t know if it was Pierce, Jada, Jessica, or
someone from outside the room. I only heard Darthon, but I saw more
than him.

An electric bubble surrounded us, shielding
us from the others. It was the same one he had used to take me to
the Light realm, but this time, even though my molecules pulled, we
remained in the Dark’s shelter.

“It’s destroyed,” he screamed. “The entire
place is destroyed, and it’s your fault.” Spit landed on my face,
but I knew his blood did, too.

The pressure increased, but I pushed back. My
muscles strained with my breath. The heat was too much.

“Zac and Linda are dead.” He shoved his knee
against mine. “Because of you, everyone’s dead. You’ve had your
chance to kill—”

“I’m not dead!” The shout split the
bubble.

The barrier keeping us apart from everyone
was gone, and everything I saw broke my insides. Pierce and Jada
were no longer shades. They were human, bloody and
unconscious—possibly dead—but Jessica was standing, and she wasn’t
alone. Fudicia was at her feet.

As she stood, Darthon’s concentration broke.
This was my only chance, and I chose to take it.

57

Darthon’s sword met Shoman’s, and the two
slammed into the back wall. A crack split up the stone, and dust
spewed out in a suffocating cloud.

I tore away from my guard, but he had grabbed
me again. “Jessica—”

It wasn’t Pierce’s voice at all. It wasn’t
even his grip.

Fudicia was holding me, and her nails were
poison in my veins. “Don’t.”

I tried to squirm away from her, but it was
what I saw that froze me. A bubble of electricity surrounded us,
Pierce and Jada on the outside. When they pounded on it, a burst of
lightning shattered to the ground. Both of my friends flew
backward, hitting the other side of the room like they were nothing
but ragdolls. They didn’t even fight back. They slumped to the
floor, unconscious and bleeding. The attack hadn’t even made
Fudicia flinch.

“This fight is between Darthon and Shoman,”
she said it like she was protecting me.

I tore my eyes away from Pierce and Jada
before I lost my concentration. “Eric will die.”

“Better than you,” she growled. Her teeth
were spikes.

She was never on our side. I knew it. Deep
inside of me, I knew it, and it was that fury that gave me the
strength. I yanked my sword at her, and she leapt away from me, but
she never tore down her shield.

Her white hair blended in with the bubble. It
was the Light’s energy that allowed it, the same energy I had in my
own veins—if only I had transformed into a light again, if only I
let it consume me.

Fudicia’s black eyes widened like she could
sense what I was thinking. “Don’t do this—”

Before I let my veins fill with the fire of
the Light, Fudicia jumped toward me again. I latched onto her arm
and swung her to the ground. Her body hit the floor in a single
thud, and I swung my sword at her. She barely had time to roll
away. Her black eyes were on me as I walked over to her, ready to
kill another light.

“If you’re a light when Darthon dies, you
will die, too.” She got the words out before I froze. It made
sense. Darthon wanted to kill me no matter what, and his
encouragement of having me on his side when he won would guarantee
it. But Fudicia’s voice wasn’t the reason I froze. It was another
voice entirely.

“Zac and Linda are dead.” Darthon was
screaming. “Because of you, everyone’s dead. You’ve had your chance
to kill—”

“I’m not dead!” Fudicia shouted. “I killed
Zac,” she said as she stood up, “and I joined the Dark.”

She was on our side, and I had almost killed
her.

Darthon was staring at Fudicia, but Shoman
was staring at him. I saw the flicker of darkness cross his eyes
before he did it. Shoman swung his sword at Darthon. The blue blade
cut through the air, and Fudicia’s screech was the only
warning.

Darthon leapt to the side, but not fast
enough. Shoman’s sword hit Darthon’s leg, and Darthon hit the
ground. Shoman was on his feet, and before Darthon could ever
stand, Shoman kicked him back down. This time, I was the one to
freeze.

In movements that seemed too slow for
reality, Shoman lifted his sword and brought it down, but it never
met Darthon. Fudicia had intercepted it. She had tackled Shoman.
The battle wasn’t between the two, after all.