Death Before Daylight (7 page)

“Why didn’t you ask them?” I spoke up.

“Ask them what?”

When it came down to Eric giving me his
mother’s ring, he had found my biological parents—their grave—and
he had spoken to them. But he hadn’t even met my parents, the ones
who had adopted me shortly after I was born. The question had been
rattling inside of me for weeks, but I only recently found the
words.

“Why did you ask my biological parents for
permission, but not them?” I reworded my question.

Eric’s arm moved away from me, but he faced
me. His green gaze was a forest of protective trees with the same
feel that surrounded the shelter. “I should’ve, Jessica, and I know
that,” he started, “but I didn’t think we’d tell them we were even
dating for a while.”

The explanation he had given me in the
training room echoed inside of me. Even our peaceful moments were
outlined in chaos. He didn’t want to start his relationship with my
family during a war.

“I wasn’t going to tell them the truth
tonight either,” he said, “but I don’t want to lie to them any more
than we have to.”

They wouldn’t know I was a shade, not now,
and possibly ever. That part of my life wouldn’t include them. I
understood that. But Mindy knew, and she was human. Eric’s reality
was crashing with mine.

“How is Mindy dealing with it?” I asked.

Eric’s palm landed on my head.
“She’s—learning,” he said, “and your parents will, too.”

“What?”

His eyes widened. “You didn’t want to tell
them?”

I hadn’t even considered it a possibility. My
expression must have told him that because he kissed my
forehead.

“In time,” he started, “this will be as
normal as everything else.”

My fingers curled against his shirt as the
Charger’s headlights flickered toward us. My father was
returning.

“It’s getting dark,” Eric whispered against
my hair.

“Are you going out with Jonathon?” I
asked.

Eric’s arm twitched next to mine. “I meant to
tell you,” he said. “We’re supposed to meet him by the river at
midnight.”

“What?”

“There’s a new shade,” he explained as we
watched the car park against the curb. “She wants to meet us.”

“A new shade?” I asked. My father was getting
out of the car.

“We’ll have to talk later,” Eric muttered,
raising his hand in a wave. “Can you be there?”

“Of course.”

“Great,” he said, suddenly raising his voice
into a shout, “How was it, Mr. Taylor?”

“That is some ride you have.” My dad tossed
the keys across the front lawn.

The silver was a silhouette against the sky,
but Eric caught them without even looking up. “You can drive it
anytime.”

“Oh, that was enough for me,” my dad said,
walking over to stand next to us. “Thanks for coming over.” He had
said the phrase one hundred times since dinner.

Eric nodded. “Dinner was great, but I should
get going.” He gestured to the clouds. “It’s getting late, and we
have school in the morning.”

My dad tapped my arm. “Responsible, too.”

“Yeah,” I began, staring at Eric.
“Responsible.”

Eric didn’t bother hiding his grin. “See you
later,” he said and started walking to his car, not even bothering
to kiss me goodbye. Not in front of my dad. Not when we would see
each other in a few hours.

“Have a good night,” I called after him.

He waved over his shoulder. “You, too.”

“
See you in a few.”

9

Fifteen minutes before midnight, I arrived.
My body pulled out of the shadows, and I formed right in front of
Pierce and Jessica. Her hand was on his arm, but she dropped it
when I arrived. I had to remember the conversation Pierce and I
had. Guards were close to their warrior shades. It was a
connection. Not a romance.

“About time,” Pierce said it like I was late
instead of early.

I scratched the back of my head. “How long
have you guys been here?”

“Two minutes,” Jessica said.

“She’s been here for two minutes,” Pierce
clarified. “I’ve been here for thirty.”

“Well, you did say midnight,” I pointed
out.

“Midnight is when she arrives,” Pierce
argued. “I thought we had to explain things to Jess.”

“And I’m waiting for that explanation,” she
said, and as if she had given an order, Pierce explained
everything.

A new breed of shades had appeared—or a new
breed of lights. She was a half-breed’s daughter. We didn’t know
how it was possible, and we definitely didn’t know who she was. But
if we could figure it out, we might be able to understand why our
powers were shifting.

“Isn’t that the elders’ job?” Jessica asked,
sweetly naïve.

Pierce and I laughed in unison. “The elders
aren’t exactly good at their job,” I said, ready to hear what else
Pierce had to say, but he didn’t elaborate.

“We’ve been meaning to tell you what’s going
on, too,” Jessica spoke to her guard.

His shoulders rose, and a silence barrier
streamed out from him as if anyone could be listening from the
shadowy forest behind us. We had as much privacy as we were going
to get. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Our powers are stronger,” Jessica explained,
sharing how her powers had worked in the middle of the morning.
“And then, we sensed him.”

“Him, being?” Pierce didn’t want to believe
it any more than we did.

“Darthon,” Jessica confirmed, “but he left
when we got there.”

Pierce looked at me. “And you left her
there?”

“Don’t judge me.” I lifted my hands. “You’re
the guard, and I didn’t see you anywhere.”

“That’s because I was busy trying to meet the
new shade,” he retorted, and his expression twisted. “She’s
here.”

He didn’t have to say it. We had sensed her
energy. It was wavering in pieces, an odd combination of sparks of
the Light and shadows of the Dark. She didn’t feel like a
half-breed. She was something else entirely—and she was walking on
the sidewalk. Like a human.

From a distance, I could make out how tiny
she was. She was shorter than anyone else I knew, but her curves
were dramatic. I didn’t realize she was our age until she was only
a yard away. Even then, I doubted she looked anything like she did
as a human. If she did, we didn’t know her.

Her hair was as long as Luthicer’s,
stretching to her waist, but it was pitch black. Two strands in the
back were white, but she had severed them off, leaving stubs to
spike out above her head like a second set of ears. But that wasn’t
what caught my attention the most. Her eyes did. They were like
Pierce’s—electric green—but tan swirls confiscated the edges of her
irises. Her pale skin contrasted against them, and her lips did the
same, as white as the moon.

She stopped and looked us over like she had
seen us a million times. The sight of shades was nothing new to
her. “I’m assuming one of you gave me this.” She raised a ripped
piece of paper. Her voice was as harsh as her glare, the sound of
scraping glass. “You do realize you could get me in a lot of
trouble, right?” She knew the Dark’s rules, too.

“I gave you that.” Pierce laid a hand on his
chest. “I’m Urte’s son.”

“I’m assuming Urte doesn’t know about this,”
she said.

Pierce opened his mouth, but I stepped in
front of him. “I don’t know what the elders told you,” I started,
“but their rules aren’t everything, and you have the right to know
us.”

Her hand lowered as her multicolored gaze
darted over me. “I came, didn’t I?” As she went to put the paper in
her pocket, her hand flickered in and out of the shadows, and she
lost her grasp. The paper fluttered to the ground, and I picked it
up before she could.

“You’ll get used to it,” I said, knowing she
didn’t have a grasp on her powers. Newbies never did. Not unless
they were Jessica.

“I’m not exactly supposed to transform. Not
until they figure out what’s going on,” she revealed a set of rules
the elders had given her. “Is that what this is about? Do you guys
know what’s going on?”

I cringed. “No—”

She started to walk away, but Jessica grabbed
the girl’s arm. “Wait,” she said. “We just want to talk to you.”
Jessica dropped her hold. “We might be able to figure it out.”

“Isn’t that the elders’ job?” the girl asked
exactly what Jessica did.

“We don’t like waiting on them,” Jessica
explained, “and I bet you don’t want to either.”

The new shade folded her petite arms. “They
sure like to take their time.”

“How long have you known about this?” Pierce
asked.

The girl faced him. “A while, but I’d rather
not get into specifics,” she said. “I don’t enjoy opening up to
just any stranger in the middle of the night.”

“
At least she has attitude,”
Pierce
spoke to me. “
She’ll make for a good comrade.”

“
Worry about that later,”
I
responded.

“What do you know?” I asked, trying to find
common ground.

Her lips pushed to the side. “How about you
tell me what you know first?”

Jessica took the lead. “Do you know who the
descendants are?”

Her odd eyes squinted. “They explained the
prophecy to me,” she said, “but it doesn’t sound like that worked
out.”

I flinched. “I’m Shoman.”

The girl’s neck whipped around, and her
bottom lip hung open. “You,” she said, pointing at me. “You’re the
first descendant?”

Jessica nodded. “And I’m the third.”

“And I’m just the guard,” Pierce explained,
“so you can trust us to handle it if the elders find out we
spoke.”

She didn’t calm like I expected her to. She
stepped back, and the white parts of her hair wavered as her energy
grew. I recognized the emotion. She was panicking.

“You—you guys can’t be the descendants. Like,
the
descendants,” she stuttered, but we kept nodding. “That
would mean—” Her eyes focused on Jess. “You’re Jess? Jess
Taylor?”

Jessica flinched. “Yeah,” she said, but her
nails dug into her palm. “I guess I can’t be mad they told you.”
Everyone else knew anyway.

“And that makes you,” she pointed at me, but
she didn’t get a chance to finish.

“I’m Eric,” I said, hoping she would explain
who she was, even though she knew the rules. Never give up your
identity. Ever. Jessica and I had lost that opportunity.

“Eric Welborn,” she added my last name,
looking between Jessica and me. Her hands went up to her face.
“This is too weird.”

Jessica voiced it before I could, “So, you
know us?”

The girl’s hands dropped as she attempted to
steady her shaky expression. “Yeah,” she revealed. “I know you. I
mean, I know you who are. I’ve seen you at school.”

She went to Hayworth. We knew that much.

“This is weird,” she said, turning away from
Jessica like she could forget her. She only focused on Pierce. “Who
are you, then?”

He raised his hands in front of him. “I’m the
mystery.”

“Right,” she said. “Me, too.” She wasn’t
about to tell us who she was in her human life. “But they Named me
Jada, so I guess you can call me that.”

Jessica squeaked, but when I looked over at
her, she was smiling. “Nice to meet you, Jada.”

Jada nodded, but she kept her distance. “I
suppose Darthon isn’t going to be at this meet-and-greet.”

“No,” I sounded harsher than I wanted to.
“He’s an enemy, not a friend, and if you ever see him, you
run.”

The girl stroked her hair in the same way
Luthicer touched his ever-changing beard. “Do you know who he
is?”

“No.”

Jada didn’t respond this time. Jessica did.
She laid her hand on my arm, but didn’t look at me when she said,
“I’m going to go.”

I grabbed her hand, and my fingers
intertwined with hers. “
Are you okay?”

“
I will be.”

I wanted to question her, to figure out what
was going on, but I had an inkling I already knew. Jada had a name.
Jessica had never received one. She would talk to me when we
weren’t around the new girl who had no idea how important her name
could be to Jessica.

“Get home safe,” I whispered. We always said
it to one another.

“I will,” she said, and then, she was gone.
The blackened smoke from her transportation was cold against my
skin, but it disappeared faster than usual. She hadn’t even said
goodbye to Jada.

The new shade stepped back as if the smoke
could harm her. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m still getting used to
it—to that.”

“It’ll be normal before you know it,” I said,
wondering if the truth was a good or bad thing.

“Where did she go?” Jada asked.

“Home,” I answered, but she didn’t hear
me.

“It makes sense now,” she spoke up, looking
at the space where Jessica once stood. “Why they Named me
Jada.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“They Named me after the third descendant.
They wanted us to sound alike,” she explained. “The elders think
we’re connected.”

My fist curled as I thought about the Naming
room, the ceremony that changed my life forever. If they had just
Named Jada, she had only been a part of the Dark for two weeks.
This year, I had missed it, but it was the first year no one
complained about my absence. If the ceremony was the same, the
ancient ones—whoever they were—felt a connection between Jada and
Jessica. In Jada’s eyes, it was innocent. In mine, it was
everything but innocent. It was a bad sign.

Jessica was the third descendant, someone who
existed by accident, and Jada was a new breed of shade, someone who
existed, but shouldn’t. If Jessica had something to do with it, the
prophecy did, too, and if the prophecy didn’t work, this girl’s
powers weren’t going to either. Not how they should anyway.

“Are there others like you?” I asked, trying
to avert the conversation away from Jessica. “Are there others that
were Named after her?”