Darkness Fades (Darkness Falls Series, Book 3) (11 page)

I grab his arm and pull him back. “No way.
There’s too many of them.”

He looks torn, glancing back and forth
between them and me. He surprises me, though, when he nods and we
spin around together to start running back in the direction we came
from.

I think that Aiden is following me until I
throw a glance over my shoulder and realize he’s run in a different
direction towards a few dead trees. As he yells at the beasts and
makes a lot of noise, I wonder what he’s doing, but then I realize
he’s trying to get them away from me. I’m not sure how I feel about
this since I’ve pretty much made up my mind that Aiden was no good
anymore.

His plan almost works and most of the
monsters chase after him, tearing up the ground with their claws,
but a few of them look at me with their hungry eyes and run after
me. I pump my legs faster, barreling back towards the building,
knowing I’ve outrun them before and I can do it again.

All but one of them starts to fall behind
and I begin to relax until one seems to be gaining on me. It’s
nipping at my heels, making loud growls, ripping up pieces of the
ground with his force. I feel myself reaching maximum speed and I
don’t know what to do because it seems to be getting closer. There
is a pile of rusty cars just in front of me. Not knowing what else
to do, I quickly dive to the side of them and squeeze in between a
metal gap. I barely get my legs in as it tries to take a bite,
barely missing my skin. As I shimmy farther into the pile of cars,
I draw out my knife. It puts its eyes up to the gap and watches me,
letting out a low growl. I keep going until I reach the end of the
gap and, when I turn around, the monster is gone.

I tentatively stick my head out of the hole
and glance around. It’s silent, but it makes me uneasy. I lie there
for a little bit longer, clutching onto the papers and my
knife.

Finally, after it’s been quiet for a while,
I duck my head out and fall to the ground, rolling out. I get my
feet back under me and stand up, brushing the dirt off my pants. I
let out a breath of relief before I hear a deep growl from behind
me, making my hairs stand on end.

I turn around slowly and meet the eyes of a
beast much larger than the rest of them, the flesh rotting off and
falling to the ground. I start to bring my knife around, but it
dips its head towards the ground. Teeth pierce through my pant leg
and my flesh, sinking deep into my muscles.

My knife falls to the ground as my legs give
out on me and I fall. The last thing I see is the monster watching
me.

I know that soon I’ll become one of
them.

Chapter 15

Everything hurts. Throbs. I don’t know where
I am.

What happened? What’s going on?
I
don’t know anything.

Then my mind starts to focus and I let out a
small cry, almost by instinct. Oh God. I start to remember. The
feeling of teeth sinking into flesh. Am… am I becoming one of
them?

My eyelids flutter open. I’m no longer in
the park, but in a dark room, lying on my back on top of some sort
of blanket that is spread out on the hard stone floor.
How did I
get here? How long have I been unconscious? Am I changing now? Or
am I immune like with the vampires?

I raise my arms up in front of me and check
them over then slowly sit up and inspect my legs. Besides the tear
in my jeans and the teeth gashes on my skin, I show no signs of
turning into an abomination. The bite marks on my leg is tender,
aching, and I can still see blood trickling out of it.
They
haven’t healed yet. Not a good sign.

In the corner of the room is a stack of
crates, and on top of it, my knife is lying next to the papers I
was carrying. I gradually get to me feet, scanning the room as I
carefully make my way over to it.

I need to get out of here, find Aiden in
case I do end up changing and make sure he understands that he
needs to kill me before I do, and get the papers back to Mathew.
Although, if his attitude is the same, I have no idea how I’m going
to get him to agree to this and trust him to do it.

When I reach the crate, I crouch down to
gather my things, my muscles aching in protest. I get the knife in
my hand when I notice movement from the other side. I quickly stand
back up and step back, trying to listen for the sound of a
heartbeat, wishing I’d hear one because it’d make this so much
easier, but deep down, knowing that’s not the case. The only noise
that I can hear is labored breathing and I’m not sure what it
belongs to.

Moving vigilantly around the crate with my
knife in my hand, I peer down at the other side. The first thing
that comes into view is a hand, but it’s not a human hand. It’s
starting to rot, flesh peeling away. It looks like it belongs to
someone who is in the process of turning.

I continue to round to the other side, but
then the hand rapidly pulls out of my sight as someone scurries
farther behind it. I detect that it’s a human form, though.

“Back off, Kayla. It is not safe… I’m not
safe.” His voice is rough and scratchy.

“Aiden?”

There’s no response, but it has to be him.
It makes no sense, though, because I’m not changing and I was
bitten, too. I glance down at my arms, turning them over, my skin
still as pale and smooth. I’m not changing yet, but he is. Why? I
thought we were the same.

I look around at the unfamiliar room again.
Why did he bring me here instead of taking me out of the colony
where we’d be safer? Or to the desert?

“Did you bring me here?” I ask, stepping
around the crate, wondering if maybe there’s someone else around.
“Did you save me from that monster?”

I take a few more steps towards the crate,
listening to his labored breathing. His arms come into view, but
the flesh is strange looking, like it’s trying to melt. “Maybe if
we hurry we can go back to the town and get help.”

“I can’t,” he croaks. “I can’t go anywhere
just yet.”

“We have to,” I say, swallowing hard, not
sure if I want to take the last few steps to see him changing. “If
you’re changing… if we both change… we have to make sure the papers
get back to the colony.”

“No,” he says almost sharply.

Frustrated, I turn for the door, ready to
leave, knowing that I might be running out of time… I might have to
run the entire way there.

As I’m getting ready to exit, the memory of
Sylas replays in my mind. I remember him begging me not to let him
turn; pleading with me to end him before he changed. Guilt spreads
through me and I pause in front of the door. I can’t just leave him
here like this, let him change into one of those horrible
creatures, even if he’s done things I don’t like and made me mad.
He still deserves not to go down that way.

I set my papers down on the floor and turn
around. I slowly walk back towards the crate, worried about what
I’ll say, what he’ll say to me with what I’m about to do. Then the
crates abruptly shift slowly and he pushes himself to his feet,
standing tall with his back towards me, like he knows what I’m
about to do. He doesn’t have a shirt on and his dark hair is matted
to the back of his head.

I carefully walk up behind him, wondering if
he knows, if he understands. I almost back out; however, I swallow
my feelings as I take in the sight of his skin that hangs loosely
from his body with open wounds which are bleeding.

Elevating the knife above my head, I aim it
at his back, ready to plunge it deep into him, end him and help his
suffering. But he spins around, his dark eyes focusing on the knife
I hold in my hand. He looks scared. Before I can change my mind, I
quickly thrust my arm downward towards him.

His eyes widen, his arm snaps up and he
grabs hold of my wrist, stopping the knife just a fraction before
it clips his skin.

“Kayla, stop.” He tightly grips my hand and
I struggle, trying to break free, twisting my arm. “Kayla, look at
me.”

I’m not sure what registers first. His
command, the change in his voice, or the calm feeling being throw
at me. I stop fighting and look up at him, meeting his gaze. I gasp
when I see him and he lets me go. My hand falls to my side and the
knife slips from my fingers, landing on the floor with a clink. It
can’t be.

Yet the more I look at him, the more I know
it’s true. The cold, dark eyes that are looking back at me don’t
belong to Aiden, they belong to Sylas.

Chapter 16

It’s quiet for a while. Neither of us can
speak. Or maybe he’s just waiting for me to say something, but I’ve
lost my voice. He looks so different, still him—black hair, eyes
like charcoal, a slight cocky expression—but beneath it is pain.
Pain from his flesh rotting. He’s changing. Still?

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he
finally asks, stretching out his long legs.

Say what? I’m too speechless to speak. “Why…
I mean how are you changing, just now… when I saw you last, you
were so close and that was a while ago?”

He shrugs nonchalantly but there’s emotion
in his eyes, though I can’t tell exactly what. “I did turn. I
turned into one of those horrible monsters. It was like being stuck
in a bad dream…” His forehead creases in puzzlement as his head
cocks to the side. “Until I bit you.”

“What? You changed and then you changed
back?” I ask, shocked, wanting to pick up my knife so I can maybe
be comforted by this lost, helpless feeling inside me; one I’ve
never felt before. “I don’t understand, Sylas. Aren’t the effects
of the bite permanent?”

He sighs tiredly then steps backward to the
crate and hoists himself up, his arms wobbling, then he sits on it
with his bare feet hanging over it. “Oh, the effects were
permanent. Well, at least they were supposed to be. But when I bit
you, I could feel something in me start to change. The instant my
teeth sunk into your skin, something ignited inside me and I knew I
had to stop hurting you, like it was an instinct.”

“So, you bit me?”

He shrugs again, but there’s a hungry look
in his eye that make my skin feel hot. “Well, do you really blame
me?”

I try my best to shake it off, but the fact
that he’s sitting here, not hurt and almost not an abomination, is
making it hard not to want to do anything except hug him and tell
him that I’m sorry for leaving him. “So do you think my bite cured
you?”

“Maybe… Monarch did make you special after
all, but then again we know little about the abominations,” he says
with almost a thoughtful expression as he assesses me. “The one he
wanted to be perfect.” He pauses, glancing down at his skin, amazed
at the sight of it healing.

I walk closer to him and pick his arm up.
I’m not even sure why I do it other than I feel this need to touch
him, to feel that he’s real, so I trace my fingers over one of the
open wounds on his arm. The bleeding is barely noticeable as the
skin works to stitch itself back up.

“This is amazing.” I say. “You’re really
changing back.”

“Yeah, it is.”

I look up and meet his eyes. The hunger is
there again and instead of wanting to run away from him, I want to
get closer to him, like I did when I thought he was dying. I place
my hand on his cheek. His skin feels cold and sort of rough,
unnatural almost, yet I don’t pull back.

I’m not even sure what the point of my touch
is, but before I can rack through my thoughts and figure it out, he
grabs my hand and jerks me into him, eliminating any space left
between our bodies. He slams his lips against mine and kisses me
with passion, his hands wandering to my back as he presses me
closer to him. He tastes strange, like rust, yet at the same time,
he tastes good, and I realize how much I’ve worried about him while
we’ve been apart.

What does that mean? About my feelings
towards him? Something… I can feel it… this is so much different
than with Aiden… so much more… sweltering and hard to breathe.

He pulls back abruptly, his lips a little
swollen, giving me barely any time to react as I stumble back from
the disconnection. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he says.

“Why?” I frown because it doesn’t sound like
something he’d say at all.

“Because…” He drags his fingers through his
hair roughly, looking stressed out and Sylas never looks stressed.
“It may not be safe;
I
may not be safe. I mean, we know
nothing about this process… changing back.” His gaze encounters
mine. “What if I hurt you or infect you?”

I’m not sure how to respond. Part of me
wants to be irrational, but the other part wants to rationalize
that it could happen; that we know nothing about the abomination or
the process. “There’s something that I don’t get,” I say. “Why are
you healing after biting me, but vampires have bit me before and
haven’t changed back?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know, other
than maybe there’s something different about the process of an
abomination then a vampire. I mean, I know they’re different...” He
trails off, lost. “I just wish we had the answers.”

“So do I.” I glance back at the papers. “But
hopefully I can get some now.”

“Is that why you came back here?” he asks
and then a playful, arrogant look crosses his face. “Or was it to
save me?”

I roll my eyes, but have to bite back a
smile. “We came back for the papers… the one’s you and I found
before we were captured.”

“So Aiden’s going to help figure out what
they say? So you can save the world? Save humanity?”

“No…” I’d almost forgotten about Aiden. “So
you saw Aiden then?”

He nods, but seems reluctant. “During the
chase, yeah, but not afterward… I hope he wasn’t bitten.” He
doesn’t sound that convincing and I’m not surprised. The two
brothers never did get along very well.

I sigh. “Well, if he hasn’t been bitten now,
he’s still changed.”