Darkness Fades (Darkness Falls Series, Book 3) (18 page)

“Glad to see they still feel the same way
about me,” I say, tracking them with my gaze until they arrive at
the lab.

I return my attention to Sylas when he
brushes the inside of my wrist with his fingers before taking my
hand. “Come with me for a bit,” he says. “I need to talk to you
about something.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask as he starts to pull
me down the path.

He doesn’t speak as we head deeper into the
shadows of the town and farther out of the eyes of Day Takers and
humans. He only lets go of my hand when we arrive at a section
where the ground bowls inward and all that’s around us are hills
and the wall of cars.

“What about Aiden?” he asks as he releases
my fingers from his hold and steps back to look at me.

“What about him?” I ask, glancing around,
wondering why he brought me down here.

He considers something and then starts to
circle around me with his hands behind his back. “All this talk
about protecting everyone in here, especially Mathew, but what
happens if Aiden shows up here with them, too?”

Through all the chaos, this detail had sort
of slipped my mind and the only solution pains me. Yet, saving the
world is the most important thing at this point.

“We’ll have to stop him,” I say quietly. “If
he gets in the way.”

“Can you do that?” he questions, stopping in
front of me, inspecting my reaction closely.

I swallow hard and nod. “I can if I have
to.” I pause, gathering my voice. “Can you?”

His eyes hold mine, like he’s pretending
it’s no big deal, but I can see in his eyes that it is. “I’ll stop
him if he gets in the way.”

We grow quiet and eventually he turns to
stare at the wall with his hands stuffed in his pocket. We can hear
the sounds of voices drifting down to us as the people in town and
on the walls talk way too loud.

“You know, they make a lot of noise for
someone who’s in trouble,” he remarks, looking at me again; his
dark eyes look even blacker, like coal.

“They’re human,” I say. “They don’t know
anything else.”

“You think they can handle this?” he wonders
with zero confidence. “If they can fight against the abominations
and stand a chance?”

I shrug, being honest. “I’m not sure… Maci
seems to think I can do something about all this… protect everyone,
or at least Mathew.” I sit down on the ground in the dirt and he
joins me. “But at the same time, I’m just one tiny person going up
against a herd of large, vicious monsters. Yeah, I can’t die or
become infected, but I also can’t make sure
everyone
else
doesn’t either.”

He sits down beside me and bumps his
shoulder into mine. “I wasn’t asking if you can handle it… I know
you can.” He leans back on his hands and we stare at the hillside.
“I was asking if you think they can handle it.” He nods his head at
a group of humans standing just above us on the wall.

I want to say yes, but deep down I know
that’d be a lie. “I honestly don’t know,” I say. “But I guess we’ll
have to hope for the best.”

“You’re basing a lot of this on hope.” He
leans into me, wetting his lips with his tongue. “But you’re
forgetting one thing.”

“And what’s that?” I glance at his lips as
he gets closer.

He pauses just as his lips almost connect
with mine. “That you’re the perfect soldier.” Then he kisses me and
I want to pull back as I tell him he’s wrong. That I’m flawed. That
I can’t die. Can’t change. That I’m pretty much motionless.

Instead, I keep kissing him because, for a
moment, it makes everything easier.

Chapter 22

Sylas and I continue to sneak off and kiss
for the next few days, trying to distract our minds from what we
face ahead. I check on Mathew, make walk-throughs around the town
and generally check on everything. With each day I start to wonder
if something has happened; if maybe Aiden didn’t make it to them or
if the Highers couldn’t agree to send out the army. Deep down,
though, I know that’s not true. They’ll come. They always do.

People have started to let their guard down
by staying out later or not keeping such a close eye on the desert
land when the sun goes down. Some even bail out and head for the
hills; not wanting to protect their colony, but hide. It’s driving
me mad, but there’s nothing I can do. They won’t listen to me
because I’m not human; something which I try not to think
about.

On the fourth day, when I stop by to check
up on Mathew, I decide to talk to him about it; to see if he’ll
talk to them about being more careful.

“You need to talk to your people,” I
announce as I enter his lab. “They’re…” I trail off at the sight of
the mess that surrounds him. Empty vials are strewn everywhere,
flasks, garbage, spilt liquids on the floor, and Mathew stands in
it all with his eyes pressed to that strange device he pointed at
the other day; the one he said would help him study our blood.

“What on earth,” I say, maneuvering around
the mess. “Don’t you ever clean up in here?”

He falters back with his hand pressed to his
heart, his elbow bumping the counter and putting a dent in it.
Strange.
“Goodness, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I said something as I walked in,” I say,
glass crunching under my boot, eyeing over his extremely healthy
state. I mean, he’s been looking healthier and healthier by the
day, but he’s almost glowing with strength. “Didn’t you hear
me?”

He shakes his head, looking distracted. “No…
no… I was…” He drifts off as he puts his eyes back on the strange
device, turning the knob on the side. “Well, I was having an
epiphany.”

“Over what?”

He glances up at me, his eyes shining with
excitement. “Over a cure.”

I rush up to him. “You figured it out?”

“Well, yes and no.” He gestures at himself
as he squares his shoulders. “I’ve been studying my blood and
well…” he trails off, glancing around with a puzzled look. Then
something clicks in his expression and he hurries back to the
wall.

“What are you…?”

I trail off as he rams his fist through the
wall. Bits and pieces of brick shatter and fly through the air. My
jaw hits my knees as I gape at him, stepping back as my hand moves
to my knife.

“What are you?” I ask, drawing my knife out
of my back pocket.

He surrenders his hands in front of him.
“Kayla, relax. I’m still me, simply stronger… just like you.”

My arm falls to my side. “Are you saying
what I think you’re saying?”

He lowers his hands and rushes towards me,
beaming from ear to ear. “Yes,” he says. “You’re blood didn’t just
cure me; it turned me into a Day Walker.”

“That can’t be possible,” I argue against
the bluntly honest truth in front of me. I can see it in his eyes;
the power, the strength, the confidence. “Sylas didn’t...” I trail
off, remembering how he seemed to be stronger as we ran here and
how, when he kisses me, there is so much more behind it I thought
I’d bruise. I’ve never felt like I could bruise before. Unlike
Mathew, however, I’m not happy. “Well, that doesn’t do us any
good,” I say. “Because we’re not trying to turn the world into a
bunch of Day Walkers. We want to be human again, right?”

“Of course,” he says and I can tell he means
it, that he wants the world to return to what it was. “And we’re
one step closer to it.”

“How so?”

“Because…” He hurries over to the cabinet,
unintentionally smashing things in as he goes. “Now I understand
the way the virus and the cure work.” He takes out a few vials and
the leftover papers of Monarchs with his handwriting scribbled all
over them. “Monarch kept rambling in these,” he says, staring down
at the papers. “How he managed to make you immune to the vampire
virus even before you were changed into…” He peeks over at me with
an apologetic face. “Well, before he turned you into whatever you
were before you were a Day Walker.” He taps his finger on the
papers. “It means at one point you were still in human form and
withstanding the virus.” He gathers the papers and vials and then
moves over to the table, arranging them out.

“When I was injected with your blood, my
blood took on the structure of yours,” he says. “Therefore, I
became a Day Walker, so if I can return you to your human state,
then your blood could turn any person back to their human
state.”

“But wouldn’t you be making a cure by
turning me back into a human?”

He shakes his head. “There’s something in
your blood, Kayla; something that kills the virus instantly. So if
we can break down the various viruses in you and eliminate them,
then we might be able to get you back to your human form,” he says.
“It would make you a viable host and cure because your blood would
not only heal the infected person and change them back to human,
but it would also protect them when getting bit again.”

“But what if when you turn me back,” I say.
“Then I’m no longer the cure; what if it’s my Day Walker blood
that’s the cure.”

He shakes his head. “I already told you,
Monarch said you weren’t responding to the virus even when you were
a child,” he says. “But honestly I don’t know, not until we try
it.”

“But what if you try it and then I change
back and I’m merely useless.”

“I’m not going to lie to you, Kayla. It’s a
risk. You just need to decide if you want to take it. And I’d make
sure to have a lot of your original blood on hand as backup.”

I’m not sure how to respond. He acts like
he’s playing mad scientist, which is what started this entire
problem in the first place. So many things could go wrong. “And how
would you even do it?” I ask. “Figure out how to turn me back to
human?”

He swallows hard, his cheery demeanor
darkening a little. “There was this thing we used to do called a
fading,” he says. “Back in my experiment days, after a subject had
been tested and tested on, we’d try to wipe the virus out of their
bodies so we could start the testing process on them again; make
them usable again, like a clean slate.”

I give him a dirty look. “And did they
live?”

He bites on his lip, looking guilty. “Most
didn’t, but a few strong ones did,” he says.

“And what were they like?” I say coldly.
“These people that you
faded
. Were they normal humans
again?”

He runs his fingers through his hair then
reclines back against the table. “I’d try to lie to you, but from
what I understand from Monarchs notes about you, he made it so you
could tell when someone is lying.” He releases a stressed breath.
“So the answer is yes, they were human, but no they weren’t the
same. They lost a lot of their function, although their bodies
still thrived.”

I step forward in a threatening manner,
wondering if I can take him now or if his strength will match mine.
I’m curious to find out. “So what you’re saying is that if I take
this fading, then there’s a good chance I’ll be gone.”

He wavers then gets to his feet and walks
over to me. “Gone, but for the greater good. I’m sorry I have to
say this, but sometimes it takes a huge sacrifice to make things
right again. Not everyone can survive.”

His words almost match Monarchs words; the
ones I constantly hear in my head. Is that what he’s trying to tell
me? That this is the sacrifice.”

“I have to think about it,” I say then turn
for the door.

“Kayla, wait,” he calls out. “I need one
more thing from you.”

Shaking my head, I turn around. “What?”

He looks taken aback by my anger, but shrugs
it off. “I need to inject you with the original vampire virus.”

“Why?” I gape at him.

“Because I need to see if I can get your
blood to replicate like the virus does. And I want to start by
seeing what will happen if I add it to your blood.”

“But I’ve already been bit. Nothing
happens.”

He shakes his head, his expression laced
with stress. “The virus itself works a lot different… and it’s more
potent when you shoot it straight into a vein.”

“So you’re saying I could turn?” God, what
does this man want from me? First he’s asking me to risk my
existence and give over my body for the hope of mankind and now
he’s asking me to take a risk and turn into a vampire.

“I doubt it,” he says. “I just wanted to let
you know that it’s a risk because I don’t want to lie to you.”

“Can’t lie to me,” I remind him, annoyed. I
consider it for a moment, wondering what the right choice is. I
could turn into one. Let my flesh rot. Do I want that for myself?
Then I remember that there are risks that need to be taken in order
for things to change and then decide to do it. “You have some of my
blood, right?” I ask, sitting down on a chair. “As backup, so you
can hopefully change me back with it?”

He nods, pointing at a row of vials in the
cabinet. “I do and any signs that you’re changing, I’ll inject
you.”

I shove my sleeve up. “Then do it. Go ahead
and inject me.”

He seems remorseful, but still goes to
retrieve the vial from his cabinet. He fills a syringe with it then
flicks the needle with his fingertip as he makes his way back over
to me. A slow breath eases from his lips as he aims it at my arm
and I frown as he runs his finger along my vein, remembering, yet
not remembering, all the times I was injected. Then, with a deep
breath, he injects the virus straight into me and all we can do is
wait.

***

“I feel funny,” I say, feeling a little
woozy as he throws away the syringe and returns the virus to its
rightful place in the cabinet.

“That’s understandable.” He turns around,
watching me, waiting to see if I’ll change.

I brace myself against the wall as the room
starts to spin; my veins feel like they’re on fire. “I feel like
I’m going to throw up.”

Nodding and keeping his eyes fastened on me,
he backs away to a metallic cooler in the corner of the room. He
opens it up and takes out a small vial of my blood along with
another vial that looks like it’s filled with a black liquid that
bubbles red. He tucks that one into his pocket and then hurries
forward, preparing to inject me with my blood.