Death Before Daylight (35 page)

“I thought the Dark had lost,” I
confessed.

Eric never spoke.

“When he let us go, I thought it was because
he didn’t want me to die, because he would die,” I voiced the only
reason I had come up with. “But I never thought he had control over
you. I never thought he continued to torture you—” I took a shaky
breath. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“For what?” The two words were the only two
he had said since I started speaking, but they weren’t harsh or
strained. They were low, a barely audible construction of two
syllables.

I searched his face for something, a small
indication of anger, but his eyes were half-closed, tiny squints of
green beneath his bangs. Eric Welborn was looking at me. He didn’t
take his eyes off me once. He never let go of my hand. His
heartbeat was the same rhythm as mine, and we breathed
together.

“For not being able to save you, or the Dark,
or anyone.” My fingers twitched in his grasp, and as I thought of
his late mother, I had to drop all eye contact. Our ringed hands
had never glowed so brightly. “For doing what I did.”

“Jessica.” My name left his lips. “Jessica,
look at me.”

I did.

“None of this is your fault,” he said. “Don’t
you dare think that.” He squeezed my hand. “And don’t hide things
from me because you’re scared.” A small smile pulled at his lips,
but he looked down at our hands. “I am, too.”

I stared at the side of his face as his jaw
popped. As familiar as the gesture was, I hadn’t seen it happen so
closely. The way his eyes clouded over reminded me of the time we
had worked on a science project together. It was the first time he
opened up as a human, and it was before either one of us knew who
the other actually was. I knew he would talk again when his mouth
opened, “I have something I have to tell you, too.”

My breath caught in my throat, so I
nodded.

Even though he didn’t look at me, he started
speaking, and his confession took over the room.

He had spoken to his father about his
mother’s suicide, how she was the bloodline, how she took in
Camille, how she had almost killed him, how she had taken her own
life instead. He didn’t stop talking until he lifted our hands.
“She gave these to me for a reason.” The rings that kept him alive.
“I don’t think she ever wanted me to die. I don’t think she wanted
anyone to.”

In that moment, I saw Jim Welborn in his son.
Their expressions were identical. The twist of their upper lip was
unmistakable. They even shared a line on the side of their face,
but Eric’s wasn’t a wrinkle yet. It would be one day. I wanted to
be there when it was.

“I didn’t know,” I said after a moment of
silence.

“There’s a lot we didn’t know,” Eric agreed
as he leaned back, “but that’s over now.” His bangs brushed in
front of his eyes, but his glare burned through the shadows. “I’m
not listening anymore.”

The four words came out in a strangled
stutter, and I wondered if it was the illusion, the one Darthon
controlled him with. Even though Eric couldn’t control his voice,
he was fighting back again. We both had to.

He straightened up, and his face hovered
inches away from mine. “Can I kiss you?”

I didn’t think I had to nod, but I did before
he let go of my hand. With the freedom, he touched my face, and his
touch lingered before he kissed me. It had been weeks, but it felt
like months were melting away between us, months that we wouldn’t
have if we didn’t live, and I knew why love was always described
with eternity. A single minute stretched out for lifetimes.

When he shifted back, I was reminded of our
actual timeline. Before I could break away, he pressed something
cold into my palm, and our kiss ended.

I glanced down and couldn’t believe what I
was seeing. Eric had returned my necklace, the one that kept his
ring against my sternum, the same one Robb had removed from my
collarbone.

I gripped the chain Crystal had gifted me. “I
left this at the coffee shop.” But it was in my hand, and Eric was
the one to return it. Not Robb. Not Zac. “How did you get it?”

Eric’s face tilted to the side. “You don’t
need to ask that.”

Darthon. Eric may not have been able to
speak, but he had control of his actions, and Darthon had attacked
Eric that night. The necklace had somehow been exchanged. It was
undeniable now. Darthon had to be Robb, but my stomach twisted at
the reminder that Zac had been present. Both of them had to be
involved. Even if I knew Darthon was Robb, I was unable to kill
him. Only Eric could. Only Eric could get Darthon’s blood on his
hands.

“I get it now,” I said, “why you stopped me
from hurting Zac.” I thought back to the day in the parking lot.
“Killing isn’t something to take lightly, not for yourself or your
enemy.”

“It has to be done—”

“You’ve never even killed anyone, Eric,” I
interrupted without realizing what words had left me. A gasp
followed, and I covered my mouth like I could take it back, but it
was too late.

Eric paled.

“I—” My head dropped to my hands. “I didn’t
mean that.”

Eric pulled my hands away from my face. While
I expected to meet his glare, I was met with a smile. “You did,” he
said, “and you’re right.” He dropped my hands, and they landed on
his knee. “I don’t expect it to be easy, and I don’t expect this to
be easy for you either.”

He laid a hand on top of my head as he stood
up. “You need to take care of yourself right now,” he said it like
he was actually saying goodbye. “I can’t do that anymore.”

Before he could transport away, I grabbed the
back of his shirt. “You never had to take care of me, Eric.”

When he exhaled, his shoulders fell. “Yes, I
did.” I only let go of him because he turned around to face me. He
knelt down to my height. “And you took care of me,” he said before
kissing me again. This time, it was intense.

He didn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe, and I
didn’t want to.

His fingers curled through my hair, slightly
pulling the strands as he kneeled on either side of my legs. My bed
creaked as his torso leaned against mine. We laid back, continuing
to kiss. We only stopped to breathe, but he didn’t roll off me. His
chest pushed against mine as his face pressed into my neck. Every
breath he took glided down my skin. He wasn’t even kissing me, but
they felt like kisses. They were warm shivers.

I threaded my fingers across the nape of his
neck, just to hold him there, and then I felt it. The burn. The
Light’s sizzling power was vibrating, and it wasn’t coming from me.
It was falling off him. The spell he was under imbedded itself into
his neck.

My fingers were cold as I dragged them across
his skin, but the electricity moved with me. Eric didn’t react. He
just kept breathing. Even he couldn’t feel what I could, but he was
a shade, and I wasn’t. Not completely anyway.

“We’re going to have to take care of each
other after this,” he said, but his words were already in the
past.

“For a long time,” I agreed, knowing how I
could take care of him now. I had one thing I had to do first.

I let him go.

When my elbows pushed beneath me, Eric moved
off me, and the coldness of my room seeped into my skin. “We’re
going to win,” I said, but he stared at my ceiling.

“I wish—” he stopped. “I don’t want to
leave.”

I held my breath as his face tilted to the
side so he could look at me. He smiled before he sat up, and his
smile disappeared before he stood up. “But I have something I have
to do.”

“Me, too.”

He spun around. His bottom lip fell open like
he was going to question me, but he ran a hand through his hair,
and I knew he wouldn’t. Not when he couldn’t tell me what he was
going to do. We were at the point where we just had to trust one
another.

“Don’t fight without me,” I managed.

“Same goes to you.” His promise wasn’t
straightforward, but it lingered in his tone. He walked over to the
window, and I expected to see him transport away, but he didn’t. He
simply laid his hands on the windowsill. “I guess we both had it
wrong.”

I stood up. “What do you mean?”

“We thought we were fighting my battle,” he
said with his back facing me. “We’re not.” He glanced over his
shoulder. “We’re fighting yours.”

His words made my heart pound. “We’re still
together.”

“Always.”

“Go.”

He only turned around for a second. “Do you
trust me, Jessica?”

“I love you,” I emphasized every word,
knowing trust imbedded itself in every one of them. “Do you trust
me?”

As he shifted, he blinked, and in one second,
his green eyes were blue. “I love you, too.” Eric was Shoman, but
both of his sides loved me just as my sides loved him. No matter
which one I became.

“Do what you need to,” I said. “Just let me
do what I need to.”

He nodded. “I’ll see you soon.” As he spoke,
a cloud of smoke consumed his place. He was gone, and I was
alone.

I only stood when no one else came to check
on me. I went straight for my desk, but my calendar caught my
attention first. It was Valentine’s Day, and it had nearly passed
without my knowledge of it. A part of me wished I had known so I
could tell Eric, but we had already told one another what mattered
most. We did love one another. I knew that. But I wasn’t sure we
would get another chance to see each other again.

I didn’t know what he was doing, but I had to
do what I needed to do, and we had to concentrate on ourselves.
This time, though, I knew exactly what to concentrate on, and I
knew what I had to do to fight back. This time, I could free the
Dark, and this time, my words would be the only knife in the
room.

I transported away.

47

School was normal—too normal—and I was
half-tempted to unblock Jessica and Jonathon to check on them. We
were halfway through the day, and I hadn’t heard a single thing. I
hadn’t even seen Zac or Robb, but I did see Linda.

At lunch, she was sitting in her usual spot,
her back pressed against the brick wall on the edge of the outside
tables. For once, she didn’t look at me when I sat down next to
her. She only stared at her nails. They were purple, and as much as
I hated to admit it, they reminded me of Camille’s obsession with
nail polish.

“Why purple?” I asked.

“Huh?” She glanced over, but her brown eyes
didn’t widen. They were heavy, and small bags hung beneath them.
She hadn’t slept.

“Your nails,” I said. “Why are they
purple?”

She fixated back on them, but her fingers
curled into a fist as if she didn’t want me to see them anymore.
“Why? You want to borrow my bottle?”

Fudicia was back. Their caustic tones were
almost identical, and it was exactly what I wanted. I needed her to
be both a human and a light if we were going to talk.

“Did you know she tried to kill herself?”

Linda’s neck whiplashed to face me. This
time, her eyes were wide, and her pupils moved as she searched my
face. I kept every part of my expression still.

She huffed. “Who told you?”

“Jonathon.” Even he wouldn’t mind the
lie.

Linda didn’t speak immediately, but when she
did, her tone was soft, “Did you talk to her?”

“Would my answer make a difference?”

“I guess not.”

It was against the rules. We both knew that.
But so was hurting Robb, and I had punched him. As far as I was
concerned, our rules were over, but the spell still existed. I
doubted I would ever be able to speak again, but I could fight, and
if Robb wanted to, I knew the Dark had practically surrounded the
school. The Light probably had, too. We were on the verge of war,
but even the Light wouldn’t choose to fight at a high school. It
was my only hope anyway.

“It’s coming to an end, isn’t it?” Linda
voiced everything we already knew but had never spoken. She looked
at me like I would confirm it, but I kept my face unreadable.
“She’s going to figure Robb out.”

“She’s smarter than he thinks.”

When Linda nodded, her blonde hair blew into
her face. It was one of the reasons I couldn’t see her expression,
but the other reason was she faced away from me. I followed her
gaze to the willow tree, and I wondered what memories she possessed
from the Marking of Change. I knew who the Dark had lost, but the
Light had just as many members die. Whether or not she had been
close to any of them was beyond me, but I knew one life that had to
matter to her.

“You don’t have to die,” I said.

Her back lifted as half of a chuckle escaped
her. “Guards protect their warriors to the death,” she said it like
the Light had taught her how to die. “That’s the point of having a
guard, isn’t it?” Her eyes darkened. “Even Camille knew that.”

I ignored her words. “You don’t have to guard
him anymore,” I said, knowing that we needed her help to defeat
Darthon. In the end, he could take us back to the realm. In the
end, we would need a light, but I hoped Linda needed the Dark in
the same way we needed her: for survival. “You can be on our
side.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line, but they
opened as she brushed her hair back. “I can’t.”

“We have lights on our side already.
Luthicer—”

“He’s a traitor,” she interrupted, “and a
half-breed.”

“And half-breeds matter to us. My own guard
was one.” Camille’s memory would never leave me. “Zac is one,” I
spoke his name, even though it was difficult to. Unlike Linda, I
never had the opportunity to understand his involvement. “Don’t you
care about your brother?”

Linda’s face hardened, but it was in that
expression that I saw myself. It was one I held whenever I didn’t
want someone to read me. If she did care, she didn’t want me to
know. “Zac would gladly die for Robb.”