Death Before Daylight (44 page)

“That’s ethical journalism.” I knew Crystal’s
reason when I spoke, but I wanted to hear Jessica’s voice say
anything, and a bigger part of me wanted more than that. Even
though they were apart, Crystal and Jonathon were standing so close
to one another that they were practically hugging. I had never seen
Jonathon like that with anyone. It made me realize how far apart
Jessica and I were, but I focused on our friends. “They seem
awfully close.”

“Jonathon has a crush on her,” Jessica
said.

When I turned to look at her, my neck
popped.

She shrugged. “He didn’t know she was Crystal
at the time.” None of us did. Not until it was almost the end, but
a part of me wondered when Jonathon had confessed to Jessica. He
hadn’t said a word to me, but I knew that happened between guards
and their warriors. Camille had told me things she had never
explained to anyone else—like how she wanted to go to college—but
she was dead, and she was finally able to pass.

I looked at Jonathon as if I saw Camille. I
wondered if she would’ve found anyone if she were alive, but I had
to push the thought away because it was a useless one, a depressing
one that would never be resolved.

Jonathon and Crystal, on the other hand, had
a chance, and meeting as shades wasn’t rare. “I guess that’s how
most shades used to start relationships,” I said, knowing the old
rules the Dark had valued before my birth. My great-grandfather had
changed the rule of arranged marriages, and there was still
speculation that his law change had caused my birth. A part of me
believed the rumors were true.

“You don’t think they’ll actually date, do
you?” Jessica whispered. “They’re opposites.”

It was true. Crystal was brash and invasive.
Jonathon was shy and supportive. But watching them was like
watching the sunset and the sunrise, equally beautiful in different
ways.

“Maybe they’ll balance each other out,” I
joked.

Jessica nudged my arm. “If you mention
balance one more time—”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Relax.” My words
and my attitude seemed foreign in the dreary moment, but it was
starting to feel familiar again—like it truly was over.

Crystal let out a loud giggle.

Jessica’s head pressed against my arm. “Did
she just giggle?”

I draped my arm around her shoulders. “That
was definitely a giggle.”

Before Jessica could speak again, the elders
finally stepped in. Luthicer was the one to talk first, “All right,
break it apart.” He stared directly at his daughter. “Now is not
the time to be laughing.” People were still fighting, after all.
Whether or not they were dying was beyond me, but it would only be
a matter of time. The Light wouldn’t lose their powers immediately,
but they would lose them eventually, and the drain would bring them
into deeper madness.

“Sorry.” Jonathon took a wide step to the
left, away from Crystal.

She took a wide step after him, and when they
touched each other, they both started laughing again. I had never
seen Jonathon laugh so much.

Luthicer’s shoulders slumped. “Well, I guess
that’s that.”

I tapped the elder’s boot with my own boot to
get his attention. There was something I needed to know, and when
he looked at me, I spoke, “I thought you said you were Crystal’s
father.”

As far as I knew, Crystal only had her mother
in her life, but Luthicer argued that when he said, “I am.”
Everyone stopped as the man glanced at his daughter. “Sort of.”

Before anyone could ask for a better
explanation, a light surrounded him and sizzled down his body. He
shrank with the beam, and his beard curled up into his face. The
long white hair he normally had was replaced with a dark bob, and
his sharpened facial features softened. Luthicer wasn’t Luthicer at
all. He was Lola Hutchins.

“You’re—you’re a lady,” Jonathon
stuttered.

Lola crossed her arms as her eyes slit into a
glare. “You have a problem with that, Mr. Stone?”

Right when I thought Luthicer couldn’t be
more terrifying, he proved me wrong. Lola was terrifying.

“Nope.” Jonathon waved his hands in front of
his chest. “No problems at all, ma’am.”

“Good.” Lola’s legs locked as she brushed off
her clothes—a simple pantsuit. “A lot of things can change during
transformation.” Her words were taut. “But more can happen with a
lack of sleep, so I suggest all of you rest.” We would have to deal
with the fighting lights in the morning. “In separate rooms.” Lola
wasn’t even looking at me. She was looking directly at
Jonathon.

He froze. It was Urte—Jonathon’s father—who
responded. “Everything’s already set up.” Urte wasn’t fazed by
Luthicer’s transformation at all.

Jonathon’s eyes widened when he looked at his
father. “You knew about this.”

“You didn’t?” Urte said like it was obvious,
but his tone dropped when he continued to speak, “Brenthan wants to
see you.” The youngest of the Stones was alive.

Jonathon rolled his eyes like he didn’t care,
and then grinned because he did. “I’m going. I’m going.” He started
to walk away, Urte followed, and Crystal left with her mother.

Jessica and I stayed with my father, but it
wasn’t long before he pointed down the hallway. “That way, you
two.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Even though I had slept and
gained energy, I was drained. I could sleep one hundred years, and
I doubted I would ever feel fully rejuvenated.

As I walked down the hallway, the darkness
flickered beneath the emergency lights. Shades were already
cleaning the walls. I opened my mouth—ready to offer assistance—but
my lips snapped shut as if I weren’t able to do it. When I closed
my eyes, I saw Robb’s pale face plastered against my eyelids.

Jessica squeezed my hand, and I jumped.
Still, she never let me go. “You okay?”

I didn’t nod, but she did. She understood.
She was there, after all. She had even killed Ida. I doubted we
would ever be the same, but at least we would be together.

The words left me as I came to a stop, “We’re
okay, right?”

Jessica’s eyes—the color of the sky—moved
over my face. “Of course.” She hadn’t taken off her ring, and
neither had I.

I didn’t want to leave her. Even though I
knew we had separate rooms, the separation seemed cruel. I wanted
her to stay by my side, to sleep next to me, if we even managed to
sleep at all, but she moved toward her door only to stop in-between
the rooms.

“Darthon,” she stuttered and shook her head
as her eyes fell to the floor. “Robb,” she corrected, “He Named
me.”

It didn’t surprise me, but I couldn’t
breathe. The Dark had never offered her a name, but it made sense
now. Perhaps the Dark’s instincts had known the truth all
along—that Jessica would be a light, that her name had to come from
them, but I had never suspected that she had gotten one before the
end.

“Iris,” she said. “It was my mother’s.”

My shoulder pressed into the wall next to
hers. “Are you going to keep it?”

She didn’t speak.

I reached over, laid my fingers under her
chin, and lifted her face so that she had to look at me. “I think
you should.” She had wanted a Name from the beginning.

Her bottom lip trembled. “Why?”

I wanted to say it was for her biological
parents, for their legacy, but it was beyond that. Robb added to
it. “He suffered just as much as we did.” Like us, he was born into
it. He didn’t have a choice. The choices he did have had died a
long time ago, when he was a child, when he had no ability to fight
for it. As much as my father and I had struggled to have a
relationship, we had one. Robb didn’t have anyone but fellow
murderers.

Jessica nodded like she understood. “But I
still hate him,” she spoke, “a part of him anyway.” Her eyes darted
to the wall only to look back at me. “For now.”

“Me, too,” I agreed, trying to find a place
in my heart to understand that our battle was long from over. We
had to heal. I cracked a smile like it was the first step. “That’s
the human side of us.”

Jessica hit my arm lightly, but her frown
concealed the smile I knew existed beneath it. Her eyes glowed
because of it. “Get some sleep,” she said, but her voice dropped on
the last word.

Before she could walk away, I grabbed her
hand. “You don’t have to be alone tonight if you don’t want to
be.”

“I know.” She stared down at our hands before
unlacing her fingers from mine. “But I should be.” It was me who
didn’t want to be alone, but it was worse when I saw the light in
her eyes leave right before she turned around. “Goodnight.”

Jessica wasn’t gone yet, but she was striving
to be.

63

I had the final decision to make, and I knew
I had to do it on my own. While Eric had to kill Darthon, I had to
save the Light. They were still fighting, and the stench of the
night filled the air. It only got worse as I snuck out of the
shelter.

It was much easier than I thought it would
be. None of the shades who saw me stopped me, because they trusted
me, and I hoped that trust would remain as I ducked outside.

While I expected to see people running around
in their madness, I saw nothing. I only sensed it. Perhaps they had
gone elsewhere. Perhaps they were all fighting inside their own
minds at home. But I knew they wouldn’t be for long. I would bring
them together again.

I walked straight for the only place I wanted
to be.

Amazingly, the railing that sat above the
river was still intact, and I inhaled a deep breath as I climbed on
top of the first bar. It shook like it had the first time I stood
on top of it—the second I had met Eric—the moment I had realized I
was never alone—and it was for that reason that I turned
around.

At first, I thought I was hallucinating, that
my memory had taken over my consciousness and I was losing my mind
with the rest of the lights, but then, he smiled.

Eric was right behind me.

He shoved his hands in his pockets as his
emerald eyes glowed through the dark night. “You really thought I’d
fall for that?”

When I had told him goodnight, I knew he
didn’t want to be alone, but I didn’t know that he was aware of my
own feelings. I didn’t want to be alone either. I only thought I
had to be.

“No,” I managed as I stepped down. The
rushing river was the only sound that cascaded between us. It
roared with every word we hadn’t said. “I love you” hadn’t seemed
appropriate when others had lost their lives. “I want you” seemed
just as selfish. Everything did. That’s why I wanted to do my last
battle on my own. “I thought I’d try anyway.”

Eric grabbed my hand, his touch warming me.
When he pulled us up onto the railing, we stood on the shaky metal.
A cold breeze pushed against us. It smelled like death. “It’s
dangerous out here,” he said exactly what I was thinking.

“It won’t be for long.”

I knew I had to do it. I had to listen to
Camille and Eric’s silent mother. I had to transform into a light,
I had to let my shade self go, and I had to declare myself their
leader. I had to let them know they would live on, too. I had to
give them hope, even when all the hope I previously had died. I had
to believe in that hope again, and in order to do that, I had to
sacrifice my own identity all over again. I had to be Iris—the
Light’s descendant—and I had to accept everything that came along
with it.

“The Dark will support you,” he said the only
words I wanted to hear. Eric always did that.

I gripped the railing as if it would fall
over, but Eric’s hand landed on top of mine. He slowly pried my
fingers off the metal. “Whatever happens,” he said as he leaned
over and kissed my cheek. “I’m here.”

I nodded, we spread my fingers out together,
and I felt our love flow through my veins as they filled with the
heat I was all too familiar with.

I let the red rain fall.

64

Four months later

Jessica’s parents came to our graduation, and
so did everyone else. Everyone who was alive anyway. A huge section
of Hayworth High’s ceremony was dedicated to the victims of the
cult—the same cult that the sect had created during the first
illusion. Only this time, an illusion wasn’t used. Everyone just
accepted it—almost as if they knew about the Light and the Dark—but
still, no one spoke of it out loud. Even though the new breed of
shades and lights added to our numbers, humans existed. Mindy had
proven it to us all, and for the first time, my father didn’t feel
guilty for breaking his own laws.

My family—Mindy, Noah, and my dad—sat on lawn
chairs in the same field the Marking of Change had happened, but
this time, they laughed, and I wondered if they would sit there
when Independence Day came again. It was only two months away, but
it would be the first one I wouldn’t make it to.

In the morning, I was driving to Iowa with
Jonathon. We would speak at a council of shades—and lights. It was
only our first stop. There were hubs of lights and shades all over
the states, people Urte had tracked down after the Marking of
Change. Apparently, many of the out-of-towners had bought his
cupcake service. Now, Jonathon and I were in charge of bringing
everyone together with Jessica’s message. We were taking more
cupcakes for good measure.

Jessica would stay behind.

It was her plan. After the final battle, she
had become a light, and in that power, she had saved the Light.
When her red rain fell, dozens of survivors came to us—one by
one—and she gave them the strength to stop their insanity. She gave
them their powers back, but afterward, she was too exhausted to do
much else. Everyone took shifts watching over her until she
recovered. It took three weeks, but she was graduating with the
rest of us. She was the strongest person I knew.