Sun Damage (The Sunshine Series) (37 page)

When I turn to him, I notice that two protectors are standing behind him: one of the men and the woman.
“What?” I ask.

“
Jade,” Myles says “You’re related, so you might be able to sense him if he’s nearby.”

“
How the hell do I do that?” We’re entering the woods now. I don’t want to go in there but I feel like I should. I can’t stop walking.

“
Listen for him,” he says, and his voice is right in my ear. He’s come even closer, despite how fast we’ve been moving this entire time. “Don’t think about anything else that’s going on. Just what Jade’s seeing, what he’s feeling.”

I finally stop walking.
“I don’t understand,” I say, the panic rising in my chest and voice. I close my eyes anyway, trying to think of a place where my brother could possibly be. I can’t be walking in the right direction. He wouldn’t go into the woods at three in the morning. Especially when he said he was only getting coffee. That’s something I would do. Not Jade. He’s rational. Even if he was having some kind of breakdown, he’d go and sit down at that same coffee shop he intended to sit down in and silently go through it. Yet…

“
He was here,” I say, looking at the ground. “He was
taken
here.”

“
How long ago?” The woman asks.

“
Like I fucking know.” The words fly out of my mouth. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know.”

The woman seems unfazed and starts touching trees, with purpose, like she’s looking for something.

Myles makes me turn to him, holding both of my hands in his. “It couldn’t have been that long ago,” he says.

There are already tears in my eyes.
“He’s going to kill him,” I whisper.

I see Myles’ lips move as he says,
“I won’t let that happen,” but I don’t hear it. What I hear instead is Michael’s voice, and he says:
yes, I will.

When I turn around he’s there in the dark, only I can see him as if the sun were out, blazing down on all of us.

And he has my brother around the neck.

I take a step forward, away from Myles and
toward them, but Michael backs up, placing pressure on Jade’s throat, causing his eyes to go wide.

Myles grabs my arm and I pull away.
He can’t hurt him, can he?
I ask.
With the protectors here?

I...don’t know.

I turn to the man in business clothes. “Do something,” I yell.

But he’s staring at Michael.
“We can’t,” he barely says. “The decision was made before we were able to shield the area.”

I
don’t know what that means and I don’t care. The only thing I’m hearing is that they can’t help us when Michael has my brother and he’s going to kill him if someone doesn’t do something.

Ja
de tries to say something to me but he can’t breathe. “Let him go.” My voice is frantic.

Michael loosens his grip just enough to let air into Jade’s lungs, which he takes in gulps.

“No,” he says, his lips so close to my brother’s face.

Myles steps forward, but I hold out my hand to stop him,
afraid Michael will choke Jade again. “He has nothing to do with this,” Myles says. “Leave him.”

“
You want me, right?” I ask, tears making my voice tight. “I’m here,” I say, stretching my arms out. “I’m here and...and I won’t run, okay? Just please don’t hurt him.”

He laughs to himself.
“Get rid of them.” He motions his head to the two protectors behind us. “And I will let him go unharmed.”

I turn to them and they shake their heads.

“Let them stay,” Michael says. “And I will hurt him for every minute they remain here.”

To prove it, Michael takes my brother’s hand and begins squeezing. Until
I hear something snap and Jade screaming.

“
No!” I’m screaming too now. My hands and head are filled with heat and Myles has to hold me back so I don’t rush forward.

Myles turns to the protectors.
“Leave,” he whispers.

I don’t look away from my brother, who is trying to catch his
breath, but they must walk away because Michael lets go of his hand and loosens his grip. “There,” he says.

“
Okay, they’re gone,” I say, looking back to make sure all that greets me is an empty row of trees. “Let him go now.”

Michael doesn’t move.

“Please,” I say, bile rising in my throat.

He stretches the thin skin over his lips, and his fangs are out.
“No.”

The grip he has on Jade
’s neck tightens once again and my brother’s face contorts, but he manages to open his eyes through the pain. I try for the first time to get into his head and find it incredibly easy.

Let hi
m,
he thinks. It’s not directed at me but he thinks it nonetheless.
Let him take me and end it.

All of this happens in a matter of milliseconds. Time stands still and expands at the same time. He’s not going to let Jade go. He’s not going to let any of us go. He just wanted to give me the false hope that he’d be okay. But things aren’t okay and things aren’t ever going to be. Not as long as Michael is here. Not until I’m dead and he has what he wants.

It’s even easier reaching into Jade’s head and telling him what he needs to know:
Don’t hate me
.

His eyes bulge even more when he looks at me. He
’s received the message.

I press my palms, hot and
weighted to Myles’ arms, and I feel him fall away from me. I don’t want to hurt him, but there’s no time and no other way. My anger and fear are enough to fuel me. Enough to leave Myles on the ground. Enough to push my brother out of Michael’s grasp before he sees me coming. Before he sinks his fangs into my brother’s throat.

Every
thing turns white and this once, I’m certain of where it’s coming from. Me. It shoots out of every pore, every limb and every fiber. I am light. I am what will save the people I love. I can do this and I am meant to do this. If I don’t, no one else will.

The euphoric feeling of being the
hero is crushed when there’s a ripping at my own throat, in my own body. Michael didn’t notice that Jade and my positions switched, or if he did, it was too late to stop himself. His thoughts pour into me without much effort, though they’re disjointed and sparse.
This is not right...not what I wanted...not...

I hear Myles in my head.
No
. And then out loud, “No.”

I feel that he
’s near, trying to break through the wall I’ve built around Michael and me, but it’s no use. He can’t stop it and I don’t want to. All I want is for things to finally be okay. I’m the only one who can do that. For myself. For Jade. For Myles.

Michael realizes what
’s happened in seconds of course, but he’s too late to stop me. He can’t break free of me. I am stronger than any monster. I will break him and make him wish he never walked into our lives. I will destroy him until there isn’t anything left but an ugly memory of him.

Let go, let go, let go.
His thoughts are frantic now. He can’t control them any more than what is happening to his body.

I reach my hand up and place it on his
head. He tries to shake me off but I don’t budge. I know what I’m supposed to do.

I let the light flood from my palm into his hair, into his scalp. The blackness in him will be overtaken by my light. I will not stop until every dark part of him has been dried up, spit out and expelled from his being. He will not harm anyone ever again. He will not make anyone else suffer. It
’s my turn.

The darkness begins to flow into me. I can feel it overtaking my head, my neck, centering on the place his fangs
are embedded in my throat.

Michael
’s thoughts change now. They’re pleading. They aren’t evil.

He
isn’t evil, I realize. Not now. Just scared. As scared as he’s made me. As scared as he’s made Myles.
I don’t want to die, I don’t–I can’t let her kill me.

There isn
’t a point in that is there? There isn’t a point in killing someone who was once evil but isn’t anymore. There is no point in harming someone who has harmed you.

My body begins to feel heavy with the weight of him
–the old him that inhabited his body.

The strangest things begin to happen next.

A little boy with blond hair is running behind the blackness of my closed eyes. “Please stop!” he cries. He’s terrified of something chasing him through the woods. He trips over sticks and wet, dead leaves. I can smell the dirt on him. I can smell his tears.

Then the image changes to Michael.
The man who is killing me yet afraid of dying. He’s huddled over a deep dark hole in the same woods. I can smell the same dirt and the same salt of tears on him.

I
’m snapped back into the present situation when Jade screams my name but I can no longer open my eyes. There isn’t anything I can do to make him forgive me.

Michael is killing me, but he won’t be able to hurt anyone anymore.

Maybe this is how it’s supposed to end.

“
Wrong
,” I hear Stevie’s voice come from next to me. My eyes still haven’t opened but he’s materialized, an unhappy smile stuck to his face.

I realize that now I
’m looking at him as if I was outside of my body and standing next to him. Because that’s all it is now. A body without me in it. My eyes are open now and I don’t think I like what I see.

Michael is leaning down in the dirt over me, breathing heavily, trying to spit what’s left of my blood out of his mouth.
“What have I done?” he whispers.

Under him, my hair is covering my face, which he’s quick to wipe away. My lips are an eerie blue and my eyelids are closed. Myles and Jade are what I see next. They rush towards him, Myles pinning Michael against a tree and
Jade kneeling down next to my body. 

“
You’ve gone and done it, Sunshine,” Stevie is saying. He crosses his arms. “You’ve gone and killed yourself.”

“
I’m dead now?” I ask, turning towards him. It’s easier than trying to face the situation unfolding in front of me. “I can’t go back?”

Stevie shrugs.
“You made your choice, I guess.” He’s staring at Jade who is leaning over me, searching for me with his hands in the dark. Once he’s found me, he’s lifting me in his arms and hugging my body to his chest as he cries. I don’t want to see my brother like this any more than Stevie does.

I take a few steps forward. I try to
reach out and touch my brother but he can’t feel me and I can’t feel him.  I move towards Myles, who still has Michael against the tree, but hasn’t made a move to either kill him or let him go.

Michael
’s fangs are still out, my blood around his chin. “I did not want to,” he’s whispering, and except for the pitch, it’s the same voice of the little boy I saw running through the woods. “I did not want to hurt anyone.”

Myles looks confused, but the
grip on Michael’s shoulders tightens. “This is a trick.” He spits the words out at him.

“
It is not,” Michael says, tears welling in his own eyes, mirroring Myles’. “Let me try to help her,” he says. “I will prove it.”

“
You can’t help her,” Myles is saying. “You killed her. You should be dead too, but you’re not. You’re the same man you were before. Now you’ve just killed one more person I love.”

Michael is pleading under his breath. It
’s strange seeing someone who has tortured so many, killed and harmed others about to suffer the same way.

But I don
’t want him to die. I really don’t want Michael to die.

My hand is on Myles
’ shoulder before I realize what I’m doing. I’m as shocked as he is that he can feel me there. He turns without letting go of the hold he has on Michael.

“
Sophie?” His voice is choked and strained. He can see me.

“
Don’t kill him,” I say. “He isn’t the same.”

And I know that. My light swallowed up all of the darkness within him. My blood shattered all of the poison within his body.

“He killed
you
,” Myles says, shooting his gaze over to Jade and my body. My brother hasn’t noticed anything else going on. He is lost. Stevie’s kneeling down next to him, trying to console him but Jade can’t see or feel him.

“
No,” I say, suddenly aware of how light my voice sounds. Like I’m fading. Like I won’t be here at all soon. “That wasn’t him. That was the monster in him.”

Myles blinks a few times but can
’t speak. He turns back toward Michael, who is nodding his head in a shaky, quick movement. I realize for the first time that he can see me too. He can hear everything I’m saying.