Minutes Before Sunset (21 page)

38

The science table was ice cold against my burning cheek and thundering forehead. I hadn’t been able to sleep all night, not after what happened to me, not after Shoman left.

My eyes were sore and puffy, my cheeks blotchy and red, and I knew Crystal and Robb were worried. They’d realized something was wrong the minute they saw me in class, and they hadn’t stopped trying to talk to me since I walked in the door. It’d only been two minutes, and class hadn’t even started, but I felt as if they’d been interrogating me all day.

“Are you sick?” Crystal asked.

I feel sick.
I shook my head.

“Did you get in another fight with your parents?” Robb joined in. “I hate that.”

They don’t even know what I am.
I shook my head again.

“Did—”

“Nothing happened,” I said, glaring before I realized I was doing it. They jumped, and Robb whistled low.

“We didn’t mean to upset you,” he said, and I bit my lip to keep myself from yelling at the only people I had left in my social life. Shoman was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. He hadn’t even told me why, and all I wanted to do was understand.

“I’m sorry,” I managed, and Crystal leaned against my seat.

“I know what will make you feel better,” she said, winking her dark eyes. “Dress shopping.”

Robb groaned. “Come on, Crystal,” he said. “Not now.”

“Actually,” I said, lifting my face. “I might be up for that.”
Anything to distract me.

Robb raised his brow. “Jess really is upset.”

Crystal nodded. “I know.”

“I can hear you,” I said, and Robb cracked a smile.

“Just have fun tonight,” he said, standing as the warning bell rang. Students rushed in, and Crystal stood, readying to go to their table.

“We will,” she said, practically bouncing around.

“I’m bringing friends by the way,” Robb said. “To prom, I mean.”

Crystal smacked his arm. “You promised you wouldn’t this year.”

“It’s just Zac,” he said, stepping out of her arm’s reach. “And Linda.”

She cocked her hip and raised her brow. “Linda?”

“What?” He put his hands in front of him. “You like her.”

“Says who?” she asked, and the two continued to bicker as they went to their table and sat down.

I sighed and drowned them out. I did not need more drama in my life.

“Hey, Jessica,” Eric said, slowly taking his seat. He was further away than usual.

I stared at him. “Hey.”

Clearing his throat, he pushed his backpack beneath his seat. He adjusted his headphones, took them off, and put them back on again. Then, he sighed and laid his hands on the table.

What was wrong with him?

“You look tired,” he said, and his green eyes flickered beneath the fluorescent lights. He did too.

I shrugged. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because of your witty remarks,” I said, and his brow rose.

“Boy problems?” he asked, and I tensed.

How’d he know?
Crystal and Robb couldn’t even tell.

His lips pulled into a smile, but then it faded. “Don’t act so surprised, Jessica,” he said, unable to meet my eyes. “I’ve gotten to know you pretty well this semester.”

“Not that well,” I grumbled, and he whispered beneath his breath. I couldn’t hear him, but the sinking expression on his face hinted to his thoughts. He believed he had. “You haven’t,” I said, and he leaned back.

“But I can read body language,” he said, louder this time. His eyes flickered over my curling hands. “You really should be careful about that; you might give something away.”

I glared. “To who? You?”

“I’m not trying to upset you,” he said, repeating exactly what Robb had said moments before
.
Maybe I was being too sensitive.
“I’m just saying that you might want to be careful. You wouldn’t want to expose yourself to people you don’t trust.”

He was lecturing me, but I’d heard the lecture before. From Shoman.

I folded my arms and crossed my legs. “Don’t trust anyone, no matter how close you are to anyone.”

His brow furrowed. “What makes you say that?”

“My problem.”

He paled, but placed his cheek on his hand. He hadn’t moved fast enough to hide his expression. “You know, Jessica,” he spoke against his palm. “I’m sure that whatever is going on between your guy and you, he has reasons for it,” he said. “It’ll work out.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked, using his words against him, and his shoulders rose in a half-shrug.

“Because everyone hopes for the same thing,” he said. “A happy ending.” His hand dropped, and he managed a smile. “I’m a Welborn. I know these things.”

I nodded, unsure of how to respond. I wanted to argue with him, but I couldn’t. He was right. It was only hard to believe. Shoman cared about me, and I knew it. But he left me, and I didn’t know about that.

I opened my mouth to respond, but the teacher walked in and shushed the class. I kept my mouth shut as she began, and Eric didn’t attempt a conversation again. Class seemed to end in a matter of minutes, and he left without a word.

I lingered in my seat, watched him leave, and waited until Crystal bounced to my side. “Let’s just leave,” she said, pulling me out of the seat. “Skipping will do you some good.”

I nodded. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

She beamed. “Then let’s go,” she said, and I strode out with her, willing to leave the day behind me.

***

The shopping went great. If you consider sheer torture great.

Crystal had me trying on hundreds of dresses before I could protest. I wasn’t even able to look in the mirror. She’d judged all of them the second I’d come out of the dressing room.

“No” became a word I heard so much that it lost its meaning.

She’d say it, hang the dress back up, and return with another one. The process repeated for three hours until she found the one. According to her, it was perfect, but I still didn’t see it. I didn’t care enough to argue either, so I bought it, and she drove me home.

I opened the front door, attempting to bolt upstairs, but my mother was in her usual place—the kitchen—and she appeared before I could make it.

“How’d the shopping go, Jessie?” she asked, and I peered through the banister.

“Good.”

She beamed, and she flipped her blonde hair. “That’s great. Did you have fun?”

I tried not to roll my eyes. “Tons.”

“When can we see your dress?” she asked.

My father shouted from the kitchen, “Does it cover your knees?”

“Oh, shush,” my mother said, rolling her eyes. I wished I hadn’t held back. She smiled at me. “Ignore him. Are you going to try it on for us?”

“On prom night,” I said, and her smile faltered.

“Oh.”

I sighed, gripping the banister as I stepped up a stair. “I’m really tired, Mom,” I said. “I just want to go to bed, but I’ll show you tomorrow. Okay?”

She nodded, but she forced a smile that reminded me of bad Botox. “Good night, Jessie. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” I said, running away as quickly as I could manage.

When I got into my bedroom, I shut the door behind me and locked it, leaning against the wood for support. My legs were shaking, and I knew it was from Shoman’s medicine. It felt like it weakened everything inside of me when, in reality, it was healing me. I was only glad my outer cuts had healed. Explaining those injuries would’ve been impossible.

I had to talk to Shoman again.

Throwing my dress over my computer chair, I groaned and collapsed on my bed. The mattress creaked against the old frame, and I twisted around, laying my head down. Beneath my pillow, a paper crinkled, and I pulled it out.

I’d left the article about my parents’ car wreck there, and now it was wrinkled. The edge was torn, and my eyes watered. The only proof I had of them was practically ruined, and I only had myself to blame.

What was wrong with me?

The wreck, although I’d been a part of it, hadn’t seemed real until I was flooded with emotions. I’d lost them—my beautiful family—and I’d lost Shoman and the Dark with him. Everything I was born with was gone, even though I was still alive. It didn’t feel right. Without the only connection I had, I felt incomplete. I felt—abandoned—and I suddenly understood what Shoman meant about the Dark never accepting me.

I didn’t know enough to stand on my own. I couldn’t defend myself. I had known that the second Fudicia—whoever she was—appeared in front of us, ready to kill. I’d seen the commitment of danger in her eyes. She was dark—darker than the Dark could be—yet she was in the Light. The archetypal beliefs embedded in my everyday life, in literature and movies, were flipped, and my life was altered. It’d never be the same, and my parents’ article proved it.

I flipped it over and slammed it next to my pillow. I refused to look at it. Not tonight.
I couldn’t stand it.

They’d betrayed me, not by death, but in death. They knew I was a shade, because they had to be shades if they birthed me. Yet they hadn’t protected me with a will. They hadn’t even bothered giving me godparents, a family within the Dark. Even I realized, they had been fleeing, because we would’ve been ostracized by the Dark anyway. I would’ve never known, and they knew all along.

How could they do this? I hated them. No. I didn’t understand them. But I wanted to.

During shopping, I’d finally managed to mention them to Crystal. I didn’t want to, but she’d kept pestering me about my depression, and I needed an excuse. I would’ve told her eventually.
Wouldn’t I?

I didn’t know the answer to that, but it didn’t matter. Crystal was too young to remember anything. When they died, she was a baby, too. At most, she said she’d ask her mother, but I sort of hoped she wouldn’t and would at the same time.

I couldn’t even tell what I was feeling, let alone cope with it.

I flipped the article over, but I didn’t look at it. Instead, I closed my eyes and attempted to force my tears back. But I couldn’t. They came, and my chest heaved, sour and tight, until exhaustion took over, and I drifted away.

39

Training was numbing, and, for once, I was enjoying it.

She’d been crying—a lot. It was easy enough to tell in class. Her cheeks were blotchy, and her eyelids were red. It wasn’t obvious to anyone else, she’d covered it with makeup, but I’d noticed it. I couldn’t get the image out of my mind.

Other than feeling like a guilty fool, I was seriously contemplating stalking. It took everything in me not to follow Crystal and her to the mall. I knew the Light wouldn’t be after her. Fudicia hadn’t seen her human face. But I was consumed with severe, heart-wrenching paranoia that she’d be attacked, and I wouldn’t be there to protect her.

What if the Light realized she was alive? What if Darthon found her?

I’d kill him, and until her existence had pushed me to do so, I never thought I could. It wasn’t right, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I only cared about Jessica’s life, and if Darthon threatened her, I had no problem taking his away.

My insanity begged for a distraction.

A target exploded, shattering across the floor, and I sighed. I was lying to myself if I thought I could quiet my thoughts. They were uncontrollable.

I twisted my fingers through my hair and shook my head just as it happened. A fire of pain split through my arm, and I fell backward. My back hit the floor, and I grabbed my scorching flesh.

What was happening?

I grinded my teeth, and my bones shook as if they were attempting to break away from my body. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the room spun, and molecules detached, reattaching at painful speeds.

I screamed as my body throbbed. A high-pitched ringing consumed my ears, and my jaw locked. I half-expected to bite my tongue off.

“Shoman?”

The door to the training room opened, and then the pain was gone, only a repercussion of exhaustion waving through my veins.

I exhaled, filling my lungs with air, and gripped my legs. Other than that, I couldn’t move.

“Shoman?” Pierce circled around me. He was blurry. “Are you okay?”

I tried to nod, but I wasn’t sure if my body moved.

“Pierce!” Urte’s voice echoed a hundred times as the pain returned, taking over. “Get away from him.” He shouted, but it was too late.

I exploded.

***

I awoke to my screams, and my body tearing from the inside out. My throat ripped against my shouts, and my fingers dug into the bed where I was tied down. My wrists tore my restraints, and a man lay on top of me, holding me down.

“It’ll be over soon, Shoman,” he said, but I couldn’t recognize his voice. “Don’t move.”

My vision spiraled, and I twisted my neck as he jabbed my arm with a thick needle. A dense purple liquid filled my veins, and it burned.

I was dying.

“Let me go.” My words erupted on their own accord, but the man didn’t budge.

“Breathe,” he said as the needle struck a bone. “The more you squirm, the more it will hurt.”

I shouted again, but the pain disappeared.

It was so abrupt, I hadn’t moved. I was no longer fighting the man. Now I could see who he was, my father.

“Dad?” I croaked, and his blue eyes flickered over me.

The nurse tapped his shoulder. “You can let him go now.”

He didn’t move immediately. When he did, breath filled my lungs. I gasped, and my body shivered. Why was I so cold? I looked down, and my human body radiated beneath the light. I looked pallid and thin.

“Where am I?” I asked, and my dad collapsed in a chair next to the bed.

“A nursing center in the shelter,” my dad said, rubbing his forehead. A nurse stood behind him with Luthicer hovering by his side.

“And so are Urte and Pierce,” Luthicer said. “You nearly killed them.”

“What?”

My dad held his hand up. “Not now, Luthicer,” my dad said, and Luthicer’s scowl deepened the wrinkles on his brow.

“Excuse me while I attend my other patients,” he said, before he left.

My heart was racing, but it wasn’t from the medicine. “What happened?” I asked, trying to sit up. I couldn’t. “Where are Pierce and Urte?”

My father shook his head. “They’ll survive,” he said. “But only because Urte was there. He was able to block your powers.”

I remembered the pain that consumed me. “My powers?” I hadn’t activated them.

“You were poisoned, Eric,” he said, using my human name as a scorn. After everything, I’d converted. I wasn’t a shade in his eyes. “You couldn’t control them, and it used them against you.”

Fudicia.
I raised my arm and stared at the cleared skin. The black slit was gone.

“You’re lucky Luthicer could create another remedy so fast,” he said, and I knew they’d seen my empty necklace. I didn’t even bother defending myself. “When were you attacked, Eric?”

“Last night,” I said, staring at the cement ceiling. “I didn’t think it’d have that much of an effect.”

“It’s the Light, Eric—”

“It was Darthon’s guard,” I said, and my father went ashen.

“What are you talking about?”

“Fudicia,” I said, turning to glare at him. He was still trying to lie. “I know who she is, remember?”

He folded his hands into his lap as if he was holding himself back. “How’d she find you?”

“I was being reckless,” I said. “What else is new?”

“Eric,” he growled. “This is not a time to be childish. You could’ve been killed. You’re lucky you managed to get away.”

I frowned, and my father stood above me. “How did you get away?” he asked, and I locked eyes with him.

“I had help.”

His mouth opened. “You didn’t—”

“I saw her again; okay?” I pushed my elbows against the bed and sat up. “I’m not proud of it,” I managed. “But she’s okay.”

“Okay, Eric?” His voice rose, and the nurse stepped out of the room. “Okay? She’s the third descendant. She could be dead—”

“Where do you think my remedy went?” I didn’t yell back. I had no right to. “She’s alive,” I said. “And the Light doesn’t even know it.”

His crumbled brow rose. “What do you mean?”

“They still believe they killed the third descendant,” I said, taking a moment to breathe. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, and my father blinked.

“Abby?”

I nodded.

He sank into his chair. “That’s the only good news I’ve received out of all of this.”

I stared at him. He looked much older than I remembered. Even in his shade form, his black hair was beginning to gray, and he was starting to develop wrinkles. His shoulders were bonier, and his chest was sunken in. I’d put him through hell.

“I’m sorry,” I said, wondering when I had said it last.

He hung his head in his hands. “Don’t be,” he said. “You’re a teenager; I can’t really expect anything else from you.”

“My age shouldn’t matter.”

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” he mumbled and lifted his chin. “I should’ve known you’d go back to her.”

I sighed. “I won’t do it again.”

“Don’t lie to me, Eric.”

“I’m not,” I said, knowing the truth was more powerful than a lie could ever be. “I broke her heart, and that’s exactly how it’s going to stay.”