“We have to stop this! How many are there?!” Madison yelled.
I looked past her and saw the image of Bianca on top of the distant building. I was sure she was causing this. With one thought, I left the security of Silas’ side and appeared in front of her. I didn’t wait for her speak. I pushed her to ground, and with all my strength, the building collapsed. The ash stopped falling from the sky, and the stone city was gone.
“STOP IT!” I yelled.
Before I could think of a way to kill her, to reach into her, someone pulled me off her. I couldn’t see who it was, but I knew it was one of the dark men because I could feel his
ice-cold
body against mine. I focused on warmth, and the butterflies appeared around me. Before Bianca could step forward, Draven appeared in front o
f her. He pushed her back with
nothing but a
thought, then turned to help me, but before he could reach me Bianca turned into a man, one that was twice as big as Draven. He pinned Draven’s arms behind him.
“Look at her,” the man said in a cold whisper to Draven. “You know you want her. You want that light. You want to taste it. You want to feel the power inside of you. Take it. One thought. Just take it, and all of your troubles will fade.”
Draven struggled against the man as hunger engulfed his eyes. The man nodded toward me, and five butterflies drifted toward Draven.
“Just have a little taste. Just one. What’s the harm?” the man whispered.
I was more furious than terrified. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought those emotions were making me weaker. I felt ice seeping into my body. I stared into Draven’s eyes as I moved my head from side to side. I saw the desire there, I saw how much he wanted to, I saw him fight with himself. The large man holding him reached for one of the butterflies and pushed it into Draven’s chest. Draven screamed out in agony as if my light were poison to him, then he turned into a child. The small image made the man lose his grip on him. Once Draven was free, he turned back into himself and reached forward to pull the darkness out of the man, out of Bianca, but she vanished.
I screamed his name as I felt the ice seeping further into me. Before Draven could reach my side, the man who was holding me fell to the ground. I had no idea who had stopped him. I couldn’t turn to look; I was too weak. My knees buckled, and I fell forward. Strong arms stoppe
d me before I could fall farther
. I looked up to see Silas holding me. He leaned in and let his lips touch mine -
-
not in a kiss; he was pushi
ng life th
r
ough me again. In The R
ealm, it didn’t take as long for it work, and the glow that had appeared before was three times as bright.
Silas looked down at me. “Twice in one day. If you want to spend time with me, find another way to get my attention.”
I immediately felt guilty and looked for Draven. He was standing feet from me, staring with cold, angry eyes laced with hunger. I stood as fast as I could. Grayson and Aden appeared at Draven’s side, and Madison appeared at mine.
Silas gripped my arm and hers. “Wake.”
Instantly, I was back at my house with Madison. The only problem was, we weren’t the only ones that came back. The devil’s trap had captured something that I could have gone my entire life without seeing again.
Chapter Five
Madison and I were pushed out of the devil’s trap by the massive ash wings of the evil angel. It roared, and my entire house vibrated.
“This is real?! Are we back?!” Madison screamed.
I saw Monroe standing in the center of the room and knew that we were. Wind began to circle around us. My father’s guitar erupted, then he appeared in front of us. Madis
on and I stepped back quickly.
I could feel the evil around me; the air was paralyzed with it. The angel charged forward, and when it did its beautiful face turned beastly; it looked like the demon I knew it was. The flames from the candles erupted and reached at least five feet in the air. Lamps, tables, and vases crashed to the floor with the vibration of this roar. My father’s image held its calm composure as he stared into the demon’s eyes. The demon went to roar again, but then something caught its attention: Monroe.
My father glanced at his side to her. The wind was forcefully blowing her hair behind her, but she didn’t squint her eyes; instead, she stared calmly at the demon. The evil image it had displayed vanished, and beauty returned. I could swear I could see compassion in its eyes. Monroe stepped forward and whispered words that I knew to be Latin. The angel scowled at her, then vanished into thin air.
My chest was rising and falling so fast that I hurt. The panic hurt. My father’s image turned to me. I saw sympathy in his eyes. He let his hand rest on my shoulder. He didn’t say a word or show me anything, but I heard him loud and clear. He was telling me to go, that my time to leave had come.
“How?” I whispered as I caught my breath. No answer came, just the thought that it would be soon; my escape, my fate was here. He vanished, leaving only his guitar gently playing in the background.
I looked nervously from Madison to Monroe, then I remembered where Draven was. “We have to go back. What if... what if...” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t think the thought that Silas had
killed Draven after we left The R
ealm.
Monroe walked slowly to me. “He’ll be here soon.”
“Who?” I asked in a panicked tone.
“He didn’t kill him,” Monroe said calmly.
Good to know.
“Monroe, was that your dad?” I asked.
She refused to answer.
“Did you kill him?” I pushed.
She looked down. “No.”
“What did you say?” I asked her.
“Just to leave you alone,” Monroe said as she knelt down and picked up part of a broken lamp.
“I...I...I can’t process this,” Madison said, looking at me.
“We just need to take a breath,” I said as I started to pick up the broken pieces of glass from the floor.
We’d seen a lot in The
R
ealm; hell, we’d seen a lot here, but we’d never seen anything that dark, that evil, not in my house. I couldn’t think, and when I can’t think I have to move. I had this insane thought that I would be in trouble for making such a mess in the house. The fact that there
was a devil’s trap on the floor,
that I
’d
reached into men and pulled
out darkness just moments ago, or
the fact that I’d almost died twice
tod
a
y wasn’t my concern.
All I could think to do was clean up the mess that the devil had made.
Madison stopped me and gripped her hands on my shoulders. “Stop cleaning. What now?! What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “Help me clean. If I clean, I take away the memory of that thing.”
“Cleaning isn’t going to do that,” Madison said shortly.
“What do you want me to do? What do you want me to say?! That was the devil; I swear it was.” I glanced at Monroe. “The devil has those boys. He’s holding our way out, and my dad just told me to leave. I don’t know
how
to leave. I don’t know
what
to do,” I said with a voice that was laced in tears.
“Do you really think he’s the devil?” Madison whispered, glancing at Monroe. “What does that make her?”
I stepped back away from Madison. “An innocent child.” I walked slowly to Monroe, who looked up as I got closer.
“Monroe,” I said as calmly as I could, “I need you to be honest with me. Can your dad hurt you?” Even though she hadn’t admitted that the dark
spiri
t
was her father, I couldn’t help assuming that he was, or at the very
least that he’d lead to her father
.
She looked down. “Only if I let him.”
“Can
...
can that demon come back here? Now that he knows you’re here, will he come back?”
She slowly raised her head. “We won’t see him here again.”
“But we’re going to see him again?”
Her eyes told me yes.
“How do we leave, Monroe?”
“They’re coming,” she said as
she
looked down at the broken glass she had in her hands and turned to go to the kitchen to throw it away.
“Who’s ‘they’?” Madison asked.
“I don’t know. I just hope Austin beats them here.”
“We need to talk to Silas. He knows someth
ing. I bet you money he does,”
Madison demanded.
“Did you not see the way Draven looked at me? How hurt and angry he wa
s when Silas helped me in T
he R
ealm?”
“He wasn’t angry that he saved your life. He was angry that he couldn’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“I felt him. His emotions. He was grateful for Sila
s. M
ad at himself.”
Perfect. Not.
“Well, that’s the last thing I need him to feel.”
At that moment, the kitche
n door opened. Draven was there. A
ll alone. His eyes found me across the room. Even though he was trying to hide it, I could tell he was furious. He walked through the kitchen, and when he reached the threshold, he saw the damage, the pentagram across the floor. I stared right at him, not hiding anything. I let him se
e the evil angel that was here.
I let him see Monroe make him leave. Draven tightened his jaw, then walked past me and up the stairs.
I looked at Madison. “What emotion does he have now?”
“Grief.”
Panic came ov
er me. She moved her head from
to side
-to-side
. “Not like death. Like a broken heart.” Madison bit her lip, then said, “You guys go work this out. I’ll clean this up, keep an eye on Monroe.
”
I looked down at the devil’s trap. “Just put the rug over this. We may need it.”
Madison nodded, and I turned to climb the stairs.
My skin flushed with anticipation, my heart was racing. I didn’t want to fight with him. I had to find a way to fill this void between us. I knew he loved me, but I knew he hated himself, and that was making us weak.
I found him in my room, sitting on the black leather couch, leaning forward on his knees, staring at the floor. I hesitated as I tried to see what he saw today, what he did, but the familiar block was in place; he wasn’t letting me in.
I walked slowly to his side and tensely sat down next to him.
“Draven,” I whispered. “I’m really scared.”
Instantly, he looked up at me, and I saw compassion in his eyes. He reached his arm around me and pulled me closer. “You should be.”
“Don’t say that,” I muttered, holding back tears.
He was quiet for a moment, then let his arm fall from around me. “So...Silas,” he said quietly.
Here we go.
“I promise I haven’t seen him before today. He just showed up this morning, and if he hadn’t...” tears began to encase my words. “I think Madison would be dead. I would be.”
His eyes met mine, and I showed him. I let him see the crow land between us, how Madison ran to them, the men. How Silas killed them. I couldn’t judge his mood from his placid expression.
“Then there was the witch,” I mumbled, letting him see how two of the images Madison had sketched had already appeared and that there were darker ones sure to come.
“Tell me that’s not Madison on that floor. Tell me this demon isn’t going to kill her when she figures out that the boy she dreamed of is trapped by him and she goes to save him.”
Draven sighed. “I can’t...because I don’t know.”
A tear escaped and ran down my cheek. “This whole time, I’ve been worried about us, what’s happening to us, even though I knew that prince was real, that her dreams had come to life before. I never saw this coming.”
“I’ll get you to a safe place,” he said quietly.
I knew him well enough to know that he was choosing his words very careful
ly. He said ‘you,’
not ‘
us’ – not ‘them.’
He said ‘you.’
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“Don’t do this to me,” he said as he leaned forward again.
To you? Seriously?
“Do what?”
“You just don’t get it. You don’t understand that the world itself is telling us that we can’t be together. That I’m fighting as hard as I can against forces I can’t see to be with you. You don’t understand how hard it is to look at you and know that I can kill you with a thought. That I could become what I’ve always fought to end.”
“You aren’t becoming anything,” I argued.
He stood abruptly and began to pace. “You think this is all in my head? That I
don’t
see a glow all around
you – around others? That I don’t
sense energy on every level? That I
don’t
feel weak when I refuse to give in to that call? Do you think that I haven’t tried everything to be who I was? To understand why this happened to me? That I haven’t analyzed every single memory of every past life – a life with you – a life I ended?”