Death Before Daylight (5 page)

I thought of the blonde woman who looked less
than pleased when she heard my human name. Eric Welborn wasn’t
exactly someone parents wanted their kids to hang out with. I had
figured Jessica dismissed us as lab partners, nothing more, but she
obviously hadn’t.

“I can meet them.” I tried to control my
voice, but Jessica heard my hesitation.

Her nose twitched. “You don’t seem very
excited.”

I touched her arm, trying to ignore the fact
that Pierce was listening to every word. “Don’t take this the wrong
way,” I stated. “I’m not.”

Her body tensed, and I ran my thumb over her
arm. “Not because I don’t want to meet them. I do,” I clarified. “I
just don’t feel right meeting them yet.”

“Why?”

I raised my brow and forced a strange voice,
“Hi, Mr. Taylor. I showed your daughter a dangerous world in which
she almost got killed—twice. Thanks for approving of our
relationship.”

She slapped my arm again, but we both
laughed.

“I’ll meet them, Jessica.” I made the promise
anyway. If it was important to her, it was important to me.

“When?”

“Tomorrow if you want.”

Her shoulders relaxed. “Tomorrow, then.”

“What are you telling them?” I asked. This
time, I was the tense one.

“What do you mean?”

I reached down, grabbed her left hand, and
showed her the ring I had given her one month ago. “Am I your
boyfriend or—?”

“That would probably be best for now.” She
pulled away. “We can figure out the rest later.”

I nodded, gesturing to Pierce. “I’ll call you
after the meeting.” Telling her I was going to call her was the
only way she would answer her phone.

“Sounds good,” she agreed before leaning over
to wave at her guard. “Keep him out of trouble.”

“I’m normally the trouble,” Pierce joked
back, but Jessica was already gone. She had disappeared into her
transportation. Only her purple smoke remained.

I took a sip out of my water bottle as I
watched the smoke disappear, too. When it was gone, I walked over
to Pierce.

He didn’t move. “Trouble in paradise?”

“This isn’t exactly paradise.” I opened the
door to lead the way.

“It will be,” Pierce spoke at my back as he
followed me into the corridor. “When everything is done, we’ll all
be good.”

“I sure hope so,” I muttered back, truly
hoping it would be.

6

I leaned against Crystal’s sedan as she threw
her notebooks into her bag. She had yet to look at me since picking
me up for school, but I was waiting for her interrogation. I was
waiting for anything, but she acted as if nothing had happened,
even though her hair couldn’t have been more out of place. She
didn’t even have her usual lip ring in, and her punk clothes had
been replaced with sweatpants and a pink hoody. We had forty
minutes before school started.

“Did you have any plans this weekend?” I
asked, desperate to talk to her, but she shrugged. I sighed.
“Crystal, I am sorry.”

“I know.” She shut her car door. “We don’t
have to talk about it.”

“But—” This wasn’t her. She would’ve never
refused an opportunity to hear information. Whoever she was now was
affected by the memory loss. I was practically staring at myself a
few weeks ago. “I want to talk to you about it.”

She shifted her bag to her left shoulder.
“What’s there to talk about?”

“What do you remember about last semester?”
The question escaped me.

Her dark eyebrows squeezed together.
“Everything,” she said. “Why? Is this about Eric?”

“No,” I said, but I needed an excuse to ask
such bizarre questions, so I changed my mind, “Kind of, actually.
Yeah.”

“I mean, I knew you liked him. That’s why we
got a gift for his birthday,” she said, revealing something she
remembered, “but engagement? Seriously? You can’t get engaged to
someone in high school.”

My hand fell behind me. I couldn’t tell her
the truth. Eric and I were destined, no matter how fickle our
destiny had become, and I did love him. But the ring was a shock,
even to me. When I thought of how he found my biological parents’
grave, I succumbed to the feeling of relief—the precious calm of a
storm I had lived with my entire life—and I found that serenity in
Eric.

Crystal’s hip cocked to the side. “I want to
be supportive, I do,” she continued, “but I think you’re making a
mistake. It’s too soon. Way too soon.”

Any explanation I gave wouldn’t be enough.
“It’s not like we’re planning a wedding.” In fact, we hadn’t even
discussed it. We were too focused on defeating Darthon. A wedding
would have to wait. A future would, too. But the others didn’t see
that. They only saw two teenagers, blindly embracing one another in
the hallways.

“Planning one or not, it’s too soon,” Crystal
repeated. Even though she lost her memory, she hadn’t lost her
ability to be honest. “I’ll give him a chance,” she added, but her
voice rose. “Only because of you.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, but Crystal wasn’t
listening anymore.

Her eyes fixed behind me, and she propped
herself up on her tiptoes as she waved. “Zac! Hey, we’re over
here.”

His name sent chills down my spine, but I
looked his way. The black-haired boy strode across the parking lot,
raising one palm to signal he had seen her wave. Among even the
slickest cars, he shone. His pressed clothes didn’t look like a
student’s wardrobe. In his black jacket and slacks, he could’ve
been a teacher.

“He’s cute, isn’t he?” Crystal whispered out
of the side of her mouth.

I only stared, wondering how she didn’t
recall how she obsessed over him. She probably didn’t even know he
had kissed her in my driveway before—once, while looking at me.

“Hey.” His gaze lowered to Crystal.
“Shouldn’t you head to the newspaper room?”

She blinked. “Why?”

“The desk lady quit,” he said it like she
should know.

“What?” we both screeched, but he nodded as
if we had whispered it.

“What do you mean she quit?” Crystal
asked.

“I don’t know.” Zac shrugged. “She walked out
yesterday.”

“I have to go,” Crystal said, already jogging
toward the school. “Thanks for the heads up.”

I started to follow her, but Zac grabbed my
arm. His fingers dug into my bicep, and I whipped around to face
his grin.

“Where are you going?” he asked. “I thought
we could talk.”

I pulled away. “I’m busy.”

His grin slipped off his face, but his teeth
remained visible, perfectly white. “You remember?”

My heart slammed into my rib cage. “What do
you mean?”

“Crystal’s acting like she doesn’t know me,
and Robb—” He paused. “Well, we know about Robb.” His hand ran
through his hair, but every strand fell back in place. “I thought
everyone was playing a prank on me, but you—you’re not. You
remember me, right?” His rushed voice was as desperate as his
widened eyes. It was an expression I hadn’t seen on his face
before.

I stepped back and almost tripped over
myself. If he remembered, the Light hadn’t touched him, but they
should’ve if they were targeting my friends. I remembered what
Luthicer said. If the Light was trying to trick me, they were doing
a good job at it. I was as confused as Zac was.

He stepped toward me. “Jess?”

“Why do you think I remember?”

His cheek cocked up into a smile. “Because
you hate me.” He pointed over my shoulder. “And so does he.”

I looked over my shoulder as Eric appeared,
walking faster than normal. A scowl consumed his face. His
headphones were strung over his shoulders, but he didn’t grab them
as he got close enough to speak, “Hey.” His hardened tone was
louder than it should’ve been.

“Morning, Welborn.” Zac folded his arms. “I
guess we’re classmates now.”

Eric’s hand landed on my shoulder. “I guess
so.”

“We’re just talking,” I muttered.

Zac chuckled over me. “We’re talking about
how everyone’s lost their minds.” He didn’t even try to hide it.
“Except for you two. You two seem fine.”

Eric’s fingers dug into my shoulder. “I have
no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, you don’t,” Zac sang, his voice
dropping and rising like a tempting string of notes. “I don’t care
if you want to admit to it or not,” he continued, “I know something
is up with you two, and I’ll figure it out.”

Right when I thought he would shift into
Darthon himself, he spoke like a human would. He spoke like he
didn’t know about the Light or the Dark. He spoke like he hadn’t
heard of the descendants or the war. He seemed oblivious, and I
didn’t believe a second of it.

Eric’s grip didn’t loosen. “You might need to
get your head checked.” He didn’t believe it either. “You’re
starting to sound a little insane.”

“Whatever,” Zac responded as he walked away,
throwing his hand over his shoulder in a half-wave. “Congrats on
the engagement,” he called back at us. “I expect an
invitation.”

I shot forward to hit him, but Eric grabbed
my arm. “Don’t.”

“He knows something, Eric,” I said beneath my
breath. “He’s not like the others. He’s—”

“If he were Darthon, he would’ve done
something,” Eric said, but his words were quiet. “Wouldn’t he?”

My attention diverted to Zac. I tried to
match his walk with Darthon’s, but everyone was different as a
human. Other than their attitudes, I couldn’t see a correlation. I
couldn’t see a correlation in anyone.

My hand curled into a fist. “I don’t know,” I
grumbled, “but there’s something not right about that guy.”

“I don’t like him either,” Eric agreed, “but
that doesn’t give us the right to kill him.”

“I don’t like him.” I said it like it did
give me the right. “I don’t like him at all.”

Zac’s black hair bobbed against the snowy
backdrop of our school like an outlined target. If I could
transform, I could hit Zac from where he stood yards away, but I
couldn’t. In daylight, I was a human.

“We can’t hurt him if we don’t know,” Eric
reminded me of the Dark and all of their rules. Rules we didn’t
normally follow. In this case, Zac’s death would be useless if he
were innocent. It would probably make Darthon laugh.

“As much as I hate to defend the guy, he
could be innocent,” Eric said, but he sounded far away.

“Maybe the Light isn’t only trying to confuse
me,” I managed.

Eric leaned back to catch my eyes. “What are
you thinking?”

It was the way Eric defended Zac, a guy he
had hated from the start. It was the fact that the Light hadn’t
attacked yet. It was the sudden change in Eric’s demeanor, how he
was suddenly willing to follow the rules of the Dark, but it was
the reason Eric was holding back that stopped me the most. The
Light could absorb me, and if they were waiting for that, they
needed Eric to remember the possibility. After all, it was that
reason Eric was holding back. It was what stopped him from
believing Zac could be Darthon. He was being too careful. He was
too willing for the Light to make the first move, out of fear that
our first move would hurt me.

I swallowed my nerves. “Maybe the Light is
trying to confuse you, too,” I expressed my thoughts. “Maybe they
want both of us.”

7

The flying target shattered into pieces and
dissipated before hitting the floor. After school ended, I had
rushed to the training room. I didn’t want to linger in the parking
lot only to run into Zac or Robb or anyone associated with Jessica.
The morning had been anything but comforting, and the afternoon
wasn’t any better. Jessica and I had barely spoken in class, and it
took everything in me to ignore Zac at the back of the room. Even
then, I could feel his eyes on my back. Maybe Jessica was right.
Maybe she wasn’t. Either way, I couldn’t guess, but the paranoia
consumed me. The single bit of relief I had rested on Linda, of all
people. She was in a different class and lunch period. At least, I
didn’t have to deal with her. Now, my relief came through
training.

Even though I had been training for two
hours, I didn’t feel tired. My adrenaline grew as if my energy was
preparing for a battle I couldn’t sense yet. I was supposed to be
at Jessica’s house for dinner in thirty minutes, yet my
concentration struggled. I was too focused on Darthon—on who he
might be and how I would defeat him.

Another target flew into the air, and I shot
at it, only for the training room to buzz. The blue cloud of my
Dark powers shook as the room spun into the rocky walls it truly
had. The training session was over, but not by my choice. Someone
was coming in.

When the door creaked open, I didn’t bother
looking. “About time, Urte.” I hadn’t received instruction for
days.

“Not Urte,” a boy’s voice spoke up.

I spun around to face Pierce as he shut the
door behind him. He leaned over, picked one of the water bottles
off the floor, and tossed it to me. I caught it, opened it, and
took a drink before I spoke again. “What’s up?” I asked. “You don’t
come here often.” Aside from the day before, his appearances were
becoming a rarity.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I haven’t
had time to.”

“Guard duties?”

Pierce slumped. “That’s what I came here to
talk to you about.”

“You sound like a girlfriend.”

A smirk appeared on his face. For a brief
moment, he looked like the guy I had grown up with—ready to laugh
at a reckless plan we had concocted—but his carefree demeanor
disappeared when he folded his arms. “There’s really no other way
to say this except bluntly.” As he spoke, my chest tightened. “I
know you don’t like how Jess and I have been acting.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I
responded too fast. Even I heard how convoluted my voice had
become. No one would believe I told the truth, but I didn’t correct
myself, even though the images flew through my head—the way she
touched him, the way he responded so casually. Even if I didn’t
want to admit it, it bothered me. It drove me mad.