Seconds Before Sunrise (The Timely Death Trilogy) (24 page)

They were young, smiling as if death hadn’t been a worry to them when the photo was taken. But that wasn’t the painful part. I c
ould see Jessica’s face in them. She had her mother’s hair, and her father had the same concentration in his eyes she held when studying the Dark. I had only seen it once after she lost her memory, and it was as she watched the genetics documentary in class. She was fascinated. It wasn’t until she looked over that I turned back to the film.

I had
seen the movie before. The Dark explained more than history to us. As children, they also taught us the science of our people, and that included our genetics. The Dark gene was beyond dominant − a recessive gene didn’t even exist. If it did, I doubted our kind would still be alive. The only fallacy came when we bred with the Light. Their genes didn’t mix with ours, and the children of half-breeds would always be human.

When I foun
d that out, I was surprised marriages weren’t arranged like they used to be one hundred years ago. Apparently, my great-grandfather had changed that rule. And it was the catalyst for our bloodline’s power returning.

I rocked onto my heels as I l
ooked down at the deceased couple I would never meet, the people who had given life to my only love, my only weakness.

“I don’t know how this works,” I started,
wondering if I had to speak aloud for them to hear me or not. “But I’m here to ask you something.”

…

Thanksgiving was awkward. Mindy wanted all of us to share what we were thankful for, and I didn’t know what I could say, other than family. Mindy was beaming at that, but I was more guilty than grateful. My nerves were still twisting from the gravesite. I did what I meant to do, and I didn’t regret it, but I worried if I would ever have a chance to finish what I promised to complete. The fact she and Noah were putting up the Christmas tree didn’t help either. It already had three gifts below it, and I knew it wasn’t for the holiday. My birthday was two weeks away.

“You’re running the water too hot,” my father said, crankin
g the sink’s knobs until the rushing water chilled my burning hands. I hadn’t noticed the pain. “You don’t have to wash the dishes like that.”

I laid a cleaned plate on the countertop. “Just helping out.”

“Or avoiding the tree.” He started scrubbing plates. “Did you do what you wanted to?”

The spell was different,
I replied telepathically.

He didn’t twitch as he responded,
It was designed for only a few people to be able to see.

Me?

He chuckled. “From the beginning, Eric.”

I
struggled to imagine a time before I existed, before the Dark was preparing for the end of an era − the Light’s era. It seemed impossible for shades to be able to live their double lives without worry, and it was even harder to imagine what life would be like after the final battle. I was born into chaos. I didn’t know what peace felt like.

“Jonathon is here,” Noah shouted, and my father look
ed over the balcony.

“Hey, kid,” Jonathon said, rushing to get upstairs. When he met my eyes, I tensed. He didn’t have his glasses on, but he wasn’t stumbling. He was using his shade vision. “Sorry for interrupting the holiday, Mr. Welborn.”

My father didn’t care about Thanksgiving any more than I did. “Go to my office,” he said, but Jonathon was already walking down the hallway.
I’ll distract Mindy.

When I caught up to my friend in
the office, he was already facing me. “We need to talk.”

“We do,” I agreed, thinking of the night Robb attacked Jessica. “Why weren’t you with Jessica—”

“We have worse problems,” Jonathon interrupted, shoving a letter against my chest.

I grabbed it. “What’s this about?”

“Open it.”

I stared at my best friend as he jumped up and down. “Just do it,” he ordered, and I slipped my fingers into the envelope. The letter came out easily, already crumbled by someone else’s hands. When I unfolded it, I couldn’t breathe. The words consumed me.

It was signed by the Light, and it was a list of five boys’ names.

Mine was at the bottom.

Jessica

The day after Thanksgiving made it hard to move. I remained full, and I was glad I was sitting as I handed my mother tools t
o fix the kitchen sink. “Wrench.” She stuck her arm out, and I handed it over, and her torso disappeared beneath the counter. As pathetic as it was, I enjoyed the sight.

When it came to stereotypes, m
y parents had a backwards marriage. My father cooked and cleaned, and my mother fixed everything that broke. I loved that about their parenting style. It was one of the reasons we were close − or used to be close.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, and a bang rattled behind the small door separating us.

“Ouch.” She cursed as she ducked out of the cranny and rubbed her head. The blue bandana holding her hair back shifted, and blond threads poked out. “What are you sorry about?”

“About how I’ve been acting.”

She patted my leg. “You’re a teenager.” She dismissed it like she had dismissed my drunken escapades. “I know you’ll tell me what’s bothering you eventually, even if it’s when you’re thirty.”

But I wanted to tell her now. “Mom?”

“What’s wrong, Jessie?”

“Where’s my prom dress?”

“Your prom dress?” Her forehead crinkled. “Why are you looking for that old thing?”

“It isn’t that old.”
It had only been seven months.

“But it’s destroyed,” she said, and I
gripped the counter. “I told your father to throw it out, but he insisted on keeping the fabric around the house just in case − you know him, he’s such a packrat.”

“Where is it?” I aske
d, but my mother tilted her head at my tone. “I wanted to use the fabric for a school project.”

“I can get it for you later.”

“It’s due tomorrow.”

“Jessie.” Her lecture would
follow soon.

“I’m supposed to meet up with Jonathon later to finish it,” I cont
inued the lie, using Jonathon of all people. “We decided to add extra credit.”

She
returned to the sink. “It’s in my closet,” she said. “But your father will have to get it. I’m busy.”

“I can still help you.”

“It’s okay, Jessie.” Her voice was soft. “Go do what you need to. You know where my car keys are.”

I had to force myself to stand up. “Thanks, Mom,”
I said. “I won’t be back late.”

I
ran upstairs, almost tripping when I stumbled into her bedroom. “Jessie.” My father put down his book on a stack of newspapers and magazines. “How’s the sink coming along?”

“Great,” I said. “Where’s my prom dress? I need it for a project.”

He lit up. “I told your mother something like this would happen,” he said, stretching his arms as he stood up. “But I don’t know where she put it in her closet.”

“I got it,” I said, knowing my mother’s closet.

She kept all of her favorite cloths − mainly her pajamas − at the front, and she placed all of her heels on the shelves. Her pants hung next to her unused business clothes and her winter sweaters. My father’s clothes were in a corner. When I twisted around the right-angle leading to the room, I knew exactly where to look.

At the top of the last countertop, a bag sat on top of
my father’s high school sport jacket. I reached up, pulling it down. I could see the black cloth through the white plastic.

My heart skipped as I clutched it to my chest. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it.

I paused, standing in their closet as if I were contemplating entering a haunted house. I was a girl, afraid of her own dress. My fingernails ripped open the plastic, and I sat down, letting it fall into my lap. When I lifted it, I heard myself gasp. It was worse than I was expecting.

The thin fabric was tearing through the silky designs that once decorated it, and the color had faded. Grass stains littered the bottom, but the worst stain was on top
− where the strap of my dress should’ve been. It was too dark to be water, and I knew Crystal wasn’t lying when she said I had a scar on my shoulder. The bloodstain was undeniable, and I ran my fingers over it, hoping to recall a memory from the mysterious night, but nothing came.

There was only one
person who could explain it, and I threw it over my shoulder as I ran out of the house. “I’m leaving,” I shouted backwards as I ducked out, running to the car. I knew I had to talk to him, and I wasn’t going to wait another day to do so.

Eric

I was one of five the Light suspected of being Shoman, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they would kill all of us just to guarantee their future. But I wasn’t as worried as my father was.

“I’ll fight him if he shows up,” I said, looking at my father from across the kitchen table. He hadn’t stopped talking about it since yesterday. In fact, the letter remained in his pocket.

“I don’t think you should return to school.” This had become his mantra.

“Then they will know, and they’ll come here to get me,” I pointed out. “I don’t
want Mindy or Noah to get hurt because of this.”

H
is upper lip twitched. “I thought you didn’t care about humans.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t make m
e admit it out loud,” I said. Of course I cared. “Either way, they don’t deserve to be war victims.”

“You
’re right,” he said. “Maybe not just about this.”

“
What about?”

“Marrying a human.”

“Dad.” My tone was sharp. “You can’t change it now, and you shouldn’t want to.” I wanted to continue, but the door rattled with an assortment of rushed knocking.

“It’s probably Jonathon,” my dad
said, standing, but I stopped him.

“I got it,” I said, walking downstairs to get it myself.
My aggravation grew as Jonathon continued to knock. He knew Mindy and Noah wouldn’t be home. He could’ve transported in.

“You don’t have to knock—” I silenced when I opened the door and saw the person in front of me. Her hand hung in the air, ready to knock again, and her brown hair frizzed around her
scowl. “Jessica—”

“We need to talk,” she said, barging into my house.

“Wha—what?” She was the last person I needed around me. “You can’t be here.”

“I don’t care,” she sai
d, chucking a piece of cloth at me.

If it weren’t for my enhanced reflexes, I wouldn’t have caught it.

She was pointing at it. “I figured out what was confusing me,” she said. “And I need an explanation.”

I lifted the cloth up, and the bottom tumbled down, stretchi
ng out to reveal what it was. “Your prom dress?” For once, I was the confused one.

“Right.”

“So?” I handed it back to her. “What’s the point of this?”

She fumed.
“You tell me why you can remember this, and I can’t.”

Her
words might as well have been Urte’s torture machine. “You—you don’t remember prom?”

“Not a second of it.” She tugged
her shirt collar, revealing her shoulder. “And I can’t see an injury everyone else can.”

I stared at the bruises Robb gave her. They were fading, but it didn’t make my frustration dissipate. “You could see them last week.”

“Not the bruises, Eric,” she exasperated, pointing at her shoulder. Unlike her bruises, her pink scar hadn’t faded. “My shoulder. There’s a scar, isn’t there?”

My eyes darted between her exposed skin and her expression. I didn’t know what to say. I could see it, and I knew exactly why she couldn’t. Luthicer’s memory wipe a
ffected more than he had planned.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I managed. “I can take you home if you need me to—” I was too focused on getting her out of my house.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what happened that night,” she said. “I know I left with you.”

S
he had left after me, not with me. “I thought you didn’t remember anything.”

“Crystal told me.”

Of course she did.

“Did you hit me?” she asked.

“Hit you?” I stepped backwards, feeling as if she had punched me across the face. “Did I hit you?” My words strained against my throat. “Are you crazy?”

“How else do you explain this?” She was shaking, but so was I.

“I didn’t hurt you,” I said. Darthon did, but I couldn’t tell her that. “I saved you from your own friend. Why would I have done that if I hit you myself?”

The reminder flashed across her face, and she turned away as if I hadn’t
already seen her expression.

“You know I wouldn’t do that,” I said, quieter this time. “But
I can’t tell you what happened.”