Page 67

67

A Dark Heroine

MICHAEL

W hen I opened my eyes I thought I was still dreaming. The scene before me was a despicable blend of horror and desire, which dreams usually were. Emilia was standing in front of her mirror, undressing. The torn-up dress fell from her body, exposing the pale skin of her slender back. A sight I’d fantasized about countless times, but it was all wrong. Her reflection in the mirror showed a battle-worn girl with dark shadows under her eyes and a bloody wound on her neck.

Her icy gaze locked with mine in the glass and the shot to the heart it gave me told me this was real. She was real.

I sat up, the night before trickling back in. I’d been at some over-the-top Celestial party in the city, anticipating her arrival. I’d watched her friends show up without her. Faye and Destiny hadn’t heard from her, so I’d assumed she was going to come with the celebrity chick. But when said chick arrived without her, a sour pit grew in my stomach.

No one had known where she was.

Faye and I had come back to Luna to check her room—and found it empty.

We’d waited for hours. At some point, apparently, I’d fallen asleep on Destiny’s unmade bed. Faye had crashed in Emilia’s bed. I had no idea how much time had passed. The room was still steeped in heavy darkness, the sun yet to rise. Only two pale candles offered illumination.

“Emilia,” I whispered, my voice raspy.

She held my eyes in the glass as she continued to undress. The emptiness in her gaze set off alarm bells inside me.

“What happened?” I couldn’t move. She was naked and my entire body was on fire. It was wrong—I should not have been feeling this way, but you see the girl you fancy naked for the first time and my body couldn’t help but respond.

“What are you doing here?” was her monotone response.

“I—” I forced my eyes to the floor, trying to find the words. “We were worried about you.”

She scoffed.

“Rightfully so, apparently” I went on. “What the fuck happened, Emilia?”

“I was lured out of the academy by dark magic and kidnapped by vampires.”

My glare snapped up to hers, which was still fixed on me in the glass. She’d wrapped herself in a blue silk robe. “What?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re fine ?”

“You should see the other guy.”

Was she…was she cracking jokes right now?

“What’s going… Emilia!” Faye leaped out of bed, bounding at Emilia like a deer. Her green eyes were sleepy but shocked as she examined the horrific wound on her throat. “Oh my Goddess. What happened? Where were you? Why aren’t you healing?”

Emilia winced. “I’ll explain after I shower.”

“It was vampires,” I deadpanned. “Can you help her?”

Faye gasped. She glanced at me in horror before focusing back on Emilia. “We need to get the venom out.”

“How?” I demanded.

“Emilia, sit down,” Faye instructed, guiding her over to her bed. “How long ago did this happen?”

“I don’t know. A couple of hours, maybe.”

Faye nodded, a determined V forming between her brows. “This might hurt. Want to hold my free hand?”

Emilia shook her head. “Just do what you need to do.”

I hated feeling helpless and that was exactly what I was. Both of the girl’s faces were twisted in despair, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to help. I glared down at my useless fucking staff and had to swallow the urge to snap it in half.

Faye’s open palm hovered an inch over Emilia’s wound. Her hand trembled with an invisible power that made Emilia hiss and bite her lip. Her eyes squeezed shut, her features crumpling against the pain. I clenched my jaw, trying to swallow the angry fumes that were pummeling through my chest. Seeing her hurt morphed me into a feral creature with ringing ears and no moral compass.

Faye grunted, summoning droplets of murky liquid out of Emilia’s wound. “Michael—get me something. Quick!”

I was beyond eager to be of some fucking use. I rooted through a chest of drawers until I found a small jar of dried herbs. I dumped the contents and handed the jar to Faye, who snatched it promptly. The substance from Emilia’s wound floated over Faye’s palm as she guided it through the bottle neck opening. She stared at it a moment before she handed it back to me, ordering me to close it. I did.

Emilia’s sigh of relief was music to my soul.

When I looked at her, the wound was shrinking and closing.

“Thank you, Faye,” she said earnestly.

“Of course!” the blonde gushed, sitting carefully on the bed beside her. “Now. Tell us what happened.”

Emilia swallowed, glancing at me.

She then proceeded to tell the world’s most fucked up story. Faye and I gawped at her, each new detail firing like bullets through the room. When she finished, she excused herself to take a shower. Neither of us protested. When she shut the bathroom door, Faye and I shared a look, a heady cord of dread buzzing between us.

“I should go to Intentions. I’ll tell the Luminary that Emilia’s struggling with insomnia and isn’t coming this morning. It should be fine. I’ll be back in an hour, okay?”

I barely heard her, but I nodded.

“Michael.”

The firmness in Faye’s voice made me look up. “What?”

“Take care of her, okay?”

She left, leaving me to sit on the edge of Emilia’s bed alone. I clutched my staff—fuck, why did I even have this stupid thing? The ringing in my ears wouldn’t subside. I could hardly hear the shower in the bathroom five feet away.

The water turned off, but Emilia didn’t come out.

I waited.

Five minutes, then ten. Twenty.

I listened outside of the door but I didn’t hear a thing. I dared to knock lightly. “Emilia? Are you alright?”

When she didn’t answer, I pushed inside.

She was sitting on the floor next to the claw foot tub, wrapped in her robe, her cheeks as wet as her freshly washed hair. The sobs shook out of her silently and she didn’t look up when I walked in. She tucked her chin in instead, shifting her body away. I was on the floor next to her before my heart could take another beat.

I didn’t say anything as I wrapped my arms around her. She resisted at first but I wasn’t about to let her go. Her sorrow flooded the steamy bathroom, filling my lungs, weighing damply on my soul. Every breath I drew was heavy with her despair, my hands trembling as I held her. Finally, she leaned into me, and her weeping became audible. She let them out all over me and I absorbed them gratefully.

We stayed on the bathroom floor until she ran out of tears. Then I scooped her up like a baby and brought her to her bed. I tucked her in under the quilt, pushing a lock of ebony hair from her tired, red eyes. She wasn’t crying anymore but that jewel blue stare was ocean-deep with grief that altered her entire being. She’d been bottling it up for too long.

I shut the curtains, noting how dark it still was outside. The faint burn mark on the horizon where the sun was rising did little to illuminate the dawn. The sky was congested with thick, black clouds that gobbled up the light.

“Michael,” she rasped. “Stay. Please stay.”

My insides collapsed at those words. “Of course,” I whispered, so quietly she probably didn’t hear. I shucked out of my jacket and dropped my useless staff to the ground before I slid under the covers next to her. She nuzzled into me, her breathing still a bit wheezy from crying. Her hair smelled like heaven.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed.

My brows furrowed together. “What on Earth are you sorry for?”

“For everything.” Her voice cracked. “The way I’ve been treating you—or not treating you. Avoiding you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just want my sister back.”

“Shh.” I stroked her damp hair. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’ve missed you, Emilia, but I understand.”

“I’ve missed you, too.”

We talked for a while. She confided in me about Destiny—and Venus. The way she talked about the redhead was wistful and full of admiration. It surprised me. They’d found the house Nyx had been staying in but they were too late. I tried not to react harshly when she revealed they’d been sensed by vampires . What was with this crazy girl and vampires? But I just listened, despite the startling details of her life lately. When she was finished, her breathing evened out and she fell asleep in my arms. When I was sure she was out, I leaned off the bed and grabbed my jacket, reached into the pocket, and helped myself to two sleeping pills.

We must have slept the whole day away because when we were finally roused awake, the room was dark. Frantic knocks on the door had us both scrambling. Emilia was up before me, rubbing her eyes as she went to answer it. Faye burst into the room, her eyes wide with panic that made my insides lurch.

“You guys need to come down to the Sphere. Now .”

“What’s going on?” Emilia asked groggily.

“The sun never came up today.”

“ What? ” Emilia and I hissed together. I got out of bed in a hurry and slid into my jacket.

“The sky is pitch-dark. Some girls have reported being chased by shadows. We’re all supposed to be in the Sphere. The Luminary is about to seal it with her magic. Hurry up.”

My heart was a rolling stone crashing against my ribs. The pills I’d taken made my brain slow and foggy.

Emilia stared at her friend in bewilderment for a moment before she darted to her closet and got dressed. In her new midnight-blue leathers, she looked like a dark heroine from the comic books I used to read.

Behind Faye, the door slammed itself shut and the deadbolt locked with a hard clank that shook the whole room.

For a beat, none of us reacted.

Emilia unfroze first, stalking toward it and twisting the knob. It didn’t budge.“What the…?” She cursed again before waving her hand over it, casting her magic to make it open.

Nothing.

She yanked and pulled on the door but it was locked—from the outside. She turned back to face us. “It won’t open.”

I charged forward as if there was a fucking thing I could do. I tried anyway, throttling the knob and body-checking the door, trying to make it burst from the hinges. I thought they’d think I was crazy but they joined in, both girls kicking and pounding on the door. Faye yelled for someone to help us. Emilia tried her magic again.

Nothing worked.

We gave up quickly, all three of us breathing hard.

Emilia was on a warpath. She trudged over to the window and tried to push it open, but like the door, it wouldn’t fucking budge.

“Oh my Goddess!” she growled, her ferocity billowing through the room in icy waves. “What is going on !”

“The Luminary said she was going to lock the rooms,” Faye told us, her voice wobbly. But she knew I was coming to get you! She should have waited!”

“So, we’re fucking trapped?” I griped, scrubbing my hand over my face.

“No,” Emilia hissed. “No, no, no!” She booted the door furiously, ice spreading from the spot she kicked, rising and crackling until it claimed the entire door.

“Something bad must be happening,” Faye said. “The Luminary wouldn’t have locked us in for no reason.”

“You sure about that?” Emilia’s low voice was full of venom.

Our conjoined panic filled the room like smoke, making it damn near impossible to breathe or think. We paced and argued and tried uselessly to break free. The window revealed nothing but darkness as if the entire academy grounds had been swallowed by it. The sense of impending doom in my chest swelled larger and more restrictive by the minute. I kept shaking my head to try and clear the incessant ringing in my fucking ears but it would not relent.

Something was terribly wrong.

And I’d felt it coming—felt it festering like a disease in the back of my mind ever since the Clash of Spirits. I could never place it, never put my finger on it, but it was there. A beast, an entity, coiled up in the outside of my awareness. Breathing, dreaming, gathering its strength. Waiting for the right moment to awaken and unleash itself.

The walls were caving in. The ringing in my head had amplified to the point of pain.

“What is that fucking sound!” Emilia complained. She rubbed her ears, her face twisted in a grimace.

I regarded her, stunned. “You hear it, too?”

“The ringing?” Faye questioned. “So do I.”

“It’s driving me crazy,” Emilia growled as she paced. The ire that swathed her features was pure and deadly. “I can’t believe this is happening. She locked us up here! I knew we couldn’t trust her. The Luminary, she—”

“Whoa, guys. Look!” Faye gasped, pointing to a crystal sphere perched on the dresser on Destiny’s side of the room.

It was glowing .

“Emilia?” an unfamiliar, slightly muffled voice called.

The three of us froze, staring at the glowing crystal.

“Emilia?” the voice called again, more frantic this time. “Are you there? Please, can you hear me?”

“It’s Venus!” Emilia cried. She practically threw herself across the room to the crystal. Faye and I shared an ominous look before we followed. The sphere was glowing with cloudy light, and in the center, there was a face.

“Venus,” Emilia breathed. “How are you doing this?”

“Thank Goddess, Emilia, you’re there!” Venus was sobbing inside the crystal. “Are you locked in your room, too?”

“Yes. I can’t get the door open!”

“Me either. I was about to come and get you… Emilia, your friend Destiny showed up in my room. And then suddenly my door fucking locked itself and she—oh my Goddess. It’s bad. Emilia, it’s bad.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Emilia said, her voice like jagged glass. “Slow down. What do you mean? What happened?”

“She was dark!” Venus exclaimed. “Her eyes—all black. She started attacking me. I couldn’t get out. The door locked. Oh, Goddess. It’s bad. It’s bad.”

Faye stepped back, stunned. “No.”

“I think she’s dead,” Venus wept. “I don’t know. I think I killed her. I had to. I had to. But now—she’s just—there. And I can’t get out. Oh, my Goddess. I can’t look. I need to get out. Emilia, please.”

“I’ll come for you,” Emilia swore. “Do you hear me? I’ll figure a way out of here. Just hold on, okay? Breathe. Close your eyes. Do the breathwork we do for Intentions. Do whatever you have to do. I’ll come for you, okay?”

Venus sobbed. Her voice shook when she whispered, “Please hurry.”

The light in the crystal went out.

When Emilia turned to us, her expression was fucking feral. It was like she couldn’t even see us. She stalked to the door and kicked it so fucking hard that—

The doorknob began to rattle.

The three of us froze. Emilia’s jaw went slack, her chest heaving, like she couldn’t believe it worked.

But it wasn’t her strength that jarred the door.

Nuts and bolts inside it started snapping and clanking. The frame itself shook.

It’s here.

The beast from my mind—it was here. Starving and furious.

I stepped protectively in front of the girls. I might have been useless but whatever it was could take me first and give them a chance to get away. I held my worthless staff, not understanding how or why it was vibrating so fiercely.

The door crept open.

The sharp, airy sound that filled the room might have been the three of us gasping. The figure standing in the doorway was not a monster at all.

She looked exactly as she had on the night of Hallows Eve. Her eyes swept over us calmly, her arms flat at her side.

“The Darkbringer is dead,” Natalia said. “And now the shadows are coming for us.”