Unfortunately, the rational, wiser part of my brain screamed all the horrible possibilities that tonight could bring.
If I just started with the fact that this was Aliah’s idea… I mean, that should have been enough. The Darkness dealt in temptations. They had been using those manipulative suggestions from the dawn of this planet and no doubt plenty of dawns of others. They were masters of deceit and painting a picture in enough of the right light that it appeared as something completely different from what it actually was.
Not to mention everything else that could go wrong if I got within killing distance of Seth and his nefarious plans for tonight.
Ugh…
I didn’t know what to do!
When I’d explained Aliah’s invitation to Serena and Nate they had immediately written it off as the worst idea in the history of ideas. We’d agreed that I shouldn’t go and that they would spend tonight in their usual way- guarding the planet. They expected to run into Seth sometime tonight.
Well, if Aliah had been telling the truth about Seth being up to something tonight.
It could have very well have been a trap set for me and nothing else.
A trap I still contemplated, even though I knew I should stay home. I should forget Seth for now. I should focus on those things in my life I still had control over.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even focus enough to accomplish small tasks. Coach had sent me home from practice early because she said my lack of concentration was a health hazard.
Not to me, but to others.
I’d almost taken Bree’s head off with a serve I hadn’t held back.
I knew she was right. My heart was so not in varsity volleyball anymore. I thought coming home would ease my mind but my parents still hadn’t returned and the too-quiet farmhouse scraped my nerves raw with boredom and unease.
I’d tried to eat a ham sandwich but I could hardly stomach food right now. I tried working on some homework but that turned out to be worse than volleyball. I tried to clean my room and work on my laundry, but nothing could distract me.
For the last hour I’d resigned myself to pacing the length of my living room. I prowled around the coffee table like a caged tiger. My skin prickled with inactivity and my brain spun in circles. I went over every small detail Aliah shared and made up a thousand other possible scenarios.
I’d spent a solid hour calling Jupiter over and over and over but I never once got through to him. I had really worked myself into a frantic worry by the time my cell phone died. I’d plugged it into the wall on the kitchen counter and forced myself to stay away from it even though I’d gotten no less than thirty text messages.
Neither Jupiter nor Seth texted so it was probably Piper checking in with me since I’d acted like a complete spaz in practice. Or it was Tristan calling after he’d heard all about my baffling behavior.
Probably from Piper.
My best friends concern for my mental health was the least of my problems right now.
A sinking feeling of dread infiltrated my stomach and my blood turned to toxin in my veins. I couldn’t sit here all night while I had the opportunity to check on Seth, to stop him from something that could so completely ruin him.
I’d dressed for a mission in black jeans and a long-sleeved black Henley. My worn-in, steel-toed black boots were ready to kick ass. My swords and dagger were all strapped into place and I’d done the prerequisite bathroom break.
I was ready.
But now I didn’t know where to go.
And my smarter instincts screamed at me to stay home.
I realized I probably should have found a way to reach out to Aliah at some point over the last three days. No doubt he expected me to jump on his offer and ignore all the possible horrific consequences.
And what about Seth?
This went beyond tonight. This went beyond this miserable year. When Seth reclaimed his soul, he wouldn’t lose his memory. These “jobs” of his would stay with him forever.
Reviving his goodness and reigniting his Light was going to take work- tons of work. He would hate himself for all the evil deeds he carried out and the destruction he created. Loathe himself.
Would he really want me to witness the worst of him?
I wouldn’t want him there. If the tables were turned and I was the one under Aliah’s thumb, I would want every salacious detail locked away in a vault of secrecy and silence. I would die if Seth saw me at my basest, my most corrupt. And I would never forgive myself if we both had to carry the horrific memories around with us forever.
I had just decided to respect Seth and stay out of his business, no matter how curious I felt, when a knock on my front door startled me out of my good intentions.
My heart jumped at the fist-pounding on the other side of the door, but I reminded myself that nobody meaning my family or me harm could cross our property lines. I thought about Piper or Tristan but Rigley had organized a bonfire tonight on the back of his parent’s property and I knew they were both going to that. I’d made up some stupid excuse about my parents coming home tonight. Tomorrow I would text and tell them both that my parents had been delayed.
Tristan wouldn’t believe me.
And I hated lying to Piper, but I knew this was necessary. I’d already dragged Tristan into this, I couldn’t risk Piper finding out and falling face first into my dangerous world, too. Besides, I loved that she had no idea what was going on with Seth or me. She was my escape from this scary world and I clung to her just like I clung to those last bits of humanity I wanted to never end.
The person knocking on my door wasn’t either of my best friends though.
It was the opposite.
Jude.
But for the first time, maybe ever, I felt glad to see him.
I swung open the door and he gave me a dragging once over. His eyes lingered on the sword handles sticking out over my shoulders and then dropped to my thigh where my dagger sat strapped for easy reach.
“What?”
“You look… sexy. Damn.” He grinned at me while he pulled a cigarette from his back pocket.
I couldn’t squelch the embarrassed glow his words forced out of me. I thought back to Piper’s confidence that Jude was in love with me and I started glowing brighter. Dang it!
“Aw, did I make you blush?” he chuckled through an exhale of white smoke. “I forget how innocent you are. I didn’t mean anything by it, Stel. It’s just this whole… Laura Croft thing you got going on here is nice.”
I rolled my eyes to prove a point- that I didn’t care if he thought I looked sexy or not. “I’m not embarrassed, you idiot. I’m anxious. I assume you’re going to tell me where I can find Seth?”
His eyes narrowed slightly as though he didn’t believe me but reluctantly he nodded. “That’s right. Aliah sent me to… escort you. He wasn’t sure if you would want to go or not. He indicated you had been adamantly opposed the last time you two chatted.”
I didn’t like the accusatory tones in his voice one bit, so when I answered I threw as much attitude as I could into every syllable. “Of course I sounded hesitant! Obviously, I’m not going to start getting excited for every proposition Aliah throws my way. Immortal enemies. Remember?”
Jude’s lips twitched around his cigarette. “I remember.”
“Good, now tell me where to find Seth.”
“I’ll do you one better. I’ll show you.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“It’s necessary.”
“It’s not necessary. I don’t want a babysitter. I don’t want to deal with you all night. I just want to see Seth. So tell me where to go.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes!”
“Yes.”
“That’s not going to work on me. I’m not five.”
He shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
“Jude.”
“Listen
, I have to go with you. That’s the only way this works. If you want to see Seth, you’re going to have to put up with me.”
“Why?” I knew it was a stupid question. I knew the answer. But I wanted to be difficult. Jude brought out the worst in me and I was pretty sure I did the same for him. If this was true love for him, it proved just how poisoned the Fallen really were.
“You know why, Stella. Stop being a pain in the ass. Aliah isn’t going to send you into a war zone and risk your life. He’s thinking about the contract. I’m thinking about the contract. Actually the only person not thinking about the contract is you, even though your boyfriend is a crucial part in all this. You care about Seth?” I nodded once. “Then act like it. Let me do my job. You do yours. Let him do his. And maybe we’ll all survive this night. Maybe.”
“Fine.” I gave in easily when he put it like that. I hated that he somehow always found logic while I dealt in the stubborn, irrational world ruled by my emotions. I desperately needed to learn how to calculate things with this much cold precision.
Normally, I would ask Jupiter to help me out. But…
A renewed sense of urgency and nerves flooded my gut and I had to press a hand against my chest in an effort to slow my crashing heart.
“Are you alright?” Jude asked in a softer tone, but he didn’t wait for my reply. “Listen, Stella, I’m thinking maybe we sit this one out. You look pale. And I didn’t even know that was possible. Besides, Seth is not going to be on good behavior tonight. There’s no telling what he’ll try to do. You should be at full strength when you see him next. Or he might… What I’m trying to say is that if you aren’t up for this tonight, there will be another night. It’s not like he’s going to give this up any time soon.”
“Wow, Jude, I didn’t know you cared so much. Actually, wait, I didn’t know you were capable of caring so much. I’m kind of… touched.”
He looked uneasy. Actually, he had definitely started looking pale, too. Either he didn’t like hanging out with me or he really was nervous for Seth tonight.
“You are?” His voice sounded strained and his eyes darted everywhere but my direction.
“No!” I punched him in the chest. “I’m more annoyed than ever. You’re not talking me out of this so stop wasting my time.” The truth was that he probably could have talked me out of going if he pushed one more time. I had started to see his reasoning and now the mission didn’t seem quite as safe or reunion-like as I had first hoped.
“Wasting your time?” he raised his eyebrows. “We should have left five minutes ago. All your inane small talk is making us late.”
“Lead the way, Fallen.”
He shook his head at my attitude but turned around and walked to the middle of the driveway. I shut my front door and quickly followed. I didn’t like the look he gave me. He seemed… more evil than usual.
With one last mischievous smirk, he challenged, “I don’t think this is a good idea. In fact, I think it’s one of your worst ideas yet. So here’s the deal. I’ll lead you to Seth if, and only if, your little baby Starling body can keep up.”
Then he was gone.
Gone as in up-into-the-atmosphere-careening-through-the-sky-faster-than-a-freaking-speeding-bullet-gone.
And he glowed brighter than any Star I’d ever met. Which made it easy to follow him.
His Light flickered iridescently in front of me with grays, purples, ice blues and smooth silvers all mixed in to that bright, blinding, golden brilliance. I had never seen Light like this. I had never seen something glow so purely before. It hurt my eyes to stare directly into him and since my eyes could be as easily made out of Light as my body, it didn’t make sense.
I felt like Ari when he squinted into the sunlight in my school parking lot. He looked up at the Sun in the sky and blinked against her brilliance as though he wasn’t worthy to look on her luminescence.
That was how I felt with Jude right now. I felt like I wasn’t good enough to be near his kind of Light. He seemed to radiate with something purer, better, and more righteous than I could ever hope to be. Those thoughts didn’t make sense though. He was Fallen and I was not.
The high winds were cold against my fiery skin as I burned brighter and pushed harder to keep up with Jude. We whipped through clouds and across oceans. He didn’t slow down and he didn’t stop.
By the time we came to our destination, I knew we’d flown across the world in record time. I would have been impressed with his speed and the fire dancing around his still-lit body, but the real fire on the ground pulled my attention there first.
Flames licked the sky and covered the countryside. I dimmed my Light and hovered over what was once a rustic village somewhere in Southeast Asia. The ocean glittered behind me but offered no help to people who were forced to watch their houses, their world burn to the ground.
Militant looking men carrying massive weapons and machetes ran in and out of houses, clearing them out just to make the people watch the destruction they left in their wake. They beat the men and dragged the women by their hair for other nefarious purposes. Children screamed and cried, clutching each other on their knees as they rocked back and forth in terrified huddles on the ground.
Devastation covered the ground in one massive display of the worst of humanity while Shadows slithered in and out of thatched roofs and danced around the flames. One man stood in the middle of the village controlling the chaos with perfect precision. He stood apart from the fire and apart from the soldiers. He stood apart from everything.
His golden skin let off a grayish Light that obscured even the Darkness around him. His tussled hair blew in the hot breeze and enhanced that boyish charm that made him so irresistible. His honey-colored eyes danced with amused delight. And his perfectly toned muscles rippled as his entire body vibrated and hummed with satisfaction.
Seth.
Disgust and horror washed over me in waves as I took in the scene. My entire body trembled with moral anger and true, legitimate fear. I didn’t know this Seth.
I didn’t want to know him.
He had created this mayhem. He caused these people to suffer. Children would die tonight. Men would lose their homes and their families. Women would… I couldn’t even think about the fate that waited for those women. It would be worse than death.
He had become the Darkness.
He had become a monster.
“This isn’t him,” Jude said beside me.
I shook my head. This was him. This was Seth.
“I have to stop him.”
“You can’t. He’s too Dark right now. He’s too consumed with his Darkness,” Jude said sadly. “You know you can’t stop him. He’ll kill you.”
My tone was as hot and destructive as the fire below me. “I’m not going to let this go on.”
“Starling, you wanted to see. You saw. It’s time to go home.” I could hear the warning in Jude’s voice but I was beyond listening to reason.
The village burning would have been bad enough but that Seth caused everything else... that I could not handle. I didn’t care if he tried to kill me. I didn’t care if we fought to the death and I killed him. The horrors happening to these people could not be allowed to continue at his hands.
I pulled my swords from over my shoulder and tightened my grip around their ribbed hilts. I felt Jude’s panic as he realized my intentions.
“Stella, think about this. Think about what this could mean for you long term. If you stop him, he will retaliate in a big way. And if you don’t manage to stop him… he’s going to hurt you in a big way. Pull back. Go home.”
I gave Jude a sidelong glance. “It’s like you don’t know me at all.”
“Wrong. I do know you. Which is why I tried to talk you out of coming.”
“Do you know what I’m most relieved about?” I asked, ignoring everything else he’d said.
He sighed. He was so over me right now. “No. What are you most relieved about right now?”
“That this wasn?
??t a trap. Aliah kept his word and I don’t have to worry about some stupid attempt to lock me up or something.”
“There’s that. Now you just have to worry about Seth running his blade through your jugular.”
“There’s that,” I mimicked him. “But he should have the same concern.” And then I dropped from the sky.
“You don’t have what it takes to kill him!” Jude shouted after me.
I ignored that too. He was probably right. But in this moment I didn’t feel cowardice or indecision. I felt very much prepared to do what it took to take him down.
This wasn’t the boy I was in love with. This was my enemy, pure and simple. This was a Warrior breaking the Holy Agreement. We weren’t supposed to interact with humans directly. Influence, from afar. That was the rule. That was how we played this game. And Seth had chosen to break that rule and dishonor an agreement that had been around since the dawn of time- all times.
It was my job- one of my main jobs- to punish anyone that dared to disobey this one simple statute.
I landed on dirt-packed earth with fire blazing around me. It roared in my ears, louder than the screams that echoed through the night just beneath it. My swords held out and my stance obviously threatening, I met Seth’s barely surprised gaze.
A cruel smirk twisted those full lips and his golden eyes reflected the orange glow from the destruction he’d created. He stood before me as a feral animal, no longer Warrior. No longer Angel. He was wild and soulless.
And darkly beautiful.
“I told you to stay away. You didn’t listen. Now I’m going to have to kill you for coming here tonight,” he growled at me.
I took a step forward and pointed one long blade at the center of his throat while I kept the other tucked to my side. “Funny. I was thinking the same thing about you.”
His head tipped back and he let out a loud laugh full of harsh disbelief. “You’re not here to kill me. You’re here to beg me to stop. You’re here to turn those pathetic Bambi eyes on me and ask me to remember you and how much you love me and when I used to have a soul. You’re here to plead and beg the good man I used to be. And that’s the reason you’ll be so easy to kill. You can’t see past who I used to be. You can’t hurt the boy you still love. Even though he doesn’t exist anymore.”