Elle Jasper: Everdark

I heard Nyx’s voice and glanced frantically around. “Where are you?” I shouted.

The couple next to me glanced at me as if I were nuts.

In the back! Please! I’m so scared!

I wanted to run—I couldn’t. People were crammed into the club like friggin’ sardines. I pushed my way to the back, elbowing, squeezing, and just when I thought I would cut through to the back, I felt a vision creeping up on me. Oh God! No! Please don’t let it be, please don’t let it be . . .

Near the back wall, I sank to the floor, shadows filled my eyes, and I saw nothing. Then, slowly, light filtered in. Dead silence surrounded me. A familiar scent rose to my nostrils—Downy fabric softener. I glanced around. I was standing inside my old apartment, in the foyer, by the front door.

It was the apartment Seth and I had shared with Mom.

I blinked; in the very next second I slammed the door behind me. “Mom! Are you even freaking here?” Irritated, I sighed and moved to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and drank from the orange juice carton. When I was finished, I put an empty carton back. “Hey—Mom! Come on, dammit! I need some money!” I waited, my irritation growing at why in hell she wasn’t answering. Angry now, I stomped to the back, pausing long enough in the hall to stare at myself in the mirror. Thick black liner rimmed my eyes and swept outward, like Cleopatra, and grazed my angel wing tattoo. It looked fucking wicked if you asked me. Mom hated it, though. “Hey!” I shouted, angrier. It pulled me away from the mirror, and I stomped to Mom’s room and looked around. The bed was unmade, clothes strewn on the floor, the lamp broken on the floor beside the nightstand. What the hell? “Mom!” I yelled, and noticed the bathroom door ajar. I hurried to it and flung open the door. I froze as my eyes locked on to my mother’s. Hers were unseeing, lifeless. She lay in a half-filled tub of water, naked. My heart leapt to my throat. “Mom!” I hollered, in a totally different tone now. My heart slammed inside me; fear choked me. “Mom, Mom!” I continued to shout. I grabbed her by her shoulders and tried to drag her out of the tub. Her body was cold; wet, and a little stiff. Her body slipped, and she sank back into the water. “No!” I cried, and grabbed her again, this time more tightly, under the arms. I pulled, sank all of my weight onto my heels, and heaved until her body slid, over the rim of the tub, and fully onto me. We both fell back onto the tile floor.

It was then I noticed the blood.

The blood, and the rip in her chest where her heart should have been.

I shook her then, hard. “Mom!” I yelled into her ear. “Mom!”

Nothing. My mother was dead, already starting to stiffen, cold.

Sobs wracked my body, and I held her tightly, crying her name, over and over and over. I don’t know how long I lay there, soaked, my mother’s dead body on top of mine, cradled in my arms. It must have been a long time, because my teeth chattered, and my insides shook continuously and uncontrollably until the black-as-night man—my mother’s employer—pulled me away from her. My fingers wrapped around her now-dried skin and refused to let go.

“She’s in shock,” I heard a slightly accented voice say. “If she’s lucky, she won’t remember any of this, Preacher.”

“I hope she don remember, dat’s right,” the black man said. “Dat poor baby girl.”

“Riley! Get up!”

I heard a faint laugh, somewhere deep, somewhere far, far away. It was Valerian’s laugh.

I turned. My eyes widened in shock at the person whose tight grip on my forearms was pulling me off the floor.

Victorian.

He pulled me close, his hands on my elbows; he brought his mouth to my ear. “He is here, love,” he said, his breath brushing my skin. “Please, come with me. I swear to you I’ll get your friend to safety.”

I pulled back and sought Victorian’s eyes.

“You will come with me, Riley. Now,” he said, his voice alluring, pulling at my mind, into some unfamiliar zone. “Hurry.”

My mind was a ball of tangled barbed wire. I’d just had a vision of the day when I’d found my mother’s body, and here before me stood a vampire whom I’d known mostly in my dreams. In my heart, I didn’t want to go with him. Somehow, though, he made me—against my will. My actions were no longer mine. I couldn’t help it; I reached out and grazed his jaw with my fingertips, just to see if he was real. He was real, and this was real—not a dream; not a vision. Confusion made my brain ache. “Nyx.”

“I know,” Victorian urged. “Please. There’s not much time.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“There’s no time,” he insisted.

Everyone started screaming at once.

Several newlings swung from the lights, bounded off the counters, the bar, the stools, and descended upon the clubbers in a rabid feast. I moved away from Victorian. My confusion erased, I shook my head of the intoxicating fog and I kicked into action. I knew what needed to be done, and I wouldn’t leave here without my friend; with all these mortals helplessly falling victim to their bloodsucking prey. I blinked, my hand going beneath my skirt before my brain really registered what was happening.

“Please, Riley,” Victorian begged, moving closer. “Come with me. I promise to get your friend to safety.”

“Fine!” I yelled, “but you’d better get her now!” I ducked and flipped a blade from my thigh. Just as a newling lunged at me, I plunged it into his heart. He began to jerk. “Get her now, Victorian!” I yelled. “In the back!”

Victorian disappeared.

No sooner had he vanished into the melee than Eli, Luc, Phin, Josie, Seth, Zetty, Noah and his guys, stormed through the door.

A second full-scale melee ensued.

Eli made his way toward me, his face livid, etched with terror and fury. He grabbed me by the arm and shook me. Anger and confusion mapped lines into his face. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine!” I shouted.

He didn’t glare at me long. He took off. He trusted me.

He shouldn’t have.

I took as many out as I could. Every once in a while I saw Seth. He was alive and kicking ass. Relief washed over me as he stayed, back-to-back, with Noah.

Just as I flung another blade, hitting my mark and turning another vamp newling to dust, my arm was grabbed again. This time when I turned, it was Nyx. She threw her arms around me. “Oh, Riley!” she yelled, and squeezed me hard. “I was so scared!”

Relief flooded me at the sight of Nyx unharmed. I didn’t have time to revel in it. “Go to Luc!” I said, dragged her by the arm, and gave her a push in his direction. “Luc!” I yelled in my mind. He turned, faced me, saw Nyx, and ran directly toward her. Once his hands were on her, I knew she’d be safe.

I had one undead left to kill. I pushed my way to the back of the melee. I was shoved, pushed, grabbed.

I was abruptly stopped by Victorian, his hands vices on my shoulders.

His gaze bore into mine. “You promised.”

I yanked against him. “I’m not leaving with you! There’s one more that needs to die first,” I yelled. “My life is here! I love Eli, my brother, my family. You know me, Victorian! I can’t let your brother live! He’s a monster!”

“I know, but you must!” he yelled back, and dragged me effortlessly through the horrified mortals. He turned when we were in a thinner crowd. I fought him, pulled, yanked, beat him in the back with my fists. “No,” he pleaded, ducking further swings from my fists. “You cannot, Riley. Please.” He grabbed my hands in his, stilling me. His drugging dark gaze pinned mine. “You will come with me. Now. Away from this.”