Darkness Deceives - Katie May Page 0,2

vision darkens, I feel like I might just collapse into a pile of despair. I rub my eyes in disbelief and wonder how this can be happening. This can’t be real.

It isn’t real.

“She’s no longer your concern,” the fake Hadley sneers, turning to face us. A dead weight settles in my stomach as I stare at the monster before us, looking for a glimmer of the girl I’ve fallen so hard for, but the face before me is a stranger. Her gray skin and dark eyes terrify me. It’s like she’s fucking possessed.

Whatever—whoever—has a hold of her has morphed her face into something I no longer recognize. Anger seeps off her features, the power emanating from her flooding the room and making it hard to breathe. Instead of the usual bright eyes and sheepish smiles, I get menacing looks and bared teeth.

“The fuck she’s not!” Auston roars, his halo blazing above his head. “Bring her back, or we’ll force you out of her fucking body.”

The creature inhabiting Hadley starts to laugh then, the sound chilling my bones. The laugh is the sound of nightmares, the voices in the dark that kept you awake when you were a kid.

The sound of pure evil.

“You have no power over me,” it cackles. “Nothing can stop me from getting what I want, and what I want is her.”

Fuck this.

With fury surging inside me, I aim my scythe at the creature and prepare to utter a spell when Karston yanks my weapon down. “You can’t shoot it!” he shouts. “Hadley is still in there. You could kill her!”

The Hadley creature laughs again, its voice growing lower and lower. “You see? You can’t hurt me, or you risk killing your precious Hadley. Not that your puny little weapon could hurt me anyway. I am pain.”

I lower my blade, hands still shaking with blazing anger I didn’t think possible. The creature has rendered us useless. We can’t attack it, or we risk hurting Hadley.

So how the fuck do we fight it?

My heart clenches. I can’t lose her again.

I look to my brothers, and see they are all as lost as me, standing there with weapons aimed, but none of them firing in fear of hurting our girl.

Braxton’s jaw works as he grinds his teeth, his sword held up in preparation of an attack he can’t perform. Sparks fly from Auston’s halo—I didn’t even know it could do that. But if he’s feeling even a feather’s breath of the turmoil surging inside me, then it makes sense.

We’re shattering.

Karston’s form flickers between invisible and tangible. I don’t know if he’s doing it purposefully or if his ability to control it is faltering. His blue eyes are fixed on the shell of the girl we’ve all come to care for, the girl who has brought us back together.

“We will find a way, Darkness. If I have to give up my wings to see you expelled from her then I will,” Braxton spits. “This is not over.”

“It never even started, you fool,” the Darkness sneers. “There was no beginning, for I am the beginning. I have always been. Like the air or the sun. You are nothing but a footprint in the sands of time, fading away like a scent on the breeze.” She raises a finger at us, her black, dead eyes flashing with such malice that it numbs my chest. “Leave us be, or the next time you see us, it will be your doom.”

As her hand drops back to her side, her head lolls back, and she extends her arms wide. Her mouth gapes open, and dark smog furls out, snaking around until it completely encompasses her.

“Hadley!” I scream darting forward, not caring that the monster is inside her. If we can just keep her here long enough, maybe we can figure out what to do. I reach into the smoke but stumble through, my fingers grasping at air.

Hadley is gone.

All that’s left of her is the ominous dark cloud.

“Fuck!” Auston shouts, ripping at his long white hair.

“What do we do?” Karston asks, pacing back and forth. “I won’t abandon her.”

“None of us will. We-we just need to come up with a plan,” Auston stammers.

“A plan to fight the Darkness?” I scoff, my rage diverting itself towards Auston. “How do you fight smoke, Auston?”

Auston’s head whips in my direction. “Do you have a better plan? Hmm, baby Reaper? Gonna scare the big bad evil monster off with your glow stick?”

“Take that back,” I growl, advancing on him with