I’m not even sure what the point of my touch is, but before I can rack through my thoughts and figure it out, he grabs my hand and jerks me into him, eliminating any space left between our bodies. He slams his lips against mine and kisses me with passion, his hands wandering to my back as he presses me closer to him. He tastes strange, like rust, yet at the same time, he tastes good, and I realize how much I’ve worried about him while we’ve been apart.
What does that mean? About my feelings towards him? Something… I can feel it… this is so much different than with Aiden… so much more… sweltering and hard to breathe.
He pulls back abruptly, his lips a little swollen, giving me barely any time to react as I stumble back from the disconnection. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he says.
“Why?” I frown because it doesn’t sound like something he’d say at all.
“Because…” He drags his fingers through his hair roughly, looking stressed out and Sylas never looks stressed. “It may not be safe; I may not be safe. I mean, we know nothing about this process… changing back.” His gaze encounters mine. “What if I hurt you or infect you?”
I’m not sure how to respond. Part of me wants to be irrational, but the other part wants to rationalize that it could happen; that we know nothing about the abomination or the process. “There’s something that I don’t get,” I say. “Why are you healing after biting me, but vampires have bit me before and haven’t changed back?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know, other than maybe there’s something different about the process of an abomination then a vampire. I mean, I know they’re different...” He trails off, lost. “I just wish we had the answers.”
“So do I.” I glance back at the papers. “But hopefully I can get some now.”
“Is that why you came back here?” he asks and then a playful, arrogant look crosses his face. “Or was it to save me?”
I roll my eyes, but have to bite back a smile. “We came back for the papers… the one’s you and I found before we were captured.”
“So Aiden’s going to help figure out what they say? So you can save the world? Save humanity?”
“No…” I’d almost forgotten about Aiden. “So you saw Aiden then?”
He nods, but seems reluctant. “During the chase, yeah, but not afterward… I hope he wasn’t bitten.” He doesn’t sound that convincing and I’m not surprised. The two brothers never did get along very well.
I sigh. “Well, if he hasn’t been bitten now, he’s still changed.”
He looks at me curiously. “What do you mean?”
I sigh again and then pick up my knife from the ground and hop up on the crates beside him. “He took the injection, Sylas.”
He stares at me with his mouth agape. “He what? Why did he do it? He’s always been against it… arguing with us about it. What the hell?”
“Because of me…Tristan told him what happened to us; that we were captured. He thought the only way he could save me… us, would be to become a Day Taker.”
“He changed for you. To save you…” He considers this with a strange look on his face. “I’m glad he did.”
He reaches out to lightly touch my cheek with his finger. I’m not sure how to react, be on guard or not, but I end up just sitting still.
He finally leans back, withdrawing his fingers from my cheek. “What else happened while I was gone?”
For some reason I’m hesitant to continue. I know that they’re competitive and I am afraid that, if I tell Sylas everything about what Aiden has done, he may hurt when I tell him that Aiden is a Day Walker not a Day Taker. I wonder how upset he’ll be to hear it, and to hear that the power is going to Aiden’s head, making him unstable.
Sylas senses my hesitation. “Whatever it is just say it.”
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I take a breath. “That injection didn’t turn Aiden into a Day Taker. He’s a Day Walker.” There’s hurt in his eyes, but it disappears rapidly at the same time he tightens his jaw. “He also thinks that humans don’t need to be saved,” I add. “That the rest of the population needs to become Day Walkers because he feels they’re perfection.” I roll my eyes. “He thinks that the cure isn’t the way we should be saving the world. That instead, we should be making people turn into Day Walkers, but only the one’s we choose.”
He takes in everything that I am saying with a serious expression. “If that’s the case, then why did he come with you to get the papers?”
“I think he’s hoping to change my mind. Make me agree with his ideas or something, but honestly, I don’t know.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know…” I glance at the crates around the room and the door; the only two things in here. “We got separated when we were attacked by the monst—” I cut myself off, unsure what to call them since he was one of them—still sort of is.
“It’s okay. They’re monsters and I was one of them,” he says like it’s no big deal, but I can tell he’s lying, feel it flowing off him.” They’re all connected, you know. Their thoughts, the movements they make. The Highers are intentionally creating them. Building an army.”
My eyes enlarge. “An army? For what reason? They already control the vampires and the people in the colony. What do they need an army for?”
“They’re not satisfied with what they have,” he explains, picking at one of the wounds on his arms. “They want more. They know there are other people—humans—out there. They want to find them and take over them. But the thing they really want,” he pauses, looking up at me, “is you.”
I sigh. “There’s never enough for them. Greed. That’s the reason it started and that’s the reason it’ll never end.” I hop down from the crate. “Until I put a stop to it.”
Sylas jumps down next to me, landing unsteadily on his feet. “How do you plan on stopping them exactly?” He looks doubtful that I can do it because it does seem impossible; however, I was created for a reason—to stop this.
Anger burns inside of me as I think of all the people that have either died or turned into some kind of monster because of the Highers’ need for power. Greed. It ruined the world and made it a horrible place of death and fear so they could have their rules; their control. We were all simply walking around, obeying them, but now it’s time to change that; change the future.
“I plan on doing whatever it takes,” I say, scooping up the papers, hoping they have the answers written on them, knowing there’s a chance they don’t. I need a backup plan just in case something doesn’t go right because I will save the world.
No matter what it takes.
Chapter 17
It takes the rest of the day for Sylas to finish changing back into himself. It’s a painful process full of screaming and body shaking. His skin molts off, like feathers, and beneath it is rejuvenated skin. He’s not wearing a shirt and keeps picking off pieces on his back, neck and chest, flicking them onto the floor. He seems to be gaining his strength back by the minute, breathing easier, moving lighter, like the Sylas I first met.
While we wait, I update him on everything that has happened. The escape, Nichelle, Maci falling from the cliff and about Mathew; how I need to take the papers back to him so he can help us find a cure. That supposedly he can read what’s on the papers and maybe find a way to end the Highers’ plan of greed once and for all.
“So other people and colonies really exist.” He muses at this, rubbing his jawline, pacing back and forth to stretch out his legs in front of the crates I’m sitting on. He said they feel extremely stiff from being crooked and bent and it’s sort of hard for him to walk.