Darkness & Light: Book 1: Shatter Our Fates [COMPLETED]

11 - Hayley

The four of us slip into the hall on silent feet. We look around, trying to find an exit or someplace to hide. Do we split up? Or stay together?

"Hayley, go down the hallway to the left, then enter the third door on your right. Hurry."

I gesture for them to follow me, and they do. The four of us hurry down the left hall, and enter the third door on the right, as Aldrea instructed. The room is a narrow one, full of random clothes.

"Grab cloaks for the boys, each of you will also need weapons. You'll find the weapons in the chest against the far wall, under some tarps."

I relay Aldrea's instructions, and Atlas stares at me as Tiber and Dax hurry about getting their things. I look at her, watching her sharp, green eyes.

"How did you know that those were there?"

"Does it matter?" I ask.

"Atlas, we need her," says Tiber as he approaches with two serrated daggers. He passes both to us, and I look down at the black and silver blade in my hands. I tuck it into my sleeve, and Atlas stares at me like she's afraid of me. I can't blame her.

"What are you?" Atlas whispers to me.

"I am no one of consequence," I mutter.

She shakes her head.  "No. I don't believe that."

"Can we hold off on this, Atlas?" Dax asks. "After all, we need to find your brother. Don't we? I mean, isn't that why we are here?"

"Fine."

We leave the closet with our weapons and cloaks on, and I follow Aldrea's lead through the castle halls. The boys and Atlas follow me close, and we wind our way through the marble halls in silence.

After walking for what feels like ages, up and down stairs, through winding corridors, and ducking into random rooms when patrols walk by, we stop. We are in the ground level of the castle, and before too long, we find ourselves in front of the guards' barracks.

Atlas jogs ahead of us, her dagger clenched tight in her fist as she moves.

"Wait, Atlas!" Dax hisses. He runs after her, and I look at Tiber as he walks up to me.

"Do you need your tonic?"

"Maybe soon," I reply.  "For now, let's focus on finding her brother."

We walk into a big room filled with bunk beads, filled with sleeping guards and soldiers. I stop when we enter the room, my heart pounding like a hammer. Theres something really wrong with these men and women. Like those soldiers we saw walking into the city.

"Hayley,"  Tiber whispers. "What's wrong with them?"

Suddenly, the door we'd entered through slams shut, locking into place. We turn toward it, and see a man standing there. He has dark skin lined with thick tattoos, his yellow eyes blaze behind black, curly bangs. He stares at us with a twisted smile on his face.

"Who are you?" Tiber asks.

There's a shimmering light behind him, and then an arrow slices into Tiber's shoulder. He shouts as he sinks to his knees. A second man steps from the shadows. A bow is drawn taut, his arrow aimed right at us. Me.

The man's messy, brown hair and tan skin are smeared with blood, his crystalline green eyes shining. He's possessed.  And he's just shot my brother.

An ancient, unrelenting rage boils up inside me, and I lash out with Aldrea's magick, purple energy that surges through my veins like a living storm. It strikes into the demon who seemingly summoned the archer. The demon man screams as every nerve, bone, muscle, and sinew is fried and set ablaze by my and Aldrea's magick.

He collapses to the ground. Another arrow flies at me, and I catch it with my hand. I break the arrow in half, throwing its pieces aside. The archer runs at me, but just before I can call forth my magick, Atlas leaps between us.

I stop, frozen in midstrike. 

"No, Hayley! Please, don't kill him! It's.... it's my brother, Delta!"

I step back, staring at her, feeling my magick ebb.

Atlas turns to the man, the archer. He sneers at her. Laughs in a warped voice. "Oh, you pathetic little girl."

"No," she says. "I am not pathetic. You are. Return my brother to me."

"Your brother hates you, Atlas," sneers the demon. "And he will relish your death when it falls upon you now."

The demon raises a knife. And just as I think it is about to strike her, Dax, in his wolf form, tackles the demon. I look at Tiber, who is working on mending his own wounds. I look back to the others, and see Atlas, just staring at Dax and the demon, both of them fighting.

I step up beside Atlas.  "You don't have to watch this."

"Dax, he's my brother! He's not an enemy!"

Dax is thrown off the demon's body, and Dax hits the wall far off. But then, the other demons awaken. They pounce on us, and I blast them with a flurry of purple energy that feels as alive as I am.

"You think you know much, child," says one of the demons. "Yet, you do not know your own family's names."

"What?" Tiber asks, as he stands up and steps beside me. He narrows his brown eyes at the woman possessed by a demon. She grins.

"Your mother is not your real mother," she says.  "But you do not know your true parents. No. You never have, and never will. You are fools, both of you, Tiber and Hayley Moon."

"What are you talking about?" I demand.

She smirks.  "You do not even know who you are."

I look at Tiber. "Do you know what she's on about?"

He nods slowly. "Gods, I think I know."

The demon laughs. And then.... the whole world around us just explodes.