I peered in the direction of the shout. “Emily?”
Emily sprinted toward me, her face pulled back in terror.
A dark shape appeared, moving like lightning as it chased her.
Emily let out a scream to wake the dead. “Somebody, help me!”
Marcellious bolted to his feet and raced toward her. He grabbed her in his arms.
I rose as if hypnotized and trudged toward the darkness. With slow, plodding footsteps, I moved toward my own personal demon, unable to stop.
Roman took off after me. “Olivia, what are you doing?”
Earth Bear kept on drumming and drumming and drumming.
The chief continued with his chants.
The world around me fell away as I strode, entranced toward my darkness. Black clouds billowed around me, obscuring everything but the darkness.
As I neared it, its cloak fell away and fluttered on an unseen wind into the night.
I stopped, standing face to face with this visage of evil.
Its wild hair looked more like dark smoke coiling around its head. And its skin, if it could be called skin, appeared charred. Pieces of it fell away as the darkness undulated before me, revealing a gray, cracked surface.
One of its eyes looked at me through a blood-red orb. The other looked like a black hole, ready to suck me into its vortex of depravity.
The creature leered at me with a toothless grin and began to speak. Its words seemed inside my head, clawing at my mind and outside me, battering at my eardrums. I held my hands before my face to shield me.
“We meet again, my darling. It’s been some time since I last saw you. You feel like you’re strong enough to take me. That’s where you’re wrong—I will kill you like I killed Amara.” The darkness swayed side to side, looming over me.
I squinted at the menacing shape and shivered. “You’re nothing but a bloodsucking monster, a devil!”
The creature laughed and said,“I actually have a name. Balthazar gave it to me.”
“Tell me. Tell me what your name is,” I demanded.
“It’s Dahlia,” she said, and the word ricocheted up my spine, tearing something loose. Iknewthis darkness.
My vision began to blur, and dots appeared before my eyes. “You… you’re…” I stammered.
“That’s right. I’m your darkness. And Balthazar will kill you—he’s hunting you as we speak.”
My knees began to tremble, and I feared I might faint. I searched for my friends, for Roman, finding them in the distance, like blurred shapes through a warped-looking glass.
The drums, chanting, and screams sounded like they came from far away, through a wall of water.
“You think you have bodyguards to protect you, but you’re wrong. Balthazar tells me you are weak—all of you. You are nothing but frightened rabbits, finding ways to hide in the field. But he sees you—we all do.”
A shiver rocked me, but I didn’t let it get to me. Instead, I stood tall, leaning forward slightly as I said, “Tell Balthazar I am not afraid of him. Why did he not show his face? Why did he send you instead? Is he that much of a coward?”
The darkness laughed, issuing a wind out of its mouth, much like the wind inside the sweat lodge.
Like in the sweat lodge, this wind stank of decaying flesh and rotting corpses and made me want to gag. I threw my arm over my face to try and ward off the stench.
“Balthazar has plans for all of you, especially you, my dear.” It thrust its finger in my direction, causing a shock wave to blast through my abdomen.
I fought back the urge to vomit. Summoning every ounce of strength, I said, “I am ready to finish you once and for all.”
