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  “Well, shit on a fucking shingle, Finn. So, this is what you’ve been doing? I knew it was getting close to time, but didn’t figure you’d take advantage of poor ole’ Emma.”

  I back away from Finn quickly. He does not let go of my wrist. He glowers at Lana. I think I imagine it, but it seems his eyes flicker white.

  “And you?” Lana says to me. Her eyes widen and a huge smile spreads across her face. “You sluttly little robot. I didn’t know you had it in you!”

  Finn lets my hand drop and I take a step away from him. Lana stares at Finn’s body in obvious appreciation. He notices so he grabs the new shirt off the table and buttons it up. I feel rage that Lana has interrupted the moment. Distress soon follows when Finn picks up his backpack. Lana swings her bow off her back and wipes the sweat from her forehead with the back of her sleeve.

  “I can’t believe you picked this circle, Finn. It’s gross here and there isn’t a lake for miles,” Lana breathes out, all traces of her previous emotions erased.

  “It’s safest here,” Finn says. He squats next to his pack to rearrange some items and I feel the fear return. Every branch that stems from fear surfaces because Finn is departing. I feel nervousness, alarm, shock, dread, worry—I am terrified to be away from him. It is comforting to have Lana here, but I remember the way the other male darkling looks at me and it sends a cold chill through my body.

  “Finn, the other male darkling…he will hurt me,” I say, my heart still pounding away.

  “He won’t so much as look at you. I made sure of that earlier,” Finn says gruffly. I want to be close to him. The floor creaks as I approach and he stands swiftly and moves for the door.

  “Oh, fuck. Louis was already being a creepy bastard?” Lana scoffs. Finn chuckles under his breath. His hand is on the door handle, but he turns back. I know I look wide-eyed and panicked. I do my best to keep my feelings at bay.

  “Goodbye, Finn,” I say. Lana is over in the corner stripping off her boots to ready for bed. I smile weakly. He smiles back. I wink and then bite my bottom lip.

  I know he is going to be with another female darkling, but I want him to remember me. He takes a deep breath, shakes his head once and escapes into the darkness. I am heartened to realize that the sensation in my body that is attached to Finn does not disappear when he does.

  “Alright, freak. I want details. You are the luckiest bitch alive and you don’t even know it yet,” Lana squeals the second we are alone.

  I have been alive for eighteen years and in two days Finn has changed so much. I do not tell her, but I think I do know I am lucky. I clasp both my hands over my chest.

  Chapter Ten

  January 16th, Morning

  Finn has been gone for three whole days. The distress I feel with his absence is worse in the mornings after I have dreamed about him all night. He has not sent a messenger and I can tell that Lana is ready to go back to our circle. Her boredom is why we are in this field.

  “Shoot anything that moves, Emma,” Lana says. We are in the closest farming crop—a seriously long walk from the desert circle. The landscape in this area is just as bleak, but Lana says there are different crops of vegetables here. She says she wants to pillage them and I am her lookout person. I do not agree with her plans, but she is giddy at the prospect of eating something other than potatoes. Admittedly, I am too. Food was always somewhat plentiful when I lived in my home. We had a variety of fruits and vegetables. My mother said she had a ‘green thumb’ when it came to gardening. My guess is the darklings have an opposing color. What they are good with is weapons.

  “I will not shoot any darklings,” I say through gritted teeth. As we walked to the crop she taught me how to use her bow. It feels awkward and very heavy in my hands. I know with complete certainty hitting anything will be impossible. Lana’s teaching is more like showing, with a few words mixed in. I place the bow and the leather quiver on the ground, careful not to spill her arrows. The black ash that shrouds the earth is thick in this area. This open area had nothing to protect it from the years of ash rain. I look up to the sky, thankful it has stopped and the gray haze has replaced it. Without the haze the world would be pitch black constantly.

  Lana pulls a few vegetables from the ground, smiles, places them in her brown sack, and continues down a long row. I worry she will get in trouble, however I cannot help the smile that crosses my face as I watch her break out in an obscene celebratory dance. My grin just mimics her appearance. The joy that resides behind her smile is absent behind mine. The emotions I watch Lana express weary me. They are so deep, profound, and full, I am not sure my mind can handle such things. I want them though. Every night Lana sits and talks to me about my childhood and about my mother. The feelings of anger always rise to the surface when we speak of her death. Lana says it is a good thing to feel anything at all. The greater the anger, the closer I am to the other four.

  “Did you hear that?” I ask. I pick up the bow and select an arrow from the quiver. My eyes scan the open fields at all angles as Lana jogs up to stand beside me, the gravelly dirt crunching beneath the soles of her shoes.

  “I did,” Lana says warily. She takes the bow from me. “Get your knife out,” she orders. I pull out the larger knife I carry since Finn left. Lana says I use it well, that my thrusting is promising. We practice killing savages every night and while Lana does the killing, my skills are improving rapidly. The savages have not clawed me again.

  “It’s a dark witch…” Lana says as she draws the bowstring back to rest on her creamy, white cheek. I glance where she aims and spot a group of darklings. Sure enough, the white glowing eyes of a dark witch show themselves. It is a female witch. I stagger back and close my eyes to keep my dark side at bay. Lana holds her breath, a signal she will release an arrow very soon. I hold my breath, too. She releases and the screaming hiss of the arrow cutting through the air comforts me.

  The dark witch screeches loudly. Lana hit her in the arm. She rarely misses a kill shot so I know Lana has spared the witch for some reason.

  The female darklings that surround the dark witch crowd around her, but they continue to walk in our direction. Lana shakes her head and loads another arrow. Darklings have sharp eyesight and at this fractionally closer distance I see that the dark witch’s eyes flicker. They aren’t solid bright white like the witches that came for me.

  “Wait. Did you see her eyes?” I ask, my breath catching in my throat. Lana lowers her bow as the eyes glint once again.

  “Yeah, she’s a freak like you,” she huffs, upset she does not get to send off another arrow. “Whoa, doggy. They are gonna be pissed off.” Lana swings her bow behind her back and slams the arrow back into the quiver.

  “It was an accident. We should go talk to them.” It is another unfeeling darkling like myself. I cannot help but be curious…and scared. I want to talk to her. I want to know what she feels. I want to know if she wants to be corrected. She clutches her bleeding arm. I recognize the look on her face. She likes the pain. Like me, she is trying to overcome the dark. Unlike me, she looks like the other darklings with her dark features. Brief irritation courses through me at the realization. I walk forward and she steps forward as she recognizes something in me, too. We stand face to face. Soul to soul.

  “You are like me,” I say automatically. Her eyes flicker snowy white. I back away. The disconnection I feel at her show of dark startles me. Lana grabs me by my shoulder and tries to pull me away. The darkling girl does not respond. Her hollowness runs deep.

  “Sorry about the arrow. All I saw was witchy eyes.” Lana wipes her palms on her pants nervously. “I didn’t send a kill shot because I wasn’t certain,” she says as her defense. The darkling’s glowing white eyes remind me of my mother’s death. My stomach hurts—my chest grows tight, my breathing speeds.

  The other darklings, the ones that escort her, finally speak. “You could have saved us some trouble if you released a kill shot,” she says. Lana’s eyes widen in shock. I swallow ha
rd when I realize what the other darklings mean.

  “This one is too far gone. We brought her out here to dispose of her.”

  I suppress the urge to scream at them. The darkling that is too far-gone does not speak. She does not move to go against what they say about her. Lana looks at her quizzically and then back to me. She raises her eyebrows and bites her lip jokingly.

  “Don’t let us interrupt then,” Lana says, grabbing my hand to lead me away from the impending massacre. I have things I want to know.

  “Wait,” I say. “What does she feel? How do you know she is lost?” My mother always said she could see me inside. How do these darklings know she is not inside? The empty darkling finally responds.

  “I need the correction,” she says without a hint of emotion. I ball my fists by my sides as her words slide into my heart, suffocating it.

  The other darklings answer my question for her. “She feels fear. We’ve had her for over a year and she shows no sign of anything else. We’ve done all we can do. We’ll dispatch her into the forest and let the savages take care of her. If she stumbles into a dark witch first, perhaps they will take pity on her and escort her to the Dark Citadel.” Her voice is icy and I think she does not feel all six yet. I am angry she is the one making the decision.

  “Save her, Lana,” I say. I want her to be saved as I was saved. I think she has a chance. Lana shakes her head the second the words leave my lips.

  “She can’t even speak for herself, sweet cakes. This,” Lana points to her glowing eyes and blank stare, “is what happens to most darklings that escape. There is no way to fix those who don’t want to be fixed. She would have had a better life with the dark witches breeding for perfection.” Lana’s words drip with contempt. “Plus, what do you think will happen when Finn comes back and I have two of you?” At the mention of Finn I feel my stomach lurch. “You got lucky, Emma. You have a male darkling willing to die for your protection. Had you not, you’d be in those woods getting gnashed to pieces by stinking savages.”

  I shudder. I take one last look at the girl so much like myself and walk away with Lana.

  “Finn would die protecting me?” I ask when we distance ourselves from their murderous group. She peeks at me sideways and smiles widely.

  “Yes, and he nearly killed Louis for merely stating his attraction to you.” She clears her throat. I remember the puddle of blood in the store. I do not know why he feels so strongly about me, but I am glad. I hear a blood-curdling scream ring out behind us. Neither of us turn around to look. We trudge forward, but I see how the scream affects Lana. It disturbs her. I try to comfort her by talking over the death.

  “Why do you help me, Lana? Why did you come here to this desert circle that you dislike so much?” She exhales, either relieved the darkling’s screams have stopped or annoyed because of my questions.

  “I may be a badass but I still feel. You are different from the others I’ve found in the past. Maybe it was morbid curiosity about your freaky eyes and light hair that stopped me from killing you when we first met, but I keep you around now because I like you.” It pleases me to hear Lana profess this. I stop walking. She slowly turns to look at me.

  “I like you too, Lana.” I wrap my arms around her in a hug. It is not acting, but something else that forces the action. She hesitantly reciprocates by wrapping her arms around me. I inhale her scent and melt a little further into her warm embrace. The emotion that triggers this suddenly turns to something raw when I remember my mother hugging me in the same manner.

  “What do you feel, Emma?” Lana asks quietly, as if sensing a momentous breakthrough.

  “I feel anger,” I say omitting the feelings that trigger the hug in the first place. Lana exhales deeply and pulls me away, keeping her hands on my shoulders. She gives me a half smile.

  “And that’s why you’re not like the other darkling.” She knows I almost feel something else. I smile back at her, thankful she has given me the chance that was denied the other darkling. Perhaps my appearance is what has kept me alive this far. I also realize it is my biggest liability when I see the male darkling, Louis leering at me in the distance. Instead of grabbing Lana’s hand as I usually do, I clutch my knife a little tighter.

  “When will Finn return?” I ask.

  “He obviously had a lot of things to work out of his system if he’s stayed away this long,” Lana says. She laughs a little and I think I understand what she means because I feel envious of the female darklings he spends time with. “Bec is probably going bat-shit crazy with boredom without me around.” I giggle. I can tell when she uses humor, which is almost always. I glance over my shoulder to see if Louis is still there, but he is gone.

  I take a deep breath. “I hope he comes back soon,” I say. There is a different hollow feeling that encompasses me when I think of Finn and his protection.

  “His good looks aside, he is very handy to have around. He probably got held up fixing something or another. Don’t worry for him. He always comes back more swoon worthy than when he left.” She fans herself with her hands and feigns fainting.

  Remembering how long our walk took, I know Louis followed us to the crop. I do not worry for Finn. I worry for myself.

  Chapter Eleven

  January 16th, Night

  Although Finn said that Louis would not even look at me, he stares at me constantly. It is from afar so no one else notices his haunting gaze. We are in the center of the desert circle amidst other darklings when I see him again. He leans against a hut with his eyes trained on me, hunger permeating his features. Lana is going on a hunting trip with a few of the other darklings that enjoy killing sprees as much as she. Louis is going with them so, I tell Lana that I will stay back here in case Finn returns. Being anywhere around Louis makes the hairs on my neck stand up. I cannot tell her because her worry is not something I want.

  Later back in our hut she senses my mood. “Are you sure you’re okay here by yourself?” she asks. Lana vibrates with excitement to get into the forests. She wants to hunt and kill.

  “I will be fine. I want to be here just in case.” It is not a lie. “I can protect myself.” It is a lie. Though, with Louis going with the hunting party I will not need to worry about protecting myself. I pick up my knife and toss it into the air. I smoothly catch the handle and smile. Lana smiles back at me.

  “You are such a freak,” she says sweetly as she exits our hut and lets the door slam behind her. I immediately walk behind her and latch the wobbly lock without putting down my knife. I do not put it down when I eat some of the new vegetables out of Lana’s sack. I still do not release it when I lay down on the scant floor pallet and fall asleep.

  An unusual noise jolts me from a deep, sound sleep. Louis kneels at the foot of my pallet, dangling Lana’s sack of vegetables from one finger.

  “Do you know what the punishment for stealing is in our circle?” he asks. I quickly sit up as my heart starts hammering in my chest. My knife is no longer in my grasp and I realize I have released it in my sleep. I pat around the pallet for it and am unable to locate it. Knowing it is gone I slowly bring my gaze up to meet his. Louis’s smile transforms into a sneer as he brings my knife out from around his back. He holds it up in his other hand. It is not until I realize I am defenseless against the male darkling that terror sets in. I know why he is here. I know exactly what he wants.

  “Where is Lana?” I ask, knowing full well she is out hunting.

  “She is deep in the forest, killing. She won’t be back for some hours. It gives us plenty of time to do everything I’ve been fantasizing about doing.” He drops the brown sack to the ground and I watch as the carrots bounce across the dusty floor.

  “Because you stole from my circle, Finn’s order of protection means nothing.” Louis sheathes my knife in his leg holster and pulls his sweaty shirt over his head. I scoot back further on my pallet and the wall stops me. My gaze takes his whole body in. He is the second male darkling I have ever seen. The curiosity to kno
w what he looks like wars with the feelings of dread that roil my stomach. Though his appearance is somewhat pleasing, I am not interested in him at all. I want to disappear from this place. I want Lana. I want Finn more.

  “We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. Take off your clothes, darkling, or I’ll cut them off you with your own blade. I won’t cut gently either—I like a little blood.” His evil smile reaches high, crinkling his eyes. It has been days since I felt my dark magic and in this moment when I call on it, it is absent. I cannot will my eyes to turn white and forcing my magic to well up is useless. The human part of me is here right now and humans are weak. I am suddenly angry at the darklings for making me helpless. I am livid they have broken their promise to protect me. I can lie back and give in to the male darkling’s wishes or I can fight.

  The human in me wants a fight.

  I scoot forward on the pallet, closer to him, and will my weak, blue eyes to appear soft and my expression submissive. I smile at him. I bite my lip. I pretend. His wolfish smile is predacious. I shudder. I am unsure how far I can take this ruse without exposing my intentions. I pull my shirt and camisole over my head and toss them away, completely baring my chest. His gaze is ravenous. His chest rises and falls at a more harried pace.

  “I want to do this the easy way. I want you,” I say, imitating the purr I hear so often from the other female darklings. He firmly rubs his hand down the front of his pants, over the growing bulge there.

  I turn my head to hide the violent fear and loathing I know is streaking across my face. I try to will my magic up one more time as he creeps toward me unbuttoning his pants, but it eludes me. I only need to reach my knife—it is the only way to end this.

  “Wait,” I say, holding both my palms out in front of me. He pauses, but he slits his eyes warily and cocks his head in question. “I want to take them off,” I whisper. I stretch my hand out toward his pants. My arm visibly shakes. I edge closer. He does not speak or stop me. I touch the top of his jeans where the button resides and his breathing stops altogether. He brings his hands up to touch my breasts and I wince away, unable to withstand his disgusting hands on my bare body. I grasp once in a futile attempt to release my knife from his holster and fail. It is firmly snapped into place.