And then I stabbed him.
I pulled the pencil out of his neck and stabbed him again. I put every ounce of terrified adrenaline I had into it, pushing it halfway through his throat. I’d felt the pencil poking me in the back of the neck where I’d stuck it in my hair after I got out of the shower, as Tommie carried me through the trees. Now, blood dribbled and then spurted from the wounds, and I’d bet money I’d hit an artery.
Furious, he slapped me. I flew three feet and crumpled to the ground, the world going in and out of focus as I struggled to remain conscious.
Gasping in air, I looked up and saw that Adrian, far from being knocked out, had hooked his fingernails into the punctures I’d made in his father’s neck. I looked down again just as he jerked his hand, but I couldn’t stop myself from hearing the skin rip away in a flopping, juicy mass. Terror made me open my eyes again and watch. Neck half gone, his father still managed to grab Adrian by the throat and lift him off the ground.
“Idiot child,” Tommie roared. “You don’t even know what you’re fighting for.”
He held his hand out and Adrian flew into the air. The trees whipped into a frenzy and I felt a massive wind pulling at my hair, tearing at my clothes. It shrieked toward Tommie, diverting at the last second to push up against Adrian, to hold him in the air.
Tommie looked up at his son, expressionless. “I suppose you won’t know what you’re dying for, either.”
My mind was perfectly blank—I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do. I had no idea Adrian’s father was capable of these kinds of things—I had no idea that any of this was possible.
My brain sputtered into action, sluggishly sorting through options. If I threw anything at Tommie, it would just get sucked up into the vortex and hit Adrian. If I stayed still, eventually Adrian would be killed. If I got too close, I would get swept up into the same weird wind tunnel that was holding Adrian immobile in the air. There was nothing I could do. As always, there was absolutely nothing I could do.
And that seriously pissed me off.
I was sick of being helpless. Sick of watching the people I loved die quickly or slowly but always painfully. Sick of standing by.
I was enraged—familiar, beautiful rage.
But then Adrian’s voice came back to me, dancing in the back of my mind—something important, something crucial. What had he said, about Tommie? It was only a few minutes ago. What had he said?
Something about love. Tommie …
Tommie couldn’t feed off love. He wouldn’t use it.
But Adrian could.
Rage was useful, rage had seen me through a lot, but at the moment, it was literally fueling the psychopath who was hurting one of the only people I really cared about.
So I let it go.
And instead, I remembered.
I remembered my mom, and how much she’d given up for me. I remembered how happy my dad had been; how full his life was. And I remembered Adrian. I remembered meeting him, in the library. I remembered when he brought me home and made me toast and tucked me into bed. I remembered night after night sleeping next to him, feeling for the first time in my life that I was completely and utterly safe.
Adrian’s eyes, flickering dimly, suddenly flared back into life.
“I love you,” I whispered, looking straight at him, forgetting about Tommie altogether. He was forty feet away, he couldn’t possibly hear me, but he looked at me as if my voice was as clear as day.
The silver blossomed into a flood of light so bright that everything faded and lost color. I continued to stare at Adrian suspended in midair and whispered again, “I love you.”
There were no shadows. Everything was white. I couldn’t see the stars or the grass or my hand in front of my face, even though my eyes were wide-open.
“I love you so much, you stupid boy.”
The roar of the wind faded until it was completely silent, with nothing but the ringing in my ears and the cold sting of the snow beneath my hands and knees to remind me we were still on earth.
And then—abruptly—it was dark.
I felt someone rush past into the forest, the stench of burning flesh trailing after them. My eyesight lagged, strobing under the disorienting glare of the stars overhead. I looked toward where I’d last seen Adrian, but white dots took up most of my vision, and for a panicked second, I couldn’t find him.
Then my vision cleared, finally, and landed on a dark, motionless figure in the grass. I ran, but it felt like a dream, like the distance between us could never be crossed.
But I did reach him. He was facedown in the snow, completely still. The back of his skull was sticky with congealing blood. Shaking uncontrollably, I grabbed his shoulders and rolled him over. His eyes were closed, his face was drenched in blood; more was trickling out of his mouth, and his black shirt was wet.
Trembling, I gently pulled it up.
And then I turned my head and threw up.