Darkbeam Part I

Chapter 9

The last fight was hard.

Dimitri’s potion worked well.

I screamed as the wing of the Night Villain ripped off. Its blood, mixed with mine, pooled on the floor.

The emcee lifted up my arm.

I could only see part of the crowd. The rest was black. My vision was f****d.

I needed to fly, but this enchantment Dimi conjured still clung to me.

I felt trapped. Suffocated.

The crowd was cheering.

Phil and Samuel were too. I pushed Phil away the minute he laid his hands on me.

“Careful. The crowd.”

“f**k your crowd!”

“Easy, Hansel.”

“Let him go,” Samuel said. “He’ll be back. He has no choice.”

I needed the spell to release. I got a lift with a group of strangers. It was a couple of students.

The spell started to wear off while we were driving. I told them to let me out. At first they didn’t want to listen, but I barked, “If you knew what’s good for you, you’ll let me out.”

“Okay, man. Jeez, relax,” the one guy said and stopped the sportster. I ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction, toward the dark docks.

At last the spell wore off. I dove into the ocean and stayed there for a long time. I could finally breathe. Even underwater, I finally breathed.

I swam to Dragonia Academy.

My eye was still swollen, my knuckles were raw. So was my body.

Purple bruises, whether from tonight’s fight or the enchantment, covered my body. I felt broken.

Once in my room, I took a long bath. When I was done, I crashed on my bed. I felt as if I could sleep for days.

At first I dreamed of nothing, then it shifted.

I was in in the air. The stars shone brightly.

Her laughter came from above me. She was on my back, enjoying our midnight flight.

Who was she?

She knew my name, yet I didn’t know hers. She was my breath. She was the one that’d never had her first breath. Tonight’s dream made that clear. Reality seeped into the dream. My lungs grew tighter and tighter. I struggled to breathe. She didn’t exist, and she never would.

I woke up gasping for air. I couldn’t breathe.

On Monday, I was almost healed. Thanks to my healing ability. The only signs of me fighting was the shiner.

I wasn’t going to be able to dodge the questions this time.

I hadn’t dreamt about the girl again.

Now I was left with screams, haunted by the horror that I had killed my own kind.

My body shuddered each time I heard a dragon wail, and the last screech that each had made before the blow of death.

I decided to lay low and skipped class.

I worked on the “Never-Breath” poem some more.

It was coming along nicely and slowly turning into a song. I could see it being sung, but I struggled to hear the tune.

Knocks came around two-thirty. In the hall, Tabitha stood frozen.

I didn’t wait for her to say anything, just left the door open. She could either come in or f**k off. It didn’t bother me which one she chose. She came in.

“What the f**k, Blake? What happened?”

“It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Does my brother have anything to do with this?” she wanted to know. “I’m so calling his ass.”

“Don’t.” I got up and grabbed her phone. “Nobody tells me what I can and cannot do, you get that? I don’t need you to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Look at you.”

“Just leave.”

She didn’t.

The damage was already done.

Still the beast was calm. I had to deal with the consequences now. All of them.

She sat in front of me. “Talk to me. What the hell is going on?”

“I can’t,” I said. I didn’t know why I said that.

“Fine, if you are not ready, I won’t push.”

She took my head in both her hands. They were so cold. Her touch calmed down the burning in my core.

It was soothing. But then something else entirely happened. It was at first a zinging sensation on my swollen face. Then, it felt warm.

I tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let me. Her lips moved softly. I could barely hear what she was saying. Another spell.

A healing one.

How the hell did she do this?

“There,” she said. “I told you to be careful, Blake.”

“I know.” I knew if I went to the mirror I wouldn’t find a black eye anymore. Somehow she’d healed me. How, I had no idea.

She stayed with me the rest of the day. We watched movies and hardly spoke a word.

There was something about Tabitha that I couldn’t put my finger on. She calmed my soul. I still didn’t feel the way she did, but it wasn’t bad having her around either.

She could be good for me.

We fell asleep on the couch and instead of dreaming about the redhead, I dreamed about dragons screaming and dying. I killed all of them.

I startled awake and almost punched Tabitha when she put her hands softly on me.

“Easy,” she murmured.

“I’m sorry. I think you should leave,” I said and walked to the bathroom. I closed the door and struggled to fill my lungs with air.

I should’ve never fought. But what choice did I have? I had to for my family.

Who was I kidding?

I was born predestined for evil.

It was never going to be any easier, only harder. This would’ve happened eventually.

I succumbed to imaginary growls and screeches. I could understand why King Albert and my father tried so hard to bring down the Black Market. It was pure evil and it catered to pure evil.

I’d somehow fallen asleep again. I woke up and found the sun streaming into the bathroom. Relief washed over me. I hadn’t dreamed about the dragons again.

I opened the bathroom door and found a plate of food on my table.

She was too good for me.

I should tell her that, at least.

During the day I worked on “Never-Breath.”

Around six that night, I was finished.

The words took a lot out of me. Words that had the potential of a great song if I could find the right tune.

Isaac jumped into my head. I should give this to him.

The thought was hardly formed when I found myself standing on the ledge of my window.

I dove and transformed.

I felt free. The only time I really did.

I landed with a thud a few hours later at his house in the Shifters’ village. They reminded me of the Pilgrims, but they had tribes too. It was a mixture of old traditions. It boiled down to just them being plain and simple folk.

Isaac’s dad was the chief. He was a Chimera, like his daughter.

Isaac was the last giant eagle. His father wanted badly for him to take over one day.

Isaac was surprised when I turned up on his doorstep. “Blake, what the hell are you doing here?”

“That’s how you greet a bud?”

“Sorry, not what I meant, just surprised.”

“Who is it, son?” Isaac’s father’s voice came from the kitchen.

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Come in.”

The minute I entered the door I felt her. Isaacs’s sister. Ever since she was little, she did this thing whenever I came to visit. She would try to surprise attack me.

My lips curved slightly. She was good, but I always detected her hiding place right before the attack.

She leapt out and I jumped out of the way. She crashed into the staircase.

Isaac laughed. “Next time, sis.”

“Dammit.” In place of the Chimera appeared a fifteen-year-old blonde.

“Really, still?”

“Sorry… I can smell you a mile away.”

“Oh, that is not good,” Isaac teased as she ran up the stairs to get dressed.

“She has been a pain in my ass too, Blake. Wanting to know when you were going to come.”

“Well, better late than never, or so I’ve been told.”

“Blake,” Isaacs’s dad said as we entered the kitchen. “Is that you?”

“Sorry for popping in unexpectedly.”

“I just asked Isaac the other day how you were.”

“Well...” I tapped on my chest. “As you can see, I’m fine.”

“So you are. Your mother good, father?”

I nodded. Last time I checked they were.

“We’ll be in my room,” Isaac said led me to the basement, which he’d turned into his room.

It looked the same as ever, with a king-size bed in the middle of the room and a couple of instruments in the corner. His half-assed job of trying to soundproof was still evident on his walls.

I should really help him with that.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

“This.” I handed him the words scribbled on a second sheet of paper—“Never-Breath.”

For the next few minutes, Isaac was quiet as he read the words. Then he shook his head. “Dude, this is deep. Who is she?”

“Nobody. She doesn’t exist.”

“Is this how you feel?”

I shrugged. I didn’t want to tell him how pathetic I truly was. To admit that I was in love with a figment of my imagination.

“Do you think it might be linked to your Moon-Bolt?”

I laughed. “It’s just a song, Isaac. You think we’d be able to give it a tune?”

“Sure,” he said. “I need some time, though.”

“Cool. I need to get back to Dragonia. I slipped out. If Longwei catches me, he’ll never let me out of his sight again.”

Isaac chuckled. “I’ll have something for you, say, in the next week or so?”

“Got it.”

“You have a new Cammy yet?” he asked.

“Nope.” I waved goodbye.

“I will tell my sis to practice for next week.”

I chuckled and nodded. “See you soon.” I rushed up the stairs and let myself out. If there was one guy who would be able to give a tune to “Never-Breath,” it was Isaac