2. Never
“Lily?” I asked stupidly, even though I’d just watched her morph from my faithful, furry companion into a woman.
Whether she actually heard me or not was debatable. Leo—the sun kissed, surfer boy Adonis—had her wrapped in a hug so tight, maybe she couldn’t hear anything.
To be fair, she was clinging to him with the same kind of desperation, like they were long-lost siblings who’d never expected to see each other again.
I shot a glance at Matty to check how he was handling, you know, everything. He was watching them too, but with a look on his face that set off tiny alarm bells in the back of my mind.
Did he see something I didn’t?
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
His attention snapped to me, eyes flickering black for less than a heartbeat before their familiar blue returned. A chill raced through me, but when I blinked, Matty was just Matty.
You’re seeing things, Never.
Which, yeah, that tracked. It had been a fucked up few days, even by my standards.
That raised another question, though: Had it really only been a few days? Hook had mentioned something about time slipping between his world and mine, but he hadn’t gotten around to explaining what that meant.
Also, the thought of him hurt.
It wasn’t a physical pain. Not the way a bruise was sensitive to touch, or the way a shock of fear prickled the skin. The ache that came with picturing Hook’s face in my mind was deep and heavy, and utterly irrational.
So, I did what I did best and buried it until I could deal with it when no one else was around.
“Matty?” I called his name again, pulling his attention from Leo and Lily. Again, for a split second, I felt like I was looking at someone else.
A growl lifted the short hairs along the back of my neck, and I whipped around to see Leo moving Lily behind him. For a big, human-looking guy, his growl had a decidedly animalistic tone to it. A little too predatory for my liking.
I moved to step in front of Matty, mirroring Leo’s protective stance, but his gaze flicked to me. “Get away from him, Never.” The warning in his voice kicked my pulse up a notch.
I threw another glance at my brother, only this time, I didn’t just imagine that flicker of black. His eyes were the color of midnight, pure pitch, from corner to corner and lid to lid.
And worse, I knew those eyes.
A sick feeling snaked through my middle. “Petra?”
“No,” Matty said, in a voice that was too low and raspy to be his.
“Never, move.” This came from the unexpectedly familiar woman standing next to Leo.
Lily. It would take me a bit to really wrap my head around that whole situation.
I eased back a step, putting a little distance between me and my brother while discreetly slipping the hand holding the pendant behind me. “Who are you?”
“It’s her shadow,” Leo said. He inched closer, swinging one muscled arm out to keep Lily behind him.
“How is that even possible?”
Matty’s chin lifted, defiance and superiority written all over that smug expression.
“You know what, it doesn’t matter. Get out of him.”
He moved slowly. We were all moving slowly, each of us waiting for someone else to act. If I’d thought for a second I might be able to grab him and rip that thing out of him, I would have. But I didn’t even know if he was still... him.
Was that really my brother’s body? If it was, was he still in there somewhere?
What if this was all one big, fucked up glamour? Or a dream?
I shook my head against that last thought. Dreams had a different feel to them. Close to reality, but not quite. Like artificial vanilla. I would give anything for this to be a figment of my exhausted imagination, but it all felt way too real.
I held up a hand, the one without the pendant, in an attempt to show the shadow I wasn’t a threat. Which wasn’t entirely true since my dagger was tucked in the back of my jeans. “Where’s my brother?”
A wicked smile twisted Matty’s lips, but he said nothing.
“What do you want?” I ground out.
The thing had to want something, right? It wouldn’t have hitched a ride in my brother’s body just for the fun of it.
His eyes narrowed, dropping to my half-hidden hand. The pendant suddenly felt like a hundred-pound weight in my grip.
“This?” I held it up, letting it dangle an inch from my fingers. “If I give you this, will you get the hell out of him?”
The pendant had done its job. It got us back to our world, and yet, the idea of giving it up hit me all wrong. It was the kind of wrong that sank into my bones, but I didn’t have the luxury of examining that feeling. Not if letting the pendant go meant getting the demon’s shadow out of my brother’s body.
“No.” Leo’s voice boomed in my small living room. “You can’t let it have that magic.”
“I can do whatever the fuck I need to do,” I said, my gaze bouncing between them.
Lily stepped around Leo, either oblivious to her nakedness or utterly unconcerned by it. “Listen to him, Never. That pendant holds too much power to let it fall into the wrong hands.” Her words were calm and rational, and for a second, I saw the companion I’d shared my entire life with. The same big, brown eyes. The same energy.
She took another step forward, and I moved instinctively, putting my body between her and Matty. Demon possession or no, no one was getting close to my brother right now. Even her.
The next thing I knew, pain exploded on the side of my head, and I was dragged to the floor, barely managing to keep hold of the damned necklace.
Matty was on me in a second, pinning me with his weight. I bucked hard, but it had almost no effect. Either I’d gotten weaker over the last few days, or the shadow had imbued my brother’s seventeen-year-old body with a hell of a lot more strength than it normally possessed.
One of his hands wrapped around my neck, while the other went for the pendant. I did the only thing I could think of and shoved my hand under my own back. It wasn’t like I could risk throwing the thing.
The move worked, sort of. The demon/shadow creature couldn’t get to it with my body on top of it, but I paid for that bit of cleverness. Matty’s weight pinned me to the floor, wrenching my shoulder painfully and smashing my fist between my back and the floor. Then my air was cut off completely.
The grip he had on my throat wasn’t a warning. He wasn’t trying to make a point or scare me. My kid brother was genuinely trying to crush my windpipe.
That terrifying realization hit a heartbeat before that deadly grip was ripped away, painfully, with those inhumanly strong fingers clawing at my sweaty skin as Leo’s big body slammed into him.
“No!” My voice was already scratchy and hoarse, but I forced it.
What if Matty was still in there? I’d talked to him in Hook’s world, right? Before this nightmare.
I couldn’t let Leo hurt him.
Leo hauled my much smaller brother up by his neck. The bellow of anger that had been pouring from Matty’s mouth dried up, and those black eyes flickered back to blue an instant before Leo hurled him into the television.
“Stop!” I dragged myself up, shoved the pendant in my pocket, and grabbed Leo’s wrist before he could stalk over and smash my poor brother to smithereens. “It’s him.” I coughed on the words, my throat already swelling from the damage Matty’s hand had inflicted. “He’s in there.”
Leo’s steps faltered, but when he looked down at me, the pity in his eyes stung. “Whatever happens, don’t let that thing get that pendant.”
I shoved him again, and this time he did back up a step. “That’s my brother, Leo.”
“No, it’s not.”
With both hands firmly planted on him, I dared a glance over my shoulder. Matty was slumped on the shitty old dresser we used as an entertainment stand, with the busted TV wedged between his back and the wall.
He wasn’t moving. If he was some powerful demonic shadow, wouldn’t he be putting up more of a fight?
“Yes, it is.” I pushed, putting a decent amount of strength into it, trying to drive Leo back. “I get that Petra’s shadow is vying for the driver’s seat, but you’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’ll let you hurt him. And what the fuck is so goddamned special about the necklace anyway?”
“It holds the power of—”
“Lily.” Leo’s voice dipped low in warning. “Watch what you say.”
She glared at him, moving around to take up a position on the other side of Matty.
I shoved him again, and this time he did back up a step. “If she knows what it is, why wouldn’t she tell me? Better yet, why won’t you tell me?”
His gaze seared into me. “It’s not for you to know.”
I turned my hopes on Lily. She might look like a stranger, but everything about her presence felt familiar. It created an unsettling conflict in my brain. “Come on.”
Instead of answering me, she narrowed her eyes at Leo. “Why can’t she know?”
“Lil, I need you to trust me on this.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! I just dragged three of the four of us into my living room from another realm with this damned thing.” I yanked the chain free of my pocket and held it up. “What, do you want it for yourself? Do you think you can make it work better?”
The immature, petty part of me wanted to hurl that stone at him. To smash it to pieces. But I didn’t. If the shadow wanted it, that meant it still had power. Maybe, just maybe, it could do more than occasionally transport unsuspecting souls to a magical realm.
Oh, and functioning as a barely passable flashlight when it felt like it.
Leo opened his mouth to answer, but anything he might have said was lost to the pain that tore through me. It started in my low back and radiated deep into my middle. I stumbled forward, barely holding onto the necklace. A growl and a crash filled the space around me, and the look on Leo’s face turned positively violent.
He caught me by the upper arms before shoving me behind him. Another deafening crash rent the air, but I barely noticed. All my attention was focused on the thing sticking out of my back.
I reached behind me, almost blacking out from the pain that accompanied twisting around. Is that... my dagger?
My knees tried to give out, but I caught the edge of the couch and managed to keep myself mostly upright. The pain was no joke, but the way the thing felt wiggling inside me damned near made me sick.
I had enough sense to jam the pendant back into my pocket before I clenched my jaw, grabbed the handle of the knife, and pulled it free. A half-grunt/half-whimper slipped through my aching teeth.
I’d never been stabbed with my own knife before. One point to Petra’s shadow, I thought darkly.
I pressed my free hand to the wound, the contact and pressure sending a wave of fire radiating through me from the spot. The blade, now slick with my blood, slipped from shaky fingers, falling silently to the carpet.
Somewhere close, a body slammed into something solid, but I couldn’t tell what. My mind was still trying to process everything, only it was failing miserably thanks to the haze of pain clouding my thoughts.
Three different voices growled and snarled, and when I finally peeled my eyes open, I caught a glimpse of Lily sailing through the air.
Holy shit. She can fly, too?
That thought lasted the heartbeat it took for her to slam into the refrigerator and slump to the floor. “Nope,” I whispered to myself, swallowing against the broken, insane part of me that wanted to laugh.
Is this what shock feels like?The muddy thoughts, the inappropriate humor. It fit.
Blood leaked down my back and leg in a thick, hot stream.
How much blood can a human body afford to lose and survive? A liter? A pint?My vision grew watery.
“Stop!” That was Matty’s voice, his real voice, and it ripped my mind out of its dark spiral.
“Matty!” I tried to scream his name, but it came out as a harsh whisper.
He was standing close to the front door like he was planning to make a run for it. Leo was on the opposite side of the room, pulling himself to his feet.
Matty pressed the heels of his palms to his temples. “Stay back.” His eyes were pinched shut, a grimace morphing his face.
“It’s okay.” I reached out a hand and eased forward. “Stay with me. Fight it.”
He shook his head again. “Stop.”
I didn’t. I wouldn’t. He was my brother, goddammit.
Then his stance changed, and I knew it wasn’t him again.
The shadow pressed a fist to Matty’s chin, tilting his head to the side until an audible pop filled the space between us. Leo and Lily took up positions on either side of me.
“We can’t let him leave,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm.
Matty’s black eyes scanned me up and down. “Give. It.” The thing sounded so freaking creepy. Deep and raspy and dangerously primitive.
I spread my arms wide, grinding my teeth as the wound in my back protested the gesture. “You want it? Come and get it.”
If I could just get my hands on him, maybe I could coax my brother back out. Maybe I could help him fight.
The shadow shot across the room with superhuman speed, driving me back several feet and smashing us both into the wall behind me. I tried to fight him, gripping his shirt and shoving, leaving my blood smeared across the fabric, but then those black eyes went blue again.
Shock and fear filled Matty’s expression. “Nev...” He reached a trembling hand down to the crimson staining his shirt. “Oh fuck.”
I wanted to tell him it was okay. That I knew it wasn’t him. I knew he would never intentionally hurt me, but the words caught in my throat.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a whisper so filled with pain it brought tears to my eyes. “So sorry.” Then he turned and darted for the door.
I lunged after him, fire licking up my back and down my leg.
Leo caught me by the shoulders before I’d made it three steps. “Never, wait.”
“Let go,” I bit out. When he didn’t, I sucked in a bracing breath and tore free of his grip.