Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
DAKOTA
A loud noise ripped me from sleep, my eyelids flying open as I sat straight up in bed, heart hammering as if I’d been running, like my body already knew something my mind didn’t.
My eyes darted around my pitch black bedroom, my brain struggling to figure out what it was that’d just woken me up, and why I was so panicked about it. The gears in my skull whirred as my pulse moved shakily through me.
Maybe it was Mason or Micah at the door? A knock?
No.
Something felt wrong about the way I’d woken up. A knock, even if it startled me, wouldn’t make me this unsettled.
I was hardly breathing as I waited, perfectly silent, completely paranoid. If it was somehow either of them, they would knock again—or pick the lock and come in without my permission. My fingers gripped my comforter tighter, a bad feeling in my stomach.
I looked around the room again, squinting through the dark.
Shadows pooled and stretched in my bedroom, splayed over all my dirty clothes on the floor and the half-empty plastic water bottles lined up on my dresser.
Dim silvery light glinted off the glass bottle of vodka still lying on its side on the carpet.
I hadn’t touched it since the night Micah came over and found me trying to drown myself in it.
I’d been so upset that day, so fucking overwhelmed by everything; my brother texting me, the fact that Mason and Micah were angels—fallen angels, the general declining state of my life.
I hated thinking about it. Hated thinking about Micah watching me cry so hard that I threw up on the carpet in the hallway.
I reached for my phone on my nightstand, yanking it off the charger and powering it on, the dim screen glowing through the darkness.
The notifications on my screen only served to make me feel worse.
More late assignments, more texts from my lab group I’d never responded to, more reminders of all the ways I was letting everything slip through my fingers.
My thumb flicked over the cracked screen to turn on the device’s flashlight, and I shone it around the room for good measure.
As suspected, there was nothing. No figure crouching in the dark corners or hunched over behind my dresser.
The door to my bedroom was closed, but I couldn’t see any light on the other side, couldn’t hear any sound.
After another minute of sitting there staring at nothing, I turned the flashlight off and laid my head back on my pillow.
Not ten seconds after I’d closed my eyes, I heard something. Footsteps.
On the roof.
My eyes snapped back open and I instantly was crawling out of my bed towards my bag hanging on the doorknob, snatching my knife with a shaky grip. The footsteps were moving towards my bedroom, ominous and loud above my head. Heavy boots on metal, rubber thudding on the flat surface.
I couldn’t think of any reason there would be a person on the roof of my trailer in the middle of the night—at least not any good reasons.
I fumbled with my phone as I laid flat on my stomach and slid my body under my bed.
There was enough room under my bed for me to lay underneath it relatively comfortably, even though I was surrounded by dusty unpaired socks and more plastic water bottles.
The footsteps halted and my eyes instinctively flicked upwards, staring at the corner of my ceiling, tears starting to sting my eyes.
How mad is Micah? Too mad to come help me?
Is Mason mad?
Thinking about Micah’s words in my ear made me feel a paralyzing sort of shame. He’d known about me and Mason the entire time, known all the ways I’d been unfaithful to him.
So I decided to take my chances with the latter, pressing on Mason’s contact and hitting the button to call him. Trembling, I held my phone up to my ear, turning the volume all the way down so I would be able to hear any other sounds coming from the roof.
It rang…and rang…
Voicemail.
My heartbeat stuttered, chest clenching tight.
It was dead silent in my bedroom again, so quiet I could hear myself breathing, hear the sound of my hair dragging on the carpet as I maneuvered further under my bed.
I stared at the corner of the window I could see, watching the pitch black sky through the gap on the side of the broken blinds.
I called Mason again.
It rang…and rang…
“Dakota?”
“Fuck,” I choked out, barely a whisper, feeling lightheaded with relief. “I need you to come to me.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there. What’s happening?” he asked. I could hear some rustling on his end of the call, then the sound of a door shutting.
“Something is wrong.”
“What is it?”
I sucked in a breath as the footsteps started again, right over my bed. Tears welled in my eyes and tipped over my cheeks. I gripped my knife tighter in my hand, flicking the blade out with my thumb.
“Someone is on the roof,” I breathed, shaking.
“On your—”
“Mason you need to hurry,” I cut him off, my mouth dry and my eyes wide, tears gliding silently down my face in the dark.
The footsteps stopped and my heart started pounding even harder.
I flinched as something fell past the window.
Large and fast, a black smear against the backdrop of night.
I heard it hit the ground outside my trailer with a thud.
Mason was saying something else, but I couldn’t hear him over the rush of blood in my ears, over the sheer, primal fear overtaking my entire body.
Two glowing eyes were staring in my window through the crack in the blinds.
Not reflective, not like an animal. But glowing.
Gold.
I shrank back further under my bed, barely holding my terrified sobs inside, my exhales coming out choppy and uneven.
They were the same eyes I’d seen in the woods on my walk, the same ones that I’d run away from earlier because of the unnatural feeling they’d given me.
Standing at human height and piercing the darkness.
Micah’s words echoed in my brain.
He hunts demons, Dakota.
They were words I’d never thought much about until this moment, cowering under my bed, gripping my small knife like it would save me. If angels were real, and I knew two of them…
What else is real?
The eyes shifted to the side, the demon tilting its head to see better through the gap at the side of my blinds. I couldn’t tell if it was looking at me because the eyes didn’t have pupils. Two golden orbs, tilted to be stacked vertically, peering into the darkness of my bedroom, looking for me.
I glanced down at my phone, seeing that Mason hadn’t hung up despite the fact that I’d been ignoring the past twenty things he’d said.
The demon shifted its head again, like it was really looking, trying to figure out if I was in the bedroom. Silently, I turned my phone off and laid it face down on the ground, eliminating the dim light from the screen, eliminating any sound from Mason’s voice through the speakers.
My fingers were twitching.
In an instant, the glowing eyes disappeared, replaced by blackness.
Only a moment later, I heard my front door opening.
My back teeth clenched tight together and I shoved myself all the way to the wall, not breathing. Footsteps were fast down the hall towards my bedroom and the door flung open.
“Dakota?”
At the sound of Mason’s voice, a terrified sob burst out of me and fresh tears flooded my face. He crouched down and looked under the bed, concern all over his features.
“What are you doing under your bed?” He reached an arm under, grabbing my hand and helping pull me out from under the frame.
I was shaking so badly I could hardly get my words out.
Mason brushed some dust off my sleeve, holding me in front of him.
He wasn’t wearing a shirt, making me think he’d just flown here.
“There were glowing eyes,” I whispered, then pointed to the window. “Golden—”
“Call Micah,” he cut me off before I could say another word, his voice urgent. His grip tightened on my upper arms, fingers digging in. “Call Micah right now.”
“What’s going on?” I asked as he sat me on my bed. Mason turned and went to the window, yanking the blinds up so he could see out while I navigated to Micah’s contact. I hesitated for a second, knowing he was mad at me, but then my thumb pressed the screen to call him.
He answered right away.
“I’m almost there.”
“To my place?” I questioned, confused, sitting up straighter in my bed.
“Yes. Tell Mason he can go.”
I had no idea what the fuck was going on, how they both seemed to understand the entire situation in so few words.
I drew my knees up to my chest, staring at the huge scars on Mason’s back, still clutching my knife in my shaking grip.
His fingers flexed, tightened into fists.
My tangled hair was hanging all the way down to my comforter, almost long enough to sit on as I kept the phone pressed to my cheek.
But Micah hung up without saying anything else, so I dropped my phone on the mattress.
“Micah said you can go,” I informed Mason then wiped the tears still running down my cheeks. Whatever that means. Maybe Mason was going to hunt the demon now. “He’s almost here.”
“Okay.” He turned back and walked over to me, holding the side of my face. “You’re going to be okay, baby. I’ll see you at his house. Alright?”
I barely got a chance to nod before he was rushing out of my trailer, door slamming behind him.
I saw headlights coming down the road, but I didn’t move from where I was curled up in a ball on my mattress, still trembling.
Micah entered the front door a minute later, then came into my bedroom and scooped me up into his arms.
“Do you need to pack anything for tonight?” he asked.
“My medications.” I could probably go without everything else.
Micah, like Mason, now had purchased things for me to keep at his house so I could shower and get ready for the day.
And I didn’t really care about bringing my school backpack because I didn’t have the energy to care about my classes right now.