Burning Souls (F.T Sequel)

Chapter Nine

There's a ravaging silence during which a million emotions whizz through me. I can't move, I can't speak, I can't see anything clearly as shock consumes me whole. The cold hand still holds my wrist upright in the air in an iron grip, and I'm so won over by a frightening terror that I don't notice the bites of pain lacing through my skin. Jay's eyes are distant, cold. But he's alive, and he drops my hand as if I were poison. Blood trickles from my wrist from where his nails had dug in. I don't notice it. Silas scrambles to his feet not so far from us and narrows his eyes at me. I can feel them burning holes into the side of my face, but I still can't move a single muscle. "Let's take her and leave."

"No." Jay snarls, but what I remember to have been a silky soft voice rolling over my ears comes out as a guttural sound, like a beast's. "We stick to the plan." He rips his eyes from my face and advances on Silas. "You've delayed everything. If you hadn't been so foolish as to engage battle with her, we would have gotten out of here already, unnoticed." His words come out harsh and commanding, and Silas shrinks in his place. I don't recognise this man before me. He's lava over ice, burning your soul with fiery words but a block of hard granite nonetheless.

"Emma? Emma are you ready?" A distant voice brings me back to reality and I rip my gaze from Jay's familiar, beautiful face. Julia walks into the room, and before I can react, Jay grips me by the arms and throws me towards her. Julia stumbles back as she catches me, but by then it's already too late. Silas has slid out of the window and Jay is quick to follow. Halfway out of the border he freezes, turning his head to look at me with narrowed eyes. Something close to hatred burns there. If my heart wasn't already dead, it would have stopped altogether. But then his eyes grow even colder and a sinister smile forms on his lips. With a groan Julia straightens and reaches for her own hunter blade. I watch, frozen, as the blade whizzes through the air towards Jay. He won't be fast enough. Everything seems to slow to a stop as his eyes widen. But all I can think about is that night when he was stabbed as well by a blade similar to the one currently zooming towards him, by my own hand.

"No!" I scream, throwing myself through the air. Something sharp and piercing laces over my skin, and Julia lets out a cry as I roll to the floor, agony licking at every part of me. My eyes roll back and I see Jay slightly hesitate at the window. But then more footsteps sound down the corridor at the noise of our commotion, and he prepares to jump. He looks at me one last time, and this time, I think that I catch some of that burning hatred fade slightly. But only slightly. In a second, he's disappeared through the window, letting only the gleaming moon shine through in his place.

"Emma? Emma, why did you do that?" Julia scolds with wide eyes as she falls to her knees beside me, a glassy gaze looking down at me. I let out a scream in reply as the blade does its work: poison flows in my veins and prepares to melt me from the inside out.

"What's going on in here?" Hunter's authoritative voice booms, but its echo stops abruptly when he crosses the threshold and sees the scene in front of him. "LILY!" He shouts, and in an instant the striking girl appears by his side. He nods towards my twitching form on the ground, raging eyes sliding from me to Julia by my side. Lily lets out a sigh that could resemble annoyance, but I'm to busy screaming in pain to really notice. The vampire pushes Julia not so gently out of the way, and with two hands curled around the blade's hilt, she rips it straight out of its mark in my shoulder. The cold air lashes over the open wound and tormented scream after scream leaves my lips. "Is she going to die?" Julia asks slowly, lower lip trembling slightly. Lily fixes her with sullen eyes but shakes her head.

"She's got hunter blood in her veins, so the poison won't kill her like it would a full-blood vampire. But the wound won't heal like any other one. It'll scar, but only by human methods."