Lady of the Night

Chapter One

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     A CAR HORN BLARES AS I go sailing past, barely a breath away from its side. The echo of it follows as I push faster on the skate board, my chest flailing with the effort to stabilise my breathing.

Another car beeps it's horn as I come skimming in front of its path, cutting it short. I throw back a measly wave in apology, too focused on arriving at my destination on time. Already, I can feel the weight of my tardiness frowning upon me — or maybe that's the image of my teacher's eyes as they grace me with another detention. Either way, I sense my doom blooming on the horizon.

I skid into the parking lot, clustered with a variety of cars; some brand spanking new with predatory gleams (those designed to flaunt its rich features), or you get the odd few that are plastered in little scratches and dents. Internally, I hope I don't add to those dents as I dangerously push myself faster to get to the main entrance, zipping in between parked cars and empty spaces.

I'm never usually this late. I have a despicable habit for being typically late, but not abhorrently late like now.  Usually I pride myself on how easily I conformed to such mundane standards — I hardly ever use my abilities when doing simple things anymore, after discovering it's too wasteful. Also, in fear that it will dismantle my perfect, completely 100% human charade.

As I leap from the skate board and snatch it up from the ground, I tug my hoodie down so that it sheaths the markings decorating my arm. They're the markings of my abilities. Powers given to me through my Dad's heritage— specifically demonic abilities.

Each marking represents a different power: the more you have, the stronger you are. And I happen to possess all of them; fire, water, telepathy, telekinesis, earth, ice and electricity.

I didn't believe it myself when my Mom first told me. She quite literally had to shake the truth into me so I could absorb it, so it could really sink into the marrow of my bones. The truth that I'm a Cambion, and somewhere in my ancestry line there was a full-blooded demon, and their powers have latched onto the genes in my family, infecting our DNA so it becomes mutated and warped. These have been passed down through generations until coming to me. Now, I'm stuck hiding my true identity in order to preserve my safety. One wrong move and my entire defences could collapse, and I'd be open to any threats.

Being a Cambion is fucking hard work — almost as hard as keeping up with school schedules.

A long breath flushes from my mouth as I break through the entrance doors. I don't dare look at Meredith, the receptionist. Her scathing, beady glare is often quite displeasing to the eye even on a good day. If I were to look at her now I might actually quiver and turn to stone.

I glance at the time to see that first period is almost over. It kindles a small ember of dread to flicker in my stomach, but I persevere. There's no point in going to first period, so I head to my locker to retrieve my things. In my head I'm trying to conjure a bunch of ways I can weasel my way out of detention.

"Classic, Emmy," I mutter in frustration, stomping to my locker and opening it a little too aggressively. Due to the force I used to open it, a single picture comes fluttering out, drifting slowly to the ground.

Sighing, I bend down to pick it up and when I do, I feel the significance of it burn through my eyes, siphoning too many emotions that I'd smothered. It's a picture of me, surrounded by my Mom and my older brother, Percy. I was ten at the time, he was twelve; the memory of when this was taken surfaces vividly in the pools of my mind, and I fish it out, holding onto the bait tightly as if it's a lifeline — my only lifeline.

It was just a few months before the accident which stormed its way into my life and left the remains scattered like broken glass. The accident is the catalyst as to why I'm forced to conceal myself alone, without the comfort of my family, because that day my Mom died and my twelve year old brother went missing – I was ten years old.