His statement paved the way to the quietest, tensest road trip I’d ever been on. Ben slept through most of the trip. I envied him; as hard as I tried, I was unable to get a wink of sleep throughout the entire drive home.

Their home. Not mine.

It wasn’t until we reached their house that I managed to pull Lyle over to the side and ask him the question that’d been bothering me since I saw them.

“Did my dad know I was gone?” Did he care?

The look on Lyle’s face was heartbreaking. “The checks came on schedule.”

I knew what that meant. It didn’t matter if my father knew or not. As far as Aiden Claremont was concerned, when it came to his daughter, everything was just business as usual. His fatherly obligation toward me apparently started and ended with the quarterly checks he sent the Hudsons.

I didn’t know why I was surprised. From the moment my mother went insane and he shipped her away from home, he married his work as the founder of what was then a small home security agency that eventually developed into a larger business. Truth be told, the sums he was sending the Hudsons to care for me were really just scraps considering what he was actually worth. He was a filthy rich, miserable excuse for a father.

As if throwing me a bone of consolation, Lyle awkwardly rubbed my back. “The Aiden I used to know adored you.”

Yeah? Introduce him to me once you find that version of him again. I just smiled back at Lyle. It wasn’t right for me to take my frustration out on him. From my perspective, he lost a best friend the day I lost a father.

Amelia kept me busy working with her in the kitchen, making dinner for the rest of the evening. Dinner was tense. Abby was the only one who seemed to be in a light and bubbly mood. We tried to oblige her, but none of us ever really managed to ease the sense of friction soaking the atmosphere.

That night, I tossed and turned in my bed, unable to sleep. I kept my eyes shut. I thought of escaping The Shade many times while I was there. At the back of my mind, I had some vague idea about exposing The Shade and freeing all its human prisoners. That was what I thought I’d be doing now, after leaving the island. Instead, I went back to California, had dinner with the Hudsons and talked – rather uncomfortably – about going back to school.

I had to force myself not to laugh when Amelia said she expected Ben and me to return to school immediately. I looked at Ben for a reaction, but he kept still. He said nothing about it. He’d just seemed dazed and out of his element since we got back.

I was convinced that I would spend the rest of the night obsessing about what living with the Hudsons for the next few years would be like, when I heard a knock. I sat up in my bed and found Ben pushing my door open.

“Hey…”

“I just…” He seemed genuinely embarrassed to be there. “Do you mind sleeping with me in my bed? I’d rather not be alone…”

I needed no further prodding. I got up, grabbed my pillow and blanket and followed Ben. We snuck through the hallway until we reached his bedroom. We snuggled against each other beneath the sheets, but I couldn’t shake away the thought that it provided me none of the security and comfort that I had with Derek.

Even together, Ben and I stayed up way into the night afraid of the nightmares sleep would surely bring.

“Mom wants to drive to school tomorrow, see what we have to do to catch up…”

“You’re actually willing to go through with this high school thing?”

“I think I owe it to my parents – even to myself I guess – to at least try. Besides, what else are we going to do?”

It was another small glimpse of the Ben I used to know – the Ben who loved his parents and loved being the popular hotshot in high school. To be given the chance to once again see that side of him was the only reason I said, “High school it is then.”

There was a long pause, with both of us mulling over our own muddled up thoughts.

I eventually broke the silence. “Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

He didn’t ask why. He knew. “They did something to you at The Shade, Sofia. I don’t know what, but I hope you eventually break out of whatever they did and finally see sense. I’ll wait until graduation. After that, I’m going to take revenge on the island, and I’m going to do it whether you’re with me or not.”

I didn’t know how he intended to do it, but I knew he meant every word. The coldness in his voice terrified me, but not as much as the fact that I suddenly felt an almost animalistic urge to protect The Shade – no matter what.

It didn’t make sense to me at all, but perhaps Ben was right. They must’ve done something to me at The Shade, because no matter how far away from the island I was, I remained its captive, and it felt like there was nothing I could do about it.

The Shade became a part of me and destroying it felt equivalent to destroying myself.

CHAPTER 14: DEREK

The Great Dome was a large, round hall located at the topmost level of the Crimson Fortress’ west tower. It earned its name due to the dome-like, cavernous structure of its ceiling. It was never officially declared as the main center of all our governmental, judicial and military gatherings, but it became just that over the years.

The dome was designed to show the hierarchy of The Shade’s Elite. Across the large oak doors, right at the front end of the room, the balcony stood. It had four seats – on a pedestal three feet above the ground was my father, the king’s seat. To its right, two feet above was my seat. On either side of mine were Vivienne’s and Lucas’ seats, situated one foot above the ground.

At the very center of the room was a round stage which served as “the stand” for whomever was addressing the council or being placed under trial.

On either side of the stand and facing the balcony were twenty seats that included one representative for each of the Elite’s vampire clans. Above and surrounding the council seats were seventy-five seats arranged in an amphitheater-styled setting reserved for the Elite. Rarely was anyone who wasn’t a member of the Elite brought to the Great Dome – unless to stand trial.

When I first paid the dome a visit, it was easy to see that it had rarely been used over the years, which left a lot to be said about how the kingdom was being run in my absence.

I tasked Vivienne with the responsibility of modernizing the dome, since with all the changes I planned to execute in the kingdom, we were going to use the place a lot more. Given her keen eye for design and knack for getting things done, it took her five and a half days to accomplish the task.

It was the same basic structure, but brought right into the twenty-first century, with flat screen monitors, and updated sound equipment. She completely refurnished the room – the ancient-looking thrones were replaced with comfortable recliners that still looked elegant and regal. Arguably the best alteration to the hall, however, was replacing the staccato roof with clear glass, so that the moon and stars always shone down on the hall.

After almost “murdering” the majority of the Elite Council, as Cameron so aptly put it, I found myself comfortably perched on my recliner on the balcony, staring up at the dark sky. I was waiting for the council to show up, so we could discuss the results of the census.

Eli was placed in charge of the census and since he was still trying to recover from the physical ordeal I put him through, he requested that we postpone the meeting for an hour. The request initially irritated me, but I figured he deserved the break. Not knowing what to do with my time, however, and not really up to spending it at my penthouse, dodging questions from the girls, I decided to go to the dome ahead of everyone else.

I’d only been there for a couple of minutes when Vivienne showed up.

“Derek.” She said my name flatly.

That almost always translated into trouble. “You did a great job with this place, Vivienne.”

“Yes. You’ve told me several times.” She climbed her way up to the balcony, right up to my level.

One look into her eyes was enough to tell me that we were in trouble. I could have sworn I saw a dark gray haze stirring right at the center of her pupils. Deeply bothered, I stood up and brushed a hand over her shoulder.

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

She looked up at the night sky. The last time I saw that same fear in her eyes was centuries ago after the victory of First Blood. I followed her gaze, hoping to see what it was that she was so afraid of. All I saw was hundreds of stars illuminating the beautiful night sky.

Vivienne uttered four words that immediately triggered a flood of haunting images the moment they escaped her lips. The hundred years that led to the establishment of The Shade revisited me in wave after wave of deeply buried memories – the shipwreck, the lighthouse, the caves, First Blood, the slaves, the wall, the beasts, the uprising, the massacre, the spell and finally, sanctuary. I could hear the screams of the dead crying out from the very foundations upon which The Shade was built. The deafening sound was followed by the guilt I would never in a thousand lifetimes be able to escape.

I shifted my gaze from the vast heavens back to the storms raging behind my sister’s whirling eyes. It was only then I realized that when she said those four words, summoning the ghosts of my past to come back and haunt me, she was no longer looking at the sky.

She was looking straight at me.

Her words?

“The darkness is coming.”

CHAPTER 15: SOFIA

The darkness is coming.

The words from my recurring nightmares kept echoing in my ears. Eerie and ghost-like, haunting me wherever I went. I had no idea whose voice the words belonged to, but I knew that it had something to do with The Shade, something to do with Derek.

I was sitting cross-legged on one of the cushioned seats inside our school library. My elbows were leaning over the dark mahogany table. My fingers drummed over the book I was trying – and failing – to comprehend. Apart from the librarian shuffling her feet over the carpeted floor and the rustling of a page being turned by one of the students a couple of tables away from me, the library was quiet.