He thought that over for a moment and settled with, “A little amusing.” And then he shrugged. Shrugged.

“I thought we were-“ I shook my head quickly and steeled my expression.

He barked out a rough laugh and when his eyes found mine again they were dancing with sinister disbelief. “You thought what? You thought we were friends?”

“No,” I growled. “I thought you were less of a disgusting piece of trash than your associates.” I tossed my head toward the beach and waited for him to say anything that would allow me to believe he wasn’t as horrible as he seemed right now. I didn’t like Jude, I wouldn’t ever like Jude. But I had come to a see a side of him that wasn’t completely repulsive and saturated with evil. I had hoped there was a modicum of difference between the monster I knew was Aliah and the kidnapped, forced-into-Darkness Jude.

Jude’s expression froze into a mask of hatred. “You don’t know anything about me. And by the looks of it, you never will. I couldn’t care less if you want to insult me, Starling, but you do well to acknowledge you have never known, nor will you ever know anything about me.”

“Fair enough.” I drew back my sword acknowledging that it was doing nothing to intimidate Jude and that he was right. I really didn’t know anything about him. “But let’s remember why you’re here in the first place. They,” I gestured toward the beach with one of my swords, “can’t touch me. Evil or not, that contract means something binding. They can’t kill me.”

He stepped forward in air, just as easily as if he were walking on the solid ground. His black aura seemed to suck all the light from around him. It wasn’t a color that surrounded him, but rather a lack of color. And this was different than before. A switch had flipped and I knew without a doubt I was the one who turned it. His Fallen soul couldn’t sustain the Light that he was born with, except on the very edges. Just where the dark atmosphere surrounding him met the normal, non-tainted air, there was a brilliant gold outline that shone brighter than even my inner Light. It was like pure, solid gold, almost blinding in its intensity. When we were only inches away from each other, he met my angry stare with dead, vacant eyes.

“There are other ways to die than physical death, Stella.” His words were rough, grating on my skin. And the words were a promise- spoken from experience and conviction.

I tore my gaze from his and looked back at my parents and friends. He was right. They couldn’t kill me.

But the Fallen, Aliah… Seven…. even Seth could kill them.

What would be worse than my own death? Losing everyone I cared about.

I spun around so that my back was to Jude and looked down at Seth as he stood next to Aliah- at his right hand. Seven on the other side. Twenty-five Fallen at their sides and a horde of Shadows at their feet.

They were waiting for us.

And we would engage.

It was in our nature. We couldn’t not fight them.

“Stella,” my dad rasped. “Don’t let what happens down there damage you.” My eyes filled with tears as he fought for composure. He was waging an internal battle of raw anger, battle-readied with insane focus and fear- for me, for my mom…. for Seth. “Do what you have to do. You can survive whatever happens here. I know that you can. It’s why you were chosen above everyone else for this task.”

His words were like daggers of truth, slicing open my veins and infusing my blood with their powerful reality. I nodded because my throat had dried out and then closed up. Words failed me.

No matter how wrong and deranged this situation was, this was my future, my destiny. Not because it was elaborately planned by some greater imperial force than me, but because this was the only way for me to move forward in time. Fate could be this confusing cosmic what-if, or it could be what I chose to make of it with the circumstances I was given. This was my destiny because I was making it my destiny. The outcome wasn’t decided yet, but whatever happened, I would choose how I came out.

And cutting immense thoughts and ideas down to those simplistic terms made me feel in control again- made me confident that I couldn’t just control what happened to me, but what happened to everyone.

“I love you,” I looked at my dad and then to my mom. “I love you too, Mom.”

She immediately echoed my words and so did my dad. I adjusted the grip on the hilts of my katanas and swung them around a few times, keeping my wrists loose and ready. I nodded at Serena, smiled at Nate- who looked stronger than ever since his chest healed, and then met Jupiter’s firm expression. He was the only one of us that didn’t light up when we took flight and it was still weird to me to see a normal-looking human hovering in the air without anything aiding him.

He wasn’t exactly normal though, since he was completely healed from his burn wounds, not a scar in sight. He could blend in with humanity, but like us, he would never be a part of it.

I was a Star, but Jupiter was a for-real alien. Was I the only person that felt weird about that?

My attention returned to the beach and I struggled to swallow my real, bone-deep fear.

We had no choice but to fight the Fallen below. There were too many of us to disappear into the sky. If we moved as fast as we needed to get away before they could chase us, we would destroy the planet we were fighting to save. And I had no doubt they would pursue us. They came here to fight. Besides where would we take them? Back to Mead? Not acceptable.

We were brought here for a purpose and we were prisoners to how this would play out now. And there was still the chance that Seth needed me, that he was still in trouble.

I didn’t have time for another thought, though, because Serena took off for the ground like a bullet and I was nose-diving before I could even entertain another insecure thought.

We landed directly in the middle of the large group of Fallen. I was the last to land, because I was the slowest, and my tennis-shoe clad feet sunk into the grainy sand immediately. I kept my swords at my sides, mimicking the stances of everyone else around me, even while instinct screamed inside me to raise them, to start swinging before a single word was uttered between our two sides.

There was something I knew acutely, something I had learned over the last several months that I hadn’t taken seriously before. While weapons were deadly, dangerous and all-in-all bad news, the most debilitating weapon of all wasn’t a sword or knife, it was words.

Aliah, Seven, even Seth, especially Seth, had the power to strip me with their words until I was a useless, weeping victim, if I let them. And I couldn’t let them. While my soul was on the line here, it was my parents’ lives that hung in the balance of this fight- my friends, my mentors, my Counterparts.

“Welcome,” Aliah grinned at me specifically.

And we were off.

“What is this?” I asked in a weak, embarrassing voice.

Aliah glanced around and then back to me with pretend confusion. “What, this?”

“Yes, this,” I groaned. “I was at prom. This couldn’t have waited?” And I had been at prom- just an hour ago. Although because of the time difference and the early morning sun here, it felt like an entire night had passed instead of just sixty minutes.

It was warmer on the ground. The wind changed from the iciness of the sky to a warm, balmy ocean breeze that wrapped around my skin like a melody. It was darker down here too, but I felt that had more to do with the black auras of the Fallen spread out around us than the actual time of day.

“I have a problem,” Aliah explained with a twist to his full lips, hidden in his manicured beard.

“Just one?” I snipped.

Aliah ignored me. And continued, “I signed this little contract as a formality, an incentive to procure something I had been working on for a very long time. Because of the terms of the contract, I hadn’t anticipated it being quite the thorn in my side that it’s turning out to be. It’s time for me to tie up some loose ends.”

Until that moment I had refused to look at Seth, refused to meet his golden amber gaze and see the emptiness I was positive was there. I refused to see his beautiful body, his perfect face, and familiar mouth, bending and breaking at the will of someone so evil.

But I couldn’t stop myself; I couldn’t hold back my heart anymore. I flicked my gaze to Aliah’s right and met the startling, livid, loathing eyes of the one man I loved so fully. My soul shattered in that moment, broke apart into thousands, millions of destroyed pieces as I saw the utter hatred in Seth’s expression. There was such a strong, aching pain in the area where my heart used to reside that I couldn’t breathe through it, couldn’t see through the flood of tears in my eyes.

The thing I had been most afraid of had happened. Gone was whatever was left of Seth’s purity and innocence, and in its place was the soulless shell of a man that now hated me, me the reason he suffered, the reason he had lost that vital, good part of himself.

Me the reason all had been taken from him.

“As it turns out, I’m not the only one anxious to move on from the stipulations of our agreement,” Aliah continued. He was addressing me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Seth. And as Aliah spoke, Seth’s jaw clenched with a hard determination. He raised his swords as if he were anxious to get on with this. “We are bound by blood,” Aliah continued, “but not for long.”

And then all hell- almost literally- broke out.

Aliah issued one last command, “Leave the Starling for the boy!”

And then the quiet of the peaceful morning was ripped to violent, bloody shreds as sword after sword clashed together in a frenzy of bloodlust and mutual hatred.

Thinking quickly and impulsively, I dashed away from Seth and into the far side of the crowd. The Fallen couldn’t kill me, but I could kill them. In fact, the only person that could hurt me was Seth, and while I had no doubt he intended to not just hurt me, but kill me, I could at least delay his fun.

And in the process, I could hopefully help out my family and friends.

It was easy to distinguish true Angels from the Fallen, as every one of us lit up with the power of our Light, our skin turning to that pure brilliancy, the rays of our inner beings reaching well beyond us. I engaged with whoever was close to me. I felt how they held back just enough for me to get the upper hand. They had to defend themselves at the same time honor this stupid contract.

And while I fought, I noticed Jude slip away on the beach. He just walked away from this like it had nothing to do with him, like he wasn’t the one that brought us here. Somehow fighting off the female Fallen in front of me, I watched as Jude pulled a cigarette from his back pocket, light it and just continue to walk. His feet made indents in the wet sand near the shoreline as he went, only to be washed away by the next crash of waves. And he just went on like that, casual and uncaring, smoke puffing from his mouth and into the air next to his head as he went.

Nobody seemed to care and I wasn’t going to call him out, although I was dying to know why he wasn’t fighting with his evil brethren. I glanced over at Aliah who was standing back from the group as well, Seven at his side, watching with fascinated interest as the battle raged on.