Dark Descent: The Arondight Codex - Book One by R Nicole (best books to read all time TXT) 📗

“But what about the arondight blades?”

“Those are different. Our Light activates the blade, but it doesn’t power them.”

We rounded another corner, then went down several flights of stairs.

“Romy? Have they told you anything about Jackson?” I asked, my voice echoing down the corridor.

“Not a lot,” she answered. “I guess it’s on a need-to-know basis.”

“And you don’t need to know?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t that bother you? Being kept out of the loop?”

Romy shrugged. “Sometimes, but things happen around here for a reason. If everyone knew why Jackson was locked up in the vaults, the reaction mightn’t be one that’s so… desirable.”

“Oh.” She had a point, though I wasn’t sure if highly trained soldiers would have the same pitchfork mentality as the general public.

“There’s a lot of prejudice towards anything demonic,” Romy said, glancing at me, “even amongst the Naturals.”

I thought about Wilder, how Martin and the others had talked about him behind his back. Was there such a thing as a good demon? The more I got to know him, the more I realised Wilder had a lot of secrets—his tentative position amongst the Naturals, how his eyes shone with that silver hue, and the way others treated him. It was as if he’d helped the enemy and was being punished for it.

I shivered as we walked into a hallway lined completely with a slate grey-coloured metal. I assumed it was all fancy metal because demons. The air had an eerie chill to it like a supernatural force had sucked all the warmth out. I couldn’t pinpoint what was so strange about it. Maybe it was the presence of something, more than the absence.

Hoping it wasn’t Jackson I was sensing, I tensed as Romy opened one of the dozen or so doors that lined both sides of the corridor.

I didn’t want to be the kind of friend who looked at her mutating BFF differently, so I boldly stepped into the room.

I saw him immediately. It wasn’t hard not to, considering most of the space was his cell. Bars separated us, running from the floor to the ceiling, leaving a small portion of space for visitors to stand and observe. There was no sign of an opening to the cell itself, which didn’t bode well for Jackson. How was he supposed to get out?

Turning my gaze onto Jackson, he was lying on a simple cot, the brown-coloured blankets kicked onto the door. He looked disheveled and exhausted, like he’d been awake for three days straight. There were bags under his eyes and his skin was sallow, but he looked exactly like the Jackson I remembered. If I closed my eyes and envisioned it, I could almost be fooled into thinking it was release week for one of his favourite game franchises and he’d been up all night mastering a new open world.

“Scarlett!” Jackson exclaimed, shooting to his feet.

I lumbered forward and glanced at the bars with an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

“Jackson,” I said, “are you okay?”

“I should be asking you that question.” He went to push his glasses up his nose, but he wasn’t wearing them and he almost stuck his finger in his eye.

“I feel like I’ve got an epic hangover, but I’m more worried about you.”

Jackson grimaced, then looked past me at Romy. His cheeks flushed, and he leaned closer.

“I remember everything,” he whispered.

“Everything?”

“Yeah. Unfortunately.” He shivered and blushed again. “Scarlett, I’m sorry. I really thought you were…”

“Going crazy?”

“Something like that,” he replied sheepishly, not looking me in the eye.

“Look, it doesn’t matter. What’s happening with you? Greer said you were…” I trailed off, not wanting to say it out loud.

“Mutating?” Jackson scoffed. “I’m freaking out here, Scarlett. They say I won’t turn into a monster or anything, that my outsides will still look the same, but my insides? Who knows?”

I thought about what’d happened over the last few weeks, searching for the signs I’d obviously missed while being self-absorbed. He did look different, though I wasn’t sure if it was because of the fortified bars or because he actually was changing.

At the tournament at the O2, Jackson had said his reflexes were sharper than they’d ever been, that he’d known what Zero Remorse was going to do before he did it. After the Infernal attacked us, and I’d been on the verge of collapsing, he’d suddenly remembered the Sanctum. Now his glasses were gone, and his weedy frame was filling out with muscles.

“What’s going on?” I whispered, curling my hands around the bars.

“Ramona thinks the demon who possessed me did something to my DNA,” he replied. “I’m developing an immunity to their magic or whatever it is.”

“What? What does that even mean?”

“It means we’re not going to Aruba anytime soon.”

My heart gained weight, feeling heavy at the sound of his admission. Everything was changing and nothing was certain anymore. My future and his were completely in the hands of the Naturals. I’d wanted to join them, but now I wasn’t so sure. Wilder was right about one thing, though—I wasn’t special and I wouldn’t be treated any other way… and that included Jackson.

“It hasn’t been pretty,” he murmured. “I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been poked and prodded. They even tried to flush this thing out of my system with their magic. It was the worst pain I’d ever felt, Scarlett. It’s what I imagine being struck by lightning feels like, except lightning stops after a second.”

“Oh, Jackson…”

“It’s cool. Whatever they did seems to have made it go slower.”

“But they hurt you.”

“Don’t be mad at them,” he said. “They’re trying to help, I think. Ramona wants to stop the mutation.”

“Stop it?” I asked, frowning. “What about a cure?”

“I don’t know about that. Have you seen these muscles?” He lifted his arm and flexed. A little muscle popped up and he looked so proud of it. Knowing how it developed left a bad taste in my mouth. Was there an upside to being mutated by a demon? I wasn’t so sure.

“You want to be like this?”