Caged in Darkness by J. D. Stroube Page B

close it. My bare feet touched the floor and
I felt something soft catch between my toes. I lifted my foot to
find a large black feather. I massaged it between my thumb and
finger, trying to figure out how it ended up in my room. Shrugging,
I threw it into the trash.
    The window was stuck, but it eventually gave
way and allowed me to shut out the cold. The night was beautiful.
The stars were more visible than usual and the moon was full. I
sighed at the beauty and turned to go back to sleep. The moon shone
through the glass to light up the room, but left a corner that drew
the darkness from the surrounding area to create a pit.
    The shadow straightened and moved to create
the shape of a man, which was frightening enough. Then the wings
spread to reveal the thing from the secret passage. A silent
scream caught in my throat. I wanted to run, but then I thought of
Ash and Maye. I couldn’t allow this shadow to harm them. I backed
away until I hit the window. I quickly opened it to climb onto the
terrace. It followed.
    I ran to the edge, but was stopped by the
balustrade. I leaned over to see how far it would be if I jumped,
but when I tried hands pulled me back. I fought to escape. My
fingers clenched and I moved to claw its eyes out.
    “S, calm down! I’m not going to hurt
you!”
    Tears fell before I could hold them back and
I curled into a tight ball. Ash knelt and held me as I let go of my
fears in his arms. He smoothed my hair away from my face and sang
to calm me.
    “I’m sorry.” I pushed the words out between
fits of crying.
    “I know. I know.” Ash carried me back into
my room and settled me on the bed. He tucked the covers around my
body, but when he tried to leave I stopped him.
    “Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to be
alone.” He nodded and settled back into his position from earlier
that night. I drifted to sleep in his arms.
    The next morning I woke to a migraine and
the smell of pancakes. On the table, beside the bed was a tray
filled with a fresh breakfast. I smiled, knowing that Ash left it
for me. Beside the glass of milk, I found some ibuprofen for my
headache. I loved that he knew me so well. Only he would realize
that I would have a migraine after nightmares.
    I thought about the kiss with Liam. I wasn’t
sure why we had kissed. I hadn’t known him long enough to develop
feelings for him, but when he kissed me it felt right. I couldn’t
remember ever wanting to kiss anyone.
    Last night had been terrifying. I was used
to nightmares, but I never had issues with sleep walking and
wondered at the new development. I was lucky Ash caught me. I could
have ended up with a broken neck. Sighing, I tackled my
breakfast.
    I spent the rest of the morning resting in
bed and doing homework. When I noticed that I had read the same
paragraph several times over the past twenty minutes and still
didn’t know what it was about, I pushed the textbook away from
me.
    My notebook lay open next to me. I grabbed
the pen and began to doodle. Thinking back to the secret passage
and my waking nightmare from last night, I started to draw the thing and realized that I had drawn an angel with terrifying
eyes and black wings. The thing resembled an angel, but with
strange symbols across the skin and black wings. Next to the fallen
angel was the box from the passage.
    I tore the page from my notebook and
crumpled it into a ball to toss it into the trash bin. I missed,
and got up to pick the ball of paper up. Looking down into the
trash, I paused at the sight of a black feather. Taking the feather
in my hand, I could feel my heart beat accelerate. The feather felt real. I quickly sent a text to Izzy and Willow, begging them
to come over.
    An hour later, I sat on my bed with the
feather on my lap; books lay scattered around me. The textbook I
was currently staring at was about the properties of certain
stones.
    “Hey, sorry it took me so long.” Willow
startled me and I jumped to hug her.
    “Wow, okay I didn’t know