Minutes Before Sunset by Shannon A. Thompson

entailed. Your powers were stripped, and you were left to insanity. A shade—not even a light—couldn’t handle being completely human for very long. It was too unnatural.
    “Something happened,” I said, feeling the words as they slowly fell off my lips. “And it wasn’t good.”
    “Did the elders test you again?”
    “The elders,” I growled, desperately trying to control my anger. “I despise them—all of them.”
    “Let’s walk,” she said, and I nodded, stomping by her side as she moved through the trees. We wouldn’t be flying tonight, and, at this rate, we’d never fly again.
    In silence, we walked through the forest, curling past the darkness, and strolled along the river. The full moon reflected off the trickling water, and I gazed at the nature that had become home to me. The shelter was no longer comforting and home definitely wasn’t, yet the place we met every night soothed my rage. My emotions—that weren’t allowed to exist—were alive again here.
    “They don’t think I’m good enough to fight,” I said.
    “But you are.”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, stringing out her words. “But if you’re this stressed out, why don’t you become a guard?”
    Because I don’t have a choice. “I can’t.”
    “Why?”
    I groaned, falling backward to sit. “It isn’t that simple.”
    “Make it that simple,” she said, slowly sitting next to me. “Explain it to me.” She laid her hand on my knee, and I stared at her petite fingers. They seemed so familiar—then again, we’d been seeing one another for weeks now. She was familiar. She was my friend.
    “I can’t.”
    She tapped her nails along my knee. “When you started training me, you told me I couldn’t be afraid—of anything,” she said. “Yet you’re afraid to speak.”
    My neck nearly snapped as I turned to stare at her. She smiled, but the ends of her lips twitched. She was nervous. “You’ll have to tell me eventually,” she said, and I shook my head.
    “I won’t ever get the chance.”
    Her hand returned to her lap, and her shaky fingertips fiddled with the ends of her hair. “Why do you keep saying that?” she whispered.
    My shoulders tensed. “Because it’s the truth.”
    “I can help—”
    “You’re weaker than me,” I grumbled, unsure of my words. She was more powerful than any shade I’d ever met; she only needed to control it. “How do you expect to help?”
    “With your training—”
    “My training is nothing compared to theirs,” I said, ignoring her timid tone. “Everything we’ve done is useless; don’t you see that?”
    Her face scrunched up, and her eyes became glossy with unshed tears. “You’re just being mean now,” she said. She shook her head and her black hair matted to her face as tears slipped over her eyelashes. “You said I could meet the Dark. You said I could be somebody.”
    I reached out to touch her, but she moved away. My chest sunk, and I sighed. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I lied.”
    She blinked, barely meeting my eyes. “About what?”
    “You,” I said, knowing I had to admit to my faults. “But mainly them—they don’t accept outsiders; they kill them.”
    Her tears ceased. “What?”
    My jaw ached. “They’ll figure you were abandoned for a reason,” I said, sickened by the ways of my kind. “They wouldn’t even give you a chance to explain.”
    “But I can explain—”
    “You haven’t even explained it to me,” I pointed out, and she opened her mouth, but I stopped her. “And I don’t want you to. It won’t make a difference now.”
    She shook her head. “I don’t understand this.”
    “You don’t want to,” I said. “Trust me.”
    Her lips thinned into a white line. “Fine,” she said, jumping to her feet. I mirrored her, but she stomped away, turning around abruptly. She walked back as I conjured up words, but she lifted her hand and smacked my face.
    My neck twisted, and my