Chapter 7 The Price of Hope
Cressida's POV
I hit the ground and don't die.
Six stories straight down onto concrete, and my legs absorb the impact like I jumped off a chair. I roll, come up running, and don't look back at the shouts echoing from my apartment window.
The hospital is twelve blocks away. I run the entire distance in four minutes.
My heart pounds as I burst through the emergency room doors. "Landry Quinton," I gasp at the night nurse. "Someone texted me he woke up "
"Miss Halloway?" The nurse's face shows confusion. "Your brother is stable. Same as always. Who told you he woke up?"
The hope drains out of me like water. "What?"
"Landry's condition hasn't changed. He's still comatose."
Sable lied.
Of course he lied. He wanted me to run, to escape the police, to keep being his monster.
"Can I see him anyway?" My voice cracks. "Please?"
The nurse takes pity on me. "Five minutes."
Landry's room looks the same as it has for seven years. Beeping machines. Breathing tube. My little brother, frozen in time at sixteen.
I collapse into the chair beside his bed and grab his hand.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper. "I thought you were awake. I thought maybe the power I got could help you. But it's all a lie, isn't it? Everything Sable promised is just... poison."
The machines beep steadily. No response. There never is.
I look down at my chest, where the black veins are spreading. Under the hospital lights, they're more visible than ever. Dark roots growing from my heart, consuming me inch by inch.
"I'm turning into something bad," I tell Landry. "And I don't know how to stop it. Part of me doesn't even want to stop. The power feels too good."
A tear runs down my cheek. "You always tried to protect me. That's why you're here because you stood up to my bullies and they pushed you down the stairs. Seven years in a coma because you loved your big sister too much to let them hurt me."
I squeeze his hand tighter. "I'm trying to protect people now too. But I think I'm becoming the bully. I think I'm becoming exactly what I'm trying to fight."
My phone buzzes. News alerts.
I pull it out with shaking hands.
The headlines make my stomach drop.
NIGHTFALL KILLER STRIKES AGAIN NONPROFIT SUPERVISOR BRUTALIZED
VIGILANTE VIOLENCE: Hero or Monster?
Police Hunt Mystery Woman After Five Gang Members Found Tortured
There are photos. Marcus in the hospital, his chest bandaged where I carved into him. The gang members in prison, telling reporters about a "demon woman with black eyes."
Some comments call me a hero. "She's doing what the police won't! These criminals deserved it!"
Others call me a monster. "This is terrorism. She's a psychopath who needs to be stopped."
Both are right.
"I'm famous," I whisper to Landry. "The whole city is talking about me. Half of them love me. Half of them hate me. And I don't know which half is seeing the truth."
I stay with him until security makes me leave. The police are looking for me now. I can't go back to my apartment. Can't go to work. My entire life just exploded.
I find a cheap motel in the Rust Quarter and pay cash. The room smells like cigarettes and regret.
I spend the night watching medical videos on my laptop, absorbing information about coma recovery, brain injuries, experimental treatments. My new power downloads everything instantly neuroscience, surgical techniques, rehabilitation methods.
Within three hours, I know more about brain trauma than most doctors learn in years.
But knowledge doesn't equal ability. I can't perform brain surgery in a hospital room. I can't wake Landry up with information alone.
The power is useless for the one thing I actually want.
Around 3 AM, exhaustion finally pulls me under.
The nightmares start immediately.
In the dream, I'm hunting through dark streets. But I'm not looking for criminals anymore.
I'm hunting everyone.
A woman walking her dog. A man leaving a bar. A kid skateboarding home.
In the dream, they all glow with sins. Everyone has done something wrong. Lied, cheated, stolen, hurt someone.
Everyone deserves punishment.
And I'm hungry. So desperately hungry for their fear, their pain, their screaming.
I chase the woman with the dog. Catch her. The darkness inside me feeds on her terror like food.
Then the man. Then the kid.
In the dream, I can't stop. Don't want to stop.
I'm a monster made of shadows and hunger, and the city is full of prey.
I wake up screaming, tangled in cheap motel sheets.
My chest burns.
I stumble to the bathroom and turn on the light.
The black veins have spread. They cover half my chest now, reaching up toward my throat and down toward my stomach. Under my skin, they pulse like living things.
I touch one. It's ice cold.
"What's happening to me?" I whisper to my reflection.
My reflection doesn't answer. But for just a moment one horrible moment it shows me black eyes and too many teeth.
I blink and I'm normal again.
How long until I can't blink it away?
My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number.
Not Sable this time. Someone else.
"I know what you're becoming. I know how to stop it. Meet me at Mercy Church, noon tomorrow. Come alone. If you bring the hunter, you'll never get another chance to save yourself. A Friend"
I stare at the message.
It could be a trap. Probably is a trap.
But what choice do I have? The police want to arrest me. Thaddeus wants to kill me. The darkness inside me grows stronger every day.
If there's even a chance someone knows how to stop this transformation, I have to take it.
I text back: "How do I know I can trust you?"
The response comes immediately: "You don't. But in 48 hours, you'll be too far gone to save. The veins will reach your brain, and you'll lose yourself completely. Noon tomorrow. Last chance. Choose wisely."
I look at the black veins spreading across my chest like a disease.
Forty-eight hours until I'm lost forever.
I have one day to decide if I want to stay human or become the monster everyone thinks I already am.
One day to choose between power and redemption.
I close my eyes and see Landry's face. My little brother, frozen in that hospital bed because he tried to protect me.
What would he want me to choose?
What would the person I used to be want?
I don't know anymore.
The darkness whispers that power is better than redemption. That the world needs someone willing to punish the guilty. That I'm doing good work, necessary work.
But the veins on my chest tell a different story.
I'm running out of time.
And I have no idea who to trust.
My phone buzzes one more time.
A news alert: "Police identify Nightfall Killer suspect. Arrest warrant issued for Cressida Halloway. Armed and extremely dangerous."
My face is on every screen in the city.
There's nowhere left to hide.
And noon tomorrow feels like a lifetime away.