I sidestep around Riley and look at Lily.
Her stare warns me to stay back. Riley's fine with my outburst, but she isn't, and she shouldn't be.
“I don’t know what happened,” I choke.
“Another Nightside was in the woods, and controlled Olivia,” Riley says. “They’re gone now. We have to investigate.”
I take a breath, urging myself to calm down. “Lily. Wait in the car. Riley and I are going to sniff out the area. Someone was here.” I wanted to hurt her. And if Riley hadn't been here, Lily would be dead by now.
She just nods and gives me no sign that she'll ever forgive me. “Okay. I will.”
Lily retreats to the car and locks herself inside. I hope that she's safe from whoever was spying and from me.
Once she's inside, I turn to Riley as he studies the tree line again. Then he takes off towards the trees, and I follow.
He frowns. “I felt strange, like someone was making my mind blurry. Then I saw the dark figure in the woods, watching us, and I knew it wasn’t you.”
“I’ll never forgive myself,” I choke. “I...I saw the two of you standing together, and then Lily putting her hand on your back, and then I wanted to hurt her. Riley, I almost killed her.” I can barely force out the words.
Riley blinks in confusion. “They made you see that. Then they messed with your mind and made you so angry you had to kill. Whatever swept over all three of us was not from you. Your power feels strong, but chaotic. This power was more of a complete shift in reality and emotion. Right before you stormed in front of us, I had a strange urge to, well, I have to confess this. I wanted to kiss Lily out of nowhere.” He finishes by gulping.
“You what?” Then, slowly, I get what he's saying.
Another Nightside just used their power on us.
All three of us.
Were they trying to make us fight?
And worse, was this person trying to make me kill my friend?
Yep. Our enemy is close.
A chill runs down my spine. “I saw Lily putting her hand on your back. Please say that never happened.”
Riley shakes his head and quickens his pace. “I can grant your wish there, but what I can't do is figure out who was doing this to us. We must clear it up with Lily.”
Nightsides can control each other.
One of them is strong enough to warp my reality, and enough to make me undo all my progress in a heartbeat.
I eye the trees. We’re almost there, but I see no one in the woods.
Someone is trying to control me.
I gulp as the implication sweeps over me.
“Does someone have plans for me?” I ask. That last burst of anger came suddenly and out of nowhere, where the others all had a reason.
We enter the trees before Riley speaks. “We have to check and see who was out there. We should stay close. If we're far from Lily, then we're less likely to want to hurt her.”
I sniff and smell nothing but the woods themselves. I can smell blood, but not Nightside blood unless it's open to the air and very close. I turn my face to the wind, and pick up nothing but tree bark, half-frozen soil, and a stray dog that's wandering around the woods about a mile in front of us. Our attacker is long gone.
“Shit,” I say.
Riley nods. “I sense nothing. But someone was here. What if they've been here the whole time, making you lose control?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lily's quiet when Riley and I get back to the car and Riley takes the driver's seat. Lily moves to the back, away from me, and we don't speak until we roll out of the woods and back onto the main road, the same one that leads to the mansion.
Riley hesitates before he turns not left, but right, downhill towards town. “We have to get out of here when we train from now on. A powerful Nightside was out there, altering our reality and making us turn on each other.”
“I didn't see anyone,” Lily announces. I read nothing but shock and anger in her words.
“I barely saw that someone was out there,” I choke out, “so don’t feel bad.”
Riley takes over. He wasn't the one who almost did the unthinkable. “Someone made Olivia think you and me were together, Lily. It was insane. Then they took over her emotions and made her almost attack you. Did you feel our whole reality shift?”
Lily's quiet as town spreads out downhill and slowly draws closer. Its lights shine in the gray and brown expanse that is this bleak day. “I felt something weird.” She cuts it off there, like she doesn't want to tell me the rest.
Riley already confessed to his part of the ordeal, and I know she's got a part that she doesn't want to say out loud. We all have something to feel bad about here. “If you felt some weird attraction to Riley while it was happening, I know it wasn't you,” I say at last, hoping to clear the air. I won't let this rogue Nightside—the probable killer—ruin what the three of us have worked so hard to have.
Lily sighs. “That was weird. And very dangerous. We can't go back to that spot, ever. It has to be someone from the mansion.”
“I agree,” Riley says. “We talked about having everyone train, so this person knows that the three of us have been meeting. It's possible they've even been trying to mess with Olivia from behind the scenes
