Verum

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know anything at all.

  It’s the strangest, most frustrating feeling in the world. I try to ignore it.

  We pile into the car, and Dare’s hand is on my leg, his fingers curled around my thigh. He’s warm, and I absorb it, and I lay my head back on the seat, warming up in the sun.

  I wake up to the sound of the waves.

  “You fell asleep,” Dare says, and he’s watching me sleep. “I thought you needed to rest.”

  The sun has gone down a bit, and the breeze is chilly, so while we walk on the shore, Dare wraps his arm around my shoulders, hugging me into his side.

  “I feel like home here,” I confide, as I watch the gray water break on the sand.

  “Then we should’ve come here sooner,” he says, and his fingers are light on my skin.

  The dying light glimmers on the water and for a minute, it looks like flame.

  And that minute, that one minute,

  Is

  All

  It

  Takes.

  Things crash into me, one after the other.

  Everything is on fire.

  Through the flames, I see Dare.

  He’s shouting,

  He’s afraid.

  “I…” my voice is aghast and I see it in my head. Everything.

  I see everything.

  I see what happened, but I can’t tell the memories from the visions.

  Everything is overwhelming,

  The emotions,

  The memories,

  The fear.

  In a flash, I see years.

  Year of memories.

  Dare and Finn and I playing when we were small,

  Mud pies, and swimming in the pond, and summers in England.

  I see Olivia, because I knew her.

  Long black hair, big dark eyes.

  Eyes like Dare’s.

  Her whispers were always so soft.

  “You can’t be together,” she’d told us. “It isn’t right. It’s not right. You know he can’t leave here.”

  Dare can’t leave Whitley.

  He can’t leave.

  He can’t leave.

  But he did.

  I see it.

  He came to get me because I lost everything.

  And when we arrive here at Whitley, he lost everything too.

  I see him with his mother in his arms,

  Through the flames of a fire.

  “Help!” he shouts. And Olivia is limp and dead. “Help!”

  But no one could.

  Because an accident is an accident is an accident.

  “Was it an accident?” I ask limply as we stand in the crypts next to her name.

  “You know it wasn’t,” Dare tells me, his voice so rigid and hard. “We drove her to it. It was us. It was us.”

  I see Olivia screaming.

  “You took him from me. He wasn’t yours to take. He’s not yours, he’s mine.”

  In her eyes, I see madness.

  I recognize it.

  She’s the rabbit and I’m the rabbit and we’re both crazy.

  I see her taillights leaving the house,

  I see the fire.

  I see Dare.

  I open my eyes, and it’s painful.

  “Your mother drove off the Seven Sisters cliffs because of us.”

  Dare’s eyes contain things I’ve never seen before, levels of unthinkable sadness. He nods.

  “Yes.”

  “You think it’s my fault.” My words scrape my throat and I feel desperate.

  “No.”

  “You lost your mom and I lost mine, and they were two separate nights. Two separate things.”

  I hear the desperation in my voice because I can’t keep anything straight. All of my memories swirl together and nothing makes sense.

  Dare nods. “They were two separate accidents. Two separate nights.”

  “But your mother’s wasn’t an accident.” I point this out thinly, and again he nods.

  “Our family is cursed. Because we have to pay for the sins of our fathers,” I say in confusion, remembering Sabine’s words. “Everyone is dead and this doesn’t make sense.”

  I can’t wrap my head around it. Any of it. Because my father never committed a sin. Sabine is wrong about that.

  But Dare’s mother is still dead.

  “Take me to the cliffs,” I tell Dare. “I’ve got to see it. I’ve got to understand.”

  He doesn’t want to, but he does. He drives me and I’m panicky, and as we cliff the twisted road, I can’t breathe.

  And then he’s there.

  The boy in the hood.

  Standing in front of our car, he cocks his head.

  “He’s been waiting for me,” I realize aloud. “He’s been here for me all along.”

  Dare stares at me confused and I cry out to stop the car, so he does.

  I leap out and I chase the boy, straight toward the top, until I’m on the edge of the world and all I can hear is the ocean.

  It growls at me.

  It roars.

  The boy shimmers in the night, a memory that I can’t grab. My mind flickers and wavers and wanes.

  “Come back!” I shout and the wind catches my words and carries them away. “I need to know what you know!”

  I’ve been here before, I think.

  I’ve been here before.

  The wind,

  The water,

  The panic.

  I hear Dare calling out for me, but I don’t stop.

  I can’t.

  I chase the boy, but he’s been chasing me all along.

  He knows the secret.

  He knows.

  He knows.

  He looks back but I can’t see his face and I race toward him, hurtling myself, lunging, my fingers stretching.

  And then I’m falling,

  Falling,

  Falling,

  And the water is cold,

  The sand is damp.

  And I’m broken,

  I’m broken,

  I’m broken.

  Dare is with me, and there’s blood all over his shirt.

  “Are you ok?” he asks quickly, and his hands are on mine. “God, Calla, are you ok? Open your eyes, open your eyes.”

  Finn and my mother and my father are all spread on the sand. But that was a different night.

  This is my night.

  Not theirs.

  They died already.

  Time spins and I’m in the sand with Dare, and I’m in his lap, and the foam covers us both, and the water is bloody, and the blood is mine.

  “Do you see?” he asks quietly, his new ring glinting in the light, because he’s protected now, but I’m not.

  “Yes,” I murmur.

  Protect me, St. Michael.

  Pray for me.

  Pray for me.

  My memories.

  “My memories weren’t real,” I tell myself, and I already knew that to be true. But I didn’t know the truth.

  They were always a jumbled up mess.

  They weren’t completely real.

  But they are now.

  Painfully,

  Nightmarishly,

  Real.

  I play it again in my head,

  Again,

  And again,

  And again.

  “My friend had to cancel,” Finn scowls. “So I guess I’ve been stood up. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

  Ugh. I groan internally because I’m not a fan of Quid Pro Quo, but Finn has been looking forward to this concert for months. I’m just about to agree to going, when my father walks in.

  “I’ll go. I don’t want you going into the city alone this late.”

  “Sa-weet!” Finn crows, and I don’t point out that most boys would rather die than go to a concert with their father. He’s not ‘most boys’ and we know it.

  My father puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “Hey, I know what,” he suggests
. “I want you to come too. I don’t want you here alone. Not tonight. You’re coming too, Calla. I’ll buy your ticket.”

  “Heck yeah,” Finn says, and I want to scream, Noooooo. Don’t.

  Because this is a memory and it’s real and I can’t change it.

  We pile into the car,

  And I can’t stop.

  I can’t stop.

  I’m going to kill them,

  And I can’t stop.

  Our car barrels down the mountain.

  And my mom forgot her glasses.

  I can’t change it now.

  The night is shattered by screams.

  Because I hit my mother and they’re all dead.

  “My family is all dead. My father, my brother, my Finn. And your mother is dead too, and it’s all our fault.”

  My words are finally true. And I see things.

  I see things.

  I see things.

  Dare nods, and his movement is sad and I’m gurgling. I can’t breathe and my teeth are red.

  “Have you known this whole time?” I ask, because I didn’t. Because I’m so fucked up that my mind has created stories out of stories out of stories.

  He nods. “Yeah. But you didn’t.”

  He looks away and for a second, I think that’s all,

  That’s all there is to know,

  That’s the last of the secrets.

  But his face is hurt,

  And pained,

  And I know in my heart… it’s not.

  There’s something else.

  There’s

  One

  More

  Thing.

  My lungs are hot and red and bloody, and my throat is constrained. I can barely move and the pain,

  The pain,

  The pain.

  I can’t breathe.

  “Tell me,” I murmur. “I’m ready. Tell me the last secret.”

  Dare picks up my hand and there’s a shadow behind him,

  The hooded boy.

  Of course.

  He’s been waiting for me,

  following me,

  he’s been here for me all along.

  Standing at Dare’s shoulder, he turns his face,

  And I can finally see it.

  It’s black as night,

  And he has no eyes.

  I gasp, because I finally know who he is.

  He’s Death.

  I saw him on Sabine’s tarot card.

  Dare’s words grow quieter and I strain to hear, because he’s talking through a tunnel, through light and wind and my heartbeat.

  “You’re dying,” he whispers. “If you don’t wake up, you’ll be lost.”

  Chapter 30

  The world slows to a stop.

  My heart beats.

  It’s dark.

  There is no ocean.

  There are no waves.

  There is no sun or rain or moon.

  There is only my breathing, and beeps, and fingers wrapped around my hand, and I’m in a bed. I’m not in the ocean or the on the cliffs.

  “Come back to me, Calla,” Dare whispers, and angst laces his words, and his words impale my heart. “Please God, come back to me. Time is running out. Don’t do this, please, God, don’t do this. They’re going to take you off the machine, and if you don’t breathe on your own, you’ll die. Please God. Please.”

  He begs someone, whether it is God or me, I don’t know.

  “We’ve already lost everything else,” he whispers. “Please, God. Come back to me. Come home to me. Come home.”

  I try to open my eyes, but it’s too hard.

  My eyelids are heavy.

  The darkness is black.

  Dare keeps talking, his words slow and soothing and I might float away on them. It would be so easy.

  Death waits for me.

  I can see his face now, and he waits in the light behind Dare’s shoulder.

  He nods.

  It’s time.

  But it can’t be. Because Dare is here, and still holding my hand. He talks to me, he tells me everything that’s happened, and when he gets tired of talking, he hums.

  The same wordless, tuneless song I’ve been hearing all along.

  Death moves closer, one step nearer.

  I try to cry out, but nothing comes.

  I try again to open my eyes, but I can’t. And I can’t move my fingers.

  It’s all too much.

  Too much.

  I think about getting frantic,

  And I almost do.

  But to keep calm,

  I replay the facts in my head.

  My name is Calla Price.

  I’m eighteen years old, and I’m half of a whole.

  My other half, my twin brother, my Finn, is crazy.

  Finn is dead.

  My mother is dead.

  My father is dead.

  Dare’s mother is dead.

  I’ve spent every summer at Whitley my entire life.

  I’ve loved Dare since I was small.

  I’ve been floating in a sea of insanity, and I can’t wake up.

  I can’t wake up.

  Dare is my lifeline.

  He’s still here.

  I focus every ounce of strength I have, trying to force my hand into gripping his, the hands that I love so much, the hand that has held mine for so long.

  But I’m helpless.

  I’m weak.

  Death takes another step, but I can’t scream.

  It’s when he touches Dare that I bolster my strength.

  He puts his hand on Dare’s shoulder,

  And I can’t take that.

  Don’t touch Dare, I want to scream. You took his mother, but you’re not taking him! He’s innocentHe’sInnocentHe’sInnocent!

  But his fingers drum on Dare’s skin,

  And everything in me boils,

  And screams.

  And somehow,

  Some way,

  I harness my energy,

  And my finger twitches.

  Dare’s humming stops.

  “Calla?” he asks quickly, hope so potent in his voice.

  I move my finger again, and it’s all the strength I have left.

  I can’t move again, but I think it was enough.

  Dare’s gone,

  Gone from my side,

  Yelling for someone,

  For anyone.

  Other voices fill my room,

  Circling my bed,

  And Dare’s voice is drowned.

  He’s gone,

  but others have replaced him.

  I’m poked,

  I’m prodded,

  My lids are lifted and lights are shined into my eyes.

  “It’s a miracle,” someone announces.

  I can’t stay awake.

  My strength is gone.

  I fall asleep wishing Dare would come back.

  I don’t know how long I sleep.

  I only know that I dream,

  And now, when I dream,

  They’re lucid.

  I’m no longer insane.

  I don’t know why.

  Olivia sits in front of me, her smile gentle and soft.

  “My boy wasn’t meant for you, but you took him anyway.”

  I swallow hard because I did take him.

  “You have to know that’s the way of things,” I offer. “Boys can’t stay with their mothers forever. It wasn’t my fault you died.”

  “I killed myself,” she says simply. “I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t take any more pain.”

  I understand pain.

  I nod.

  “My brother….”

  My voice trails off. Thinking about Finn makes my chest hurt.

  “I can’t live without my Finn,” I say limply. And Olivia shakes her head.

  “You have to. He’s gone, but you’re not.”

  “Why did I keep dreaming about you?” I ask her, confused now in a very real way.

  She gets up and her form is s
o slight, so small. She’s dark like Dare and her eyes gleam like the night.

  Black, black eyes that examine my soul.

  She cocks her head, in the same way that Dare does.

  “Because you couldn’t remember me. You couldn’t remember what happened. And what happened to me, is why Dare is who he is. He’s a protector, Calla. He’ll protect you until his dying day.”

  “Why did you want me to bring him to you?” I ask. “You’re dead.”

  “Because I left him and I shouldn’t have,” she says, closing her dark eyes. “He didn’t deserve it. And now he’s in pain, and he’ll stand by you until he can’t stand up anymore.”

  She’s right.

  Despite his own pain, he was by my bed,

  He’s been here the whole time,

  humming to me.

  She shakes her head. “My son had to do what he did,” she tells me, and I know she’s talking about Richard now. “I wasn’t strong enough to stop it, but he was. Dare was strong enough.”

  Her voice is small.

  “Your story is so sad,” I tell her, because it is. The saddest thing I’ve ever heard. She shakes her head knowingly.

  “It’s not. The saddest thing is knowing that you think none of this has been real. Your dreams are always real, Calla. Even if you don’t realize it. You’ve got to open your eyes. Open your eyes.

  Open your eyes.

  Open your eyes.”

  I startle awake, the insistence of her voice shocking me into lucidity.

  My eyes open.

  The light is so bright it’s blinding.

  The humming stops.

  “Calla?” The voice is familiar. It’s a voice I love, more than life, more than anything.

  Finn.

  He grips my hand and little

  by

  little,

  My eyes adjust and I can see him.

  I focus on his face, on the haphazard curls that frame his face like a halo, the pale blue eyes and the freckle on his hand.

  “Calla, you’re awake,” he says in wonder, so much surprise in his voice. “I thought… God, it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

  He thought I was going to die.

  Because I was going to.

  And he is dead,

  And I’ve got to stop imagining him. I blink hard, holding my eyes closed.

  I try to speak, but my voice won’t come, my throat far too dry. There’s a tube down my throat, I realize groggily. I pull at it with my hand, but someone stops me.

  I open my eyes to find a blonde nurse.

  My eyes widen when I see her nametag.

  Ashley.

  The Ashley from my dreams, only now she’s not a girl in an evening gown anymore, she’s a nurse in puppy dog scrubs. She smiles when she sees my eyes open, and she mills about my bed.