“I don’t understand,” I feel like whimpering myself. He rolls his eyes.
“Do you really think someone like Dare is without baggage? Grow up, little girl.”
He pushes open the doors as we pass, and they’re all empty, every single one.
But I feel presences here,
Ugliness.
When we’re almost at the end of the hall, he turns to me, his gaze ugly now and I should’ve known.
In my head, I see Dare and he’s so small.
He sits on a bed in this place, and his arms and his legs are bound.
The screams around us are deafening.
Dare’s eyes are wide and dark,
Haunted,
Haunted,
Haunted.
“Mum?” he asks, his eyes searching the wall behind us, and his tiny voice is hopeful.
A nurse hustles past us, and gives him a shot in the arm. “Hush, boy,” she tells him. “You know your mum is dead. She chose you instead of your brother, and then she went crazy. It’s your fault.”
Dare’s eyes cloud over before he closes them. “I know she’s dead because of me.”
“And you’re here because of that,” the nurse agrees. “You’re a little monster. If it weren’t for you, your mum would be alive.”
The hooded boy turns to me and his eyes are pained and he has Dare’s eyes.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
“The nurse is wrong,” he tells me in a strange tone. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be alive and Dare would never have been here. You can change it, Calla. You can change it. Do it. Do it.”
He reaches out his hand to me,
And I reach to take it,
Then I open my eyes.
And we never left Finn’s bedroom.
We. Never. Left.
And I’m alone.
What is happening to me?
I do need help.
I need Dare.
Because he was so hurt, and I don’t know why, but I know I’m hurting him now, more and more each day as I keep pushing him away.
He didn’t deserve that.
He doesn’t deserve this.
I’m reeling,
I’m reeling.
The room presses down on me, swirling and bending and stifling. I lunge for the door, and find Dare on the veranda, a drink in his hand as he stares absently into the night.
“Dare… I…”
Tears streak my cheeks and he grabs me.
“You’re not a monster,” I whisper. “You’re not. It’s not your fault your mother chose you.”
Without looking back, he leads me away,
Away from the veranda,
Into the gardens.
“I saw the sanatorium,” I whisper, and I turn into his tuxedo jacket, hiding my face. “I know you were there when you were small. I know they tied you to your bed and called you a monster. Am I crazy?”
“You’re not crazy,” his words are gentle, and it’s a soft tone I haven’t heard from him in awhile. My walls come crumbling down, and I cry.
The next few minutes are a blur.
I reach for him,
he pulls me close.
His breath is sweet,
his shirt is starchy and smells of rain,
musk,
and man.
His hands are everywhere,
Firm,
Strong,
And perfect.
His lips are full,
Yet
Soft.
His tongue finds mine,
Moist,
Minty.
His heart beats hard,
The sound harsh in the dark,
And I cling to his chest,
Whispering his name.
“Dare, I…”
“Let’s leave,” he suggests. “Let’s leave it all behind. Let’s spin the wheel and the chips will fall. Things will change but they can’t get worse. Let’s go, Calla. Come with me.”
So I do.
He takes my hand and I follow him,
Because I’d follow him to the ends of the earth.
I know that now, and I tell him.
He turns to me, his eyes so stormy and dark.
He scoops me up, and he’s striding through the hallways of Whitley.
His room is dark and masculine, the bed looming against the wall. We tumble into it, and his hand is behind my head as I fall into the pillow.
Our clothing is stripped away and our skin is hot and flushed and alive.
I’m alive.
Dare lives free.
We breathe that freedom in, and he strokes his fingers against me, into me, deep inside and I gasp and sigh and quiver.
“I… yes.” I murmur into his ear.
Consequences can be damned.
I don’t care who he is.
I don’t care what he’s done.
He’s here.
He makes me feel.
I want him.
He wants me.
So he takes me.
There is no pain.
He’s inside and fills me, and his hands…
work magic.
His lips…
breathe life into me,
Filling me,
Creating me.
I call his name.
He calls mine.
I’m intoxicated by the sound, by the cadence, by the beat.
His heart matches, in firm rhythm.
We’re so very alive,
And together.
Our arms and legs tangle.
Our eyes meet and hold.
His stare into mine as he slides inside,
Then out.
I clutch his shoulders,
To hold him close.
He shudders,
The moonlight spills from the window,
Onto my skin,
And his.
His eyes, framed by thick black lashes, close.
He sleeps.
But he wakes in the night and we’re together again, and again and again.
Each time it’s new,
Each time is reverent and raw and amazing.
In the morning, as he is bathed in sunlight, Dare finally looks away. Shame in his eyes, guilt in his heart.
“Sometimes, I wish I could just go away, and everyone would be better for it, and we’d never have to go through this again.”
“Don’t say that,” I breathe. “You’re the only thing keeping me sane.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he tells me, and his voice is rather hard. “I’m the one keeping you insane. We’re in a loop, you and I. And it’s never going to get better because neither of us will give in.”
“What loop?” I ask, confused, but Dare looks away.
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I don’t deserve you. Can you see why?”
His voice is almost fragile.
You’re better than I deserve.
He’s said it before, over and over, and I never knew what he meant.
I’m not better than he deserves, not by a long shot, not ever.
He sits straight up in bed.
“Go check Finn’s room,” he tells me and his voice is tired. I look at him because Finn is dead and he knows it.
“He’s not,” Dare tells me, as if he can read my thoughts. “He’s not dead. You have to trust me. Go.”
He limply watches me leave the room, and I race to Finn’s, and when I do, Finn is there.
He’s sleeping peacefully in his bed and Pollux is at his feet.
And he’s breathing.
I can’t. I can’t.
The room swirls again and again, and I hold my hands out.
I’m falling,
Falling,
Falling, and I don’t know where I’ll land.
The world is a stage and we all act falsely upon it.
The die has been cast,
Has been cast,
Has been cast.
I f
eel it,
The truth.
It’s coming,
And it’s dark,
And I won’t like it.
I feel it.
I feel it.
We all have our parts to play, and I’ll play mine well.
But what is it?
I concentrate,
And think,
And more will come.
We’re all a bit mad, aren’t we?
Yes.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sabine picks me up from the floor and she leads me to her room, her dark mystic room, where the walls are covered in darkness.
She sits me down and takes my hands and stares into my eyes.
“Finn is alive,” I say slowly, and the words the words the words.
She nods.
“But he was dead.”
She nods again.
“The hooded boy I kept seeing… all my life… it’s been Dare’s brother all along, and his brother is dead.”
Sabine nods.
I’m numb, I’m confused, and I’m so so tired of being this way. I tell her and she looks away, then back into my eyes.
“I’ll get you some tea.”
“I don’t want your tea.”
My voice is rigid and sharp. “I feel like I’m a pawn, and I’m being played.”
“Always trust your instincts, girl,” she tells me throatily.
And
Suddenly
Suddenly,
I feel the danger.
It laps around me, igniting in the air and crackling in my hair and Sabine’s eyes are as cold as death and she’s the danger.
My instincts are on fire, crackling, popping, snapping, and my eyes scan the room, quick, quick, quicker. My gaze comes to rest on something
Something
Something.
A photo, sticking out of a drawer. Just the corner, just the edge, but I’m drawn to it.
It’s important.
I know it.
I lunge to it, I grab it, I pull it out and peer at it.
And it’s Olivia.
And her eyes
Her eyes
Her eyes.
Black as night, black as coal,
Black as Sabine’s.
Black as Dare’s.
Jagged pieces of ice form in my heart and pump through my veins,
Ripping them
Ripping them.
“You,” I breathe. “You’re doing this. Somehow. How are you….”
My voice trails off because the look on Sabine’s face… I’ve seen it before.
“She was yours,” I realize aloud. “Olivia was yours.”
Sabine nods. “She was my daughter. My only child. I trained her, raised her as Roma, taught her the old ways. That girl was everything to me. Everything. And you took her. You and your brother and Adair.”
I don’t know what to say because the realization is overwhelming.
Sabine has been related to Dare all along?
The familiar feeling continues to grow and grow, and spread, and this room.
This room.
It swirls and twirls and it’s familiar. From before, from a time I don’t remember.
“There was fire here,” I say aloud, looking around, trying to retrieve the memories. “In all the corners. And Dare. And your voice.”
We invoke you.
We invoke you.
Restore my daughter, and I offer you
These lives,
Always
Yours.
Allow them to change the patterns,
Change the events.
I invoke you.
I invoke you.
Restore my daughter.
I invoke you.
End the cycle.
Take them as the sacrifice.
Her voice, like always, was a raspy whisper and I remember it now. I remember holding Dare’s hand, but he let go, and he stepped back, and Finn was there with me.
One for one for one.
There was fire, and we burned.
Finn and me.
Sabine burned us to death,
For something
Something
Something.
Something that didn’t work,
And we’ve spent the rest of this time
Cycling through.
Over
And
Over.
“You killed my daughter,” Sabine says simply. “All of you.”
She touches my hand, her own like a claw, and the events the events the events of that night flood me.
It was dark.
It was so long ago.
Dare’s mom was taking us for a midnight swim. We were so small and she was crazy. Schizoaffective disorder and she hadn’t taken her medicine and no one knew. We were going to dance on the beach, she said. But the car rolled off the cliffs
And
We
Fell.
The water filled up the car, and the windows the windows held us in. And then suddenly, Olivia broke us free, and we drifted to the surface, but she didn’t because she drowned.
“My daughter drowned saving you,” Sabine says, and there’s something akin to hatred in her eyes.
“Dare is your grandson,” I say stiltedly. “Olivia was Richard’s wife. But Dare wasn’t Richard’s.”
I remember that. I remember hearing the whispers and not knowing what they meant. Olivia was unfaithful. Olivia was unfaithful. Dare had a lot in life and I didn’t know what it was. Dare can’t leave the grounds because he’s an embarrassment. Dare is a bastard. What’s a bastard, mom? Nothing you should worry about, my darling.
“Of course he wasn’t,” Sabine hisses. “Olivia was in love with Phillip, who was Salome’s. Olivia is Salome, Calla. And Dare is Salome. We’re all of her blood, and Phillip has always loved her, he was her brother, her twin. No one knows that of course. History has changed and says that he was her uncle. Either way, our bloodline is pure.
“It is pure so that we could offer a pure sacrifice, to end the cycle. It wasn’t supposed to be Olivia. It was supposed to be Finn. Olivia’s death was in vain, because she’s not from Cain and Abel, like Finn. But Olivia died saving you and Dare and Finn instead. Finn was supposed to die. The universe gives back what you put into it, girl.”
“Olivia had SAD,” I say slowly. Sabine’s smile is eerie, and it stretches from ear to ear.
“Yes, she did. And now you and Finn pass that very thing back and forth, after you killed her. Do you find that to be a coincidence?”
Her voice her voice her voice is knowing and I know she’s right. It’s not a coincidence.
“We didn’t kill her,” I say weakly. “Not on purpose.”
“Either way, it happened. The Universe always has its way, child. You were supposed to have a heart condition. You were born with it. But you gave it to Dare, and now it seems to be gone. But it’s not. Things never are. Fate is what it is, and it will always have its way. Dare knows that.”
“Has Dare known all along?” I ask and my words are pieces of wood just like my heart.
Her smile stretches wider.
“Of course he has,” she says and she is heartless, her heart is black, her heart is gone. “He was trying to save his mother, after all.”
The fire
The fire. Dare led me to the fire, and he let go, and he left me with Finn to die.
Only we didn’t.
“You tried to kill us,” I say aloud. “So long ago. It didn’t work.”
She looks away now, disgruntled. “It should’ve worked,” she snaps. “It should’ve been easy. But nothing in this life ever is, I suppose. You’ve fought and fought against us, but you can’t fight forever.”
“Us?” I want to melt into a puddle and stay there, because I know who she means.
“Dare and I, of course.”
That’s what I thought, and it kills me kills me kills me.
“It has to be Finn,” she explains with her heartless
tongue. “And Dare knew that. To sacrifice, to set things right, it has to be Finn. Olivia tried. She offered up one son, but that offering was rejected. It wasn’t her fault.”
All I can think of is one thing.
Dare is with Sabine.
Dare is with Sabine.
“How have you done this?” I ask her. “How are you making us crazy? How are you doing it? Is it your tea?”
She laughs and it’s like a cackle. “Of course not, child. I have my old Rom ways, and I adhere to them. Everything will come to pass as it should. Time is fluid and it can change. You can change it. You can change it to the right thing if we just wait long enough.”
“And Dare?”
Sabine shrugs. “He doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the end.”
My veins turn to ice and I don’t understand. All I know is that all along, my memories have been real, even when they haven’t seemed possible. The deva ju, the craziness.
“One for one for one,” Sabine tells me. “You are of Judas, and you must betray your brother in order to set things right. There are sacrifices to be made, girl. You must be strong enough to do it.”
My mother’s words in the book she left come back to me come back to me come back.
May you always have the courage to live free, and the strength to do what is right.
My breath hitches and hitches and hitches, because it seems that my mother was saying to sacrifice Finn, to choose to live free with Dare. But that can’t be right. She told me that I couldn’t be with Dare.
But then things changed,
Again
And again. And who knows anymore?
“You’re the crazy one,” I tell Sabine as I study the look in her eyes, the unsettling, unbalanced gleam. She doesn’t deny it.
The door bursts open and Dare is here, thank God, and he grabs me.
“We’ve got to go, Calla.”
I look at him, and his eyes are wide and full of pain and guilt, and I pull away.
“It’s true?” I ask softly.
“You came to get us? You were going to kill us for Sabine? You were going to kill Finn?”
His dark eyelashes are inky against his cheeks as he closes his eyes and he sighs, so loud. “I was so small when I agreed. She was my mother, and I just wanted her back. Sabine told me that if I participated, my mother would come back. I didn’t know all of this would happen. I didn’t know.”
“But you knew that Finn or I would die,” I press, and his fingers are cold against my own.
He opens his eyes and stares into mine, and I want to dive into his, to swim in them, to float.
“When you’re a child, you don’t understand mortality,” he offers simply. “Not really. And once we started, I couldn’t stop. It was a bullet out of a gun, and I couldn’t put it back. I’d already agreed, and a Roma’s word is a bond.”