The Sinister Silhouette

Ignoring that for now, I state something that’s been bugging me. “I’ve been dreaming about her.” His eyes snap to mine. “For years. If I never knew about her, why is she in my dreams? And why is she always so sad and asking for my help?”

His knuckles turn white as his grip on the beer bottle tightens. Lines appear around his mouth when his lips form an angry line.

“No clue. There’s no reason she should be.”

I watch his eyes for any deception. I hate to think about my brother lying, but he’s already done so by omitting the truth about Jules. Fortunately, there’s nothing nefarious in his expression.

Aria calls her dad’s name from her room, and Theo gets up to check on her. I watch as he disappears down the hallway. Suspicion forms in my mind as I wait for him to reappear. When he does, my eyes lock on him as he reclaims his seat.

“Aria.” He frowns at my bringing her up. “Is she Jules’s?”

“No,” he grunts. “Jules and I were only together for a few weeks. She’s from a woman I met about a year before I met Jules. She showed on my doorstep several weeks after the accident and left Aria for me to raise. She disappeared, and I haven’t seen her since.”

I nod.

“The nurse made it sound like Jules gets no visitors. Does she not have family?”

He takes a pull from his beer before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“She does, but they’re dicks. They knew about me and her and demanded she have nothing to do with me. When she refused, they cast her out and disowned her. That was another reason why we were leaving. We wanted to start somewhere fresh where no one knew us or our background.”

Although it’s still fucked-up that he kept Jules from us, I can’t say I blame Theo. Especially with the huge social and upbringing gap between him and Jules. The world is a cruel place, and some of the people in it are even more so.

“Do they know about her being in a coma? They haven’t tried visiting her?”

He shifts back in his seat, getting comfortable by throwing an ankle over his knee.

“I called them the night of the accident, but they didn’t answer. I left a message on their voicemail. They never called back or tried visiting. She has a much younger sister. I think she was five or six back then. God knows what they’ve told her about Jules.”

My teeth clench at the notion that they’ve soiled Jules’s name to her little sister. What in the fuck is wrong with people?

“You need to tell Mom and Dad about her.”

He looks down at his lap, then brings his eyes back to me, resolution set in his gaze. “I will.”

I notice the time on the cable box and get to my feet. “I’ve got to get going. Jazz stayed late for me, so I need to get to the shop.”

Theo stands as well, setting his bottle on the end table. He follows me to the door, and I turn back to him.

“I’m sorry about what happened to Jules.” I grip his shoulder when his jaw begins to twitch. “Was the person that attacked her found?”

“No,” he grunts darkly.

“Fuck, man. I’m sorry.”

His nod is stiff. “Thanks.”

I leave him at the door, my anger still present, but not white-hot as it was when I first arrived.

As I walk to my truck, my mind drifts back to the nagging questions; why have I been dreaming about Jules and why does she keep begging me for help?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Luca

I’M IN ANOTHER DREAM again, but this one is much different than all the others. There’s laughter in this one. There’s love, there’s happiness, and good things are happening. And it seems so real. Not some weird shit my mind conjured up. Even so, as with all my dreams featuring Jules, there’s excruciating pain in my chest. It nearly brings me to my knees with the intense force of it.

I’m in a field of some kind. Looking around, I notice a wisteria tree. The same one in the picture I’ve been drawing for months. Except there’s no girl sitting beneath its low-hanging branches.