Lux (The Nocte Trilogy 3)

“I know,” she answers. “But you are. Your life line breaks into many branches, which means you have to choose. You have to choose, child. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“I have to choose what? Choose what? To live?”

What a silly thing.

Eleanor stares at me, unflinching. “Take your grandfather’s ring. It belongs to you more than anyone else.”

It will hold you to the ground and make you remember where you are.

“Who am I?” I ask, and my question is desperate and my words are hot.

Eleanor shakes her head. “You’ll figure it out, and it will all be as it should.”

Her words swirl and twirl, and an image comes into my head, something I’ve never seen, but I have. Somehow.

Files, in a drawer, in Eleanor’s desk. My name, and Finn’s name and Dare’s name.

My eyes meet her and I’m defiant.

“If Dare isn’t real, why do you have a file in your desk with his name on it?”

She looks at me and her gaze is hard, and it’s like rocks, like pebbles, like stone.

“You don’t know what you’re speaking of.”

“I do,” I insist, and I think harder, and they’re like memories, and I don’t know where they came from. “Finn and I inherit your fortune, but Dare doesn’t. Only if we die.”

It’s proof it’s proof it’s proof.

“Calla,” she sighs. “You don’t understand.”

She pulls me up and I go with her to her office and she opens her drawer and there are files in there. Two. One with my name and one with Finn’s. We inherit the fortune, but Dare

But Dare

But Dare.

I’m confused and my grandmother’s lip twitches as she stares as me in the dim light from the lamp.

“Your riches don’t come from money anyway,” she assures me. “So don’t fret. Your riches come from your blood.”

I go back to bed and I pray for Dare, I pray that he’ll come to me, but he doesn’t. I fall asleep in confusion, but that’s nothing new it’s nothing new, I’m used to it.

The night passes slowly, and Dare doesn’t come until the next morning.

“I’ll miss you,” he murmurs as I climb into the car and my head snaps up and he’s gone.

His brilliant smile is the last memory I think of before I board the plane for America. It’s the last thing I see before I fall asleep that night, and it’s what I dream about as I sleep in the familiarity of my room in the funeral home.

Dare. I need him.

I need him here.

I can’t be without him.

He can’t be gone.

He knowsme knowsme knowsme