Sabine’s eyes are knowing and dark.
“You must let it happen, girl,” she says. “When you change it, you just prolong the torment.”
“I don’t care,” I say coldly. “I don’t care if you are tormented forever and the entire universe burns. Nothing matters but Finn.”
Dare is stunned, but he understands, finally finally finally.
Finn is my other half. I can’t live without him.
“Everyone must pay a price in this family,” Sabine says, driving her point home. “The universe demands it, to set things right. One for one for one. Olivia already paid her price. Now you must pay yours.”
I’m numb
I’m alone
I’m afraid
I’m determined.
It won’t be Finn.
I love Dare and I love life, but my brother is life. He’s everything. He’s always been everything.
Dare falls back and watches as I touch Sabine’s fingers. His dark dark eyes are the last thing I see as the room spins and spins and it makes me so dizzy that I close my eyes.
When I open them, I’m alone.
I’m walking across Whitley, across foggy moors, breathing in the wet morning air, and something is pulling me pulling me pulling me to the mausoleums.
I open the door and the musty smell and the dark, and Dare’s name.
On the wall.
Adair Phillip DuBray.
There are flowers there and I’m not alone.
A hooded woman stands, weeping, her head against the stone.
She turns to me, and her eyes are black and she’s sobbing.
“You did this,” she tells me. “You killed him. It should’ve been me. It should’ve been me.”
Sabine comes in and takes Olivia’s shoulders and guides her to the door. She looks over her shoulder at me, though and Sabine smiles and it stretches from ear to ear. And I sob.
I sob at Dare’s grave because even though he knew, even though he was willing to risk Finn, he was a pawn, just like me and I love him I love him.
The mausoleum grows dark and I cry until I can’t cry anymore, until there are no tears left, until I’m limp.
Then I sleep and the oblivion takes me into its arms and I’m spinning spinning and when I open my eyes, my memories have been taken again by oblivion, and something has changed and everything has changed.
I’m staring at Sabine.
In her mystical room, and I’ve been here before, I’ve been here before.
She sits me down and takes my hands and stares into my eyes.
“Finn is alive,” I’m saying slowly, and the words the words the words.