Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

To and fro.

To and fro.

And then,

I see her.

Olivia.

As clear as day,

Standing in front of me.

“Can you bring him to me?” she asks, her voice low and soft. “That’s all I want to know.”

Confusion billows like waves, through me, over me, around me.

Can I?

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Where are you?”

I’m puzzled, but the vision ends with nausea, the way they always do.

When I become conscious again, I’m on my hands and knees on the floor, the room spinning to a stop around me.

As soon as I’m able, I stagger to my room and make a cup of Sabine’s tea, because it calms me. It’s the only thing that does.

At dinner, Dare is playing the piano, the notes wafting gently.

“Time here passes so quickly,” I mention to Eleanor. I sip at another cup of tea, because it feels like that’s all I do now. My hold on reality is tenuous, and all I can do is safeguard it.

Eleanor lifts an eyebrow but doesn’t argue.

“Time is your enemy, Calla,” is all she says. I set my cup down, and stare into it, and the tea leaves seem to have formed a question mark. I stare at it, mesmerized until Jones comes to take it away.

It’s that night when I dream again.

But I don’t dream of Olivia. I dream of my own mother, of Finn and my father, and of Dare.

The night is dark, the ground is cold.

That’s what I’m thinking as we pile into our car, Finn and my father and me.

Someone is chasing us,

But that’s impossible.

Because we live on top of a mountain,

And no one else is there.

My phone is in my lap.

My mother is screaming.

Dare is walking up the mountain, covered in blood.

Everything goes black.