Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

It’s the strangest, most frustrating feeling in the world. I try to ignore it.

We pile into the car, and Dare’s hand is on my leg, his fingers curled around my thigh. He’s warm, and I absorb it, and I lay my head back on the seat, warming up in the sun.

I wake up to the sound of the waves.

“You fell asleep,” Dare says, and he’s watching me sleep. “I thought you needed to rest.”

The sun has gone down a bit, and the breeze is chilly, so while we walk on the shore, Dare wraps his arm around my shoulders, hugging me into his side.

“I feel like home here,” I confide, as I watch the gray water break on the sand.

“Then we should’ve come here sooner,” he says, and his fingers are light on my skin.

The dying light glimmers on the water and for a minute, it looks like flame.

And that minute, that one minute,

Is

All

It

Takes.

Things crash into me, one after the other.

Everything is on fire.

Through the flames, I see Dare.

He’s shouting,

He’s afraid.

“I…” my voice is aghast and I see it in my head. Everything.

I see everything.

I see what happened, but I can’t tell the memories from the visions.

Everything is overwhelming,

The emotions,

The memories,

The fear.

In a flash, I see years.

Year of memories.

Dare and Finn and I playing when we were small,

Mud pies, and swimming in the pond, and summers in England.

I see Olivia, because I knew her.