Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

“You think it’s my fault.” My words scrape my throat and I feel desperate.

“No.”

“You lost your mom and I lost mine, and they were two separate nights. Two separate things.”

I hear the desperation in my voice because I can’t keep anything straight. All of my memories swirl together and nothing makes sense.

Dare nods. “They were two separate accidents. Two separate nights.”

“But your mother’s wasn’t an accident.” I point this out thinly, and again he nods.

“Our family is cursed. Because we have to pay for the sins of our fathers,” I say in confusion, remembering Sabine’s words. “Everyone is dead and this doesn’t make sense.”

I can’t wrap my head around it. Any of it. Because my father never committed a sin. Sabine is wrong about that.

But Dare’s mother is still dead.

“Take me to the cliffs,” I tell Dare. “I’ve got to see it. I’ve got to understand.”

He doesn’t want to, but he does. He drives me and I’m panicky, and as we cliff the twisted road, I can’t breathe.

And then he’s there.

The boy in the hood.

Standing in front of our car, he cocks his head.

“He’s been waiting for me,” I realize aloud. “He’s been here for me all along.”

Dare stares at me confused and I cry out to stop the car, so he does.

I leap out and I chase the boy, straight toward the top, until I’m on the edge of the world and all I can hear is the ocean.

It growls at me.

It roars.

The boy shimmers in the night, a memory that I can’t grab. My mind flickers and wavers and wanes.

“Come back!” I shout and the wind catches my words and carries them away. “I need to know what you know!”

I’ve been here before, I think.

I’ve been here before.

The wind,

The water,

The panic.

I hear Dare calling out for me, but I don’t stop.

I can’t.

I chase the boy, but he’s been chasing me all along.

He knows the secret.