Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

He knows.

He knows.

He looks back but I can’t see his face and I race toward him, hurtling myself, lunging, my fingers stretching.

And then I’m falling,

Falling,

Falling,

And the water is cold,

The sand is damp.

And I’m broken,

I’m broken,

I’m broken.

Dare is with me, and there’s blood all over his shirt.

“Are you ok?” he asks quickly, and his hands are on mine. “God, Calla, are you ok? Open your eyes, open your eyes.”

Finn and my mother and my father are all spread on the sand. But that was a different night.

This is my night.

Not theirs.

They died already.

Time spins and I’m in the sand with Dare, and I’m in his lap, and the foam covers us both, and the water is bloody, and the blood is mine.

“Do you see?” he asks quietly, his new ring glinting in the light, because he’s protected now, but I’m not.

“Yes,” I murmur.

Protect me, St. Michael.

Pray for me.

Pray for me.

My memories.

“My memories weren’t real,” I tell myself, and I already knew that to be true. But I didn’t know the truth.

They were always a jumbled up mess.

They weren’t completely real.

But they are now.

Painfully,

Nightmarishly,