Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

Finn.

He grips my hand and little

by

little,

My eyes adjust and I can see him.

I focus on his face, on the haphazard curls that frame his face like a halo, the pale blue eyes and the freckle on his hand.

“Calla, you’re awake,” he says in wonder, so much surprise in his voice. “I thought… God, it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

He thought I was going to die.

Because I was going to.

And he is dead,

And I’ve got to stop imagining him. I blink hard, holding my eyes closed.

I try to speak, but my voice won’t come, my throat far too dry. There’s a tube down my throat, I realize groggily. I pull at it with my hand, but someone stops me.

I open my eyes to find a blonde nurse.

My eyes widen when I see her nametag.

Ashley.

The Ashley from my dreams, only now she’s not a girl in an evening gown anymore, she’s a nurse in puppy dog scrubs. She smiles when she sees my eyes open, and she mills about my bed.

“Don’t fret,” she tells me. “I’ve called the doctor and she’ll be right in. For now, close your eyes and I’ll get this tube out. I’m going to count to three, then I want you to exhale.”

I do, and on three, she pulls the tube out of my throat.

It feels like a snake in the grass, slithering away, and I’ve never been so happy to see something go.

My hands flutter to my throat, cupping it, and Finn holds a straw to my lips.

“Drink this,” he tells me, so I do. I feel like I haven’t had a drink in a hundred years, and so I drink, and drink, and drink, even though it hurts to swallow.

When I’m finished, I clear my throat.

My words are dry, but I’m able to speak them.

“I’m so sorry, Finn.”

There’s pain on his face, real pain, and he closes his eyes for a minute.

“It was an accident,” he finally says. “It wasn’t your fault.”

But it was.

I know it, and so does he.

“What happened to me?”

All I remember is standing on the cliffs,