Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

And with that, he walks out, leaving me alone in the room with a wet towel in my hand.

I make my way back to my room, through the quiet halls, and as I pass the windows, it feels like something growls.

Something waits,

Something sleeps in the dark.

I don’t know what it is.

But it knows me.

Of that, I am certain.

Chapter 8

I’m so lonely.

I know I’m here to mend, to fix what’s broken, to remember what I forgot.

But being alone is lonely.

I write my dad another letter, and give it to Sabine.

I’m fine, I assured him in print. I lied but maybe he won’t know that.

If Whitley holds any answers, I certainly haven’t found them yet.

Picking up my medallion, I find myself whispering.

“St. Michael, protect me. Protect me from what I don’t know. Guide me to what I need to find.”

I drop the necklace back into my shirt, and the metal is cold on my skin. The coolness reminds me of Finn, of how he isn’t alive, and I’m devastated all over again.

Every time I remember, it rips the band-aid off.

Being without him is excruciating, and it hits me at the strangest times.

There are hours until dinner, so I creep through the halls, intent on distracting myself, on discovering something. Anything.

I find an old nursery, with two bassinets and a creepy rocking horse. Its wooden eye watches me lifelessly as I idly stare around the room.

The walls are pale yellow and old, the floor is gleaming hardwood, the ceilings are high. There are chandeliers even in here, in a place where children were supposed to flourish.

But the toys are scarce and the formality is abundant.

The silence is unnerving.

A nursery without babies is haunting.

“This was your mother’s nursery,” Sabine says from behind me. “And your uncle’s.”

“Were they close in age?” I ask because I know nothing of my own family.

She nods. “But they weren’t close. Dickie was troubled and your mother was not. Are you homesick, child?”

Of course I am.

And of course I’m not.