Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

The water pounds the shore.

Metal bends and shrieks.

“Are you ok?” Dare asks, and his voice is afraid.

He wasn’t supposed to be there.

I can’t get away from that fact.

But I can’t, for the life of me, figure it out.

I can’t come to the truth.

A wall stands in my mind, blocking me,

Protecting me.

But I can’t be protected forever.

I have to tell you something.

It’s new.

A new memory.

From before the accident.

I startle, and focus.

Calla, I have to tell you something. You won’t understand. Please just listen before you decide I’m a monster.

My breath… it won’t come, and I try and try to inhale, and I try and try to remember more.

But that’s all.

Dare’s face is gone.

He’s afraid he’s a monster, and maybe he is.

I don’t know.

But being here, in the wind and the air, perhaps even at Whitley, is freeing me to remember. Everyone was right, the answers are here.

I feel it.

I just don’t like it.

The water crashes below me and it’s like a lullaby or a song, until it turns into sort of a snarl…then my name.

Calla.

It’s a whisper carried on the wind.

I open my eyes, and someone is staring at me.

The boy in the hood.

He’s on the edge of the water, his feet buried in the foam, and I can’t see his eyes.