I’ve said them before,
I’ve been here before.
I cling to that knowledge as the old woman nods.
“But he was dead.”
She nods again, and my next words spill out without my consent, like I’m playing a part in a play.
“The hooded boy I kept seeing… all my life… it’s been Dare’s brother all along.”
The words
The words.
I’ve been here.
I remember. I remember.
I remember what happened in Sabine’s room, and her part in everything, how she’s pulled the strings and controlled Dare, and all she cares about is fulfilling some strange Roma prophecy and Finn is supposed to die because I’m supposed to betray him and let it happen.
Dare bursts through the door like I knew he would, and he’s alive.
He’s alive.
“We’ve got to go, Calla,” he says and I go with him this time. There is guilt in his eyes and in his heart, but I don’t care. I go with him anyway. Because he’s a pawn and I’m a pawn, and we’ll be pawns together.
He pulls me to the door and Sabine clings to me and her eyes her eyes they burn me.
“You can’t get away,” she tells us as she falls behind. “The die has been cast. Know this, child. Your brother was meant to die long ago. You were brought into the world on purpose, as a descendent of Judas. You were meant to offer your brother, to betray him. But you haven’t. Over and over, you’ve betrayed the universe instead and saved your brother. Death wants your brother, and you can’t stop it.”
Dare pulls me along, through the halls, and through the dark and his hand is warm and I’m so scared.
“We’re lost,” I tell him, because it seems to be true.
“No, we aren’t,” he argues. “I’d die for you, Cal. I’ll do it.”
But God, my heart pounds at the thought of that.
“I can’t be without you again,” I tell him, and it’s true. And it’s also true that I can’t be without Finn. And Sabine says one of us must die, and that Finn is supposed to be dead already.
“The die has been cast,” I add, and that sounds so bleak.
Because it is.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I don’t understand how this is happening,” I say as we race through Whitley, through the halls, through the rooms.
“No one does,” Dare says as we burst into Finn’s room. “R
omani ways are mysterious. Your mother knew, though. Even though you kept changing things, she knew in the beginning, and she did try to change things by running to America. But it didn’t work. Fate had a plan.”
“I really change things?” I ask, and Finn wakes up and I hold his hand.
“At night, your mind is free,” Dare explains. “That’s what I’ve figured out so far. “You and Finn. Your minds wander in sleep, and for whatever reason, you can change things without even trying, or without knowing how. Something happened to you that night so long ago in Sabine’s room. She tried to sacrifice you, but something went wrong. It must have something to do with Cain and Abel’s blood.”
I think about this. How Finn has died several times, and each time I went to sleep wanting him back. And each time, when I woke he was there.