Verum (The Nocte Trilogy, #2)(16)

“I couldn’t sleep.”

I don’t see the need to tell him that I was sleeping, but that a bad dream starring him woke me. No one needs to know that.

“You should go see Sabine tomorrow,” he tells me, his words helpful but his tone bored. “She’s a master at herbs. She’s got a tea that will put you down for the count.”

Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. Sabine, with her tiny twisted body and her dark mysterious eyes… it seems right that she would dabble in herbs.

“Ok. Maybe I will.”

Dare studies me, his eyes sweeping me from head to toe, watching my teeth chatter for a couple of minutes.

“If I had a jacket, I’d offer it to you.”

His words are quiet in the night, and offering a jacket is such a gentlemanly thing to do.

“Don’t look so surprised,” he chuckles. “I may not be as nice as you, but I have manners.” He straightens his body out, opening his arms. “Come here, Calla.”

To his warmth.

To his strength.

I want to.

I want to.

But I shake my head, determined.

Dare’s eyes cloud, and his arms drop back to his sides.

He pushes away from the column and approaches me, his long body lithe and slender. I gulp hard as he steps toward me, closer, then closer.

For a brief moment, I feel like prey and he’s the hunter, until reality hits me and I know that he would never want to hunt me. I’m night and he’s day. He’s whole and I’m broken.

“You’re going to catch your death out here,” he tells me, his voice gentle now, and this whole ‘I need space’ thing is killing me, killing me, killing me.

I wonder if it’s killing him, too?

“Come on, follow me,” he tells me, pushing ahead. For some reason, I do as he asks and I allow him to lead me through the gardens, up the paths, into the house and to a huge laundry room. He opens a cabinet and pulls out a large soft towel. As he turns to me, he pulls it around my shoulders.

“You’re not used to the rain here,” he tells me as he rubs my arms briskly. “Don’t go out at night again. You don’t know what’s out there.”

I don’t bother to remind him that Oregon rain is just as bad, that both places are wet and gray and dreary, and that I’m used to it. I don’t ask him what’s out there, because I don’t want to know. Not yet.

“I… um.” I fall silent. “Why are you being so nice?” I blurt. “I’m not being very nice to you.”

“You’re doing what you have to do,” he tells me, a strange look in his dark eyes. “Things aren’t what they seem here, Calla. Don’t forget that and you’ll be fine.”

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.

Home was frightening.

But I still miss it.

The nanny smiles, her teeth dark.

“Come with me, then,” she urges, and I do.

We climb into an old pick-up truck and we drive for what seems like hours.

But eventually, eventually, we pull to a stop and we’re by the coast, and the sun sparkles on the water.