Verum (The Nocte Trilogy, #2)(47)

She shrugs and adjusts her lipstick in the mirror. She’s wearing a black dress instead, something that hugs her curves. She didn’t need this red dress. She’s perfect in anything she wears. I can see that much.

“I’m Ashley,” she tells me, and she smiles in the mirror. “And I hate these things too. I can help you, you know.”

“You can?”

She nods.

“Let’s get out of here. I’ll show you where I hide during these horrid things.”

Her smile is one of camaraderie, and any port in a storm.

I follow her right out of the ballroom, and I feel Dare’s eyes on us as we go.

When we’re in the driveway, she turns to me.

“Maybe you should’ve brought a wrap. You might get cold.”

But she puts the top down on her car anyway, and the breeze is cold as we speed through the night, away from Whitley.

“Where are we going?” I finally ask her, relieved to be so far away.

She glances at me.

“Someplace you should see. If you think you want to be with Dare, you should know all about him.”

There’s something in her voice now, something rigid, and I startle, because maybe I shouldn’t have chosen this port.

She turns down a dark road, a quiet lane, and then we pull to a stop in front of an old, crumbling building.

“Come on,” she calls over her shoulder, traipsing up the steps in her black high heels. I feel clumsy as I follow, and she doesn’t slow down. The sign by the door says Oakdale Sanitarium and I freeze.

“What is this place?” I whisper as she opens the door.

“You’ll have to see it to believe it,” she murmurs.

In front of us, a long hallway yawns farther than I can see, the walls crumbling with age, the lights dim when she flips a switch.

There’s no one here, but I can hear moans, screams, whimpers.

“I don’t understand,” I feel like whimpering myself. Ashley rolls her eyes.

“Do you really think someone like Dare is without baggage? Grow up, little girl.”

She pushes open the doors as we pass, and they’re all empty, every single one.

But I feel presences here,

Ugliness.

When we’re almost at the end of the hall, Ashley turns to me, her gaze ugly now and I should’ve known.

“His mother was here for years,” she tells me, like she’s confiding a secret. “After what Dare did, it’s no wonder.”

Her eyes are so knowing and I close my eyes, Because the screams are deadening.

I my head, I see Dare and he’s so small.

He stands above a bed, hovering above two sleeping people.

Something is shiny in his hand, something flashes in the night, And I try to tell him no, to warn him not to move, But of course he can’t hear.

Then there’s screaming and blood.

My uncle is bloody in the bed, and a dark-haired woman is screaming.

I see the alcove in the crypts and his name is carved in the stone.

Richard William Savage II.

Dare’s eyes are wide and dark,

Haunted,

Haunted,

Haunted.

I gasp and open my eyes and my reality isn’t any better.

I’m not in an abandoned clinic any longer, and I probably never was.

I’m in a small but well-appointed room,

A room in a facility.

A room frozen in time.

The room is lined with pictures of Dare.

Ranging from toddlerhood, to primary school, to secondary school, to University, Dare smiles at me from the walls. When he was small, he smiled, but over time, More and more,

He became haunted and sad.

The change in his eyes is startling.

And then,

Suddenly,

A woman is in front of me, dark-haired. She has Dare’s eyes, and I know who she is.

Olivia Savage.

I hesitate, and she smiles.

“Are you here to bring me my son?” she asks politely. “The boy from the pictures? He did something bad, but he’s sorry.”

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I stare at her face, at her smile, and at the unlocked door.

She reaches out her hand to me,

And I reach to take it,

Then I open my eyes.

I didn’t even know they were closed.

I’m in the powder room again,

And Ashley Aimes is in front of me,

Annoyance on her pretty face,

And we never left this room.

We. Never. Left.

“What is wrong with you? My lord, you need help.”

She stalks away and I struggle to breathe, trying like hell to grasp reality.

What is happening to me?

I do need help.

I need Dare.

Because he was so hurt, and I’m hurting him now, more and more each day as I keep pushing him away.

He didn’t deserve that.

He doesn’t deserve this.

I’m reeling,

I’m reeling.

The room presses down on me, swirling and bending and stifling. I lunge for the door, and barge through the people and to Dare on the veranda.

Ashley is with him now, telling him of my break-down and he turns to me, his beautiful face frozen and afraid.

“Dare… I…”