Verum (The Nocte Trilogy, #2)(6)

His mouth is tight and he leans into my ear.

“You’re not safe, Calla. Whether you like it or not, you have to stay with me right now.”

I’m dumbfounded and he takes my elbow and I let him.

I’m not safe.

I’m in a fog as we walk to a tall man in a black chauffeur’s uniform waiting on the edge of the corridor. He’s got gray hair and a bulbous nose, and his face is thin and stern, but I see a flicker of warmth when he sees me. He looks at Dare, though, and his face cools.

“Mr. DuBray,” he nods as we approach, and for a second, I think he has mistaken us for someone else. But Dare answers.

“I hope the car is nearby, Jones. We’re exhausted.”

The man’s mouth presses firmly together. “It’s right outside, sir.” And somehow, I feel like he resents Dare. But he still takes our bags and we follow him outside to where a sleek black limousine waits. It’s long and glitzy and I’ve never been in a limousine before. My eyes widen.

What kind of family am I from?

To date, I’ve been solidly middle-class with a mortician for a father. We live in a funeral home and Finn and I have been the butt of a million jokes in school. We’ve been surrounded by death, isolated on the top of a mountain, freaks.

But here… here… I think it might be different.

Maybe.

“You must be Calla,” Jones observes as he takes my bag. I nod.

“Yes.”

“You look just like your mother,” he tells me, and there is warmth for a second in his eyes, and I swallow hard because I miss her, because I’d do anything if she could just be here with me right now. “Welcome to England.”

“Thank you,” I murmur as he opens my door, then loads our suitcases into the trunk.

As the car pulls away from the curb, I close my eyes and press my forehead to the window, trying to force it all to fade away.

I’m not alone.

I didn’t lose my mother and brother.

I don’t have to give up the man I love.

I try hard to will it away.

But I know from experience it won’t work, from the million times I’ve tried it in school, to try and hide myself from sneers and taunts.

It never worked then, and it doesn’t work now.

I’m still here in England, I’m still alone, I’m not safe from something, although I don’t know from what. The man I love is next to me, but he might as well be a million miles away… because I can’t trust him anymore. Because my mind is fragile, and even I know it.

So since I can’t make it all fade away, I focus on the good points.

I’m going somewhere quiet, somewhere away from the sadness. I’ll be able to focus, to repair myself, to get answers.

I’m driving away from the airport in luxury. I pause at this.

If Finn were here, he’d be agog at the glitz of this car, at the fancy bottled water sitting in ice just for us, or the rolled up towels in a little steamer. We’ve never been pampered like this before, and with a lump in my throat, I decide it’s not fair that Finn isn’t here.

Because he’ll never be pampered like this now.

If Finn can’t use this stuff, then I won’t either.

I resist the water and the towels, and the tiny chocolate mints. I won’t have any of it.

I open my eyes, watching out the window as the bustle of the city turns into the quiet of the country.

“Take the scenic route, Jones,” Dare calls up to the driver. Jones doesn’t answer, but he does deviate from his route, and before long, I see glimpses of the ocean here and there among the trees and rocks.

“We live a little ways from Hastings. It’s close to Sussex,” Dare tells me, as though I know anything at all about English geography. I nod like I do, because so much of what we say is a pretense now. We go through the motions.

Thirty minutes later, our car is still gliding over the winding ribbons of road, but I finally see a rooftop in the distance, spires and towers poking through trees.

Dare stirs, opening his eyes, and I know we’re almost there.

I crane my neck to see. When I do, I’m stunned beyond words, enough that the breath hitches on my lips.

This can’t be my family’s home.

It’s huge, it’s lavish, it’s creepy.

It’s ancient, it’s stone, it’s beautiful.

A tall stone wall stretches in either direction as far as I can see, encircling the property like an ominous security blanket. It’s so tall, so heavy, and for one brief moment, I wonder if it’s meant to keep people out… or to keep them in.

It’s a foolish notion, I know.

As we pull off the road, large wrought iron gates open in front of our car as if by magic, as if they were pushed by unseen hands. Puffs of mist and fog swirl from the ground and through the tree branches, half concealing whatever lies behind the gate.

Even though the grounds are lush and green, there’s something heavy here, something dark. It’s more than the near constant rain, more than the clouds.

Something that I can’t quite put my finger on.

I’m filled with a strange dread as the car rolls through the gates, as we continue toward the hidden thing. And while the ‘hidden thing’ is just a house, it feels like so much more, like something ominous and almost threatening.