Initium (Nocte Trilogy #2.5)(13)

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

All I know is, in the morning, when I wake, Laura has gone, she’s fled Whitley and I can’t blame her. I would flee too, if I could.

My dreams persist and I dream of Mr. Savage.

He calls me his daughter.

But that can’t be right. If he’s my father, then I’m Laura’s half-sister. And Richard’s half-sister. But then Mr. Savage jumps from the cliffs and I don’t know what is real, all I know is that I dream it over and over and over. When I ask my mother, all she will say is that our sons must pay for the sins of their fathers.

My dreams continue

And continue

And continue,

Until

One

Day,

I dream of something different.

Instead of Salome or Phillip, I dream of the betrayer, I dream of Judas. I see his lips moving, I see him kiss the savior of the world, I see him slip into the crowds after the deed is done. His face is appalled at his own actions, but that didn’t stop him from doing it.

His one action, his one betrayal, condemned the savior of the world to die.

Night after night, I dream this, and night after night, I struggle to get to him, to try to stop him from following through with the kiss that doomed the world. Night after night, I fail, because his actions were written in fate, part of a plan larger than himself or me.

He was condemned from the beginning, doomed to play a treacherous part.

My dreams repeat

And repeat

And repeat, tormenting me into screams, Into sobs.

But one night,

I realize something that I hadn’t noticed before, because I had been so swept away in trying to prevent his treachery. My blood chills in my veins as I make the realization and draw the connection, and I sink sink sink into a black abyss of sorrow.

Judas’ hair is as red as flames.

As red as blood.

As red as Laura’s.





* * *



To see a sneak preview of LUX, the exciting series finale, please keep reading.





Preview of LUX





Prologue



There’s a fork in the road and even though I see it, I can’t avoid it.

One road goes left, one goes right, and neither of them ends well.

I feel it in my bones,

In my bones,

In my hollow reed bones.

He grabs my hand and we walk…through a tunnel…through a hall… through the dark.

“It’ll be ok,” he whispers.

Will it?

“We have to do this,” he says. “But I’m with you. I won’t leave you.”

I nod because I believe him, because no matter what else, I know that much is true. He won’t leave me.

The room is shrouded in shadows, in flame, in secrets. I step inside, and peer around, and the heat from the fire warms me, warms my blood, and the blood pumps through my heart.

I sing a song of nonsense, and it sings back. The notes echo and twist in the air, and I swallow them whole.

“Come out,” I call behind me, because I know they’re there.

I can’t see them, but they’re always watching.

The eyes appear, inky black, and glistening, and they blink once, twice, three times.

“I can see you,” I announce and it growls and then I’m crushed beneath the dark, beneath the weight, beneath the oppression.

“You don’t scare me,” I lie.

Because it does scare me. It’s followed me my whole life, and finally, finally, I’ll find out what it is.

Why it’s here.

Why it wants me.

Because above all, I know it’s here for me.

I know it

I know it.

The walls around me pulse and hum and growl,

There’s savagery here, there’s grace.

But above all, there’s oblivion and no matter what I do, I will be sucked into it.

I know it.

I feel it.

I’m crazy.

“Are you ready? she asks and we nod, because we aren’t but it doesn’t matter.

She nods and the flames lap, and the words start, One for one for one.

I fall backwards from the precipice

into oblivion.

The endless

Endless oblivion.





* * *



Chapter ONE



The room swirls white and medicinal, filled with beeps and blank walls and cold skin. Goosebumps chase each other in confusion up my arm, and I gulp hard.

I’m in a hospital.

I’m cold.

I’m afraid.

My dead brother stares at me, his pale blue eyes evasive as he skirts my question. I ask it again.

“Finn, where’s Dare?”

I ask him stiltedly, each word a sword that stabs my heart, because doom invades this room, in every inch, every breath, every moment.

Finn looks away, at the wall, at the floor, at anything but me.

“Dare is….you know where he is, Calla.”

I don’t, though, and that’s the unbearable thing.

My eyes flutter closed and the last thing I see is the white hospital blanket that covers me. I close my eyes against reality, and Finn picks up my hand.