Initium (Nocte Trilogy #2.5)(17)

Will it?

But I nod because Finn is here, and I’ll agree to anything because he’s not dead.

He’s here.

And I’m here.

And I don’t care if I’m crazy.

Finn squeezes my hand, and I breathe and breathe and breathe.

“Our cousin is here,” he tells me finally. “He’s going to stay for a while. He’s nice and you’ll like him.”

I nod but I don’t really care. All I care about is that Finn is here and I had a nightmare and it wasn’t real.

My mom comes in and flutters about, and my dad speaks in a quiet voice, and they make me stay in bed. Later, my step-cousin comes in.

His voice is low as he introduces himself. He’s three years older and his name is Dare.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I say politely, and I’m still tired. I look up at his face and I suck in my breath.

His eyes are black.





* * *



Chapter THREE



Black like the night, like the dark, like onyx. Black like obsidian, like ink. I can’t help but stare at Dare’s eyes as Finn and I walk with him along the trails a few days later.

“Why do you keep looking at me?” he asks with impatience. His hands are grubby because we’ve been outside, on the beach and on the trails.

“Because your eyes are black,” I tell him stoutly. Because honesty is the best policy.

He snorts. “They are not. They’re brown.”

With a flicker of hope, I study him again, watching the way the sunlight hits his eyes. He might be right. His eyes are very, very dark brown, like dark chocolate or the darkest of tree bark. Almost black.

But not quite.

I exhale in relief.

Finn watches me. He watches my relief, the way I can breathe now, and he sighs.

“Cal, it wasn’t real. You know it wasn’t.”

His voice is soft because I’d told him everything. They way he captured the flag, the way he’d seen demons, the way he’d died.

He’d laughed at first, until he realized I was serious. And then he made me promise not to tell the doctor, because the doctor and my parents already think I’m crazy and everyone is watching my every move. I have to rest, I have stay in bed, I have to take my medicine. It’s been exhausting.

“There is no black-eyed demon,” Finn assures me quietly, so quiet. I stare at Dare’s eyes from across the trail as he searches for pebbles to skip on the water. I’m not sure though, and Finn knows it.

“Trust me,” he instructs firmly. “You have to.”

“It felt so real,” I tell him finally, limply. “At first it was you. You were crazy, and then you died. You died, Finn. But when I woke up, you were alive and I was crazy. I am crazy. I’m so confused, Finn. What is happening to me?”

My brother looks at me, then away, and he grabs my hand.

“I don’t know. But I’m not dead and I won’t let you be crazy, Calla. Never tell mom and dad the things you see. Only tell me, ok?”

I nod, because I can see the wisdom in that. They can never, never know.

“It’s you and me, Cal,” he says solemnly. And he’s my brother, and I know he’s right.

“You and me,” I whisper.

He smiles.

“Let’s take Dare to the beach before mom figures out that you’re gone.”

“Why do I have to stay in bed so much?” I grumble as we wind our way down the rocky trail to the sand that lies below. Finn shrugs.

“I don’t know. They want you to rest. It’ll help you get better.”

I want to get better. That is something I know for a fact.

So when my mom finds us a little while later, agitated that I’m not in my bedroom, I go with her meekly back to the house. I climb the stairs to my room, and I watch Dare and Finn from my window.

They’re building a fort out of the brush-pile, and they’re laughing and running together, already oblivious that I’m gone, their faces flushed with play-time and fresh air.

That should be me.

I can’t help but feel the resentment swell in me, from my feet to my hands to my heart. I should be running and playing. Not confined here, not in this bed. My new step-cousin shouldn’t be playing with Finn in my place.

That should be me.

“Calla, my love,” my mother murmurs as she comes back into the room, a cup of apple juice and a handful of pills in her hand. They’re colorful like jewels, but they taste like dirt. “You have to listen to me. You have to rest, you have to recover. Do you trust me?”

I nod, because she’s my mother, and of course I trust her. What an odd question. I turn to her and obediently reach my hands out for the pills.

One by one, I swallow them and they stick in my throat so I gulp at the juice. My pretty mother watches me sympathetically, stroking my red hair away from my face.

“Everything will be worth it,” she assures me. “I promise you, Calla.”

But there’s something in her voice, something something something. Like she’s trying to convince herself, not me. It’s a fragile tone, an uncertainty.

But then she turns away and leaves me alone.

I turn onto my side and pull the covers up to my chin, staring out the window. A heavy fog descends upon me because of the pills, pulling my head under a current, a murky dark current, and I can’t fight the sleepiness. It’s here, it’s heavy, it blurs my vision.