Lux (The Nocte Trilogy, #3)(30)

But Dare.

I’m confused and my grandmother’s lip twitches as she stares as me in the dim light from the lamp.

“Your riches don’t come from money anyway,” she assures me. “So don’t fret. Your riches come from your blood.”

I go back to bed and I pray for Dare, I pray that he’ll come to me, but he doesn’t. I fall asleep in confusion, but that’s nothing new it’s nothing new, I’m used to it.

The night passes slowly, and Dare doesn’t come until the next morning.

“I’ll miss you,” he murmurs as I climb into the car and my head snaps up and he’s gone.

His brilliant smile is the last memory I think of before I board the plane for America. It’s the last thing I see before I fall asleep that night, and it’s what I dream about as I sleep in the familiarity of my room in the funeral home.

Dare. I need him.

I need him here.

I can’t be without him.

He can’t be gone.

He knowsme knowsme knowsme.

I wake to find Dare seated on the edge of my bed, calmly watching me sleep.

“How did you…” I breathe, and I’m confused and startled and afraid. He smiles again and his black eyes glint in the morning light.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re here.”

He arcs an eyebrow. “It seems so.”

Happiness bubbles up in me, through my belly and into my chest.

“I’m glad,” I murmur.

“Me too.”

Dare finds the funeral home fascinating, and I take him on a tour. Through the embalming rooms, the Viewing Rooms, the chapel. I show him where we keep the caskets when they come in, where my father keeps the hearse and the family cars. The things that other people find so creepy, and that I find just a normal part of life.

“It smells like flowers here,” Dare observes, his large slender body filling the doorway.

“It does,” I agree. “It gets into your clothes and then you smell like a funeral home all day.”

“Nope,” he answers. “Just flowers.”

I let it go because I’d rather smell like lilies than death any day of the week.

I show him the beaches and the ocean and our sailboat. I show him the Carriage House and the forest and the cliffs. “Watch your step here,” I tell him seriously. “The ledge is thin.”

“Will do, mate,” he answers.

Mate?

I don’t want to be his mate. I want to be…

I don’t know what I want to be.

But when I show Dare the old abandoned amusement park the next day, Joyland, I take a minute to scratch our initials into the wood.

DD and CP.

It’s Valentine’s Day so it feels appropriate.

Dare smiles, and rolls his eyes.

“You’re 13. I’m 16.”

I lift my chin. “So? In a couple of years, we’ll be 16 and 19. And I’m the only one who knows you exist.”

That feels so strange to say, and I briefly think that he’s my imaginary friend. Don’t most children have them?

But staring at him makes warmth gush to my girl parts, and I don’t think imaginary friends do that.

Dare chuckles and we leave the park. “So talk to me about it when you’re 16,” he suggests. But his voice is filled with somethingsomethingsomething.

Interest?

Promise?

Darkness.

I don’t know.

All I know is that when he is with me, I feel invincible. I feel strong. I feel like me, but a better version.

So I do the only thing I can think of to do. I slide my grandfather’s ring off of my thumb and give it to him.

“I can’t take this,” he protests softly, but he’s so so touched, I can see it.

“It will remind you of where you are,” I tell him. “And who you are. I want you to have it. You’re a Savage, too. As important as anyone else.”

He slides it onto his middle finger and the movement is mesmerizing, and the sheen of the ring the sheen of the ring the sheen of the ring shines in the light and the world swirls.

It swirls

It swirls

It bends

It breaks.

The pieces drift around me and form pictures and I feel I feel I feel like I’ve been here before.

I stare at Dare, and he’s different, he’s older. My hand is older, too. Long and slender and strong, as I reach out to touch Dare’s face.

“Do you want to turn back, Dare?” I ask, and my voice is flirty, and we’re here in Joyland but it’s older and dirtier.

“Not on your life.” Moonlight shines upon his face, and drenches us, illuminating the dark stubble outlining his jaw.

“Let’s do it then.” I smile, and my heart is full and we disappear into Nocte.

The darkness swallows us, then blends together, then falls away, and then I’m once again standing in the sun, and Dare is staring at me, confused, bewildered.

“Calla?” There’s concern in his voice, and there is no stubble on his clean-shaven face.

I shake my head, shaking all of the confusion away, because it’s notrealnotrealnotreal.

“I’m ok,” I whisper, but I’m not really. Because sometimes I’m here, and sometimes I’m not.