Lux (The Nocte Trilogy, #3)(36)

“Shhh, Calla,” my dad murmurs. “It’ll be okay. He knew you loved him.”

“Did he?” I ask harshly, pulling away to look at my father. “Because he wanted me to go with him, and I made him go alone. And now he’s dead. I called mom and they’re both dead.”

Dad pulls me back into his arms and pats my back, showing a tenderness that I didn’t know he possessed. “It’s not your fault,” he tells me between wracking sobs. “He chose this. He knew you loved him, honey. Everyone knew.”

I choke back another gasping sob, because how could he have chosen this? My mother killed him on purpose. I feel it in my bones in my bones in my bones.

This can’t be happening.

This can’t be happening.

This isn’t my life.

I shake off my father’s arms and walk woodenly back up the trails, past the paramedics, past the police, past everyone who is staring at me. I walk straight up to Finn’s room and collapse onto his bed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see his journal.

I pick it up, reading the familiar handwriting written by the hands that I love so much.

Serva me, servabo te.

Save me, and I will save you.

Ok.

Ok, Finn.

I close my eyes because when I wake up tomorrow, I’ll find that this was all a dream. This is a nightmare. It has to be.

Sleep comes quickly and when I wake up, I’ll save Finn.

Because really, he’s all that matters.

If he’s dead, I want to be dead.

He can’t be dead.

I’ll give anything for him.

I’d give my life.

“You could,” the hooded boy says, and he’s here on the edge of my bed. “You could give your life. You could jump, you could sacrifice yourself, and then it would all be over. Or… you could offer your mother instead.”

“What?” I ask stiffly.

“You heard me. You’ve heard me all along. You have the power to change it. You always have, and you always do. Change it to the way it should be. Do it.”

I’m appalled, I’m frozen, I’m filled with dread, because I would rather. I would rather give anything than my brother.

I fall asleep with the sheets wrapped like a rope around my hands, and I dream the dreams of the tormented.





Chapter Seventeen





I dream.

I dream of Sabine and her raspy voice, and of words that she said to me.

“You must choose,” she’d said, and she says it now in my dream and I don’t know what she wants me to do.

So I ask her.

“You know,” she nods.

But I don’t.

She nods again, and all I know is that if I could choose anythinganythinganything in the world, it would be for my brother to be with me, to be alive. I’d give anything.

“Anything?” Sabine asks, and I nod.

“Anything.” My answer is firm.

Sabine nods once more, and light streams in my window, and into my eyes as I open them.

I’m fine for a minute, until I remember.

Finn.

I close my eyes again, and the heavyheavyweight presses on my lungs again, and I can’t breathe, and I don’t want to.

I trudge down the hall to my brother’s room and I stand in front of the door.

I stare at the wood, at the grain, at the indention, at the handle. I don’t want to open it because I know what I’ll find.

But I have to. I have to see it.

Reaching down, I turn the knob.

The door creaks open, revealing what my heart knew I’d find.

An empty room.

The bed is still there, neatly made. Finn’s posters are still on the wall, of Quid Quo Pro and the Cure. His black Converses sit next to the door, like he’s going to wear them again, but he’s not. His dirty laundry is still in his hamper. His books line the shelves. His favorite pillow waits for him, his CDs, his phone. All of it.

But he’s not coming back.

I grab his shoes, his smelly boy shoes and I clutch them to my chest and I sink into his smelly boy bed and I’m numb. I stare at the wall without seeing it, at the posters without registering the faces. I’m wood, I’m stone, I’m brick. I don’t feel. I don’t feel. Nothing can hurt me.

I’m like this for a while, until Little

By

Little,

Sounds begin to filter into my consciousness, and there’s water. Running water, and I feel dew-like condensation on my skin, and for a second, I’m annoyed because Finn knows to turn on the exhaust fan when he showers, but he always forgets.

Wait.

My head yanks up as Finn’s bathroom door opens and he sticks his wet head out.

“Calla! What are you doing in here? And why do you have my shoes?”

I faint.

Or I think I faint.

When I open my eyes again, Finn is holding my hand.

“Are you ok?” he asks, and his blue eyes are worried.

“Yeah,” I manage to say, once I’m over the shock of being seated next to my dead but now alive brother. “I think so.”

Mybrotherisalive

Mybrotherisalive

He’s alive.

He’s holding my hand.

I shake my head and try to drive the nonsense out, and suddenly, everything is clear for the first time in a long long time. I can think without murk, without voices.