NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) (29 page)

“Except I shouldn’t have called my mom
during the storm.
 
That would’ve
saved them both.”

Dare grips my arms, forcing me to look at
him.

“That’s simply not true and you know
it.
 
When’s it’s time, it’s
time.
 
We don’t get to decide.
 
God does.”

I’m empty inside.
 
I hear Dare’s words, but I can’t feel
them.

“I need to rest,” I decide, curling onto
my side in my brother’s bed.
 
I
close my eyes against reality, seeking comfort from the blackness.
 
Dare doesn’t argue.
 
He just
lays
down behind me, his arms holding me tight.

“You don’t have to stay.”

“I do.”
 
His words are firm.
  
“Your dad’s not here and I’m not
leaving you alone. I’m not leaving you again, period.”

Tears streak my face and I keep my eyes
pressed closed.
 

I turn into Dare, inhaling his smell,
listening to his heart while it beats strong and loud and true.
 
He’s alive, and I am too.
 

But Finn’s not.
 

“I don’t know how I’m going to survive
this,” I whisper.

Dare kisses the top of my head, his
breath a mere whisper.
 

“One day at a time.”

I look up at him, my eyes hot and red.
“With you?”

He nods.
 
“With me.”

The pain floods me and so I do the only thing
I know to do.

I sleep.
 

And I dream.

Because all along, my dreams have been
memories.

QUADRAGINTA
DUO

“He’s gone, honey.”

I
stare at the wall, my phone in my hand.
 
I’d been waiting and waiting for Finn to call, waiting for his voice,
waiting for him to be okay.
 
Dare’s
arms are wrapped around my shoulder, holding me up.

My
dad stares at me, his eyes pale blue like Finn’s, and shocked.
 

“Calla?”
 

I
turn my face to look at him, but looking at him makes it feel too real, so I
close my eyes instead.
 

I
can’t do this.
 

“Calla,
they found his car.
 
It’s in the
bay.
 
He drove off the edge… your
mom was in the ravine, but Finn’s car plunged the opposite way.
 
Down the rocks, into the water.”

No,
it didn’t.
 

He
couldn’t have.
 

“No,”
I say clearly, staring at my father dazed. “He was wearing his medallion. He
was protected.”

My
father, the strongest man I know, turns away and his shoulders shake.
 
After minutes, he turns back.
 

“I
want to see,” I tell him emptily.
 
“If it’s true, I need to see.”

My
father is already shaking his head, his hand on my arm.
 
“No.”

“Yes.”

I
don’t wait for him to agree, I just bolt from the house, down the steps, down
the paths, to the beach.
 
I hear
Dare behind me, but I don’t stop.
 
There
are fireman and police and police tape and EMTs congregated about, and one of
them tries to stop me.
 

“Miss,
no,” he says, his voice serious, his face aghast.
 
“You can’t go over there.”

But
I yank away because I see Finn.

I
see his red smashed car that they’ve already pulled from the water.

I
see someone
laid
out on the sand, someone covered by a
sheet.
 

I
walk toward that someone calmly, because even though it’s Finn’s car, it can’t
be Finn.
 
It can’t be because he’s
my twin, and because I didn’t feel it happen.
 
I would’ve known, wouldn’t I?

Dare
calls to me, through thick fog, but I don’t answer.
 

I
take a step.
 

Then
another.

Then
another.
 

Then
I’m kneeling in the sand, next to a sheet.
 

My
fingers shake.
 

My
heart trembles.
 

And
I pull the white fabric away.
 

He’s
dressed in jeans and a button-up, clothing for a concert.
 
He’s pale, he’s skinny,
he’s
long.
 
He’s
frail, he’s cold,
he’s
dead.
 

He’s
Finn.
 

I
can’t breathe as I hold his wet hand, as I hunch over him and cry and try to
breathe and try to speak.
 

He
doesn’t look like he was in a crash. There’s a bruise on his forehead and
that’s it.
 
He’s just so white, so
very very white.

“Please,”
I beg him.
 
“No.
 
Not today.
 
No.”

I’m
rocking and I feel hands on me, but I shake them away, because this is Finn.
And we’re Calla and Finn.
 
He’s part
of me and I’m part of him and this can’t be happening.
 

I
cry so hard that my chest hurts with it, my throat grows raw and I gulp to
breathe.
 

“I
love you,” I tell him when I can breathe again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t with
you.
 
I’m sorry I couldn’t save
you.
 
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I’m
still crying when large hands cup my shoulders and lift me from the ground, and
I’m pulled into strong arms.
 

“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 knew you loved him, honey.
 
Everyone knew. Your mother, too.”

My
mother.
 
I choke back another
gasping sob.
 

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, serva
bo
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.
 

I wake up with a start, the memories from
that night so vivid, so awful, so paralyzing.

Sunlight floods my room, exposing every
corner, every empty corner.
 

I shudder and climb from bed, looking out
the window. Dare and my father sit on the porch below, talking earnestly.

I throw some clothes on and slip out the
back door and toward the road.
 
When
it starts to rain, I pull my hood up, but I keep going.

I have someplace to be.
 

I pick up the pace, jogging until I get
to the cross and ribbons.
 

Gulping, I stand at the side, looking
down at the ravine, at the broken trees, at the black marks and bent
limbs.
 

My mother died here.
 

But I always knew that.
 

Turning, I cross to the other side, to
the side facing the ocean.
 

Living things are broken on this side
too.
 
The bracken
and bushes and trees.
They’re bent and broken but still living.
 
They thrive on the side of the mountain,
coming back from the brink.
 

The viridem.
 

The green.
 

It’s still here, but Finn isn’t.
 

His car flipped down the side of this
mountain and plunged into the water.
 

Staring out over the glass-like surface,
you’d never know that Finn died there.
  
But I do.
 
I know it now.
 

And it’s too much to bear.
 

It’s
too much.
 

I sink to my feet and pull my knees to my
chest, closing my eyes, feeling the hot tears form beneath my eyelids.
 
Focusing hard, I picture Finn’s
face.
 
I picture him sitting right
next to me, right now.

“Hey Cal,” he would say.
 
“Do you know that the sloppy handwriting
of physicians kill more than 2,000 people each year—from getting the
wrong medications?”

I shake my head sadly at him. “No.”

He nods, smug in his superior knowledge
of strange death facts.
 
“It’s
true.”

“But that’s not what killed you.”

My voice is stark, and I realize that I’m
speaking out loud.
 
And I don’t
care.
 

Imaginary Finn shrugs.
 
“No. But everyone is just as dead,
regardless of the cause.”

“I’m not ready, Finn,” I tell him
weakly.
 
“You can’t go.”

My body is like ice, my nerves like wood.
He smiles at me, the old smile that I love, the one that lights up his pale
blue eyes.
 

“I couldn’t help it, Cal,” he tells me
seriously.
 
“But you’ve got to deal
with it.
 
You’ve got to move on.”

“To where?” I ask him simply.
 
“I can’t go anywhere without you.”

The pain in my voice is scalpel sharp,
cutting through me with precision.
 

“You have to,” Finn replies.
 
“You’ve got no choice, Calla.
 
You have to.”

“Calla?”

The voice comes from behind me, from
beside the road.
 
Within a minute,
Dare is sitting next to me, staring out to sea with me.
 

“
Who
were you
talking to?” he asks, trying hard to hide his concern.

“Finn,” I tell him honestly. “But don’t
worry.
 
I know he’s not real. It’s
just… you don’t understand what it’s like. He’s part of me, Dare.
 
And he’s just gone. I don’t know how I’m
supposed to live with that.”

My voice breaks and I cry and I feel
weak. But I can’t help it.
 
The
tears just come and come and come.
 

Dare pulls me to him, against his chest
and cradles me there, protecting me from the world, from my own sadness.
 

“Let’s go back to the house,” he
suggests.
 
“You don’t need to be
here.”

Here
where my brother died.
 

I nod, agreeing, complying, because the
truth of it is that I don’t know where I should be. Not anymore.

I let Dare lead me to the house, and I
let him prepare lunch for me, and sit with me on the porch until it’s time to
eat again for dinner. And this is how my life is for the next several
days.
 

I go through the motions and I feel like
wood, and Dare and my father wait for me to rejoin the living.