Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (14 page)

I was so, so close. What Jessica had to say could change
everything
.

Realizing both Bethany and Chase were now barefoot, I toed off my Skechers (I was still in my school uniform) and joined them beside a tile-top table with a huge crystal vase of white lilies.

“I really appreciate this,” I said, mostly to Bethany. “I promise I won’t push her.”

“I think it’ll be okay.” She sounded a lot older than fourteen. Then she turned and started upstairs.

For a moment I hesitated. I’d thought about Jessica a lot since last fall. The night we’d found her something inside me had shifted, and I’m not sure it had ever shifted back. Jessica and I had never been friends. But the second her eyes had lifted to mine, I’d known the Jessica from before, the one who’d vowed to make my life hell, no longer existed.

“You coming?” Chase asked.

“Yeah.” I took the three steps separating us, and together we climbed toward the swelling soundtrack I suddenly recognized from Disney’s
101 Dalmatians
.

But he did not reach for my hand, and I did not reach for his.

At first I didn’t see her. I was too caught up in what was straight in front of me: the built-in shelves crowded with trophies and medals, the artfully placed shadow boxes containing everything from baby shoes to cheerleading outfits. There was a whole collection of them, from teeny tiny to one I recognized from Enduring Grace.

Then I turned toward the back of the room, and forgot to breathe.

The curved sofa was gorgeous, like one you’d find in some funky Beverly Hills mansion belonging to a party-girl heiress. It was posh and dark purple, with tons of fringed throw pillows. She sat dead center, staring straight ahead at the wall-mounted plasma TV. A massively furry white dog stretched out on the other side, using her lap as a pillow.

The dog’s eyes warned me not to take another step.

Once I’d thought we looked like twins separated at birth. But now her hair was way darker than I remembered, way darker than mine. And it was wavier, too. Not curly, not frizzy, just thick and wavy falling beyond her shoulders, her side part creating a curved sweep that hid the right side of her face.

Her eyes were dark but somehow soft, riveted on the Dalmatian puppies on the TV behind me. I saw no eyeliner.

Her mouth was a pale shade of pink—but I saw no trace of lipstick or gloss.

I saw no earrings, no necklaces or rings.

I saw no skin, either. Other than her face and hands, everything was covered. She had her legs curled under her, a wool blanket between her and the dog. A faded blue-and-black flannel shirt covered everything else, its sleeves far too long for her arms, its buttons secured all the way to the top.

I’d never seen Jessica secure anything to the top.

The ceiling fan stood motionless. The heater blew. Neither Chase nor I had even worn jackets.

Bethany moved first. She broke from us and crossed to the sofa, plopping down on the other side of the dog and smiling at the TV. “I love this part,” she said, burying her hand in white fur.

Jessica didn’t move.

Throat tight, I made myself swallow as Chase started toward her. “Hey, stranger,” he said, and even though he’d told me, even though I knew he was one of the few people she would talk to,
even though I understood,
talking about it was one thing. Seeing it was another.

At the sofa, he eased down on the other side of her, close, but not touching. “Is it okay if I pet Sebastian?”

Her eyes slanted to his, then lowered to the dog in her lap.

“Of course it’s okay,” Bethany said, watching carefully. “He loves when you’re here.”

I tried not to squirm.

Chase moved casually, lifting a hand to ruffle the dog’s shaggy face.

Even from across the room, I heard the happy canine sigh—and felt something inside me twist.

“What a good boy,” Chase muttered, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many times he’d said those same words.

I looked to the wall behind the sofa, where white picture frames hung in an arrangement clearly designed to appear random. There must have been fifty of them, some 4 × 6, a lot of 5 × 7s, even a few 8 × 10s. Some were casual and non-posed, Jessica cheering and Bethany dancing, both girls playing with a miniature version of Sebastian. Others were obviously orchestrated, such as the ones of the girls on podiums with medals hanging around their necks—and the ones of Jessica in gorgeous dresses with perfect hair and perfect makeup, and Chase looking amazing, at too many dances to count.

It was the first time I’d seen pictures of him without the sweep of bangs falling against his forehead.

Quickly I glanced back to the two of them sitting side by side on the sofa. Somewhere along the line the gap between their thighs had vanished.

I’m not sure what made him look up. But he did, giving me a tight smile before turning back to Jessica. “I’ve got Trinity with me,” he said, his voice so very, oddly gentle. “Remember we talked about that?”

I’d never heard him sound like that, as if he were talking to a young child.

Her eyes shifted to mine, and my heart twisted. I knew what she’d been through. I knew what she was
still
going through. She’d been abducted, blindfolded, kept in the dark. She’d been left alone, locked in a filthy room, subjected to hour after hour of silence. She’d been given water and bread and chocolate.

I knew because I’d been there.

Now, she still couldn’t sleep with her lights off, just as she couldn’t stand the sight or scent of fudge or brownies or anything with cocoa. She hadn’t left the house in four months, not even for Christmas mass.

Even her shrink came to her. He was the same one Aunt Sara wanted me to see.

“Hey,” I said awkwardly. We’d spoken only once since her ordeal, in the hospital after she’d been rescued. She’d asked for me. She’d reached out and taken my hand, told me thank you.

Then she’d blown my mind.

“You were there,”
she’d whispered.
“I don’t know how … but I could … feel you.”

At the time, shaken by all that had gone down, I hadn’t thought to question further.

Now those unspoken questions drove me.

Making myself move, I crossed to the sofa. Briefly I thought about sitting on the other side of Chase, but he was already between me and Jessica in so many other ways.

The fringed ottoman seemed a better choice. “Thank you for letting me come over.”

Lowering her eyes, she stared at Chase’s hand against the top of Sebastian’s deliriously happy face. Great Pyrenees, I realized. He was a Great Pyrenees, and he was gorgeous. And though I couldn’t be sure, I would have bet he weighed more than Jessica. He was definitely bigger.

I had no idea how to start.

“Trinity has a few questions for you,” Chase said, taking over. “About last fall.”

Jessica closed her eyes.

“Does this have to do with the Ouija board?” Bethany asked as, behind us, the stolen puppies barked. “Amber was telling me—”

“Amber needs to shut up,” Chase bit out as I swung toward Jessica’s sister.

“Are you dreaming again?” Her eyes, so like her sister’s, widened. “Is that why you’re here?”

I frowned.

“Omigod,” she breathed. “About Jess—”

“No.” I shook my head. “No.” Realizing I had no choice but to dive in, I looked back to Jessica. Eyes unblinking, she stared at the TV, where the Dalmatian parents raced through the streets of London.

Chase let out a tense breath. I looked at him sitting there, still in his white polo shirt and navy pants, and my heart hurt. He was right there. He was so close. All I had to do was reach out, and I could slide the bangs from his forehead—bangs he’d not had when he and Jessica first started to date. I could reach for his hand, and hold on.

And I wanted to. I wanted to touch him.

But I knew how totally uncool that would be.

“Jessica,” I made myself say. “When you were in the hospital, you told me you could feel me.” I waited for some kind of response or acknowledgment. Chase shifted toward her. Bethany pressed her lips together.

Jessica did nothing.

“I could feel you, too,” I said. “Sometimes when I was asleep, and sometimes when I was awake.”

I didn’t want to go back, either.

“It was like you were talking to me, begging me to help.”

Puppy-rescue music swelled, but Jessica’s face, stunningly beautiful without all the makeup from before, remained expressionless.

“And I need to know,” I said. “I need to know if you really were trying to reach me.”

I saw her stiffen and knew that she’d heard me.

“Dr. Linus says she’s blocked most of that,” Bethany said. “That it was too much, so her mind just erased it.”

My throat tightened. No. It couldn’t be gone. I couldn’t come this close …

“There’s another girl in trouble,” I blurted out. “I’ve been dreaming of her—”

Chase’s eyes met mine.

“But I don’t know,”
I rushed on, hating the way my voice thinned on the words. “I don’t know if she’s really trying to tell me something—or if I’m just imagining things.”

Jessica looked down, started to rock.

Bethany and Chase exchanged a quick, loaded look. “I think we should go, T,” he said. “She’s not ready for this.”

I’ll never know what made me reach out. I probably shouldn’t have. I knew that the second I moved. But frustration and disappointment blew through me, and before I could stop myself, I was leaning forward, crossing the gulf, ignoring the stop sign in Chase’s eyes, and reaching for Jessica’s hand. I took it, held it, and everything else just froze.

The bracelet slipped low on her wrist, a few strands of tightly wrapped leather, three words visible:
FAITH, BELIEVE, TOGETHER.

My hand fell away, sliding to the leather at my own wrist as her eyes lifted to mine. They were dark, bottomless, and in them I saw everything, and nothing at all.

“I’m sorry,”
I said, jerking back and standing, backing away from the sofa, the wall of pictures.
Them.
“I should never have come here.” Turning, I hurried to the stairs.

Five words stopped me cold.

“I thought it was you.”

THIRTEEN

It took a second to realize the hesitant voice belonged to Jessica.

Trying to breathe, I turned back to find her leaning forward and watching me.

“When I got the note,” she said, and her voice was stronger now, edged by the same desperation that glistened in her eyes, “daring me to go back to the house on Prytania.”

Everything slowed.

“I thought you were trying to get revenge,” she said, sitting a little straighter.

Chase and Bethany still flanked her, but the room shrank to just her, and me, and how it all began.

We’d both had choices. We’d both had the ability to steer events in a different direction. The second we arrived at the abandoned mansion, I’d realized Jessica and Amber were up to something, and I’d known it wasn’t going to be good. I could have walked away. I could have aborted
everything
.

The horrible chain of events that unfolded afterward would have stopped before it ever started.

Or would it have?

That question had no answer, because I’d been too wrapped up in the game of chicken—and so had she. She’d seen me as a threat, and she’d wanted to teach me a lesson I wouldn’t forget.

I hadn’t.

Neither had she.

“That’s the only reason I went,” she said as the sound of all that crazed dog barking fell quieter, filtering around me as if it came from someplace far, far away. “To prove I wasn’t scared of you.”

My throat tightened. The backs of my eyes burned. She sat there, she sat there on that sofa, a shell of who she’d once been, but stronger somehow. I didn’t get that.

“I never saw him,” she said. “I was in the room with the mattresses and the door closed. I ran to it and found it locked, and even though I kept telling myself it was all some stupid joke, I got scared and begged you to come back.”

Now it was my turn to close my eyes.

“I don’t know how much time went by,” she said. “But it was so dark.”

I made myself look. Jessica had lived it. The least I could do was keep my eyes open.

“I was sitting in the corner when the door opened—and he came in.”

He, of course, was the drug addict who’d been preying on girls in the Quarter. Later, after Jessica was safe and he was dead, Detectives LaSalle and Jackson had found all sorts of mementos, even photographs, in the guy’s run-down house in New Orleans East.

“I’m sorry,” I said, stepping forward. Because I was. So very, very sorry. Nobody deserved what Jessica had been through.

“And still I kept thinking of you,” she whispered as I froze and Chase’s eyes went dark. “Over and over, I just kept thinking,
Trinity, please. Trinity, please don’t let this happen. Please come get me
.”

It was hard to find my voice. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” She tilted her face so that the sweep of hair fell away, and a scar came into view. “At first I thought he had you, too, that you were somewhere close. Then I realized that wasn’t right—but I still felt like you were close.”

I drew my hands to my face, surprised to find my skin like ice. She’d felt me, and I’d felt her.

“Then later,” she said, “after he took me to that awful place, I couldn’t feel you anymore.”

A strange sound broke from my throat.

“So I started trying to find you,” she said. “I don’t know why. It doesn’t make sense. But in my mind, I kept calling for you—
praying
to you.”

Me. Not the cops. Not her parents. Not … God.
“Why
?
”

Her eyes, glittering now, met mine.
“I don’t know,”
she said, shaking her head. “It was like I just … knew. I knew I needed you.”

The room tilted.

Abruptly she stood, the big white dog bolting to his feet beside her. Nothing prepared me for her to walk away from Chase and cross to me, to take my hands from my face and close them in the surprising warmth of hers.