Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (28 page)

I’d just never imagined what I might be walking toward. It had all seemed so harmless. Sure I’d known the danger, but I’d never really thought that it would touch me.
Touch us
.

I’d never realized what I discovered could change everything.

“Think about Pensacola,” I said to him, as he’d said to me a few days before. That’s what I was trying to do, to project beyond this moment, to what lay ahead.

But for me, the image still wouldn’t form. “Think about the water and the beach—”

“You shouldn’t be there alone.”

His voice was softer, more tender, and with it I glanced at the window, where through the reflection I saw Dylan sprawled in that silly little chair, with the knife in one hand, the gun in his lap.

“Come down then.” That would solve everything. “It’s not too late. Get in your car and—”

“T—”

I squeezed the phone.
“Please.”

“I can’t.”

Through the reflection, Dylan’s eyes lifted to mine, and the hot burn of awareness seared through me. “Why not?”

The second I heard his rough breath, I knew. “You’re with Jessica.”

“She had a rough day,” he said—and my eyes filled.

My day hadn’t been very good, either.

“Trinity?”

I sucked in a slow, deep breath, refusing to let myself cry. “You have to trust me,” I said, and even though I tried to stop it, emotion leaked through. “I’m safe—I’ll be home in the morning. We’ll go to your uncle’s party. Nothing’s changed.”

There wasn’t much to say after that, other than good-bye. But long after the line went dead, I held onto the phone,
Dylan’s phone,
and looked out at the night.

“Do you want to go back?”

The words were so quiet I almost didn’t hear them. I made myself swallow, didn’t want to look—

He still held the book with the dragonfly cover in his hands, his legs sprawled, his lean, runner’s body no match for the little chair.

“No,” I said.

“I’ll take you—”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed, and I saw it, the Navajo in him, could see it so clearly now that I knew, the silky dark hair and olive skin, the sharp cheekbones and hawkish eyes, the … awareness.

Maybe that’s why he was so good at touching without lifting a hand, seeing without looking.

He shifted, the sweep of hair falling against his face. “You left out a lot.”

The coil inside me, the one that kept squeezing and squeezing, squeezed even harder. “He doesn’t want me here. He wanted me to step back—”

“And you? What do you want?”

Around my wrist, I could feel leather cutting into flesh, but I didn’t look down. “Pretending something isn’t happening doesn’t mean it’s not.”

Something in Dylan eyes shifted. “But you know why he wants you to step back, don’t you?”

I closed my eyes.

“You scare him,” he said, and when I looked again, I saw the switchblade was closed. “You scare a lot of people.”

“But not you,” I said—and then I saw the book open against his jeans.

He looked up. Our eyes met. “Ready?”

TWENTY-SIX

Everyone dreams. Some see color. Others experience only black and white. Some laugh, and some cry. Some run and hide, while others play and dance. Some return over and over again. Others never go back. Very few remember.

I looked up from the yellowed pages, where time had reduced black ink to gray. The handwriting was beautiful, like calligraphy. Not even time could take that away.

“You okay?”

Pressing my lips together, I glanced toward the dainty chair where he rolled a water bottle between his hands. He’d gone outside after handing me the journal, muttering something about checking the perimeter, but I think we’d both recognized the lie. And for it, I’d been grateful.

“It’s all here,” I said. In her own handwriting, her own words. “Everything she felt, feared.”

His hands stilled, but he said nothing, just as he said nothing when he’d come back inside and found me cross-legged on the bed, reading.

I hadn’t trusted myself to look up. Even now, I wasn’t sure why.

“It’s like she knew,” I said. “It’s like she was documenting everything.
For me.
”

His eyes softened. “Maybe she was.”

The hot swell of emotion I’d been fighting leaked through, flooding my heart and my eyes and everywhere in between. “That would mean…” The punch of realization was quick, brutal.

“Aunt Sara said my mother knew she would never see me grow up,” I said as tears turned everything watery. “But I thought whatever she’d seen, whatever she’d known, came after she married my dad. After I was born. But…” I breathed against another surge of emotion. “What if it was before? What if she always knew?”

Dylan put down the water. “Your mom loved you,” he said. “All she wanted was for you to be okay.”

I blinked him into focus, the penetrating eyes and sharp cheekbones, the sweep of hair along his jaw that made me want to reach out. Funny what time could do. Sometimes it made feelings, memories, fade, and sometimes it made them grow.

Abruptly I looked back down, to the journal in my lap.

I awaken in the predawn darkness, my heart racing, my body frozen, the echo of a silent scream burning my throat. Breathing hurts.

Remembering destroys.

I try anyway. I’m scared not to. They’re messages—I know that now. From some place unseen, some person unknown.

Just one day. That’s all I wanted. To look into her eyes and ask the questions that haunted me, to find out how she’d lived with the coming attractions of so many lives, including her own. I knew some of the preparations she’d made, but they were physical, tactical. My questions ran deeper. If only there was a way—

The second the possibility formed, the answer came. “Do you believe in the astral plane?”

Dylan answered without words, glancing away from me, toward the flashing
VACANCY
sign beyond the window.

“You do, don’t you?” And with the realization came new possibilities. Julian said the body was a shell, the physical world only temporary. He said we could leave the body and go to the astral, meet there …

Something inside me started to race. I’d thought myself alone when I’d closed my eyes and let go. I’d gone looking for Grace, that was true. But I’d found someone else.

The light was shining brighter now. If Dylan had been there …

He knew. He knew
everything
.

Once, I would have executed a sharp U-turn and backtracked as fast as I could. But there was nowhere to go, not when everywhere I turned, the truth waited.

“I tried to go,” I said and he swung toward me so fast I scooted back, forgetting about the wall until I rammed into it.

“Why would you do that?”

For the first time, his voice faltered. I just wasn’t sure what leaked through—surprise, or fear?

“Julian thought—”

“Julian?”

I eased the hair from my face, my fingers hesitating at the fading tenderness along my temple. “He said if I could find Grace there, I could find her in the real world.”

Dylan looked as if I’d punched him. “Did it work?”

“No.”

“Did you find …
anyone
?”

You.

“Me,” I said instead. “I found me as a little girl, the fire…”

He closed his eyes.

Maybe I should have looked away, given him the privacy that naked, unguarded moments deserved. But for a heartbeat I couldn’t look away from the way his shoulders strained against his T-shirt and his legs, hip-width apart, stood braced. And even without the glow of silver, I saw the restraint.

I made myself look down, back to my mother’s journal. Because I hadn’t meant to do it, to open that door, the one that protected that place inside me, the one that wanted so badly to understand. I hadn’t even meant to touch it.

But the second even the crack appeared, emotion surged.

I lay tangled in the damp sheets, hot, sweaty, forcing myself to breathe. In, out. Slow, steady. I know the drill. I know the routine. Just a few minutes and I’ll be able to move. Just a few minutes and a new day will begin.

“Some doors shouldn’t be opened.”

I looked up. “That’s not what you said before. You said opening them was the only way to see what was inside—”

“The past is different. We close doors for a reason.”

“What reason?”

The lines of his face tightened. “To prote—”

“Don’t.” I was off the bed in a heartbeat, halfway to him before everything started to spin.

TWENTY-SEVEN

He caught me as I glared up at him. “Don’t say
protect
.”

“It’s not a bad word, Trinity.”

I looked away, and the room tilted again.

“Careful.” Easing me back to him, he lifted a hand to slide the hair from my face. “Just breathe for me.”

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe for him, not without making everything misfire. Because somewhere along the line, the wall I’d hammered up between us, the wall that
had
to be there, the wall that made sure that what happened behind closed eyes never bled into what was real, crumbled.

And I could no longer be sure, I realized. I could no longer be sure where the wall belonged, or even
if
it belonged. If there were really separate worlds, or just …
separate sides
.

“What’s happening?” I whispered.
To me?

He helped me back to the bed. “You’re exhausted.”

Dark spots clouded my vision. I sat with my hands braced against the mattress, more than ready for the roller coaster to slow—
stop
. “Maybe I should see a doctor.”

“You don’t need a doctor.”

The rational part of me suggested it might be a good idea to get a second opinion. But something in Dylan’s voice, his touch, said that wasn’t necessary. “Is that the Navajo in you talking?”

He stilled.

“Your dad told me.”

His eyes narrowed, his fingers whispering across the tenderness at my forehead. “It’s not your body I’m worried about.”

Everything slowed, my breath, my heart, even the rush of air from the heater. It all thickened, swirling through me as if someone had slipped me another sedative.

“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” I asked, using my voice to continue a conversation in my mind.

His thumb skimmed a slow circle against my temple. “Quit fighting.”

It was so tempting to just …
let go
.

“Or maybe you would,” I said, not yet ready, not ready to sink into the pillows and close my eyes. I’d done that before. I’d let go. “It’s not like I really know anything about you.”

His fingers stilled. “What do you want to know?”

Everything, I realized. Because in truth, I knew little more than who his father was, that he had a knack for showing up when I needed him most, that as children we’d run through a field—and that the Navajo ran strong in his blood. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Did you graduate?”

“G.E.D.”

“College?”

“Not right now.”

The room grew fuzzier, the lamplight taking on a mercurial glow, and with it, I felt myself sinking toward the pillow. “What do you mean … not now?”

“I had to drop out.”

There was something in his voice, something dull and sad. “Why?”

His eyes met mine. “Because I had to.”

“That’s not an answer,” I muttered as, despite how hard I fought, I felt myself start to drift.

“Because someone needed me,” he whispered, and then it didn’t matter how hard I tried to hold on.

I let go.

*   *   *

His chest rose and fell with each rhythmic breath.

He made no sound. His eyes were closed. His long legs were crossed at the ankles. Curled around the gun, his hand was slack. And yet I still couldn’t tell if he slept.

It was such a simple thing. Close your eyes, go to sleep. Rest. But even with his eyes closed, Dylan Fourcade was alert, as if nothing, not even lightning from a clear sky, could catch him off guard.

Except when I’d mentioned the dream regression.

He’d tucked me in. He’d closed the curtains and turned off the lamps, pulling the bathroom door partially closed to allow only a sliver of light to leak through. But he’d left his shoes on.

And yet I was the one who’d been running.

My heart still raced. I’d come awake with a surge of adrenaline, paralyzed for several choppy breaths, until I’d opened my eyes to find Dylan. For a long time I’d just laid there and watched him, trying to link my breath to his. Slow, steady. In. Out.

Giving up, I slipped from bed and eased toward the door. I couldn’t stay there one second longer, not with the heater rattling and Dylan breathing.

The second the cool night air hit me, I took a deep breath. By the time I lifted the bottle of water from the vending machine, my movements weren’t as jerky. And when I drank almost the whole thing in one long sip, only then did I realize how completely I’d resisted feeling anything, even thirst.

Out of habit, I checked the BlackBerry, not thinking about what I might find until the notifications registered.

Eight messages waited—seven text, one voice—from three senders.

My heart started to race. I’d forgotten. I’d been so blindsided by everything that had happened, I’d forgotten to check in with my aunt. Victoria and I texted every night.

And
Chase
.

With the
VACANCY
sign flashing, I stared at his name. All my life I’d dreamed about finding someone who cared about me, what it would feel like, be like. How he’d look at me and hold me, make me feel stronger than before, prettier.
Better
.

I’d never imagined how complicated it could be.

But I’d been a little girl then, alone in the mountains with only my grandmother, and my dreams.

Now, almost seventeen, I’d learned there was a difference between dreams, reality, and fantasy.

It would have been easy to slip the phone back into my pocket. But that wouldn’t make the messages go away. And it wouldn’t make reality any less difficult.