Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (36 page)

I stop, listen.

“He has us all—even you.”

Across the street, I realize, from the peach building with green doors. “She’s in the hotel,” I tell Dylan, and then I’m running again. We’re running. “Who?” I ask, closing in. “Just tell me who or where—”

“Inside.”
But now the voice is behind me.

I spin, see the lemony yellow building on the corner. “The emporium—”

“You have to get inside,”
she cries, but the voice is behind me again. Beside me. All around me.

And then there’s nothing but the sweep of silence.

“Trinity, what’s happening?”

“I don’t know.” I twist around, searching from building to building, window to window, door to door. And see the footprints. They’re black, glowing like melted coal.

I know I have to follow them.

Dylan is a step behind. “Where are you going?”

“Inside,” I whisper. “Please don’t let go.”

And he doesn’t, he doesn’t let go, he holds on tight, goes with me as I step toward the door flanked by two wide columns, white once, grimy ivory now, and reach for the glowing glass knob. “She’s here.”

THIRTY-FOUR

My aunt.
I feel her, the desperation of her heartbeat, the twist of love and terror. “But I don’t think she wants me to find her.”

“Why not?”

“It’s like she’s holding her breath.” Like everything was holding its breath—my aunt, the building.
The wind.
There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, just a stillness so deep it throbs with each beat of my heart.

“Aunt Sara!” I shout, lifting my fists to pound.

They slip right through, the wood nothing but air.

“Trinity, no—”

I lunge forward, and everything starts to spin. Stumbling I throw myself to the door—and fall straight through.

Dylan catches me.

I hang there, in his arms. “Oh, my God—it’s gone.” All of it, the door and the building, the stillness. My aunt. I can’t feel any of it, only the whirring around me, louder, louder—

Frantically I twist away. “Aunt Sara!”

“Trinity—what’s happening?”

“I-I don’t know,” I say, stumbling again, starting to run. “There’s nothing here.”

“Yes,” said a different voice. “There is.”

I freeze. “Julian.”

“Let go of the fear,” he said. “And look again.”

Dylan stands a few feet away, watching. Beyond him the sky fades. “Do it.”

I don’t know how, I want to say—
scream.
But instead I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I open them a heartbeat later, it’s all there again, the rotting buildings and the empty street …

“Tell me what you see.”

This time I don’t hesitate. I look beyond the hotel and the emporium—and blink. “They’re … dancing.”

“Who is?”

“I don’t know.” But I see them, swirling. “Wait, no … She’s laughing.” No. Screaming.

“Is someone with you?”

“Yes. No. I…” Spinning, I squint against the blinding white of the afternoon sky, where I would swear … “It’s a highway,” I murmur, and finally the buzz makes sense, the constant drone. Not an insect. Not my imagination.

But cars.

Everything slows, stretches. “There’s…” I blink, don’t understand. “An alligator,” I whisper. “And a pelican.” Animated, playful—crumbling.

I feel more than hear Dylan’s rough breath. “Look up—look away from the highway…”

His words fade. The buzz grows louder. Because there where I’ve never looked before, something huge and hulking lurks against the horizon.

“Trinity—”

“I don’t understand,” I whisper as shape takes form, and reality twists. “What’s that doing here?”

And with the question, the realization, a soft sound comes from behind me, like paper being torn. I turn and see the glow, the opening a few feet away, the air itself torn wide open.

“Trinity—what’s happening?”

The last time the slit had been smooth, perfect. But now the edges are rough, jagged. Instead of pink, the reddish-orange hues of a sunset leak through.

I move toward it, know I have to move toward it. That’s why it’s there. For me.

Dylan stops me. “What do you see?”

The glow calls to me …

I move fast, ripping myself from Dylan, from everything, toward the portal—

“Trinity, no!” he shouts, lunging for me.

I step into it.

He snags me by the arm.

I rip away, twist into the void …

Everything flashes, keeps flashing. I spin around, spin again, but the landscape stretches in all directions, parched, desolate, leaving only shadows to twist against the dying embers of a fire. There are no buildings, no trees—no Dylan.

“Where are you?” I scream.
“Where are you?”

“Trinity! Get out of there!”

Everything keeps shifting, jerky, off-balance and out of focus, like images from a handheld video camera. I don’t know which way to go. I make myself run anyway, know I have to find her before—

Through the fleeting flickers I see her, see her where I’d seen her before, standing with her back to me, matted hair falling against her shoulders, her dress, the beautiful one we’d picked out for Naomi’s wedding, shredded.

“Aunt Sara!” Screaming, I lunge for her.

Lightning strobes, and she’s gone.

“No, come back—”

“Trinity!” Dylan’s voice, strong—ravaged. “What’s happening?”

“I saw her! She’s—” Another ripple cuts into the darkness, showing the girl across the street, walking fast, her long white-blond hair pulled into a low ponytail, her maxi dress tangling at her feet.

“Grace,” I murmur, breaking toward her. She’s out. She’s escaped, trying to get away.

But darkness sweeps in, fast—violent—and when it recedes, the street is empty.

I spin around, spin again, keep spinning. “Grace!”

The hall stretches through the shadows, long, doors lining both sides, closed.

All but one.

“Trinity.”

Dylan’s voice. I know it is. And I want to hold on, want so badly to hold on. But the echo of recognition is louder—stronger. I move toward it, down the hall, to the room with the open door, where the glass knob glows.

Just like four months before.

And I know. Even before I look, I know who I’m going to see.
“Jessica.”
She’s there, on that disgusting mattress, her hair matted and eyes drenched with bone-deep fear as she scoots back. “No,” she cries. “No! Don’t hurt me!”

“Goddamn—she’s in the Abyss.”

The words, Julian’s voice, barely register.

“Get her out!”

“Trinity—”

I turn and start to run, stumble down the hall—and scream.

“What?” Dylan’s voice.
Dylan’s voice!
From behind me. Inside me. “What’s happening?” he demands.

“It’s me…” I stare, stunned. “I see me.”

“What do you mean you see you?”

“At the house on Prytania, the night Jessica locked me in the closet. I’m there—I’m afraid.”

“Get her out,” he shouted again. “Now!”

I heard him, felt the tugging, but ripped away, stumbling toward the stairs and vaulting into the darkness.

People are everywhere, laughing, drinking. Everything sparkles—glitters. And then a girl with long blond hair breaks away, her eyes dancing, her smile flirty, and blows a kiss to a guy in the crowd.

“Happy New Year!” she enthuses, and then she turns as if playing, daring, and darts away—

“No, come back!” I try to go after her, know I have to—

The smell blasts through me, sharp, pungent. I gag on it, start to cough, and then he’s there, Dylan, leaning over me and holding me by the arms, his chest violent with breath, the silver of his eyes burning.

“Oh, God,” I murmured, looking around. My aunt’s room. I was in my aunt’s room, with Dylan and Julian, Julian who held a small vial in his hand. “What just happened?”

Somewhere along the line hair had fallen from Julian’s ponytail, now fell against his face. “You went through a portal.”

I jerked up. “They were all there,” I remembered, confused. “My aunt and Grace, Jessica and another girl.” And me. I’d been there, too.

I’d seen myself.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered as the skin stretched across Dylan’s face, stretched so tight, emphasizing the sharp lines of his cheekbones.

“You slipped into the hunter’s past,” Julian said, “
his
memories.”

And something inside me started to break.

“He fucking played us,” Dylan said. His voice was unbearably flat. “He played us all.”

I grabbed him, held on. “What do you mean—”

“It didn’t end last fall,” he said. “The man who took Jessica—and the others. He’s been waiting all this time.”

“To hunt again,” I whispered sickly. Lines veered from dot to dot, creating a picture I’d never imagined. Someone
had
died at Big Charity, but someone else had lived, and whoever that someone was, they were hunting again, hunting in a circle around me, ever closer. “Oh, my God—”

“But the game is about to end,” Dylan said—vowed.
Promised
. “Because you found her.”

“W-what?”

“You saw a roller coaster, didn’t you?” he said, and on a quick, sharp rush it all came back, all the disjointed images, the hulking curved structure against the horizon …

*   *   *

“I want you to stay where you are,” Detective LaSalle instructed five minutes later. “I’m on it.”

The second the line went dead, Dylan and I ran for his truck.

Waiting was not an option.

Within minutes we were tearing out the garage while he filled me in about the former Six Flags park on the outskirts of town, abandoned since Katrina. For weeks it had sat underwater, but even after the swamp receded, no one returned.

“Hurry!” I said as the New Orleans I knew gave way to a desolate stretch of eastbound Interstate, littered by vacant strip malls and restaurants. “You have to hurry.”

“Ten minutes.”

“That’s too long!”

He swerved onto the shoulder, jerking around a minivan. Minutes later we zipped past an exit ramp angling down from the highway—straight into the murky water.

Once, before the storm, there would have been a road.

“You’ve been there before?” I asked. “You know where you’re going?”

He swerved onto the shoulder again, gunning around slower cars. “I was just a kid when it opened.” The speedometer pushed ninety. “My dad used to take me.”

“And later?” I prompted.

“Dad didn’t come with me then.”

The park had sat month after month, waiting, forgotten, while the swamp closed in. There’d been controversy and legal battles, a few rides had been relocated to other parks, potential buyers had come forward with plans to reopen, but while lawyers did what lawyers did, the remains of the park first known as Jazzland waited.

“Not much longer,” he said, and for the hundredth time, I twisted to scour the blinding white of the horizon to the south. It was late afternoon. The sun, glowing from behind thick clouds, had not yet begun to set.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “How could she be there? Don’t the police—”

“They do,” he said, not needing to hear my question. “When they see something out of the ordinary or a local calls. But like Big Charity, they can’t be there all the time.”

“But—” I started, but the sight of the wooden roller coaster twisting against the horizon stopped my words.

“
Omigod …
Aunt Sara.” The shaking came on fast, a terrible vibration from somewhere deep. “Hurry!”

Dylan zoomed down the exit and veered onto the road leading to the park, as the speedometer inched toward one hundred.

The park came into focus, rides and buildings standing as silent placeholders for all the storm had taken, and that nothing could ever give back. At a distance they looked normal. But the closer we got, the more the scene warped, shifting from daydream to postapocalyptic. The Ferris wheel and roller coasters still stood, our speed emphasizing the stillness to them. And the trees and bushes, once carefully manicured, now grew wild. A chain fence surrounded the perimeter. A simple sign read
CLOSED FOR STORM.

The parking lot sat empty.

“There’s no one here,” I said, as Dylan stopped beside the barricade. “LaSalle said—”

He yanked the keys from the ignition. “Text him,” he said, reaching for the gun beneath the seat.

I stabbed out a message to Detective LaSalle. His response came almost immediately.

New Orleans East patrols combed area.

Nothing there.

I just stared. I read the words, but they didn’t register, didn’t come close to making sense.

“What’d he say?” Dylan asked, grabbing his BlackBerry from the cup holder between us.

Blankly I looked up at him.

He took the phone from my hands and glanced down, frowned.

“No. That can’t be. She has to—” Twisting from him, I shoved open the door and sprung into the cool afternoon breeze, started to run.

“Trinity—”

I kept running, knew he would follow. Knew he had the gun. Knew I couldn’t rely on anyone else to find my aunt.

At the fence I didn’t pause, didn’t care about the edges slicing into my hands. I scrambled to the top and jumped to the other side, came down with a jolt against the cracked concrete.