Fragile Darkness (25 page)

“But you didn't want to,” I whispered, turning back to him.

He lifted his hands behind his neck and squeezed. “Not until I saw Kendy beside the bed, crying.”

My eyes stung.

“That's when everything got tight again,” he said, “like I was putting my clothes back on, and I could feel her kissing my face and I woke up. Everyone was there, Kendall and my mom and dad and sister, some nurses and a doctor. And Duke,” he murmured, hesitating a few seconds before adding, “but no one else heard him.”

So everyone decided Will was crazy. “Are you still hearing him?”

“And the whispers,” he said, looking around the room at the endless sea of words and pictures as if just tuning back in. “At first, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. It was like when I was in the coma, except I was awake. Then I noticed the more people I was around, like at school, the more stuff I heard.”

“That's where the energy is,” I told him.

“It was kinda wild, so I started playing around with it, going to the mall or movies, to see what kinds of things I heard. That's how I ended up at the Greenwood party.” He hesitated, frowning. “But it was different there, more intense, like I'd walked into a nightmare instead of a dream.”

My breath caught. “How?”

He shook his head. “Just bad,” he said. “Like, all these warnings about something dangerous.” He sighed. “I got kinda scared and Kendall noticed—”

“And called your parents,” I filled in.

He nodded. “I didn't know how to tell her what was going on. I mean I wasn't sure
what
was going on,” he added as the soft glow of my phone slipped across an intricate series of curves above the baseboard.

Mechanically I crossed to the wall and dropped to my knees, dragging a finger along the highest slope of the hand-drawn roller coaster.

Will was definitely picking up Chase.

“I tried to tell my mom when I got home,” Will was saying behind me, “but she got upset and started crying, saying none of it was real, and showing me all these Web sites about traumatic brain injuries and hallucinations.” He frowned. “Yesterday she took me back to the doctor and got something to make them stop again.”

Two things hit me simultaneously: the fact he'd been given medicine to make the voices stop, which would explain his zombie-like state the night before, and the last word he said.

“What do you mean
again
?” I asked, looking back toward him.

He shrugged as if it was no big deal. “I used to talk to people who weren't there when I was a kid,” he said as a garbled sound broke from my phone.

My heart kicked hard. Dylan.

“In preschool,” Will was explaining. “That's how my mom met my stepdad. He's the psychiatrist she took me to. He knows how to make them stop.”

Dylan was
not
going to barge in, I told myself. There was no reason to.

“That's what happened Sunday. I went to the theater party to prove to myself it wasn't real, but it started happening again, and some guy was there, offering me something to
make it all better,
” Will murmured, all distracted, as if he was spinning through thoughts. “I shouldn't have taken it.” His eyes flashed dark, like they had when he'd swung down from the tree. “But it was like this crazy, freaky dream. Everything got louder, the whispers shouting that it needed to end, to be over.”

Not sure how much more time we had, I ran through his lists of words, skimming along the column I hadn't paid much attention to before:
FEELINGS.
Close to the bottom, written in a beautifully swirled handwriting, one word stood out:
BLISS.

And everything started to crystallize. So. Not. Random.

“Will,” I said, gesturing for him to join me. “This isn't a feeling,” I said. “It's a drug.”

He froze. His eyes darkened.

“A
bad
drug,” I emphasized. “People are dying.” Wanting to make sure he understood, I turned to look him in the eye. “Teenagers. I think it's what you took Sunday night. I…” What
I'd
been given. “I think this is what's connecting us, the parties and the bliss. I think it's what my vision is about.”

For a moment he just stood there, paler than before, staring.

“You have to stop going,” I said.

Turning, he crossed to the wall behind us, the only one I hadn't looked at yet, where two more columns waited:
PLACES
and
PEOPLE.

It was darker back there, the shadows deeper. Angling my phone, I moved closer and scanned through the places, shopping malls, and schools (including Enduring Grace and Tulane); the abandoned multiplex from Sunday night and a few other movie theaters, all still open; the Greenwood house and Club Rouge, City Park, and railroad tracks,
Six Flags.

“These are all places you went to?” I asked.

He shook his head distractedly. “It was just a game.”

A game that put him straight in the path of something bad.

“One place leading me to another,” he muttered, shifting his attention from
PLACES
to
NAMES.

Jeremy Albrite

D.D. Wilson

Sean Mitchell

Brandy Lane

Mark Jacks

Trinity

Chase Dylan

It was all I could do to breathe.

“Oh, my God,”
I murmured, suddenly so, so cold, like ice overtaking everything inside me. My hand shook as I lifted it to streak a finger along the first name.

“He died,” I managed, “From Bliss. And…” None of the other names meant anything to me, except …

Brandy Lane.

A strangled sound broke from my throat. I didn't know a Brandy Lane, but I did know
Amber
Lane.

And then there was my name. Maybe Will wrote it down because he saw me, but Chase and Dylan …

My mind raced. There were other reasons Will could know them. Chase's name was linked to mine all over the Internet, and Dylan had been there last night. But had I called him by name?

I didn't remember.

“This all means something,” I said. “We need to show this to—” I broke off, realizing I shouldn't refer to Detective Jackson by name. Will didn't trust the cops.

But Jackson needed to see this.

“I have a friend,” I said, remembering my plan from the night before. Julian. “He helps me figure things out. We can go talk to him.” Maybe I could try to project to the astral plane again, this time with Will. Maybe …

I stilled, hearing the faint groan of the floorboard too late.

Will jerked back.

Dylan,
I thought, starting to turn, but before I could something hit me from behind, a vicious jolt of energy, zapping every nerve ending in my body. I tried to rip away, but it was like I was holding a live wire or a live wire was holding me. The current screamed through me, locking me there. Vaguely I was aware of shouting, and then as quickly as it began, everything stopped, and the floor fell away.

 

TWENTY-FIVE

Everything blurred. I tried to move, couldn't. My whole body shook. I couldn't key onto anything, anything but the panic, and the pain. My whole body screamed.

Oh, God,
I thought somewhere inside. What had just happened?

It took a few more seconds for the quiet to register. Forcing a blink, I rolled to my side, searching the shadows, knowing—

I was supposed to know something. I knew that. But everything was blank, like
before,
when LaSalle tackled me and I hit my head. Everything was jerky, disjointed. Nothing made sense.

Minutes passed. I had no idea how many. I made myself count, concentrating on each number.

Someone would come. I knew that. Someone would—

Dylan.

My heart slammed hard, sending a strong, forceful rush through me. My phone. Where was my phone? Where was
Dylan
?

Thoughts began to string together. He'd been in the courtyard. He'd been listening. He'd promised—

I barely recognized the sound that ripped from my throat. Everything inside me rushed harder. Frantically I tried to move, this time making it to my hands and my knees.

My phone. I saw it on the floor. Dragging myself, I fumbled for it and dragged it to my face.
“Dylan.”

Nothing.

“Please,”
I said, my voice stronger by the second.
“Where are you?”

Nothing.

My blood raced so hard I could feel it, each hard thrum through my body. Knowing I couldn't stay there, knowing I had to get out, I crawled to the wall, realizing belatedly that it was easier now. That my body was responding.

I concentrated on breathing and pulled myself up. Steadying myself, I tried a step. It was wobbly, but my legs worked. The next step was stronger. And the next.

I was halfway to the door when the sound of running broke the silence. “Trinity!”

I froze as a haze of light swept into the room.

“Trinity!” the girl shouted, swinging toward me. “Oh, my God!” she gasped as our eyes met, and then she was rushing toward me, and I was wobbling toward her, even as none of it made any sense.

Jessica took me by the arms—or maybe I took her. I didn't know. It all happened too fast. All I knew was that I was holding onto her, and she was holding onto me, and we were both shaking.

Through streaks of tangled hair, her eyes met mine. “What happened?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I think.”

“Then come on,” she said before I could say anything else. “Your friend's not moving.”

*   *   *

Everything blurred, the past and the present, memory and premonition, light and darkness and that hazy, desperate place somewhere between. It was all there, swirling with the quick rush of adrenaline.

My body more mine by the second, Jessica helped me down the rotting stairs and through the shadows, toward the glow of light beyond. Together we burst into the courtyard—and for a heartbeat, everything stopped.

A second. That's all it was. I knew that. I didn't really stop. I didn't really stare. I didn't even scream. But sometimes time could stretch, and sometimes time could deceive. Sometimes a single breath could feel like a lifetime, and a lifetime could masquerade as a fraction of a second.

And in that one second when I saw him, when I saw Dylan sprawled in the fall of shadows near the old fountain, with his legs at an angle and his arms reaching out, the sweep of dark hair against his face and the blood on the ground, dark and red and oozing along a crack in the concrete, time rolled backward and forward, creating the illusion of standing still.

But just as quickly I was across the cobblestone and dropping down beside him, reaching for him, touching him.

“Dylan.”
My voice shook. My hands trembled.

This was
his
role, some rapidly spinning place inside me screamed.
He
was the one who found
me.
He was the one who dragged me to safety. He was the one who put his hands to my neck and checked for the soft flutter. He was the one who held my hand and urged me back.

He was the one who promised.

“Dylan.” Crouching over him, I slid the hair from his eyes, leaving my hand along the line of his cheekbone. “It's me. Trinity.
I'm here.
”

Against the inside of my wrist, the warmth of his breath feathered.

“Oh, God, thank you,” I cried, running my hands along his side.

The warm stickiness stopped me. With another quick kick of my heart I carefully slid his T-shirt up along his body, and found the gash at his side. Not huge, not deep, but bleeding.

He groaned.

“Hey,” I whispered, leaning over him. “Everything's okay.”

His eyelids fluttered.

“Oh, thank God,” Jessica said, dropping down beside me. “I was so scared when I found him.”

On some level the bizarreness of that registered, but my questions didn't matter, not in that moment.

“I'm right here,” I murmured, leaning closer.

Dylan coughed, softly at first, progressively more forceful, as if expelling something. And then it was like a switch flipped and he went from barely there to fully there, surging up and reaching for me, taking me by the arms.

“Easy,” I said, as he'd said to me so many times before. “Everything's okay.”

His eyes went a little wild, that fire within him flaring again, consuming. “I tried to stop him—”

“It's okay,” I whispered, vaguely aware of shouting beyond the courtyard. But Dylan had his arms around me, and he was
okay,
stronger by the second.

Don't cry,
I told myself as Deuce and Detective Jackson ran through the gate.
Don't cry.

“Holy God,” one of them shouted, and then they were both there, with Jessica, crowded around us as my tears spilled over, and Dylan gathered me against the warmth of his body.

“You're safe,” he whispered. “I promise you're safe.”

And so was he. For that moment, despite the questions racing through me, he was safe. That was all that mattered.

*   *   *

The paramedics showed up. Three more cops ran in. Dylan and I were pronounced okay, although they wanted us to go home and rest. He'd hit his head. I'd been on the receiving end of a stun gun.

Jackson and his team, including his new partner, KiKi, a tiny woman who barely looked out of college, were
very
interested in the room upstairs.

One by one questions got answered.

“I had a bad feeling,” Deuce said, explaining why he followed me and Dylan from the parade. “I didn't want you running off doing that Primetime thing without backup.”

“That's the way it was for me, too,” Jessica said, hugging her arms around herself. “The way you tore off kinda…” Shadows crossed her face. “I don't know. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”