Fragile Darkness (32 page)

My throat worked. I could feel it building, all the emotion I'd shoved away, that I didn't want to feel, swelling inside me, like floodwaters rising against a failing dam.

“But part of me did die,” I said.

His hand slid lower, to the dragonfly at my chest. “No. You're still you, and you're still here.”

Around me, everything glistened, as if a light had suddenly come on, shining so bright it blinded.

“Because you pulled me back,” I realized, reliving it all over again, the need firing through me, the life force.

His.

“Like you always do.” In so many ways.

“No.” His voice was unnaturally quiet now, devastatingly hoarse. “I didn't pull you back.”

A single tear slid over my lashes.

“I didn't
let go,
” he whispered. “I didn't let
you
go.”

My chest tightened, one last valiant stand before the dam crumbled. “You never do.”

A rough breath shredded from him.
“I can't.”

I don't know who moved first, all I knew was suddenly I was in his arms and he was holding me, and I was holding him, holding him like I'd wanted to,
needed to,
every second of every minute of every hour since I'd seen him at the Greenwood party.

Before that.

Always.

And he was doing the same.

And it was just us again, finally, the us from before, without time or boundaries or explanations, without logic, or hurt, or pain. The us that burned so bright.

The us that just was.

Because he never let go, and forever was so much more than a throwaway word. So much more than the here and the now. The real forever lay beyond the frailties and limitations of this world, beyond the hurt and the cruelty and drama, beyond the trees, the sun. Beyond everything that we let shape our realities.

Forever was bigger than that.

It was that most sacred place in all of us, the part that bound us together, that kept us together. There were no beginnings or endings, just befores and afters.

“It's always been you,” he said, running his hand along my back and pressing me against him. “It killed me staying in the shadows, waiting.”

The rhythm of his heart pounded through every cell of my body. “Then why did you?”

“Because you were happy,” he said quietly. “And I didn't want to take that from you.”

I had to make myself breathe. He'd stayed in the shadows, because he didn't want to hurt me.

“But that's why your dad sent you to watch over me, isn't it?” I murmured against the warm flesh of his neck. “Because he knew if I got hurt, you wouldn't let me go.”

Dylan stilled, and I knew I was right.

“And Julian.” I didn't want to let go, either, but needing to see his face, I pulled back. “That's why he told you about me being blocked.”

That dark sweep of hair fell against Dylan's eyes, hiding and revealing at the same time.

“I know,” I told him, and with the words I lifted my hand to the line of his jaw.

Only a touch, that's all it was, but the warmth fired through me with the force of a thousand shooting stars.

And I smiled, real and bright and glistening. “I know it's not the salve.”

The silver of his eyes darkened. He still held me, still had his hands to my body. I could still feel the reverberations, fainter now, but there.

Always there.

“Is it just me?” I asked quietly. “Or can you hold on to everyone?”

 

THIRTY-TWO

Life doesn't always lead you where you think you're going. Straight roads can suddenly branch in wildly different directions, wide paths can narrow, and unexpected dead ends can stop you cold.

But they can also make you turn around and see what you missed the first time through. And in that moment I saw what had been right in front of me all along.

Life had an amazing way of coming full circle.

Dylan had done way more than hold onto me in an emotional or metaphysical sense.

He'd held me in every way imaginable.

“You're a healer,” I said as the wisdom of his ancestors flickered through his eyes. I didn't know much about the concept, but I knew there were many gifts beyond precognition and telepathy and clairvoyance. There were those who could move things with their minds, and heal with their hands.

And that's what Dylan had done for me, time and time again.

But now he looked as if I'd backed him against a wall, and lifted a knife to his heart.

I didn't get that.

“It's so clear now.” An incredible sense of rightness drifted through me. I'd always known that about Dylan, even before I'd understood. It wasn't the salve. It was him. He had the ability to heal.
That's
why I'd ended up at his father's place Sunday, because deep inside I'd known I needed to heal.

And he was the missing piece.

I think I'd always known that, even when I resisted.

“Why won't you say anything?” I asked.

His hands remained against my hips, still sending warm, electrical currents pulsing through me.

“It doesn't work with everyone,” he finally answered, his voice so phenomenally quiet it was no more than a whisper through my blood. “There has to be…”

“A connection,” I breathed before he could.

“And trust.”

“And we have both.” We'd always had both.
“From before.”
Always.

Forever.

I lifted a hand to his face, needing to touch, to memorize—to remember.

His eyes darkened. “Love makes it stronger.”

Everything inside of me rushed, rushed hard and fast and deep. For the past few days, I'd only seen the differences in him. Now the wall was gone, and I saw the real Dylan. He was still there, had been all along.

“In this lifetime,” he murmured hypnotically, “the last, and all those that lay ahead.”

The rhythm of my heart deepened. Words. That's all they were. But that wasn't true. They were confirmation, and they were forever. “Because you find me,” I whispered.

The breath ripped out of him. “Always.”

“Why didn't you want me to know?”

“I never kept it from you.”

That was true. He hadn't. He'd never made any attempt to keep his ability or our connection a secret, not even after the car accident in Belle Terre.

I need to touch you,
he'd whispered.

Now I knew why.

“Then will you do it?” I asked. “Will you touch me like you did before, and make the darkness go away?” I lifted my hands to his. “Or is it only physical?”

The silver of his eyes took on a slow, dark, gleam. “It's more than physical.”

“How does it work?”

Never looking away, he eased me down to the rug and twisted toward the iPod dock against the wall.

Bakta wandered over as the sound of drums and chanting drifted around us, and Dylan kneeled beside me. “Close your eyes.”

Something dark and dangerous swirled through me. “What if I want to watch?”

“You can try.” He almost sounded amused. “Deep breaths,” he said. “Slow, steady.”

Then he closed
his
eyes.

Fascination streaked to a whole new level.

Normally when someone closed their eyes they disengaged from the world around them. They tuned out. But Dylan became more aware, as if by shutting out the interference of his eyes, he slipped into an alternate dimension where his other senses took over.

Kneeling beside me, he spread his fingers and swept his hands along my body, not touching, not physically, but everywhere he skimmed, warm pulses skittered through me, slow and soothing, like a touchless massage.

“I can feel you.” His hands hesitated over my chest, his fingers moving faintly, as if playing a piano only he saw.

Within seconds the rhythm of my heart, my breath, slowed.

“I feel you, too,” he said quietly.

Another wave washed through me, thicker, stronger.

“What do you feel?” I asked. Or maybe I didn't. Maybe that was only a thought drifting through my mind. I had no conscious awareness of moving my mouth, only of the question, and anticipation.

“Strength.”
The quiet word moved through his hands, his breath.

“What else?”

He paused over my chest, my heart, and his hand started to shake.
“Nilch'i,”
he murmured.

The heaviness intensified, throbbing through me like a slow caress. “What's that?”

He started to move again, slowly toward my neck, reverently, as if touching something infinitely fragile.

“Your life force,” he said. “The divine breath.”

New tendrils of warmth feathered like the first kiss of spring.

“Stop fighting.” The words were so, so quiet, without texture or tone, and I had absolutely no idea if they were mine, or his. Because everything liquefied, dissolving into a soft haze. Conscious thought swirled away, and dreams melted into memories.

Or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it was memories that became dreams. Or maybe they were all the same, two sides of the same life.

But nuances like that didn't matter. Understanding didn't matter. There was something clinical about trying to define everything, to attach logic to the mystical. Of thinking I had to understand before I could accept.

“Please.” This time the word was mine. I knew that, felt the need rise within me, just as I felt my hands reach for Dylan's and bring them to the fluttering at the base of my throat. It didn't matter that I couldn't see the glitter of his eyes or line of his cheekbone, the fullness of his mouth.

None of the mattered. None of that was even real.

All that mattered was the quiet river inside me, the one that flowed with memories and dreams and awareness, the
promise
that forever wasn't some obscure, distant place. It wasn't in the future. It was now. And it was real.

Vaguely I was aware of the drums and the chants carrying me to some other place, some other time, where glimmers of light broke the darkness, and fear fell away.

And then it was just us again, no longer standing alone in the after, but together in a new before. And without thinking I inhaled deeply and opened my eyes to a field of waving grass dotted by daisies.

“Better run!”

I spun around to find a boy with dark shaggy hair running toward me. His clothes were old, faded cutoffs and a white T-shirt, and in his hands he held a garden hose.

Then I was running, too, twisting around and hurrying not away from him, but toward something. I could feel it, the swirl of anticipation, the awareness that I had only to get through the tall grass, and something amazing would be there. Waiting.

“A promise is a promise,” he calls.

Suddenly I'm at the door, the one that had not been there before. And I'm opening it and rushing back into the unknown. But there's no fear, only the promise of silence. I stand there, my heart in my throat, my soul on fire, waiting …

“I'm here.” He is, too. I can't see him, but I know.

I always know.

The darkness won't give me detail, but I don't need that anymore.

“I'm ready.” I breathe, and then he's in front of me, and he's moving and so am I, and I can feel him even before his arms close around me.

“I missed you,” I try to say, but the words are more breath than voice.

He doesn't need them. He knows. “I always find you,” he murmurs against my face. “Always.”

“Forever.” Lifting my mouth to his, I come alive with the remembered kiss, the breath we've shared so many times.

“You don't need to be afraid anymore,” he promises.

“I'm not.” Drawing back, I see his eyes, the silver gleam that's always there.

“I'll find you,” he promises. His voice is lower now, hoarse. “Trust me.”

Reaching for him, my hands slip through air. “No!”

Around me the night swirls. I run anyway, run without the chains of fear, knowing I can't let them hold me back. Not this time. I have to find him.

The silver stops me. Not his eyes, but a lattice of steel. It glows against the night, a bridge from one side of the darkness to the other.

I run toward it, but the wind pushes me back, and a scream rips in from behind me.

I spin around, toward the sudden throb of music, and everything stops. Everything but the scream of the electronic rhythm. They're strewn everywhere, grotesquely twisted, frozen where they lay, as if they'd been dancing when the world ended.

But they're not shadows.

“Oh, God,” I cry, and then I'm running again, toward the bodies. They're everywhere.

Then I see the beanie. “Will,” I breathe, running, running so fast. He's lying near the water, as if he just stretched out and went to sleep.

“No,” I whisper, dropping to my knees. But already I know there will be no flutter at the base of his neck.

Numbly I pull myself back, and see the man standing across the canal. Watching. He's tall, well-dressed, and something familiar nudges at me.

“Trinity!”

I twist around, searching. “Dylan!” I start to run toward the bridge, but the body on the other side stops me.

It's not moving.

“No!” I shout, but the bridge begins to lift, a horrible grinding sound ripping into the night. I run anyway, run until the ground falls away, and the world goes white.

“Trinity.”

I hung there frozen in the cold grip of terror, trying to breathe. “Dylan—”