She blinked, her long blonde hair shimmering in starlight. “It’s beautiful.”
“Lesson number gazillion in Dash Darhk’s survival rule book: beauty in the Heights means deadly,” I told her as I eyed the lake with caution. Personal experience had taught me that if it was pretty, stay the hell away.
Dash dropped his gear on the ground, indicating we were resting for the night. “Shocking that not everything I told you went in one ear and out the other.”
I smirked. “Just most of it.”
“The sparkling lake you see now will recede into a tiny puddle, but at nightfall, it will expand once again, swallowing up anything in its path. Legend says it is the magic of moonlight that triggers the water’s tide.”
“Sounds charming,” I said dully.
His eyes, much like the twinkling water, glittered with mischief. “Kind of like someone else I know.”
Getting off my feet, I plunked down onto the trunk of a fallen tree, removing my bag off my shoulders. “I’m more concerned with what lives in the water.”
“You don’t want to know,” he muttered.
Perfect. Like I was going to get any sleep now. “Are we safe here?”
Dash shrugged. “Only for as long as the water is at full height. When the sun starts to rise and the water dries up, that is when you need to worry. The creatures in Moonshadow Falls are able to survive in both land and sea, but each night, they return to the lake.”
“And this is the place you chose to camp?”
“Yep.” He tossed me a rolled up blanket. “Make yourself at home, Freckles.”
Dash started a fire from the twigs and branches Star and I gathered. It had been a long day of traveling, and we were all eager to relax. Lying down by the crackling fire, my mind drifted to the Night’s Guard, worried that they were closer than we realized. How much time did we have until they caught up to us? Hours? A day? A week? Judgment day would come, and we would either fight or die.
Volunteering to be mutated was one thing, but to do what I’d seen happen to Star, I couldn’t be a part of that. My DNA wouldn’t kill an innocent. There had to be other ways of protecting ourselves.
I snuggled under the blanket, folding my hands underneath my head and staring into the flames. Dash’s and Star’s low voices glided over from the other side of the fire, and as hard as I tried to block them out, my ears didn’t obey. Unable to stop myself, I peeked from under my lashes, seeing them sitting side by side.
“Do you remember when we took Logan to the zoo?” Star asked. Her cheeks were flushed from the warmth of the flickering flames.
Dash poked a charred log with a stick. “Which time?”
Star laughed. “God, I think we went a dozen times one summer. He did love that place, and secretly so did you.”
“I loved anywhere that wasn’t home.” An edge had moved into his voice, as it often did when it came to talking about his past.
It hurt that he could open up with Star when he kept that part of his life closed off from me. I understood the importance of reconnecting. He was getting back memories he had tried so hard to recall, but it left me wondering if there would ever be a future for us.
I suddenly felt like an intruder, and unable to take it anymore, I rolled over to let my dreams take me somewhere else—somewhere far from the incessant low laughter and reminiscing whispers of Ashley and Dylan. For when Dash was as he was tonight, he became a different person—one I didn’t know.
A longing for my past, my family, especially Monroe hit me in a tidal wave. I wanted to curl up on the couch and binge watch reality TV, like we used to do. I missed my dog, Ladybelle, following me around the house. I wanted to wake up in my bed and smell my dad cooking bacon and blueberry pancakes. I wanted to listen to my mom singing in the shower. I missed the sound of my friends giggling and gossiping about boys. I ached for my old life before the mist.
My throat closed up, and my stomach twisted into knots. To make matters worse, Star and Dash were in their own little bubble, sharing memories—a connection I didn’t have with anyone at the moment.
Jealousy flamed within me. I couldn’t stop it. The sound of Star giggling sent me over the edge. Lightning struck across the sky, crackling in a power display of electricity, vibrating throughout my body.
Shit.
I hadn’t meant for that to happen. My emotions had built up and snapped.
“Freckles, what’s wrong?” Dash murmured.
I glanced over my shoulder, his gaze meeting mine through the billowing smoke from the fire. “Nothing,” I mumbled, rolling over and giving him my back again. It’s just the sound of you flirting with another girl that’s destroying me.
He couldn’t really be that clueless, could he?
Instead of counting sheep, I counted the little buttery glowing fireflies dancing over the lake. My eyes followed their glittering yellow trail of dust until my lids began to droop. Somehow I drifted off, but my sleep was troubled by images of the past and the future, the two blurring. But one image stuck with me: Dash getting shot with an arrow, my hands stained with his blood, and there was nothing I could do to save him. This wasn’t the first time I’d had this particular vision. It was always the same and always left me drenched in sweat, gasping for air.
No matter what I did differently in the dream, I failed every single time. Dash would look at me with those roguish, starlit eyes and whisper my name.
Chapter Fourteen
Something woke me. A groan. A whimper. Whatever the noise, the person was in agony. I couldn’t decide if I still slept or if someone needed my help. The longer I tried to ignore the sounds, the more insistent they grew. Disregarding them wasn’t working.
Sighing, I turned my head to the side and opened my eyes. The logs in the fire were low burning embers, which meant I’d only been asleep for a few hours, not nearly enough. The moan sounded again, drawing my gaze toward where Dash slept.
I blinked, unsure what I was seeing.
Star sat beside Dash, her hands on his cheeks, murmuring at him to go back to sleep. My first glance made my heart constrict painfully. As I looked closer, Dash’s head thrashed from side to side. Star’s eyes were huge as she tried to console him, but it seemed as if things were getting worse.
Dash jerked up, his eyes out of focus. He was awake and yet not, his gaze staring off into the distance. He mumbled something that I couldn’t make sense of.
I stood up, rushing over to see if I could help. “Is he okay?” I asked. “What happened?”
Star shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks as she swiped at them with her hands. “He used to get these night terrors as a kid, but nothing seems to calm him, not like it used to.”