He knows.
He looks back but I can’t see his face and I race toward him, hurtling myself, lunging, my fingers stretching.
And then I’m falling,
Falling,
Falling,
And the water is cold,
The sand is damp.
And I’m broken,
I’m broken,
I’m broken.
Dare is with me, and there’s blood all over his shirt.
“Are you ok?” he asks quickly, and his hands are on mine. “God, Calla, are you ok? Open your eyes, open your eyes.”
Finn and my mother and my father are all spread on the sand. But that was a different night.
This is my night.
Not theirs.
They died already.
Time spins and I’m in the sand with Dare, and I’m in his lap, and the foam covers us both, and the water is bloody, and the blood is mine.
“Do you see?” he asks quietly, his new ring glinting in the light, because he’s protected now, but I’m not.
“Yes,” I murmur.
Protect me, St. Michael.
Pray for me.
Pray for me.
My memories.
“My memories weren’t real,” I tell myself, and I already knew that to be true. But I didn’t know the truth.
They were always a jumbled up mess.
They weren’t completely real.
But they are now.
Painfully,
Nightmarishly,
Real.
I play it again in my head,
Again,
And again,
And again.
“My friend had to cancel,” Finn scowls. “So I guess I’ve been stood up. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
Ugh. I groan internally because I’m not a fan of Quid Pro Quo, but Finn has been looking forward to this concert for months. I’m just about to agree to going, when my father walks in.
“I’ll go. I don’t want you going into the city alone this late.”
“Sa-weet!” Finn crows, and I don’t point out that most boys would rather die than go to a concert with their father. He’s not ‘most boys’ and we know it.
My father puts his hand on my shoulder.
“Hey, I know what,” he suggests. “I want you to come too. I don’t want you here alone. Not tonight. You’re coming too, Calla. I’ll buy your ticket.”
“Heck yeah,” Finn says, and I want to scream, Noooooo. Don’t.
Because this is a memory and it’s real and I can’t change it.
We pile into the car, And I can’t stop.
I can’t stop.
I’m going to kill them, And I can’t stop.
Our car barrels down the mountain.
And my mom forgot her glasses.
I can’t change it now.
The night is shattered by screams.
Because I hit my mother and they’re all dead.
“My family is all dead. My father, my brother, my Finn. And your mother is dead too, and it’s all our fault.”
My words are finally true. And I see things.
I see things.
I see things.
Dare nods, and his movement is sad and I’m gurgling. I can’t breathe and my teeth are red.
“Have you known this whole time?” I ask, because I didn’t. Because I’m so fucked up that my mind has created stories out of stories out of stories.
He nods. “Yeah. But you didn’t.”
He looks away and for a second, I think that’s all, That’s all there is to know,
That’s the last of the secrets.
But his face is hurt,
And pained,
And I know in my heart… it’s not.
There’s something else.
There’s
One
More
Thing.
My lungs are hot and red and bloody, and my throat is constrained. I can barely move and the pain, The pain,
The pain.
I can’t breathe.
“Tell me,” I murmur. “I’m ready. Tell me the last secret.”
Dare picks up my hand and there’s a shadow behind him, The hooded boy.
Of course.
He’s been waiting for me,
following me,
he’s been here for me all along.
Standing at Dare’s shoulder, he turns his face, And I can finally see it.
It’s black as night,
And he has no eyes.
I gasp, because I finally know who he is.
He’s Death.
I saw him on Sabine’s tarot card.