Breaking Normal (Dream Weaver #3) (17 page)

             
“You won’t just find the last of their lives there, honey.” And he didn’t need to elaborate. I knew he meant I’d find their deaths smeared across the tarmac.

             
“I
have
to go,” I insisted.

             
“I’ll go with you,” he insisted back. It riled me.

             
“I’m a big girl, Nick,” I argued. “I can handle this by myself. I don’t need you along to…” I cringed as I let my true thoughts erupt.

             
“To what, Em? To taint the memories scattered across the freeway?” He swept his arm in an arc across Sabre’s living room as though the summit of the pass lay there before us. The hurt in his eyes twisted my heart.

             
“I just—need the raw reality of the wreck, not something softened by you or anyone else.” I stepped back up to him and rested my cheek on his chest. His body was stiff with stress, but softened as his arms wrapped around me. He sighed like the weight of the world had just been removed from his shoulders. “Nick, please. I need you to understand. I have to do this.” I didn’t really know what I expected to find. Maybe nothing. But maybe, it would give me the opportunity to find some kind of closure. Whatever that meant. “I’ll take Eddy with me, so he can alert me if a Wraith decides to drop by.”

             
Nick pushed me out to arm’s length. “You’re driving?” His mouth tightened at my nod. “Even better,” he said and turned away with a growl.

             
“What? You got a problem with my driving?” Okay, so I had a blemish on my record from totaling the T-bird—and dumping the CX-9 in a ditch in their driveway before Sabre’s rock star weave.

             
No. It just means you’ll be gone longer.

             
I smiled.
Oh. Is that all?

             
Isn’t it enough?

             
Sabre gagged like a cat hocking up a hairball. “Are you two about done?”

             
I giggled. Nick snarled, but returned his gaze to my face. The hard lines of his mouth and brow faded as he spoke to me. “How ‘bout we try an experiment? We can check the distance we can reach broadcasting. At least that way, we’ll know what we’re all capable of.”

             
My eyes narrowed at him. “Yeah? And you can still babysit me. No thanks.”

             
“Emi, please,” he pleaded. But I met his plea with a scowl.

             
“That’s really not a bad idea. It could be good to know our range,” Sabre interjected. It was my turn to snarl at Sabre James.

             
Nick swept my hands into his, but I pulled them away. His shoulders slumped again as the weight of the world returned. Would I ever be able to truly forgive him for his betrayal? My heart ached to be in his arms. But my mind rejected his affections. Seeing the pain in his eyes and knowing it was a reflection of the ache in his heart, flooded me with guilt. But what did I have to be guilty about? I wasn’t the one who lied.

             
“Fine! Eddy goes with me, in case Thomas shows up. We’ll test our skills at intervals of a mile at first to get a grip on the distance.” Nick’s eyes brightened like flaring matches. “But I honestly don’t want you in range while I’m at the crash site.” The match snuffed out.

             
He bit his lip. “What if something happens and we can’t communicate?”

             
“It’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

             
“Well, I’m not!”

             
I glared up into his face and shielded myself from their magic. “Tough!”

*          *          *

              In the end, we decided that Nick and Sabre would remain just outside their individual broadcasting range for fifteen minutes to give me time to peruse the site of the crash. To me, fifteen minutes was a drop in the bucket. To Nick, fifteen minutes was an eternity. I’d drive I-90 east through Coeur d’Alene, and continue southeast to the summit of Fourth of July Pass. Nick would phase and travel north of my position, and Sabre south.

             
Eddyson lounged on the passenger’s seat beside me, his harness strapped into the seatbelt for safety.
Buckle up for safety.
My father’s words were bitter sweet. As I drove, I checked my odometer every mile at first, to establish if our range was holding. Once we established we could still hear each other at a mile apart, we lengthened it to two miles. By the time I reached the city center exit for Coeur d’Alene, Nick was fading at ten miles and Sabre at fifteen miles. Yet both of them could hear me loud and clear.

             
Did that mean I was more powerful than either of these older Weavers? I was able to phase from a combatant’s grasp, and phase with another corporeal body—something they’d never seen a Caphar do before, and couldn’t do themselves.

             
The guys kept their distance as I approached the pass and the bridge abutment where my parent’s car crashed. My heart compressed with an empty ache and my throat constricted like a vice that squeezed tears to my eyes.
Let it turn, Em. Turn it into your strength not your weakness.
Somehow, I still expected to see skids marks and burn scars on the asphalt from the explosion of the car, but the dark pavement lay unassuming and innocent in the late spring sunlight. Eddy’s head popped up when I slowed and pulled over onto the shoulder. I stroked his head and tugged playfully at his ears. He opened his mouth to bite my hand but it evolved into a cavernous yawn. He blinked dewy eyes at me and laid back down.

             
Okay, guys. I know you can still hear me. Everything’s good. If something comes up, you’ll be able to respond.
I snorted with irritation. I was an adult. Why did I need to check in with anyone?

             
Bracing myself against the wind and turbulence of the memories, I got out and walked to the passenger side of the car with Eddy’s leash. His tail thumped wildly as I opened the door, connected the leash and unfastened his seatbelt harness. His jowls were already fluttering in the wind as he strained for the new scents that wafted through his nose. His tags jangled as he leapt from the car and gave himself a shake from muzzle to tail. Then, his nose hit the ground and he snuffled around at all the amazing new scents that tantalized his little beagle brain. Chilly wind tugged at my hair and pierced my clothes. Eddy buried his head in a clump of brush and boisterously rooted out the smells while I scanned the freeway and surrounding hills and trees. As much as it pained me, I tugged on the memories Thomas showed me of the crash.

             
I stand on a barren frosty knoll overlooking a deserted freeway. Deserted, but for a single car that knifes through the darkness toward my vantage point.

              “Mom and Dad…” I breathed and my heart leapt to my throat. Eddy’s head jerked up to check on me. Once he decided I was fine, he shoved his nose back to the ground. While he explored, I scoured the area for the angle of this memory fragment, then tugged Eddy up a shallow incline. Still the angle wasn’t quite right, perhaps a little farther away. I trudged farther up the rocky incline with grasses up to my knees, and turned to face the freeway. Yes, this seemed to be about right.

             
Icy wind slices through my skin and tears at my hair and clothes. But hatred burns hot inside me. It makes me happy. Keeps me warm. I shift into the back seat of the sedan racing by me, and catch Zecharias’ eyes in the rearview mirror. They widen with horror, as though he knows I am there for his harm. His knuckles blanch white as he strangles the wheel and struggles for control—of himself and the car. A smile bows my lips at the thought of him losing control of his bladder. Then, the lovely Jane’s green eyes widened in terror as the realization of my presence dawns on her.

              “Mom…” I breathed. She’d been so frightened in those last moments. And Dad. Thomas had tormented him for months with night terrors and dreams. No wonder fear seized him at the sight of Thomas glaring back at him in his own rearview mirror. Pain throbbed in my chest but I pushed forward.
Let it turn into something else.
As I delved for the next fragment of memory, my cell buzzed. I opened the text message: ‘Emi. Plz don’t do this to yourself.’ I rumbled a morose chuckle. “Well, I guess if you can’t broadcast a weave, a text is the next best thing.”
Chill, Benedetti. It’s all good.
But we both knew I was far from ‘all good’. At least I knew he wasn’t close enough to distort the memories.

             
“You’re going to die tonight,” Thomas hisses at them.

             
Mom breathes a prayer, “Oh God!”

             
Horror twists Daddy’s stricken face as Thomas dives into his mind, and shows him all the horrible things, the torments he will set upon his darling daughter. It doesn’t take much. I am Dad’s one true hot button. Thomas projects to him how he will slowly, methodically strangle the life from me and feed off the terror—just because he can. He contemplates my potential gift, if I truly become Caphar, and illustrates, in agonizing detail, how he will consume that gift as his own.

             
My mother’s face is fear-white, her mouth a perfect ‘o’ that disappears beneath her small, stark hand. A wall of white emerges out of the flurry before the windshield, but not of snow. Cement. Massive and merciless. The shiny new sedan plows into the bridge abutment, lifting Mom’s side of the car into flight. Giant sparkling snowflakes of shattering glass fly into the air as the car rolls over and over. Metal screams and moans in protest. Finally settling on its top, the car slides across the icy black tarmac, a path of broken scattered pieces in its wake.

              Like reading the end of Joan of Arc, despite knowing the end, I still gasped and clenched my lips around a scream.
It’s only a memory, Em. Memories can’t hurt you unless you let them.
I squeezed my cell in my pocket as the memory of Nick’s words struggled to soothe my aching heart.

             
I opened my eyes to find myself standing in the middle of the freeway with no idea how I’d gotten myself there. A horn blared and airbrakes screeched as I looked up to find a semi truck barreling towards me. I only had time to close my eyes and scream.

Chapter 23  Sweet Dream (or a Beautiful Nightmare)

              An obnoxious beeping tugged at my consciousness. Every bone and muscle in my body ached like I’d been sent through a meat grinder. But the heavy fog of my brain masked my level of pain. I batted against the haze, flailed against the darkness that pressed in on me from all sides.

             
“Emari?” A woman’s voice. A familiar voice.

             
“Wake up, my Jewel.”

             
Daddy?

             
I screwed up all the energy I had within me just to force my eyelids open. I blinked at the hazy silhouettes hovering over me.

             
“That’s a girl, Em. Open your eyes.”

             
“Dad?” I managed. The voice was right, but—wasn’t my dad dead? Maybe now I was dead. Maybe now I was in Heaven, or wherever it is dead people go. But why would I hurt so badly if I was dead?

             
A warm hand brushed the hair from my face and lovingly petted my cheek. A soft, murmured exchange drifted above me, but I couldn’t understand all of the words. Something about—doctors, hospital, accident and brain damage.

             
“Mama? Is that you?” Her face leaned over mine. Soft tears rained on my cheeks.

             
“Yes, baby.”

             
“What happened?”

             
The blurry silhouettes exchanged a glance then peered back down at me. “We were in an accident, honey. Don’t you remember?”

             
I shook my head, but even that hurt and it sent my world whirling out of control. I dragged my hand to my spinning head to stabilize it and noticed the IV tube implanted in my wrist. My fingers discovered an oxygen tube strung under my nose and anchored behind my ears.

             
“What happened?”

             
“It was an accident, Em. Remember?”

             
Remember? Remember is cuihmnigh in Irish.
“Umm…not really.”

             
“We were coming home from Cali over Fourth of July Pass. Daddy lost control on a patch of ice and we crashed. You were laying down and weren’t wearing your seatbelt, so you were ejected from the car.”

             
Daylight masquerades as dusk, the clouds heavy-laden with snow. An arctic blast extends its arm, balling its fist to bludgeon the car from the road. Brake lights flash a glaring red. The tires whir and whine on the frozen asphalt, seeking elusive purchase. The wind flings the car across three frosted lanes. Panic twists my father’s face as the car fishtails out of control. His frantic hands, hands that can do anything, build anything, grapple uselessly at the wheel. My mother’s face is fear-white, her mouth a perfect ‘o’ that disappears beneath her small, stark hand. A wall of white emerges out of the flurry before the windshield, but not of snow. Cement. Massive and merciless. The shiny new sedan plows into the bridge abutment, lifting Mom’s side of the car into flight. Slumped in the back seat dozing, the momentum propels me into the back of my mom’s seat. On the first tumble, my door pops open and the force ejects me from the car. I lay across the frigid pavement and watch as giant sparkling snowflakes of shattering glass fly into the air as the car rolls over and over. Metal screams and moans in protest. Finally settling on its top, the car slides across the icy black tarmac, a path of broken scattered pieces in its wake.

              “Heart Flight flew you in to the hospital,” Dad explained. “We almost lost you there a couple of times.” His throat clenched on the final words. “It’s so good just to see your eyes open.”

             
Flashes of two men crossed my vision. Fear, anger, grief and longing accompanied them. They were—magicians? And the devil himself pursued. I scratched my head.

             
“I was dreaming,” I groaned.

             
“I don’t doubt it, honey. They’ve had you on some serious narcotics.”

             
I pushed myself up on my pillows and every muscle complained. Mom’s tiny hands fluttered around me, fluffing my pillows, smoothing my hair, caressing my shoulder.
Her knuckles split and bleed, smearing the window in a web of red.
I grasped her hand, searching for the damage.

             
“But you guys weren’t hurt?” I asked, puzzled by the conflict in my brain.

             
“Just minor stuff,” Dad explained. “Our seatbelts saved us. And the airbags.” His strong hand squeezed mine. “But we don’t have to talk about that right now. We’re just glad you finally woke up.”

             
“I dreamed…” I began, but that didn’t seem right. “I dreamed you died, and someone attacked me, and I was all alone except for…except for…”

             
“It was just a dream,” Mom reassured. “What matters is that you’re back with us and we can focus on getting you well.”

             
I pinched my eyes closed and then reopened them. Yep, Mom and Dad were still there. They hadn’t disappeared into the mists of my mind. But when I closed my eyes those two men gazed down at me on the insides of my eyelids. One with dark chocolate eyes and deep brown hair and something ‘not quite good’ etched on his face. The other with ebony blue eyes, that peered down at me with such worry and affection that it wrenched my heart and sent it fluttering with heat. The incessant beep of the heart monitor next to my bed kicked into high gear.

             
“Emari? Are you okay?”

             
“Yeah. I was just thinking about my dream.” We were quiet for a few moments, each parent stroking one of my arms. “So, I’m not dreaming now? You’re alive? And you won’t ever leave me again?” I was having a Wizard of Oz moment, when Dorothy finally returns home and pledges never to leave again.

             
“No, baby. You’re not dreaming. We’re fine. You’re the one who got hurt, not us. And we’ll stay by your side no matter what.” Dad always knew just the right words to say to make me feel better.

             
“How long have I been—out?” I whispered.

             
“Almost three days.” Tears flooded Mom’s eyes and choked off the last word like those three days had been the most horrific days of her life. They might have been.

             
Three days? I’ve lost three days of my life?
My brain couldn’t comprehend it. The last thing I remembered…the last thing I remembered…I couldn’t remember.

             
“I’m tired now.” The simple conversation had sapped all my strength, leaving me tired and aching.

             
Mom patted my shoulder. “You go to sleep then. And we’ll be here when you wake up. I promise.”

             
“You promise? You won’t leave me for even a minute?”

             
“We promise,” they said in unison and the auto-dose of morphine washed through my veins and submersed my mind into a fuzzy darkness.

*          *          *

              The steady beep of my heart monitor roused me from sleep. Every inch of me still ached. Daddy sat slumped in the hospital chair, snoring softly. The room was washed in a dim blue glow from the lights to the helipad outside. Mom must’ve been in the cafeteria getting a coffee. Or did she drink tea? I loved my parents—probably more attached to them than most eighteen year old girls. They were the best parents in the world. Certainly not perfect, but willing to admit their imperfections. Not that they had many—at least not to me.

             
Emi, honey?

             
I twisted as best as the pain would allow, searched the dim glow for the owner of the voice. “Who’s there?” Dad stirred at the sound of my voice, but he didn’t awaken.

             
Emari, close your eyes and you’ll find me.

             
Close my eyes?
How was I supposed to see anything with my eyes closed? “Why can’t I see you?”

             
This time the sound of my voice awoke my father. He lunged to my side and clutched my hand. “What’s wrong, honey?”

             
“I heard a voice—a man’s voice.”

             
His warm fingers brushed stray bangs out of my eyes. “There’s no one here, baby.”

             
“It was in my head.”

             
Dad’s face twisted with concern. Was his daughter hearing voices? Was there damage all the scans had missed? “It was probably just a dream. Those pain meds can do a number on your mind.”

             
I nodded, and instantly wished I hadn’t. “Yeah, I guess.”

             
His hand cupped my cheek, and tears welled up in his eyes. “I’m so glad you’re going to be okay. It was so touch and go there for a while. I don’t know what we would do without you.”

             
“Now, now, none of that,” came my mother’s voice from the door. She smiled in at us from the shadows, a Styrofoam cup of something hot in each hand. She entered and handed a cup to Dad, then leaned down to give him a loud smooch. A weak smile grew on my lips. Even as a child, their affection made me blush and giggle. Now, it just made me happy.

             
I opened my mouth to yawn but had to stifle it. The aching muscles in my jaw cramped and protested. Mom patted my thigh. “Go back to sleep, baby. We’ll be right here when you wake up.”

             
“O-kay…” I closed my eyes and started to drift.
Why do they keep calling me ‘baby’? Ivy is Baby. They haven’t called me that since I gave Ivy the nickname.
The drugs forced me under, into the rabbit hole.

*          *          *

             
Emi, honey? I need you to listen.

             
I stirred under the crisp white hospital sheet.
Who’s there?

             
It’s me, honey. It’s Nick.

             
Caverns formed on my brow and smashed my brain. I scowled but even that hurt.
Please go away. I don’t feel good.

             
Emi, please listen. All of this—the hospital, the crash—your parents—none of it is real. Search your heart and you’ll know I’m telling you the truth.

             
“No!” I moaned in my sleep.

             
Emari, this isn’t real. You know your parents were killed in that accident. You weren’t even there. You weren’t in the car. You were home in the cottage.

             
My body bucked away from the thought. “No!”

             
Emi, honey. In your heart of hearts, you know I’m telling you the truth.

             
“Go away! I hate you!” That aching, empty place inside me craved the reality of this.

             
Vice-like hands gripped my arms and held me to the bed. “Easy there, Sweet.” I opened my eyes to a face that seemed—familiar? Dark chocolate eyes. An obnoxiously smug smile. He nodded to a shadow by my IV stand. The shadow inserted a needle into the IV tube and depressed the plunger. Fire raged through my veins. I whimpered at first, but as the inferno blazed, it forced a scream from my throat. I closed my eyes against the searing heat.

             
“Emari! Wake up, baby. It’s just a dream. Wake up.” Mom patted my shoulder.

             
I bolted upright, ignoring the strain on my joints and muscles, and threw myself into her arms. “Mama!” She clutched me to her chest and rocked me like an infant.

             
“It’s okay, baby. I got you,” she murmured. A nurse dressed in smiley face scrubs rushed in. I had to hate her just on principle. Then, she plunged a syringe into my IV. Darkness enveloped me and shoved me under.