Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (11 page)

Jerkily, I took her by the wrist and tugged her inside, quietly closing the door.

“Did you bring it?” I asked, my breath suddenly shallow. “Do you have the board?”

*   *   *

Victoria sat statue still. Behind her, a coarse trail of sea salt circled the three crates serving as a makeshift table. Along the edges, amid crystals she’d gotten from Julian, six sage votives flickered.

In the center, the Ouija board waited.

“You really want to do this?” Chase asked. We stood by the window overlooking the secluded courtyard. Every time I tried to pull away, his arms tightened around me.

“I have to,” I said. “Saturday, I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t know what the board was tapping into.” And really, where the answers came from still didn’t matter. Only that they came. “Now that I know about Grace, there are questions I need to ask—”

The shadows made the blue of his eyes glitter. “Let me, then. Tell me what to ask, and I’ll do it. You can watch—”

“It doesn’t work like that.” My chest tightened. My throat burned. It was so tempting to bury my face against his neck and hold on, pretend this wasn’t happening. But in those fragile moments when I’d first awoken from the dream, I’d known I had to try again. Grace had done her best to reach out to me.

I had to reach back. And the glow of the dragonfly told me it had to be here, where her energy would be strongest. “It has to be me.”

“How do you know that? We’re in her apartment. The board is the same. Victoria is the same. We can ask for Marie—”

I pushed up and fingered the sweep of bangs hiding the fading bruise. “You’re not me.” It all came down to that. I was the connection. I was the link. Maybe Marie would come again, or maybe Evie. Maybe my mom.

Maybe no one.

But I had to try. I was the one being called.

“It’ll be okay,” I said with a soft kiss against the corner of his mouth. This time we would be together. This time there would be no bizarre accidents. “I promise.”

He so didn’t buy that. But he let me go, holding my hand as I stepped over the line of salt and sat in a folding chair beside Victoria.

He took the chair on my other side, but never released my hand.

“We all have to touch,” she reminded.

Inching closer, we used our knees to create an unbroken circle.

Her eyes met mine. In them I found none of the excitement from Saturday night, only a dark, steady awareness.

“Whatever you do, don’t let go this time,” she whispered. “And remember, we have to say good-bye. Okay?”

I looked from her to Chase, then at the dark lettering of the board. “Promise.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “Here we go.”

The walls pushed closer.

“Angel of Protection,” she began in the same singsong voice from a few nights before, “my guardian dear, to whom pure love commits me here.”

Saturday I’d had no idea what to expect, or what to ask. Now questions blasted me.

“Ever this night,” she chanted, “be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide.”

Chase squeezed my hand. I concentrated on the warmth of his, the strength of his fingers. But tingles of cold streaked up my arm.

Robotically he turned to look at me. His eyes were narrow, aware, the dull glow telling me he knew the train was coming, coming really fast, and we were straight in its path.

“Look,” Victoria said, half laughing—half not. “I can always leave if you two—”

“No.” I swung from Chase to the golden hue of the board. “I’m ready.” To prove it, I moved my right index finger to the pointer.

Pressing her lips together, Victoria placed her finger next to mine.

But Chase did not move.

I glanced at him, saw his shoulders wider than usual, every muscle in his body tense, even his neck. His face was like stone, his jaw and mouth tight, the blue of his eyes nearly black, and once again we were back in that morgue, locked in silent communion.

“I kill him,”
he’d said Sunday. “
This time
I
do it
.”

Blinking, I reached out in the only ways I could, squeezing his hand and pressing my knee firmer against his.

“Just don’t let go,” I whispered. “No matter what happens, don’t let go.”

His dimple reappeared. “Not gonna happen,” he murmured, and then his finger joined mine and Victoria’s.

“Hear me now,” she said, exactly as she had before. “I invite only those spirits who are for our highest good.”

And like before, the pointer started to slide in a slow, clockwise circle.

Chase stiffened.

Victoria closed her eyes and bowed her head.

This time I did the same. And before she could finish, I took over the chant. “Any spirits who come through who are not for my highest good are to be absorbed into the light of protection.”

I would have sworn I started to float.

The pointer circled slower, its movement hypnotic.

“Harming none,” I whispered as Chase squeezed my hand and I inhaled, drawing the scent of sage deep within me.

And through the silence, the hum began, more of a vibration than a sound.

The triangle stopped. I jerked, felt myself start to pull away. But Chase held on, tightly enough for both of us.

And I had to see him. In that moment, for some reason, I needed to see him as badly as I needed to breathe. I opened my eyes and found him staring, not at me but at the pointer.

If I hadn’t felt his pulse through his skin, I would have had no idea that he breathed.

“Chase—” I’m not sure why my voice broke.

His eyes remained fixed, but his throat worked, and when he spoke, his voice was not one that I recognized. “Is there someone here?” he asked.

Two of the votives flickered, and again the pointer glided, this time to the upper left.

YES

Victoria’s finger stiffened. “Thank you,” she whispered, just as she had before.

My heart started to pound really, really hard. “Marie—” I started, but Victoria’s eyes flew open so fast I stopped.
“W-what?”
I asked her.

Blond hair hung limply around her face. “We’re not supposed to supply names.” She visibly swallowed before shifting her attention back to the board. “Are you … good?”

My breath just kind of stopped. I’d forgotten to ask the most important question of all.

Amid the shifting light of the candles, the pointer streaked to the opposite side of the board.

NO

“Then get the hell out—” Chase started, but the pointer kept swirling, moving in a clockwise circle until it returned to its point of origin.

YES

Chase’s eyes met mine, and my breath released.

“Is this what it did before?” he asked.

Nodding, I focused on the white glow of a single candle. “Will you … will you tell us your name?”

I stared as the pointer shifted in a methodical circle.

YES

Victoria nudged me.

Chase sat motionless.

“W-what is it?” I asked.

Beneath our fingers, the pointer flowed eagerly to the middle row, a letter on the left, then directly above. Back to the middle, this time to the right. Once again, directly above. Then back to the left.

MARIE

Saturday the name had meant nothing.

Now it meant everything.

“Holy crap,” Chase muttered, and in my mind, I screamed for him to be quiet. But those words would not come. Only words for the board, the spirit.
“M-mom?”

Time slowed, crawled. The darkness throbbed. The word yes was so close, up a row and slightly to the left.

The pointer slid down, glided right.

S

My whole world just stopped.

The pointer kept sliding, marginally to the right, hesitating before zipping up a row and zinging left, then dropping to the last row of letters and gliding to the second to last.

“Stay?”
I whispered as one of the candles crackled. “I am,” I promised on a violent twist of my heart. “I promise! I’m not going anywhere this time. I know you’re trying to tell me about Grace—”

The pointer zipped in a quick zigzag, up then down, up then down.

“Away,” Chase murmured, and my breath jammed.

STAY AWAY

Victoria gasped as Chase shot forward, crowding the board like it was a football he was about to destroy. “From what?” he asked. “A place? A person—
Grace
?”

The pointer moved fast, zinging from the right to the left to the middle.

TRAP

His grip on my hand tightened, punished. “What kind of—”

“No.” The word came out amazingly firm. “It has to be me,” I reminded, my eyes locked on his. We were touching in every way we could, our fingers, our knees, our hands locked together. But it wasn’t enough. “Please. You have to let—”

The slow, steady glide of the pointer, without the prompt of a question, killed my words.

TEN

My finger tensed, as if I could stop what was coming, but the triangle swirled faster, one letter after another.

“Love,” Victoria muttered as the letters kept piling up. “Won’t.”

The votives flickered. My heart slammed hard. I could feel it throb beneath my eyes and at the corner of my mouth as the triangle hovered over the last letter.

Victoria tensed.
“Die
.
”

LOVE WONT DIE

Something tickled the back of my neck, but my body was no longer my own. I couldn’t move, could barely feel. It was all so hazy and far away, disconnected.

“W-what do you m-mean?” The words didn’t want to form. “Whose love—”

Chase jerked. “Trinity—”

I ignored the warning in his voice—and his death grip on my hand—even as the cold wouldn’t stop bleeding, until there shouldn’t have been anywhere else to go.

And yet the chill kept spreading. “Grace’s? Mine?”

The crystals glowed.

“T, don’t—”

But the movement of the pointer, first left to D, then back to the E, killed
his
words, too.

The triangle kept moving, slowly, methodically.

D E S T

Everything blurred, wouldn’t stop blurring, the letters and the crates, Chase and Victoria and the room … It zipped in and out of focus as I forced myself to swallow. Forced myself to breathe. Both burned.

I N Y

“Destiny,”
Victoria murmured as the triangle stopped on the last letter.

The shaking started deep inside me, slowly at first, faster. Jerking. And the pointer shot up to the middle row, up again to the letters above.

M I

My whole body spasmed.

“What the eff—” Chase muttered as the letters kept coming.

N E

“
Mine.
” The strangest sensation swept through me, a vague, relentless current of disjointed energy. “I-I don’t un-n-nder-tand—”

Vaguely I was aware of Victoria’s scream—and Chase twisting toward me. But the room started to dissolve. Like raindrops, sliding down glass. But none of that mattered. None of it felt real, only like … a dream.

“W-w-w…” My tongue thickened against my mouth. “Wh-at are y-you taw-king … abwout?”

Behind me something crashed, and the room started to strobe. I could see my hand shaking, even as the triangle jolted from letter to letter.

TOO LATE

Chase was lunging toward me then, his voice so very, very far away. And he let go. He let go of my hand, and grabbed me by the arm. “Trinity, stop!”

Around me everything crackled.

“Omigod!” Victoria screamed, but I couldn’t see her anymore. Couldn’t see anything. Only the beautiful warm glow of the board, and the rapidly moving pointer.

DREAMS

“Y-yes.”
The vibrations made the word echo. “Y-yes—”

Faster, faster, never slowing, never stopping.

NEVER LET

“Go,” Victoria murmured.

NEVER LET GO

“I w-w-w-o-o-o…” Won’t. The word was there, in my mind. My heart. I could think it. I won’t. I won’t let go.

But I couldn’t give it voice. Couldn’t give anything voice. Wasn’t sure I still had one. Everything was pulsing, twitching—

“Oh, God!”

On some distorted level screaming registered. But it wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening. There was only the triangle veering along the roman letters.

“Chase—omigod, what’s happening to her?”

“Trinity!” He was holding on tighter now, tugging, trying to wrap me up … “Say good-bye—say good-bye
now
!”

The shadows slipped closer, swallowing—consuming. I tried to fight them, to fight the disjointedness of my own body. But the cold paralyzed me—and a new word formed.

FOREVER

Everything stopped. The buzz fell silent. The candles went dark. Only breath remained—slow, hypnotic. Mine. Chase’s. Victoria’s.

And the room’s, cold—vacant.

“Don’t go,” I whispered, and this time the words came clearly. With a strange tingling in my hands and feet, my face, I stared at the pale finger remaining against the pointer, and realized it was my own.

“Come back,” I whispered. “Mom—”

It took a second to realize Chase had his hands on my face, and every ounce of blood had drained from Victoria’s.

“Holy fucking crap,” she whispered.

I blinked against the heaviness.

“Trinity.” Chase’s voice. Quiet. Strong. “Look at me.”

Through the haze I did, sifting through shadows that weren’t there to find him crouched beside me, his eyes like steel on mine.

“What do you see?” he asked, his voice so phenomenally steady.

I don’t know why my eyes flooded. “You,” I whispered, moistening my lips. “I see you.”

His throat worked. “Say good-bye.”

I blinked, lifted my free hand to join the one he had against my face. “I’m not ready…”

“You have to,” he said again, this time harder, more forceful. “To that stupid board—”

Slowly I turned to the golden glow of what so many people believed was nothing more than harmless fun, and the small pointer resting over the letter R.

FOREVER

“Do you believe in forever?”
Victoria had asked me only a few days before.

Now I stared.

“Close the portal,” Chase said. His voice was unbearably gentle. “Close it before—”