Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (21 page)

My eyes filled all over again.

“Not selfish,” she said, softer now. “Not even close.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m the selfish one,” she said. “I’m the one so paralyzed by the thought of losing you again that I’m willing to let an innocent girl die.”

Illusions, I thought again. We all had them. Sometimes they protected—and sometimes they destroyed.

“Not selfish,” I murmured, echoing her words. “Not even close.”

“When I see you, I see your mom all over again, and I’m so scared your big heart is going to lead you onto a ledge you won’t be able to pull back from.”

Like the ledge my mother had walked out on, stalked step for step by a psychopath.

“That’s not going to happen,” I promised.

“If we hadn’t gotten there…” Her words trailed off, and I knew that for that fraction of a second, she was reliving what happened in Julian’s room. “I can still see how pale you were, how still…” Her hands found my shoulders. Her fingers dug into flesh. “What happened, Trinity? Why did you stop breathing?”

I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her everything I hadn’t been able to tell Chase.

But I didn’t know how. “It was nothing,” I said, slipping from her grip to retrieve the dress from the floor. Automatically I started to fold it.

She stopped me. “Julian says something went wrong. That instead of finding Grace, you slipped into the past.”

My throat burned.

“He says the memories are still there, locked away where no one can find them, where they can’t hurt.”

The walls, I realized. It was the walls that were crumbling.
Illusions.

“Was it the fire?” she asked. “Is that why you stopped breathing?”

The gentleness in her eyes reminded me of the way a mother looks at a newborn.
“No.”

“Then what?”

The collapse just kind of happened. One second I was standing there amazed by how quickly roles had again shifted, then the next my eyes were filling and she was hugging me tight, promising everything would be okay.

It wasn’t until I let go, that I realized how tightly I’d been holding on.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what I saw. I don’t know what happened. But it felt so real, like I was really there.”

Her hands slid along my back, slow, soothing. “Julian says you were.”

My eyes tried to close but I wouldn’t let them, didn’t want to see—or feel. “There was a field,” I said. “And a boy, running.”

“And you? What were you doing?”

“I followed him.”

“Do you know why?”

Through the shadows, the mirror revealed the damp glow in my eyes. “Because I wanted to.”

She seemed to absorb that. “And where did you go?”

I gripped her arms and stared up into her eyes. “I kissed him.”

Her shoulders fell on a shallow exhale.

“And he kissed me,” I said, and even though my eyes were wide open, I could feel it all over again, the frenzy and the need—the urgency.

“Just like he did in his apartment,” I whispered.

Her gaze sharpened. “Whose apartment,
cher
?”

“Dylan’s.”
I waited for the shock to blast into her eyes. “I kissed Dylan.”

The moment stilled, blurred, but condemnation did not come. Only a soft smile.
“Oh
,
sweetie.”

“I don’t know why I stopped breathing.” Only that Chase had heard me cry out for another guy, and I had no way to get past that. “It’s like I was being yanked away before I was ready.”

She lifted a hand to smooth a tangle from my face—and everything inside me stilled.

“Aunt Sara,” I breathed, taking her hand as she tried to yank away. I wouldn’t let her though, couldn’t breathe as I stared at the gouges along her wrist.

“I did this to you.” And with the words the memories slashed back, the arms pulling me, the way I’d thrashed and clawed.
“Omigod
…”

Her eyes were so, so gentle. “It’s okay. You were frightened, confused—”

“It’s not okay! I hurt you—”

She caught me by the upper arms. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”

I looked away, at the suitcase on the bed. “Please don’t cancel your trip because of me. Naomi’s one of your best friends.”

“Aaron’s commanding officer asked him to stay, follow up on a few leads.”

My heart sunk—I knew she’d been looking forward to getting away with Detective LaSalle. “Then he’ll be all over me like glue,” I pointed out. “My own personal guard.”

And with those words came the memory from last fall.

“So … what? He appointed you my bodyguard?”

The burnished silver of Dylan’s eyes had glowed.
“I wish it was just your body.”

I didn’t know why I couldn’t forget.

“I can stay at Victoria’s,” I said. “She’s going to Chase’s uncle’s party Saturday night, too.”

Aunt Sara took the dress and let it drop open, carefully refolded it before placing it in her suitcase.

And the weight on my chest lifted.

“Promise me you’ll stay away, Trinity.” Reaching for her awesome black stilettos, she looked up to blast me with the seriousness in her eyes. “From Grace’s apartment, Horizons, Ouija boards—the past. The future.” Her hand curled around the shoe. “Can you do that? Can you stay right here in this moment, where it’s real?”

She might as well have asked me to stop breathing. “I’ve never been very good at that.”

“But it’s all we really have,
cher.
The past is over, and the future doesn’t exist. You can’t keep torturing yourself by reliving events that are over and done with, or forcing yourself to touch and feel things that haven’t happened—that might never happen.”

Just like Julian said—and again I couldn’t help but wonder about their relationship.

“You make yourself experience fear and grief,” she added quietly. “You mourn people you don’t remember, or who haven’t even died.”

Chase.
Automatically, my hand slid to the bracelet circling my wrist, my finger skimming the word
FEARLESS.

“You long for someone you barely know.”

Dylan.

“But what if I
can
change it?” I said, looking up. The possibility haunted. “What if I can change what I see—if I can
stop
it?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“But last fall, if I’d warned Jessica—”

“She would have thought you were crazy.” The words were firm but gentle, and as much as I hated it, 100 percent true. “It’s not your script to write. All you can do is live the best way you can.”

It sounded fatalistic. Why would I be given the ability to see, if I couldn’t do anything about it?

“I’m trying,” I said.
“I’m trying.”

“I know you are.”

I’d walked into the room raw and fragile, but as always, Aunt Sara found a way to settle the ground beneath me.

“I was wrong,” I said, lifting my eyes to hers. My throat was tight, but I refused to let the words hide there. “At Julian’s. When I said those horrible things to you, that you weren’t my mother…”

Humidity-ruined hair fell against her face. Smudged mascara stained like bruises beneath her eyes. Her lips were dry, her cheeks pale. But the soft gentle way she looked at me gave her a haunting beauty.

“If I could handpick anyone,” I said, and yeah, my voice shook. “If I could handpick anyone to be my mother, it would be you.”

Her eyes turned glassy. “I love you, too,” she whispered, taking my hands and squeezing them. “You’re the most important thing in the world to me, you know that, don’t you? The thought of losing you—”

I didn’t let her finish. “You’re not going to.”

*   *   *

I helped her finish packing, told her good night, and closed her door behind me. After making coffee, I curled up on my bed with Delphi and fired up my laptop, talked to Chase a few minutes, checked Facebook, and texted with Victoria until her dad took away her phone.

I didn’t want to sleep. Because I didn’t want to dream. But there on the sofa, my eyes drifted shut, and through the shadows, I returned to his arms.

“You don’t need to be afraid anymore.”

And, for that moment, I wasn’t.

*   *   *

I opened my eyes to the fire-washed glow of the sky. Hues of red faded into streaks of orange and peach, the faintest flush of yellow visible above the shadows consuming the horizon. Through a swirl of crimson a hawk soared with wings spread wide, a field mouse dangling from its claws.

Cringing, I started to turn away, but the giant ice cream cone stopped me. It rose up from the corner of a blue building, its white tip swirling above the wave of the roofline.

And then I realized I still dreamed.

“Wait!” I try to twist around. “Where’d you go—”

But my body won’t move, and he does not answer.

My heart starts to race. Something is wrong. I should be able to move in the astral. I should be able to walk through walls and fly—that’s what Julian said.

But I can do nothing but stand and stare as a missile streaks in toward the building. From it red drips, and my breath cuts into my throat.

“No.” I try to scream, but my voice is no longer there.

The missile collides with the building, and the words
ICE CREAM SHOP
appear.

A brush, I realize, watching red paint glide against the softest of baby blues.

Lifting a hand to my mouth, I pull away, realize that I can. I can’t turn or twist, but I can move farther back—and widen my view.

The girl sits at an angle, her eyes focused on the canvas in front of her. I can’t tell their color, only the intense concentration as she meticulously wields her brushes. There’s no makeup on her face—her hair, long and sleek, more burnished red than brown, is pulled into a tight ponytail. Her clothes are simple—an old yellow T-shirt and a pair of torn, faded blue jeans.

I watch her, not understanding. “Who are you?” I whisper.

She pulls back, her chin at an angle, as if … listening.

NINETEEN

Yes!

“Behind you,” I say. “Turn around—”

Slowly, she does, and the whitewashed blue of her eyes rips the breath from me.

Afraid, I realize. She’s terrified.

“It’s okay,” I rush to say. “I’m not going to hurt you.” But already she’s standing and grabbing the canvas, running for the back of the … restaurant?

Tables draped in white cloths sprawl in all directions.

“Come back!” But already she’s gone.

Confused, I step back, step back again, and for the first time see the sheet of glass that had been there all along, a see-through wall between us.

Slowly I lift my eyes, and see the elegant lettering in the darkest of purples:
GASTON’S PLACE.

And everything goes dark.

“No!” I shouted, but already my eyes were opening and my room was coming into focus, the gauzy sheers blowing against my window, Delphi crouched beside me, her ears flat, the glow of the computer from across the bed.

Different,
was all I could think. There’d been something different about the dream, as if I was a voyeur rather than a participant. Usually I lived what I saw. I touched and felt and ran. Held on and let go, whispered and screamed.

This time I’d been able to do nothing but watch.

“While we dream
,
messages are sent from our psyche in the astral, to our physical body.”

Julian’s words made me sit up straighter. A message, I realized. Someone had been sending me a message. Someone wanted me to know … something. But who? And what?

And most of all,
why
?

There was nothing to go on, nothing concrete—just a picture of a hawk flying over an ice cream shop, a girl painting, and—

Gaston’s Place.

Scrambling, I grabbed my laptop and fired up Google, my fingers flying as I keyed in the restaurant name.

And froze as I stared at the results:

Gaston’s Place

Belle Terre’s Best

Belle Terre, Louisiana

*   *   *

Detective LaSalle stood at the counter with a cup of coffee in his hands, watching me. And I would have sworn he knew. I would have sworn he knew just by looking at me that I’d had another dream.

“Hey,” I said, slinging my backpack over my shoulder as Aunt Sara stepped from her bedroom.

In a pair of tight black pants with a long, square-necked sweater in the brown of chocolate, she looked awesome. “Sleep well?” she asked.

I smiled. “Great.”

“Good.” She pulled me in for a half hug as we made our way toward her suitcases. “Remember what we talked about last night,” she said as Detective LaSalle came toward us. “And call Aaron if anything happens.”

Biting the inside of my lip, I nodded.

“Anything,”
she emphasized.

“I will.” But not because of a dream—at least, not yet.

“You’ll be at Victoria’s, right?” he asked.

I nodded.

He studied me a long second before turning to reach for her suitcase.

Aunt Sara hugged me, holding on a few seconds longer than usual. “I’ll be home Sunday morning.”

I nodded again. “And I’ll be fine.”

We left together, Detective LaSalle and my aunt getting into his car, while I slid into my grandmother’s Buick for school.

I was halfway there when I made an abrupt U-turn.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sit in class all day, smile and try to pay attention, not while the dream played over and over in my mind. Something kept nagging at me, nudging. I was missing something.

I needed to figure out what.

*   *   *

Suspended high above a glowing white statue of the Virgin Mary, the dream catcher twisted in the breeze.

At the bottom of the porch, I stood for a long moment, watching, much as I had last fall. Uniform feathers crawled along beaded strands of red and black, toward the intricate web in the center. Like fish swimming toward bait, I remembered thinking back then—and couldn’t help but think again.