Shattered Dreams: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (3 page)

There was an edge to his voice, sharp, angry, but the words were lost to me. He stood stiff and rigid, like he wanted to drag her out of there. But his girlfriend held her head high, letting her perfect hair fall down past her shoulders. Her black tank top had ridden up, exposing the intricate chain of Celtic crosses tattooed to her lower back. A tramp stamp, Aunt Sara called them, but despite how much Jessica irked me, I thought it looked pretty cool.

“Trust me,” I heard her whisper as she pushed up to give him a quick kiss. Then she was crossing back to me, standing so close she looked down at me.

“Who in this room,” she began in a measured, singsong voice, and suddenly I so knew where this was going, “do you most want to hook up with?” I saw Chase frown as she added, “—and what,
exactly,
do you want to do with him?”

I felt myself still as her words slipped around me. I’d asked for this. I knew that. I’d issued the first dare. I’d requested a truth.

But that one was far too venomous to indulge.

Mouth dry, I looked up at Jessica. Everyone else faded from my awareness.

“I’m not here to hook up with anyone,” I said, pushing to my feet. It was better standing. At least that way, she wasn’t looking down at me. In flip-flops, we were pretty much eye-to-eye.

“Most,”
she repeated. “Who do you
most
want to be with?”

There was absolutely no winning with that question. So I returned to her dare, and held out my flashlight. “A dare for a dare,” I said as my cell phone buzzed.

Jessica’s hair fell into her face. It was sticky now, no longer quite so shiny. “Sorry, Trin,” she said, taking my flashlight and letting it fall to the ground. “You already got your do-over.”

Which meant I was left with the truth I could never give. Mind racing, I looked through the shadows to Chase, saw the horribly still way he stood watching me. The worry still lurked in his eyes, but something else gleamed there, as well. Something that shifted the roar within me to a hum.

“You better check that,” he said, with absolutely no emotion in his voice. “Unless you want your aunt to freak and call the cops.”

The virtual lifeline fell into the silence like an unexpected gift. He was right. There were only two people who could be texting me, and I knew it probably wasn’t my friend Victoria. She was with her boyfriend, and Lucas didn’t like it if her attention slipped elsewhere.

Downstairs, wind blew through the broken windows, but up here it was as still as a cemetery on a cloudless night, and ten times as hot. I could feel everyone watching as I slid the BlackBerry from my pocket and flipped it over. Sure enough, Aunt Sara had texted me. Three times.

Not sure how I missed the first two.

I’ll be home round midnite.

The first message had arrived a little after eleven. We’d still been in the Quarter.

Home now … will wait up n case u forgot key.

The second had come shortly after twelve.

Worried, Trin. Let me no u r ok!

That was the most recent, sent at 1:16, and even though my aunt and I were little more than strangers linked by blood, the thought of her worrying made me feel bad. Plus, her ex was a cop. The last thing I needed was for her to send him out looking for me.

“Hang on,” I said as I keyed in my response. I was pretty slow compared to everyone at school, but I was getting the hang of it. There’d been no reason for a cell phone on the mountain.

Everything OK. With friends. Home soon.

Only a few seconds passed before her response:

U sure?

I could hear Jessica and Chase arguing in the corner as I typed out my response, but couldn’t make out their words. Drew had positioned himself behind Amber, with his hands on her hips. Pitre hung back, watching.

Y. Chase is here.

Aunt Sara liked Chase.

Good. CUITM

See you in the morning. I recognized that one. I returned the phone to my pocket.

“Any day now,” Jessica said, still draped all over Chase. I couldn’t see his face, but the press of their bodies gave me a sick feeling in my stomach. And suddenly I wasn’t sure why I cared whether or not these people liked me. Chase had really been the only one …

Abruptly I shifted my focus to the right. “Amber,” I said, and seemingly on cue, Bethany’s light found her sister’s friend on the far side of the mattress. Drew, not much taller than she, still stood behind her. “I most want to be with Amber.”

I loved the flash of surprise in her eyes. Maybe she and Jessica weren’t as untouchable as they wanted everyone to think.

“Amber?” Jessica scoffed. “But—”

“And as for what I want to do with her…” With a deliberate smile, I let the words dangle. “I’m thinking a dare.”

My words fell into dead silence, save for the slow, labored breath of the room itself.

“Now we’re talking,”
Amber whispered, and over the scratch of a branch along the window, I would have sworn I heard Jessica growl.

“What,” I started, dragging the word out for effect, “… were you doing … after the football game last Friday night—”

Just like that, the room quit breathing.

“—in the backseat…” Hesitating, I toyed with one of the small silver hoops at my ear. I’d never actually played the game, and while I’d wanted to make Amber squirm, the way her mouth worked made me second-guess myself. I would have sworn she was silently begging me to stop.

Jessica moved closer to her.

“… of Pitre’s car?” I made myself finish. And as far as bombs went, mine sucked the air right out of the room. Amber stiffened. Drew’s hands fell away. Jessica let out a strangled noise.

Against my earring, my fingers froze. Sometimes games were fun. And sometimes they weren’t.

Amber’s eyes met mine. Her voice faltered. Clearly she hadn’t realized Victoria and I had seen them.

“You said a dare,” Jessica snapped. “That’s a truth.”

Either way, everyone knew the answer. “It’s all the same to me,” I said.

“Then I dare her to tell the truth,” Pitre said. I couldn’t tell whether it was possession I saw burning in his eyes—or contempt.

“It’s not your turn, jerk-off,” Jessica snapped, as Drew took another step away from Amber.

Bethany’s light, the last one still on, shifted toward me, and even though I could no longer see against the glare, I knew they all watched. Would I give Amber a new dare, or dare her to tell the truth?

It was an unexpected moment of power, but it came with consequences. I got that. Jessica and Amber had brought me to this nasty place as some kind of initiation, but I’d held my own. And while we would never be BFFs, I didn’t want to be a total loser, either.

Games were one thing. Punishment was another.

“I dare you…” I hesitated before obliterating the point of no return. “… to lie down on the mattress.” Maybe Amber didn’t deserve a do-over, but giving it to her had more to do with my sense of right and wrong than anything to do with her.

Pitre muttered under his breath and stormed from the room, leaving Amber hugging bony arms around her body while Drew hovered nearby—but no longer touched.

Like a virgin (as if!) sacrifice, she moved to the mattresses and lowered first one knee, then the other. Then she dropped from her knees to lay with her back covering the stain.

Through the darkness, her eyes met mine.
“My turn,”
she whispered. And I knew my reprieve was over.

“So what’s it going to be?” she murmured, stretching like a centerfold. “Truth, my friend?” And before the word could really register, she shifted, smiling at Jessica. “Or dare?”

Stunned, I stood there so very, totally still, trying to figure out what had just happened. Bethany’s light swung to her sister, who negligently twirled a strand of dark hair around her finger.
“Moi?”

“Toi,”
Amber confirmed. “Unless, of course, you’re too scared.”

“Have you ever known me to be too scared?”

“Truth?” Amber asked.

Her friend’s eyes gleamed. She glanced at Chase, then back at Amber. “Let’s find out.”

What was it with these people and the truth?

Amber was on her feet now. “Walk down the hall,” she said. “Alone.” Then she held out her hand. “Without any light.”

“No.”
The flash came with the word, invisible like before, a spear straight through me. The room shifted as everyone twisted toward me.

“No?” Amber asked.

“It’s not
your
dare,” Jessica pointed out.

But the nonexistent scarf choked off my breath. “I … I just…”
Breathe,
I told myself.
Breathe.
But I saw it all again, this time through the darkness.
The walls. The blood.

“Trinity—” Only then did I realize Chase had left Jessica’s side and was moving toward me.

I shook him off. “I don’t…”
Tangled dark hair
. “… don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Long legs.
“What if someone else is here?”

“Puh-lease.”
Jessica yanked the sole remaining flashlight from her sister and handed it to Amber, along with her Maglite. Then she flashed a bright smile and trotted from the room in the same way she took the field to cheer during half-time.

Twenty-two seconds later she screamed.

THREE

We ran.

“Jessica!” Chase reached the hall first. “Stay here!” he shouted, clicking on his flashlight as he broke toward the staircase we’d used on the way up. Drew, Amber, and Bethany veered left, taking the other two lights with them.
“Jess!”

On instinct I went after Chase, but he was already gone. I had no light and couldn’t see two inches in front of me. Behind me, the others had disappeared. I could hear Amber, though, shouting.

There weren’t even shadows to guide me.

I took off anyway, using my arms to feel my way toward the end of the hall.

“Jessica!” My feet ran out of floor. “Chase!”

In response, the silence breathed.

Heart pounding, I slid my hands along the wall. There was a door there. I knew there was. I’d come through it—“Chase!”

From downstairs, I could hear him shouting for his girlfriend.

I fumbled for my BlackBerry, turning it over to reveal a faint glow. The door had to be somewhere!

“Jessie!” That was Amber. The burst of footsteps sounded like running.

Another scream.

I thrust my phone in front me as if it could protect me, almost crying with relief when I found the small knob. Fumbling, I yanked the door open and staggered through—never saw the wall of shelves. I slammed into them, forehead and waist plowing in simultaneously. The impact stole my breath. Pain sang hard. I fell back, doubled over and tried to breathe. “What the—”

My hands shook. I lifted one to my face, my fingers stilling at the stickiness.
Blood.
And everything started to spin.

I gasped for air, gagged on the smell. Stale like before, rancid now. Coppery. I went for the light from my phone, but realized I no longer held it.

Darkness took everything. I lifted my hand but could see nothing. I dropped to my knees, feeling my way through the grime for the opening.

Behind me, something moved.

I made myself keep going, refusing to think too much about anything. The webs my fingers ripped through, the spiders that had to be somewhere. The sound of shuffling.

The smell of whiskey—
and worse.

Through the darkness everything throbbed, bringing with it a low mewl …

Me, I realized with a start. The barely human sound was coming from my own throat.

The wall stopped me. I twisted … found another.

Tried to stand.

Couldn’t.

Tried to breathe, swallow.

Gagged instead.

Think,
I begged myself.
Think. Find the phone. Call someone.
Aunt Sara would come.

But the darkness pressed from all directions, sucking the oxygen from my lungs.

The bright flash blinded. Recoiling, I sat frozen, once again in the unsettling room with the dirty walls and grimy windows, the cell phone discarded in the corner, the girl on the bed … the dark tangled hair.

Not me, I finally realized. Not me.

Jessica.

And finally, the scream burned my throat.

Immediately something whooshed to my right, and the darkness let go. This time the stab of light did not come from the confused corners of my mind.

“
Jesus
—Trinity.”

“Pitre…” I managed, but the sound that crawled from my throat was no more than a whisper.

Flashlight in hand, he lunged inside what looked like a large closet and reached for me. “What the hell—”

The instant his hand touched mine, he looked like he wanted to hit someone. To hurt them. Bad. “
Je
sus—you’re like ice.”

I fumbled for words.
“
…
bad place.”

With a gentleness totally at odds with the rough-around-the-edges veneer, he helped me to my feet.

But around me, everything kept right on shifting.

“Easy,” he muttered, stepping beyond me, toward the walls of shelves that had not been there before. They hadn’t. I was sure of it. All the while he didn’t let go, kept his hand curled around my wrist.

Then he blew my mind. Slipping his hand under the fourth shelf from the bottom, he pushed something, and the shelves creaked open, revealing the vat of darkness beyond.

My heart slammed, hard.
“Omigod…”

“Come on!” He jerked his flashlight from me to illuminate the staircase we’d used on the way up. “Let’s get out of here.”

My mind struggled to process everything. The staircase was secret, hidden. The heavy door must have closed after Chase ran through it, accidentally trapping me …

My legs felt like rubber, but I made it to the kitchen. With the muggy night air rushing me, the stench of mud welcomed. Never letting go, Pitre led me to the gaping room where we’d started, where broken windows stood like the most amazing welcoming committee in the world. I scrambled through to the backyard, where Spanish moss swayed with the breeze—and three girls stood watching.