JUNE 10, MORNING
Skye.
Look at me, Skye. Look at me.
She sounded closer than ever before.
LOOK.
Fine, I snapped. You win. She’d been begging me all night. I’ll look.
I turned toward her voice and was shocked to actually see her; she was extraordinarily clear. A girl my age stood in the darkness, as real and alive and tired as me; she didn’t float inside the darkness but rather seemed bound by it. A sense of kinship washed through me as she reached out, her blue eyes desperate. She was as trapped as I was; we shared a nightmare from which I couldn’t wake.
Help me. Choose me.
I stepped closer. I needed to help her, to pull her free.
Maybe she would free us both.
The thought brought a sense of hope I hadn’t felt in weeks.
The darkness didn’t move. Her lips did.
Skye.
SKYE.
Rives’s voice drowned out the girl’s, which was odd because he wasn’t shouting and I couldn’t see him. But I could hear him, in the dark, in this faraway place where I hadn’t heard him lately at all—and then I felt him. His voice wrapped me in warmth, pulling me close by a velvet thread. He was my tether, my grounding force. I would not be lost, not with Rives. The tether went taut.
The girl faded; the darkness surged.
Panic rose. Rives shouldn’t be here, not this far into the dark. The darkness’s greed seeped into the marrow of my bones: it wanted Rives, too. Suddenly I was terrified—for me, for Rives, for the girl … for all of us fighting in the dark, together but very much alone.
Rives! My shout vanished without an echo, blackness filling my mouth in the wake of my words.
I woke, abruptly wrenched into the light, gulping air.
Rives’s name lingered on my lips, but the real flesh-and-blood version sat beside me on the couch. He looked sick as he studied me.
“Are you okay?” I reached for his face, but he intercepted my hand.
“Stop,” he said. “What about you? You were dreaming. And screaming. I had to shake you awake, Skye. Ready to talk about it?”
“I can’t even remember.” I stretched, smiling, taking pains to slow my breathing.
Rives stared at me. “You’re an atrocious liar, you know that? Like the Oscar-winning performance of a bad liar.” Lines of sunlight streaked across his face from the open shutters, but his eyes stayed shadowed. “Your nightmares are getting worse, Skye. You can’t ignore them anymore. We have to deal with it. If you won’t talk to me, what about Jillian?”
I looked away.
Stop, a tiny part of myself said. Stop pressing. Don’t make me go there in the day.
“I already talked to Jillian, remember?” I offered casually. She’s got her own demons to face, I wanted to say. She doesn’t need mine, too. But instead I said, “And I’ve talked to Charley a ton. I’m good.”
Rives watched me, his expression grim.
“C’mon, Rives.” Reaching up, I wound my fingers through his hair. It had grown longer since Nil, long enough for me to pull him gently to me, to pull his mouth to mine. I kissed him with all that I had, this boy I loved so deeply it hurt.
Please let it go, my lips said.
“Don’t worry.” I murmured this plea against closed lips.
He tipped his forehead against mine. “It’s not that easy, Skye.”
“I know.” I sat up quietly, then glanced around for my shoes, purposely avoiding his too-intense gaze. Sometimes Rives saw more than I wanted him to see; sometimes he saw meaning in little things I missed myself. But even if he saw it, I didn’t want to dwell on the darkness right now, or the girl invading my dreams. “We’re going to Lake Como today, right?” I said brightly.
“Wrong,” Rives said decisively. “Change of plans. We’re going to Gainesville. We’re booked on an afternoon flight.”
“What? Why?”
“Because we’ve got to figure your nightmares out.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe it’s some sort of post-traumatic island stress, but whatever it is, you don’t sleep. And it’s scaring the hell out of me. It’s gotten worse. And you won’t talk to me, Skye. Won’t let me in your head.” His voice cracked. “Maybe your dad can help. It’s worth a shot.”
The hopeful expression on Rives’s face nearly brought me to tears, but I wouldn’t cry. It drained me, and I needed every bit of strength I had left. And now that I considered it, Rives had an excellent point. My dad was the only Nil expert we had. For all I knew, he’d helped Uncle Scott back in the day, and if there was one thing I knew, it was that my dreams were linked to Nil.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Fine. We’ll go to Gainesville and talk to my dad. Maybe he can—”
Rives dipped down and kissed me as fiercely as I’d kissed him, derailing my train of thought, a desperate kiss full of want and relief, as if he’d expected me to fight his plan. His lips lingered on my throat, then he groaned as he cupped my face in his hands. “I’d better stop if we plan to make our plane.”
He hopped up and began moving around the room, gathering his things, his steps light. “You’d better get packing too, my Skye.” He pointed a rolled-up T-shirt at me. “We leave in two hours.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” I saluted as I stood.
“So we’re pirates now?” He raised an eyebrow, grinning. “Or is it once a pirate, always a pirate? I do recall you commandeered a canoe once.”
“And aren’t you glad I did?” Otherwise I wouldn’t have met you.
Dropping the shirt, he swung me around, then deposited me on the floor with a swashbuckling kiss. “You have no idea how glad,” he murmured.
“Actually I do.” Tracing his jaw, I thought of all that Nil had shared with us in our last moments on the island. “And you know I do.”
“True.” He kissed me again. “An honest pirate, you are. Now get packing, matey.”
“So bossy, Captain,” I said with a smirk. But I couldn’t stop smiling. I gathered my clothes as Rives did the same. We joked and laughed and things between us and around us felt both perfect and perfectly normal for a blissful few minutes. Somehow I knew everything would be okay; it had to be.
I had to be.
We’d come too far for me to lose it now.
Still, at the airport, I bought a Red Bull and chugged it in one fell swoop while Rives was in the restroom. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it but I desperately needed the caffeine.
I didn’t dare fall asleep on the plane.