But one does.

My eyes burn as I fix my gaze on Dare.

“You confessed something to me. It scared me.”

Dare’s lids are heavy and hooded, probably from the weight of guilt.

He nods. One curt, short movement.

“Do you remember what I told you?”

He’s silent, his gaze tied to mine, burning me.

I flip through my memories, fast, fast, faster… but I come up empty-handed. I only emerge with a feeling.

Fear.

Dare sees it in my eyes and looks away.

“I tried to tell you, Cal,” he says, almost pleading. “You just didn’t understand.”

His voice trails off and my heart seems to stop beating.

“I didn’t understand what?” I ask stiltedly. Just tell me.

He lifts his head now.

“It isn’t hard to understand,” he says simply. “If you remember all that I told you. Can you try?”

I stare at him numbly. “I’ve tried already. I… it’s not there, Dare.”

Dare’s head drops the tiniest bit, almost imperceptibly, but I see it. He’s discouraged, disappointed.

He shakes his head. “It is there. Trust yourself, Calla. Your memories are real. Finn was dead, and then he wasn’t.”

“My mom died instead. I thought I was crazy,” I murmur. “Because if it was real, then I somehow exchanged my mother for Finn.”

Dare sighs, a ragged and broken sound. He tries to touch my hand, but I yank it away. He doesn’t get to touch me. Not anymore.

“You don’t understand,” he says quietly. “But you’re not crazy.”

I stare at him. “No, I don’t understand.” And you have no idea what this feels like.

“You will,” he replies tiredly. “I swear to God you will.”

A lump lodges itself in my throat as the sea breeze rustles my hair. I take a deep gulp of it, filling my lungs with the clean scent.

“Did you ever love me at all?” I ask, the words choking me, because no matter what, it’s the most important thing to me right now.

Pain flashes across Dare’s face, real pain, and I brace myself.

Don’t.

Don’t.

Don’t.

Don’t hurt me.

“Of course I did,” he says quickly and firmly. “And I do still. Right now.”

He stares at me imploringly and I so want to believe him. I want to hear his words and clutch them to my heart and keep them there in a gilded cage.

But then he speaks again. “You’re not safe, Calla. You have to come with me now. There’s something you need to know.”

“I don’t know where I belong anymore,” I whimper and Dare grabs me.

“You belong with me,” he tells me, his lips moving against my hair. “You don’t hate me, Calla. You can’t. I didn’t lie to you. I tried to tell you.”

His voice is afraid, terrified actually, and it touches a soft place in me, a hidden place, the place where I protect my love for him. The place where my heart used to be before it was so broken, and the emotions, the feelings… they trigger a memory. What he told me to do that night.

“You told me to run,” I say suddenly, and Dare is sadder now than ever.

“I wish you would’ve,” he answers. “Because now it’s too late. We have to ride this out, and if you don’t stay with me, you’ll be lost.”

“You’re my own personal anti-Christ,” I whisper into his shirt. His hands stroke my hair frantically, trailing down my back and clutching me to him.”

“I’m not,” he rasps. “Things are complicated, and I don’t want you to think I’m a monster. I’ve failed you, but I’ll fix it. I swear I’ll fix it.”

“How?” I whisper, and don’t think I want to know. “How have you failed me? What have you done?”

My hand is anchored by Dare’s.

His fingers shake, and it scares me.

“I’ve done a terrible thing,” he confesses, and each word is staccato. “I don’t expect your forgiveness. But I have to fix it. And to do that, I need your help. You have to help me, Calla. Help me save you.”

Save me, and I’ll save you.

That’s in Finn’s journal. Those are Finn’s words, not Dare’s.

Right?

I feel… I feel… I feel.

I feel a wave of déjà vu. I feel a wave of emotion, of sensation, of things I should know but don’t, like there are holes in my brain and details have fallen out and scattered in the wind and blown away.

“What have you done?” I ask him through fractured thoughts. “What do I need saving from? Because I don’t think I can be saved. I’m broken, I think.”

“You’re wrong,” he insists, and his eyes beg me. “I can save you.”

I shake my head and the movement is painful.

“You love me,” he tells me, his stare cutting me into pieces. “You just haven’t realized it yet.”

“I know,” I whisper, throwing those pieces away. “But…”

But

But.

But I have to protect myself from him.

From Dare.

I feel it now, stronger than I’ve ever felt anything.

It’s a heavy foreboding, centering my chest and spreading through every blood vessel in my body. It’s real and it’s tangible and it’s a warning.

It’s intuition.

I draw my knees to my chest and look away, taking a deep shaky breath.

“I know I sound crazy,” I admit. “I know it. But I can’t help what I feel. I have to protect myself from you. I know that much is true. My heart is telling me to be afraid of you.”

And it is. It’s telling me there’s a reason.

I feel it in my bones, in my hollow reed bones.

Dare closes his eyes, and it is minutes before he opens them, and when he does, they’re so empty, so lost.

“Fine,” he says simply. “Protect yourself from me. Hell, I’ll protect you from me. But come with me to Whitley. That’s where you’ll find the answers. There are answers to questions you haven’t even thought of yet.”

“At Whitley? Is that where you’re from?”

I stare at Dare, at the body I love, the eyes that I can fall into, the heart that has held me up… and hidden so many secrets.

He nods like I should know that already, and it’s like the movement is painful for him. He doesn’t want to go to there, to Whitley, but he’s willing to go for me. I see that.

“Your dad wants you to go,” he adds. “Can you do it for him?”

Why would my dad want me to go to England?

Nothing makes sense.

That’s the story of my life.

The ominous feeling cripples me, almost sending me to my knees. I don’t know. I only know… if I don’t find answers, I might lose my sanity and end up just like Finn, back where I started.

The answers are at Whitley.

I exhale, realizing that I’d been holding my breath.

“Ok. I’ll go. But only if Finn comes too.”

Dare agrees immediately.

“Of course. Obviously. He needs my help, too.”

Obviously.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“We live a little ways from Hastings. It’s close to Sussex,” Dare tells me, after we land at Heathrow and drive through the country. He speaks of England as though I know anything at all about it. I nod like I do, because so much of what we say is a pretense now. We go through the motions.

Thirty minutes later, our car is still gliding over the winding ribbons of road, but I finally see a rooftop in the distance, spires and towers poking through trees.

Dare stirs, opening his eyes, and I know we’re almost there. Finn is still sleeping, so I nudge him awake, and he rubs at his eyes.

I crane my neck to see. When I do, I’m stunned beyond words, enough that the breath hitches on my lips.

This can’t be my family’s home.

It’s huge, it’s lavish, it’s creepy.

It’s ancient, it’s stone, it’s beautiful.

A tall stone wall stretches in either direction as far as I can see, encircling the property like an ominous security blanket. It’s so tall, so heavy, and for one brief moment, I wonder if it’s meant to keep people out… or to keep them in.