He was by my bed,
He’s been here the whole time,
humming to me.
“Is Dare safe?” I ask her breathlessly.
“A sacrifice has been made,” she answers. “It’s been accepted. Don’t change it.”
Her voice is small because the sacrifice was Finn.
“Our story is so sad,” I tell her, because it is. The saddest thing I’ve ever heard, because it makes everything seem hopeless, as though our own actions don’t matter, because we pay for the sins of those who came before us. Olivia shakes her head knowingly.
“It’s not. The saddest thing is if everything was in vain and if history keeps repeating. Don’t let that be, girl. Save my son. Save yourself. Don’t sink into the oblivion. You’ve got to open your eyes. Open your eyes.
Open your eyes.
Open your eyes.”
I startle awake, the insistence of her voice shocking me into lucidity.
My eyes open.
The light is so bright it’s blinding.
The humming stops.
Chapter Thirty-One
The room swirls white and medicinal, filled with beeps and blank walls and cold skin. Goosebumps chase each other in confusion up my arm, and I gulp hard.
I’m in a hospital.
I’m cold.
I’m afraid.
But.
Dare is.
Dare is.
Those are the words in my head, and the words sound like Finn’s voice. And at first I think it’s an interruption in the sentence, but then I realize. It’s not Dare is… it’s a statement. Dare is.
Dare exists.
Dare is alive.
I exhale, and I think about where I am.
I wiggle my fingers and they’re heavy, and there’s pain, and I can breathe.
Slowly
Slowly
Slowly,
I open my eyes.
I’m alone, and even though the echo of Finn’s whispers linger here, I know that he’s not.
My body feels heavy and I can’t lift my arms, and a nurse comes in and when she sees my eyes open, she’s startled, then she rushes to my side.
“Ms. Price! You’re awake. How are you feeling?”
I don’t know. My thoughts are murky and my chest hurts so much. I try to lift a hand to rub at it, at my chest, but I can’t. There are too many tubes, too many wires.
“Don’t,” the nurse tells me as she watches my attempt. “You’ve been through a lot. You’ve got to rest to recover.”
“Where is Dare?” I ask and my voice is hoarse and my throat is sore, like I haven’t spoken in a hundred years.
“He’s in another room,” she tells me. “He’s fine. He’s going to make it.”
Joy leaps at me, lapping at my face, and then I picture my brother and everything falls around me.
“Finn?” I ask, and even I can hear the fear in my voice.
“I think it’s best if the doctor explains everything that happened,” she tells me. “I’ll be right back with her.”
I close my eyes because I’m exhausted and afraid, and it isn’t long before the doctor comes and when she speaks with her raspy voice, I know immediately who it is and I try to leap from the bed.
Sabine stands there, calm as can be in a white lab jacket, and she places a hand on my arm to restrain me.
“Ms. Price,” she says, her dark eyes staring into mine. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal. I’m Dr. Andros.”
“I know who you are,” I hiss at her and she stays calm, because she knows who she is, too.
“You were in a car accident. Mr. DuBray drove off the road. You suffered extreme trauma to your chest and your heart. Your brother suffered massive injuries that unfortunately, he wasn’t able to recover from. He remained alive on life support until a transplant could be made. Your brother’s heart saved your life.”
My hand fingers my chest and there is a fresh scar from my collarbone to my belly, swollen and warm.
“My brother is dead.”
My words are deflated.
Sabine nods.
“I have his heart.”
“You do.”
Save me, and I’ll save you.
I’m supposed to save you, Calla.
The words chant in my head and the voice is Finn’s and the world tips and swirls.
I saved him so long ago, and now he saved me.
And now he’s gone forever.
My loss is profound and unexplainable and the void is enormous. A chasm that I don’t think I’ll ever come back from.
The heart that beats in my chest is not mine. It’s my brother’s. My dear, sweet, perfect brother. My Finn.
Good night, sweet Finn.
“I need to see Dare,” I tell Sabine, because she and I both know who she is, who she really is.
She shakes her head and she’s firm, and her eyes are vicious because her daughter is gone and never coming back, and Dare and I are both here instead.
Somethingsomethingsomething is off though, something is off and I look out the window and there is a peaceful pond, and benches, and someone is feeding the ducks. Someone who is wearing a hospital bracelet, just like mine.
“Where are we?” I ask Sabine and she smiles and it’s grotesque.
“Oakdale Sanitorium,” she grins.
No. A mental hospital?
That can’t be.
“But it is,” Sabine answers, and I don’t know if she read my thoughts or if I said them aloud.
“You’re disturbed, poor girl,” she says. “And so is Adair. Growing up the way you did, it’s no wonder. Your mother was with her own brother, Dare’s step-father molested him and abused him… obviously you’re both from bad blood.”
“We’re not crazy,” I shout, but I’m not sure and I struggle and she smiles. There’s a sharp pain in my arm and she leaves and everything goes beyond black to oblivion and I’m in a sleep so so deep that I can’t dream.
Days pass and finally, finally, Dare comes to see me, when he’s strong enough.
He’s paler, but he’s the same. His dark dark eyes penetrate me and he grasps my hand.
“We’re not crazy. We’ve fixed it before, we’ll fix it again,” he tells me. There’s promise in his voice but I’m so tired. “You have Finn’s heart, so he’s not really gone.”
“Is this even real?” I ask him, groggy from the medicine they pump into my veins. “Maybe we’ve been crazy all along.”
Dare smiles and his smile is real and it’s bright and it penetrates my fog.
“You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“Believe in me,” he instructs, and I do.
Because Dare is mine and he lives free.
“I want to live free, too,” I tell him.
“And you will,” he promises.
Days pass with nurses coming in and out, to make sure I take my pills, the colorful pills that will keep my body from rejecting Finn’s heart. I’ll have to take them forever and their waxy residue gets stuck on my tongue. But I take them, because I have to keep Finn’s heart alive. It’s the only part of him I have left, and he’s my brother and I love him I love him I love him.
Oakdale and its grounds look so much like Whitley. The halls, the rooms, and one day, one gray day, I find Finn’s journal.
It’s hidden in one of my bags and I know it’s his because it says.
The Journal of Finn Price.
The end is the beginning, one of the pages says. I don’t know about that, but I know the middle was jumbled up and changed and changed and changed.
But it can all be changed back.
I have to believe that.
Destroy the ring, it says. You have to you have to you have to.