So one of you runs. Or pushes the other one away. But you can’t stay apart long. Twin flames will always feel that hard pull toward each other.” She gives my hand another squeeze. “It’s fate. You and Elora were meant to be together. You’re two halves of a whole. Two flames –”
“Lit from the same match,” I finish, and Honey nods.
There are hot tears on my cheeks, and I reach up to brush them away. I blink hard, but I can’t stop them falling.
“I don’t know how to be me without her.”
“She’s still with you, Grey.” Honey leans in closer. “Whether she’s dead or alive, Elora is part of you. Don’t give up on that.” When I don’t say anything, Honey offers to make me a bedtime snack. But I shake my head. “I just need to go to sleep.”
I stand up to leave, but she puts a hand on my arm. “Having great ability isn’t something to be afraid of, Sugar Bee. But it is something to be careful with.”
I’m not sure what she means at first, but then I remember Sera’s words.
Your mama had deep power.
I feel the pull of my mother’s haunted eyes. But I don’t let myself look in their direction.
“Don’t allow what you can do to change who you are,”
Honey warns me as she picks up our mugs and carries them to the sink. “That’s the most important thing to remember.”
In my room, I pause at the window to search the darkness.
But nobody stares back at me from the pouring rain.
Evie’s wind chimes sing out loud and clear in the storm. They clink and clank against each other with a ringing fury that carries over the wind and the water. Not even the constant rumble of thunder drowns out their strange music.
I take Case’s bloodstained medal out of my pocket and wrap it in a tissue. I know I should give it to someone. Turn it over to the sheriff or something. And I will.
Soon.
Because I figure Saint Sebastian is proof of what Hart has been saying all along. Case has to be the one that Elora is afraid of. He must be the one chasing her down through the rain in all those mixed-up flashes I’ve been having.
There’s no real way to deny that now.
Then, after he killed her, he took his medal back. The one she slipped into her pocket when we were only twelve years old. The summer of batting practice.
Baseballs.
And eyelashes.
He stole it from her while she lay there. Dead at his feet. Or maybe dying.
But then what?
How did Saint Sebastian end up lost in Honey’s shed?
If my power is so great, why don’t I know the answer to that question?
I slip the medal into my underwear drawer, and my fingers find the corner of Sera’s drawing. I unfold the paper and carry it over to my bed. I crawl up on top of the quilt to sit cross-legged and study the image.
That big black trunk.
The trunk that currently isn’t in the shed where it should be.
I think about how I used to hide inside it. And it hits me that it’s exactly the right size.
The right size to hold a body. The right size to make a girl disappear.
Like magic.
The room starts spinning. Suddenly I’m imagining Case folding Elora’s long legs into that black trunk and closing the lid. I get up and shove the drawing back into the drawer, then I run to the bathroom and drop to my knees in front of the toilet. My stomach heaves and heaves, but nothing comes up. I’m shaking all over, and my face is on fire, so I curl up on the bath mat and rest my cheek against the smooth tile.
And then I guess I fall asleep, because when I open my eyes again, it’s pitch black. No bedroom light. No bathroom light.
The power must be out.
I hear the storm raging outside, pelting the window with rain and what must be little hailstones. They make an eerie rattling noise against the glass. Like a tiny army trying to break in.
The tile is hard and cold, and my arm is numb from being pinned under my weight. It’s uncomfortable but undeniably real.
And then all that disappears.
The solid tile of the floor dissolves beneath me and –
The bayou is flooding out. Water runs over my back and swirls around my ears. Deeper and deeper. I try not to breathe it in. But I have to breathe. I gasp for air and water rushes in instead. I’m coughing and gagging, and every time my body cries out for oxygen, all I get is more water.
Panic stabs at my insides. It slices me up and leaves me in ribbons.
I can’t see.
I can’t think.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t –
My throat is on fire. The water burns my lungs like I’m sucking in gasoline.