He kissed her again, gripping the back of her hair with one strong hand. A sharp pain shot through her.
Pain?
He pulled his lips away. “I need to know where you are, Ava. You need me to find you.”
The pain distracted her from the pleasure of his kiss. “I don’t understand.”
“Where are you?”
For a moment, the voice came from outside. From another place that chilled her. An echo of his voice, then another, layered on top of it. She stilled, pulling away from him.
“What is this?”
“Dream…” He clenched his eyes shut, shaking his head. “It’s a dream… but not a dream. It’s… it’s more, Ava. I can’t… I don’t know how to tell you.”
For the first time since he’d found her, dread touched her heart. “No.”
“Don’t pull away.” He reached for her, but she was already across the meadow. “Ava!”
Fear and confusion filled the space between.
“I don’t understand.” Tears slid down her cheeks. Hot. Painful. Cold wind bit her ankles.
“I’m trying to come back to you!”
“Why am I afraid?”
“Because I am! I need to find you, Ava.”
She blinked as the memory came crashing down. His face, dissolving into gold dust. She looked down, and muddy water swirled around her feet.
“You left me,” she whispered into the darkness. “And you can’t come back.”
“No,” he said, running toward her. But no matter how fast he ran, he could not come any closer. “I came back! You brought me back, Ava!”
She shook her head, pulling the darkness around her like a cloak. “No.”
His eyes turned desperate. “Ava, come to me.”
“You’re gone.”
“You must come to me.”
She sank to her knees on the cold ground. “It hurts now.”
“Please!”
“It hurts.”
A hedge sprang up between them, circling her, guarding her. Keeping him away.
“Ava, no!”
The pain that had pierced her heart faded, and his panicked voice grew dim. Faint whispers came from the trees.
“Safe.”
“Careful.”
“Safe, safe, safe.”
“Shhhhhh.”
She closed her eyes and sat on the cold ground, pressing her forehead to her knees and ignoring the small hands that tugged at her shoulders.
“Go back,” the small voices said. “You need to go back.”
No. It wasn’t safe. Something… something was different. And wrong. Something had hurt her outside the hedge.
“We need you to find your way back.”
When Ava opened her eyes,it was dark. She curled to her side and tried to stem the flood of silent tears that washed down her face. For the first time in weeks, there had been no comfort in dreams.
“Not real,” she whispered. “They aren’t real.”
Malachi died again in her heart.
Ava let the darkness take her. She closed her eyes, and she did not dream.
The next day,she walked through the flat like a zombie. Sari and Damien were gone. Orsala was in the apartment with her, but the old woman was studying a book and paid her no attention. She sat near the window, scrolling through the news on Renata’s computer. She recognized a familiar name that brought the hint of a smile to her lips.