Page 96 of White Lights
Mo can’t be … dead.
Weeks ago, maybe, he was close to death. Because of what Dez did to him. But he’s been in the hospital getting treatment. At some point, when she was able, Dez was going to see him again.
“Your films are what keeps the world as you know it at peace,” Moriah’s voice rings distantly in Dez’s ears. “By helping the dead move on.”
Dezchoseto make a film about her brother. Broke the rules and devoted herself to a film about the person she loves most. It can’t be possible that by makingLazarus, Dez haskilledher brother.
Rafe just brought the film to her brother tonight. He would have told Dez …
Her knees quake. She looks at Rafe.
He’s watching her. And looks destroyed. He takes a breath, closes his eyes.
And he nods.
In the darkened Vault, Dez stares as a golden light shimmers around Rafe’s silhouette. She blinks and rubs her eyes, but the glow only gets brighter. No one else looks Rafe’s way; no one else seems to see what she does. Soon she realizes it’s familiar, this glow. She saw it once before, boarding the jet in Death Valley.
Her first time breaking, Rafe explained. He said her intuition knew that moment on the tarmac marked a shift in her life, in her destiny.
Here’s another one.
No, she begs, even as the truth slams into her. Empty. Ringing. Senseless. This isn’t a game. Somehow what the director just said is real.
“Some of you are fresh off a dose of Soma,” Moriah says, her attention on Dez.
She knows Dez took the Soma tonight. She knows Dez made the film about Mo. She’s known it all along.
“The gift there is that your subjects are still close. Can you feel them entering the Light? They are thanking you—”
Blood pounds in Dez’s ears, drowning out the director’s voice. She stumbles backward from her table and runs out of the Vault as fast as she can.
DEZ COLLAPSES AGAINST THE WALLoutside the Vault. She feels nothing. Sees nothing. Hears—
Footsteps.
“Go away,”she orders, her voice so hollow, deep, and cold she doesn’t recognize it.
Someone kneels before her.
“Dez.” It’s Rafe.
“No.” She puts up her hands to block him. “No.”
“I know,” he says softly.
She flinches away, shoulders shaking with a sob. She doesn’t want to see him. She doesn’t want anyone but her brother.
“Dez.”
“Leave me alone.” She can’t breathe. She’s choking on air she can’t get into her lungs. There’s been a mistake. What the director said can’t be true. But the light she saw around Rafe when he nodded was. She’s broken into a new phase of her life. This is happening. It’s real.
She’s trembling with rage and blind with grief. The cold stone walls feel like they’re closing in.
Rafe puts a hand on her shoulder. His touch means to be soothing, and Dez’s reaction is absolute fury. She won’t be soothed. She’ll shake him off her, hit him in the face, but when she looks up, his eyes still her. They steady her. For a moment, her panic ebbs.
He looks … like he can handle this. Handle her. Like he understands something ineffable, like he’s been destroyed like this, too.
“Deep breath,” he says.
