Page 114 of Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

I feel helpless and scared, and that feeling builds and builds.

“I can’t figure it out,” I tell her desperately. “That’s the problem. You’re dead. I don’t know where you are.”

“You can,” she assures me. “You must. Energy cannot be destroyed. I’m everywhere.”

I squeeze my eyes closed and when I do, the images shimmer and change.

I’m getting into a car.

Finn is with me, and my father, too.

“If I’m going, I’m driving,” I tell them.

And I drive down the mountain.

And my mother,

My moth

er,

My mother.

The night is dark, the ground is cold.

The words whisper and morph and I’m confused.

I look at Olivia.

“That isn’t what happened.”

She nods and she’s sad and her eyes become headlights.

I startle, and my eyes open.

Sabine is waiting for me, waiting for answers.

All I have are questions,

And confusion,

And lies.

It didn’t happen that way.

Sabine is still waiting, her eyes dark.

“Did you see Olivia?”

I nod. Because I did see her.

“What was around her? The sea? Was there anything else?”

I shake my head.

“No. She was just standing in front of me.”

Sabine clucks, and she’s patient. “You must open your mind, Calla. Let it come.”