Dark Legacy

by Anna DeStefano

  But the knife stayed in her hand…

  Thunder rolled within the dream, blending with the sounds of rustling wings and Jarred’s cry of pain as she—Sarah—stabbed him again.

  Sarah giggled in demented victory…

  Jarred stared up at Maddie in the motel room, his love and acceptance and understanding still there, even in this. Even in death.

  “Wake up!” she yelled at him. “I can’t stop her. Please wake up!”

  He had to wake up before—

  “Please, God…” His voice was weak. His mind was accepting the end. “Let Maddie be okay…Take care of her and let her be okay.”

  His prayer was her absolution, stunning both her and Sarah. Their father had said the same exact thing in Sarah’s dream of the accident. Maddie grasped at the tiny crack that ripped through Sarah’s control.

  “Jarred?” she poured need into their link. Love.

  “It’s not your fault,” he whispered. “But you can stop her, Maddie. I know you can.”

  Even while he was dying by her hand, he believed she could control this violent, brutal thing she and Sarah had become…

  “Wake up!” she screamed in the dream. This time at her twin, who looked up in shock from her bleeding victim.

  Maddie glared directly into Sarah’s eyes for the first time in a decade. Both of them in the dream, but separate. Maddie could see the weakness and fear now behind her twin’s drive for destruction. The jealous rage. The hate Sarah couldn’t harness without Maddie.

  A nauseating vortex of images transported Maddie to a vision of Sarah, curling in on herself, rocking side to side on the filthy floor of some awful building. And then Maddie saw herself, shaking her head and walking away from the heartbreaking scene, taking her strength with her, because control of the dream was hers now.

  And there was Jarred, waiting at the door of what looked like a vacant storefront in the city. He was holding out his hand. His smile promised he’d always be there for Maddie, no matter what. And the wicked passion in his eyes promised much, much more. His warm embrace when she reached for him offered the understanding and acceptance and safety she’d always craved.

  “Die!” Sarah hissed from her filthy, lonely corner.

  Then the dream snatched Maddie back to the image of Jarred, naked and bleeding, lying defenseless beneath an avenging Sarah. A Sarah determined to keep Maddie for herself, never once believing Maddie would find the nerve to stop her.

  Sarah’s ravens and the rain and the darkness were fading. But that didn’t stop Sarah from drawing back her knife, staring her hatred at Maddie, and aiming the blade at Jarred once more.

  “He has to die!” Sarah shrieked as her image continued to fade.

  “No!” Maddie stopped the weapon’s deadly plunge toward the man she loved.

  Hers and Sarah’s hands brushed in the dream. Their wills collided. And the walls of their nightmare world began to peel away, splintering their connection…

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Wake up!” Maddie shouted, her ears ringing with the sound of her voice outside the dream.

  Her connection to Sarah broken, she sagged to the motel-room bed as her mind, her vision, her hearing shut down. Her awareness of anything or anywhere. Her ability to feel or remember.

  What couldn’t she remember?

  There was something important. Something she’d been willing to die for rather than let Sarah destroy. But numbness spread throughout her body like a thousand tiny bees, their wings buzzing madly. She was shaking. Moaning. The air around her rumbled with fear.

  Except the deep rumbling wasn’t hers. It was close. Every agonizing breath was hers, but it was someone else, too. Someone in excruciating pain. Someone she could help if she could only remember before it was too late.

  “Maddie?” The voice stroked her with love. “I…it’s okay. I’m here.”

  A hand brushed across her hair. She wasn’t alone in the darkness. Then the voice was coming from a chest wheezing in pain. A naked chest that she’d collapsed against after…

  After…

  “Sarah?” he asked. “Is she gone? The dream…” His next breath was a hopeless cough. “Is it gone?”

  Sarah?

  The dream?

  The knife!

  It was a horrible rush—everything crashing back in jagged waves that obliterated the last of Maddie’s confusion.

  “Jarred!” She tried to push away from his chest. But it took two tries, and she hurt him both times.

  They were naked. They’d made love. Their minds had promised each other forever. Then her sister had destroyed everything.

  “Hold on,” Maddie sobbed, remembering the violence and the blood and the ravens circling in death. And Sarah laughing at it all. “Don’t die. Please. Jarred…”

  She was sitting somehow, her head throbbing until she couldn’t see. But she stared down at Jarred, hard, until the very real carnage Sarah’s nightmare had caused wavered into view. The ugly bedspread, soaked in blood. The knife that she still gripped in her hand. She threw it across the bed, her tears blurring everything once more.

  “I’m…I’m sorry,” she sobbed.

  Sarah had won.

  Maddie had fought her. She’d finally believed that she could. But it had been too late.

  “It’s okay.” Jarred’s voice vibrated with the promise of forever. “I’m here.”

  And he was there. Comforting Maddie, while his life bled away.

  Move! her mind screamed when no words would come. Don’t just sit there, do something!

  Maddie wiped at her eyes so she could see him, really see him.

  “Jarred…” she said in wonder at the brightness surrounding them.

  Healing white, like the energy she’d felt when she helped people at the hospital. It rolled off her. Reached for him. The kind of white that could fight the most brutal battles and never give up hope.

  “You’re beautiful.” She reached a trembling, bloodstreaked hand toward his face. But on its own accord, her palm covered one of the ugly wounds in his chest instead. A jolt of pain blasted through her from the gash, making her stomach churn. “I’m so sorry…”

  “You…” Jarred’s next cough shuddered inside her chest, too, as if they were one, just like in their dream. “You fought her, Maddie,” he insisted. “And you won. You’re stronger than Sarah’s darkness. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “Sarah won.” Maddie clutched at his hand the second it fumbled into her grasp. “She—”

  “She didn’t win. I was there. I know what I saw. You fought her. You fought to protect me. And—”

  “A lot of fucking good that did!” Maddie’s curse beckoned closer the lingering traces of Sarah’s broken mind. “I swear, next time, I’m going to kill—”

  “No you’re not.” Jarred groaned as she pressed harder against the wound she had no chance of sealing. The blood didn’t stop coming. It wouldn’t stop until he was dead. “You’ll fight her…You’ll figure out how to keep Sarah from hurting anyone else. But you love your sister. You won’t kill her.”

  Another groan followed, then a cough that made Maddie’s tears feel like shards of glass clogging her throat.

  Then Jarred smiled, and every whisper of pain disappeared from both of them.

  “You’re a healer, Dr. Madeline Temple. My healer. Not a killer.”

  “But I’ve killed you!” she sobbed.

  “That was Sarah.”

  His voice was weaker, but his love filled more of her by the second, promising that she’d never be empty, never be alone again. Or was it Maddie’s ability to accept it, to feel that promise, that kept expanding?

  “You got me out of the dream,” he whispered. “You got us away from her.”

  “Your blood is on my hands.” She stared at her palms.

  He laced their fingers together.

  “This was my choice…” His eyes fluttered closed. “There…there’s no place else I’d rather be.”

  “Don
’t…” Maddie begged. “Don’t leave me. I can’t do this without you.”

  His free hand struggled to cover her heart. His touch was ice-cold against her bare skin.

  “I’m here,” he whispered. “Always. Sarah can’t take that away. You’re never alone, Maddie. Don’t…don’t be afraid…”

  His hand would have slipped away, but Maddie caught it close. She battled to hold on to his mind, too. To keep Jarred with her, always, just like he’d promised. She kept her other fingers over his heart, covering the deepest of the gashes.

  The scared little girl inside Maddie wanted to run, screaming, until she became what her sister had—lost and unaware of the damage she’d done. But Maddie wasn’t leaving Jarred. She wouldn’t do that to the man who’d risked everything to show her how to believe.

  “You’re not alone, either.” She closed her eyes and quieted everything inside. Everything but the feelings she’d never thought could be real. Not like this. Like they would never go away. Like they’d never really be gone, no matter how much time passed or how long she was forced to live without Jarred.

  Acceptance.

  Belonging.

  Understanding.

  Love.

  There was light inside Jarred still, deep down where he’d hidden so much of himself. It called to her touch. To the courage that facing deep truths demanded.

  “I love you…” she whispered as she felt his heart falter.

  His injuries were fatal. She could see them all now, feel them in her mind. It was only a matter of minutes, and he had to know before it was too late. He had to see.

  Leaning closer so she could talk directly in his ear, she tried to speak, but her throat was too raw.

  I love you. Her mind stroked his. Always. You’re never alone. I won’t let you go. Ever. You were right. I am strong enough to stop Sarah, and I will. I promise. But I need you with me. Just like in the dream. You have to fight, Jarred. You have to try. Let me…help you…I can…Help me try. I love you, and that’s a miracle. And if I can believe in something like love, anything is possible…Stay with me, and help me.

  She was babbling, and she was crying incoherently, and Jarred wasn’t responding. There was almost no pulse in his body. No hint of life, except the weakest of flickers.

  But inside Maddie, there was also no more hate for her sister. No more anger for her mother. No more fear of what Maddie couldn’t remember or what the government or Sarah’s Raven or his center had done to all of them. No weakness for Sarah to feed on. There was only peace. The peace Jarred had given her. The peace she could feel spreading from where her naked body touched his, helping her to believe.

  Then the light and the truth surged to where her fingers covered his heart, becoming a force of their own. A connection, calling to Jarred and finding the final embers of his consciousness and refusing to let him go.

  I love you, Maddie repeated, laying her head on his chest, her hand still covering his heart. Stay with me. Help me…

  She let herself fall, all of her.

  Into him, all of him.

  She felt both their heartbeats. She felt the goodness of a man whose commitment to protect her had destroyed him. Now it was her turn to protect him. She was staying there, right there—her mind searching for him, her heart covering his and protecting him. Becoming him. Refusing to let him slip away.

  “I love you, Jarred. I’ll never stop loving you. I’ll always be here…”

  She didn’t care if Sarah or her psycho doctor or a troop of center security officers burst into wherever Jarred had taken her. Maddie would die before letting go. This was where she belonged. This was where she was going to stay.

  And there in the almost nothing that his consciousness had become, she saw Jarred’s shadow shake his head. Then he was fighting, trying to shove her away. His shadow mouthed the word, “Run!” But Maddie wasn’t running anymore. She’d touched real love for the first time in her life. She could still feel it, flowing through his fear for her. Love that didn’t lie or hide or abandon you deep inside, where the real you fought to hide.

  Maddie dove deeper into their connection. Into Jarred. She wrapped herself in the safety of his commitment and covered his shivering body in a blanket of pure white love. She caressed their link. She accepted where it would take her when he died.

  And in their joined consciousness, she cradled Jarred’s handsome face in her hands and kissed him until he stopped struggling and let her in. And then, with their foreheads touching, she gave herself fully to the light joining their hearts.

  But instead of following him into the beckoning darkness, she felt her body jerk away from the sudden heat beneath her hand. She opened her eyes in the dream to find light shimmering from where her hand lay on Jarred’s chest.

  A chest that was breathing. Stronger. Faster. The pain of it vibrating through her as his body throbbed back to life and brought hers with it. He was telling her where he hurt and how to heal him. Showing her that she’d always been able to heal this way but she hadn’t known how before sharing Sarah’s dreams.

  “Maddie!” Jarred’s body writhed beneath her, then jackknifed until he was sitting beside her…

  On the bed.

  Outside their minds.

  Both of them covered in his blood.

  Maddie’s hand lay over his chest, his wounds, healing light searing them in reality. From her fingers. Her palms.

  The rest of Maddie struggled for balance as she straddled his lap. She was still naked, her body still open to him while renewal poured from her in blistering waves. Attacking his wounds as it healed them. Demanding that his struggling heart beat even stronger. Transferring life from Maddie to him.

  Jarred’s gaze jerked to hers in agony. His mouth opened but no sound escaped. He swallowed. Gritted his teeth. His breath seethed in and out, but he didn’t fight her. He simply looked down at his chest. Her gaze followed, to see each wound circled with rings of gold.

  Maddie’s palms burned.

  They both shuddered.

  The largest gash in his chest began to close.

  To seal.

  “You’re…” Jarred groaned as the next wave pulsed from her palm into his body. “You’re…”

  “No, I’m not!” Terrified, Maddie tried to pull away. The healing white began to fade. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t be this. “No, I’m not like—”

  “Yes.” Jarred’s hand trapped hers against his chest. “You are, Maddie. You’re just as powerful as Sarah. But the…opposite of her darkness. She hurts people with her mind, somehow. You’re…healing me…” His gentle touch moved her hand below his rib cage, to where the knife had sliced into his diaphragm. “Metting said your abilities would continue to grow. You diagnosed that MVA victim with your mind. Now, you’re—Ah! Holy shit, that hurts!”

  “I’m killing you,” she gasped.

  “You’re…healing…me…” Jarred sucked in a breath as her touch did its painful work. “Loving me…Don’t stop, Maddie. Don’t leave…”

  “I’ll never leave,” she promised. “I’m here…”

  But she was feeling weaker. Her eyes slid shut.

  “Yes,” Jarred rasped out, pleasure in the word. Strength.

  Pain and death were losing.

  They couldn’t have him.

  “I’m here.” Maddie felt the lung the knife had pierced reexpand. His blood volume filled from some magical well that shouldn’t exist. “I’m…”

  Gray leaked into the world behind her eyes…“You’re going to be okay,” she said in their minds. Saying the words out loud would have cost too much. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Her tears felt wonderful now. They were washing her clean. She’d been made to heal, not destroy. Jarred had given her that.

  “Thank you,” Maddie’s heart whispered.

  “You can let me go, sweetheart,” he urged. “I—”

  “No! I have to—”

  “You saved me, now wake up. You have to wake up before—�
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  “I won’t leave you!”

  “I’m here. Right here beside you. In the motel. Open your eyes and see me. Let the dream go, before—”

  “No!”

  “Damn it!” His dream image reached for her. “You’re fading…”

  She inched away from his warmth, drowning in her tears now because this was the only way. Didn’t he see? This way she’d always be a healer. He’d always love her, just the way he did now in this moment that was better than anything she’d dreamed she could be. Sarah would never come back and hurt him again. Maddie wouldn’t be there anymore for her sister to use.

  “You’ll stop her next time.” Jarred was far away. Then he was beside Maddie—moving too fast to avoid, the way things did in dreams. He shook her. Angry now. “Stop this. You have to let go. Sarah’s not here.”

  “She’s close…” Maddie was feeling more and more of her twin. The gray in her and Jarred’s healing dream was fading to black, and Sarah would be waiting there, dangerous and destructive. Determined to take Jarred away so she could have Maddie all to herself. “I can’t let her hurt you again.”

  “Stay with me.” Jarred grabbed for Maddie’s arm. Caught only her fingertips. “Fight, damn it! You’re not going anywhere. Wake up. Come back to me.”

  But her twin had grabbed Maddie’s other hand. She was there in the dream now.

  “Damn it, Sarah!” Jarred spit out. “Get away from her!”

  “She won’t make it without me,” Sarah hissed back. “She doesn’t know how to wake up from projecting. Healing you is going to kill her, and she—”

  “She needs me. She’ll come back to me.”

  “Because you love her?”

  “Because I won’t let her hate—”

  “Me? She hates herself, you idiot. Not me. And you’ve let her. And now she’s willing to die so that hate will finally go away. You’re the one who’s killing her, not me!”

  “Get away from her.”

  “You can’t take her from me.” Sarah yanked Maddie closer. “I won’t let you. I—”

  Maddie felt her sister’s attention jerk away, then back in a dizzying, panicked surge.

  “Sarah?” Maddie asked.