“Because you wouldn’t deal with your problems and that’s why he was there that night, dragging your sorry ass out of jail. Again. You refused to deal with your shit, so Dad was putting everything on the line for you. If it wasn’t for you—”
“—he wouldn’t have had to die! Don’t you think I know that? Of course I killed him. Of course you blamed me. For ten fucking years! That’s where the stupid driver aiming for the car came from, Maddie. You have to blame Daddy’s death on someone, and you’ve hated me for it since the accident. But my dreams won’t let you make it my fault, no matter how many times you try, so that left the truck driver. But you won’t accept that, either. You won’t accept any of this, because that would mean you’re as fucked up as I am. You’re just going to keep hiding from the truth, and it’s going to get you and your perfect doctor and everyone else killed, just like it killed Daddy!”
With a soul-shattering bang, the door behind them crashed open and the ravens swarmed in, their wings and claws joining in Maddie and Sarah’s screaming fight, as if they’d been there all along. Inside them. Around them. Always waiting. Always circling closer, until their weakest moment.
Now it was time for the kill.
Except Maddie could feel the light beckoning her again. From somewhere close. Through the darkness of the playhouse. Outside of it. Outside the haunted forest that had become the center of her and Sarah’s hatred. A pool of pure white calm was begging her not to lose herself in the past. In the lies. In the fear she hadn’t wanted to feel anymore, but still did. Because she was still hiding, just like her sister. She was still hating, just like Sarah. Which made what was happening, all that had happened, as much Maddie’s fault as her twin’s.
“Stop it, Sarah!” Maddie held on to her sister now. Protecting her from the ravens. Shaking her. Trying to see through the darkness to the truth beneath her sister’s words.
“I’m Death. Say it!” Sarah sobbed. “Stop pretending that you ever loved me. Stop ignoring me like I don’t exist, because you’re ashamed of what I am and what that makes you. I make you want to kill and scream and rage, because all of that is in you, too. The gifts and the dark corners of your mind where you try to hide from them. You’re just like me. Open your eyes, Maddie, and see what I am. What you are. Open your eyes and—”
“Die!” the ravens screamed, but they weren’t screaming at Maddie and Sarah. They were screaming at the past. At the lies Maddie had drunk down until it was too late to stop this.
“No!” she cried as the demons clawed the skin from her body, pulling back every layer, every secret that had protected Maddie since Sarah’s mind had been silenced. Since before then.
Until the hatred and the nightmares and the blame that had fueled their ten years apart were gone—and then the ravens were gone—and nothing was left but two sisters, lying broken on the filthy floor of a childhood sanctuary that was now in ruins. There were boards missing from the play-house’s walls and the roof. Light from a full moon set in a clear November sky pierced into their broken link. Except it wasn’t really broken anymore. The dream had become the first real thing Maddie had felt, except with Jarred, since her father’s death.
She could feel Sarah, really feel her. The Sarah she’d played with as a child. The little girl she’d promised never to abandon. The heart and the soul that had always beaten beneath the strange abilities that had taken everything else. And Maddie could feel them both letting go, falling backward in their minds to before the world and who they’d been had exploded.
Maddie could feel Sarah wanting to find her way back home. It’s all she’d ever wanted. Deep beneath the anger and the killing fury, Sarah was craving the peace, the light, that a teenage Maddie had tried to help her keep. That was why Sarah had let the Raven coax her out of the nothing her mind had escaped to. But all she’d found once she woke was more darkness. More disappointment. Because her Raven had failed her just like Maddie had. After he’d promised to take care of her, just like Maddie had. And then Sarah had become Death. She’d become the darkness that the Raven had said he’d save her from. The murderous weapon that the Wolf had insisted was her and Maddie’s legacy.
Now it was time to let go and—
Die!
“No!” Maddie crawled toward her twin. “You’re not Death. We’re not Death. Listen to me, Sarah. You don’t have to dream anymore. You don’t have to go back into the woods, to the accident, to find me. You’re not alone. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you…”
Little-girl Sarah wouldn’t look at her. She shook her head and stared through the shattered door of their playhouse, into the forest that was growing darker by the second.
“I can’t control it,” she said. “It just keeps coming. The Wolf won’t let me stop. And the Raven just circles overhead, doing nothing. And your light, it isn’t strong enough…not for this. Not for what he wants me to do. You’ll never be able to—”
“What who wants you to do? The Raven?”
Sarah shook her head. “The Wolf…You’re right. It’s not you. It’s not the Raven. It’s the Wolf I have to stop. I can feel him…hear him…He knows you’re here. He’ll make me dream again. He’ll make you. I have to—”
“Then we’ll find a way to stop him together. We’re stronger, now that we’ve found each other. We’ve never been connected like this before. We’ll—”
“No! No more together. Don’t come back here, Maddie. Don’t look for me again. That’s what the Wolf wants. That’s why he took Mom. Because he knew you’d protect her, even if you didn’t care what happened to me.”
“What does the Wolf want, Sarah?” Maddie hated the sadness in her sister’s voice. The acceptance that she’d deserved to be abandoned all these years.
“I have to stop…” Sarah whispered.
She was trying to say more. To reveal the Wolf’s plans. Maddie could feel the conflict within her twin. The light that was her sister’s true soul railing against the darkness her mind had been taught to accept. Sarah’s flickering instinct to trust Maddie, even now, after the Wolf had pitted them against each other.
“He wants another kill.” Sarah was rocking. Forward and back. “I thought I was free. That I could leave. But I can’t, Maddie. And I won’t let him make me…Look at everything I’ve done. It has to stop. I won’t be Death anymore. You have to go. I’ll free Mom on my own. I’ll deal with the Wolf and end this once and for all before—”
“No!” Maddie fought to see where her sister really was, beyond the battered playhouse and the hopelessness of the dream. She sank further into Sarah, ignoring Jarred’s call—which was drawing closer. Almost as if he was in the forest, too. Running blindly toward her. “Don’t you dare take that bastard on by yourself. They’re using you, Sarah. They’ve been using you for who knows how long. To do God knows what. They’ve hurt you, and I didn’t stop it, and now you’re not thinking straight. I’m so sorry, Sarah. Tell me where you are. Let me find you, so I can—”
“They’ve hurt you, too, Maddie. Because of me. Through me. Because I blamed you, and they knew it and they used me to get to you. You have to stay away, before all you are is darkness, too. Keep hating me. It’s the only way you’ll survive.”
“I don’t hate you!”
Maddie had been angry for a decade. She’d blamed her twin. She’d let fear talk her into believing the lies more than the truth. And she’d been terrified for months, thinking Sarah and her insanity were coming back, trying to drag Maddie under. But it had never really been hate, she realized. How could she hate a part of herself? The brave, outlandish, exuberant part Sarah would always be.
Sarah was right. This had to stop. Now. But not by shoving Sarah away and blocking her out of Maddie’s mind. Not by fighting to go back to the lies, when Maddie felt safe and free from this thing they became whenever they were together. Not by hating what was real. What was honest. Instead, they had to fight. Together. Inside their dreams. Outside. Through the secrets and the lies, until Sar
ah was better and Maddie could deal with the world again, too. Until the darkness left them alone.
And Sarah knew how to fight. She always had. If Maddie could just convince her to hold on, Sarah’s shattered mind held the answers and the power they needed.
“How will they hurt me?” Maddie asked. “This Wolf, he’s been sending you to me. How? What’s wrong with us. These…gifts. This curse that Mom wouldn’t ever talk about. Tell me how we can be doing all this and why these people care. Tell me how to stop it. We can fix whatever the Wolf’s done to you, Sarah. We can keep him from making you—”
“Kill?” Innocence and ageless wisdom swirled in Sarah’s little-girl eyes. “I’ve killed for him, Maddie. I’m…Death. The Raven promised he wouldn’t let them make me…”
A kaleidoscope of images flooded their dream link. The Raven gently coaxing Sarah’s mind back to life. Teaching her to walk again, then filling her with combat knowledge, weapons training, survival skills. Getting her mind and body into shape, then showing her how to protect herself—the way Maddie had tried to protect Jarred against those soldiers.
“But the Wolf…” Sarah’s eyes flashed with hatred. “He wants me to kill, and he thinks he controls Death. He thinks he can use Mom to make me…”
Their dream careened away, then spun back to the image of the clearing in the forest. The playhouse was gone. An adult Sarah stood in the clearing with their mother, surrounded by armed men, while the Wolf’s order rang through her mind…
“You can’t be there, Maddie. I’ll have no choice if you’re there. And I won’t let him do this to you, too…I’ll get Mom away from them, and then Death will kill them all! And you’ll be free.”
“What? No!” Maddie’s blood chilled. “You’re not confronting the Wolf like that alone. We’ll get Mom out together.”
The dream swirled back to the playhouse. They were little girls once more amid the ruins of their happy past. And Sarah was walking out the shattered door.
“Show me where you really are.” Maddie tried to move, but she was frozen where she was.
She’d lost complete control of the dream. She was losing her connection to her twin for good. She was becoming nothing—what she realized she would always be without Sarah’s soul to complete hers.
“None of this is your fault,” Maddie pleaded. “Stop believing you caused it. Stop listening to what I thought when Daddy died. I was a child. We both were. And I was wrong. I don’t hate you, Sarah. Whatever we’ve become, we’re stronger together. We can figure the rest out. Let me come get you.”
She felt her twin’s consciousness take tentative steps closer, even though little-girl Sarah didn’t move from the playhouse’s open door. Next, the dream flickered to the scene of an abandoned warehouse. Or a storefront. Some forlorn place where Maddie had seen Sarah once before. Grown-up Sarah sat, freezing and huddled in a dark corner, her arms hugging her legs to her chest, her head buried in her knees.
Maddie was too weak to step closer. The image was already fading. She was too exhausted to hold on. She could feel Sarah doubting again. Letting go. The scene misted away before Maddie could see anything that would tell her where her sister was hiding. Then they were in the playhouse once more.
Sarah was leaving, her guilt for everything she’d done growing. Her acceptance that she had to end this the way she’d started it.
Alone.
“No,” Maddie insisted. “Don’t go.”
“I can’t fight him anymore. All I can do now is confront him and save Mom. Save you…Maybe that’s our legacy. The good twin will survive because the bad saves her.”
“You have to fight this.” Maddie was weeping. Unable to do anything now but watch her sister give up, and crying for everything they’d lost. Everything their gifts might have been if they’d only understood them before it was too late. “I won’t let you do this, Sarah.”
“This is the way it has to be or the Wolf will have us both.” Little-girl Sarah began to fade away. “Leave me alone.”
Maddie grabbed for Sarah’s near-transparent form. But her hands slid through the image, and she fell to the playhouse floor.
“No!” She fought to sink deeper into her twin’s mind. She reached out her hand. If she could just touch her sister, they’d be safe. “I won’t leave you alone in the darkness.”
“You have to.”
Sarah looked beyond Maddie and rolled her eyes. Then she smiled. Just a little. “He’s coming,” she said. “If you want him, you’ll have to make up your mind on your own. I’m not pushing you at him again.”
Then Sarah’s image faded to black.
“Let her go for now,” another voice insisted.
Jarred’s voice.
His light and his strength flooded the playhouse.
“Sarah’s right,” he said. “You can’t help her. Not yet. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. You have to come back. You have to get stronger. Prepare. Or this…Wolf…will destroy you both.”
“I have to save my sister!” Maddie hid in the shadows his light couldn’t reach.
“I know.” Jarred’s love wrapped around her, finding its way to her no matter how hard she resisted.
Then he was beside her, inside the shattered playhouse that Sarah had abandoned. His arms pulled Maddie close. The ramshackle roof and the battered walls and the filthy floor shimmered away. Jarred and Maddie were beneath the base of an ancient tree that seemed familiar, but Maddie was too tired to care why. A lone raven circled high above, watching, waiting. The sound of an approaching storm rolled around them.
“I’ll help you save her,” Jarred promised. “But you can’t handle that yet. You won’t survive it. Neither of you will. Come back to me. Trust me to help you.”
“But…Sarah…She’s going to…” Maddie struggled against his hold. Struggled to keep him in focus. How could she let Sarah go now? She’d never find her again. “I can’t—”
“You won’t lose her. I won’t let that happen.”
“But…” Maddie blinked, but there was only darkness now. She could barely feel Jarred’s touch. Hear his voice.
“You’ll have to make up your mind on your own…” Sarah had said.
Maddie could trust Jarred, or she could slip away like her sister. Then she’d never have to face the damage she’d done. She could go on hiding, forever this time. Just let the darkness have her twin and her mother and the legacy that had taken everything and given nothing in return. Nothing, except a deeper connection to Sarah than she’d ever known. A common ground. A truth. A light Maddie and her twin could only save together.
And there was Jarred. All of this had given her Jarred, too. She’d never let herself think of forever before she’d loved him. She never would have believed she’d want her twin to be part of that forever. But she did. Because Jarred hadn’t let her give up.
“Help…” she said into the darkness. “Please,” she begged. She had to find Jarred. She had to wake up. “Help me…”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Richard monitored the video feed to Madeline Temple’s observation suite. Jarred Keith had joined her twenty minutes ago.
Temple’s dream environment was being controlled the best Richard could manage in the Watchers’ underground bunker. Insulated from transient stimuli and fluctuations in light and sound. Madeline’s headset was emitting a steady stream of white noise. Richard couldn’t be sure which sounds would sustain her individual consciousness and which would plunge her further into Sarah’s emotional chaos.
Keith had joined Madeline on the exam table—curling his body around hers. He’d cradled her. Gently kissed her. Whispered words too soft for Richard to pick up. Temple’s restless movements had calmed for several minutes. Keith had closed his eyes, by all appearances doing his damnedest to fall into Temple’s dream world. Madeline’s eyes were still darting in REM sweeps behind their closed lids. Her arms and legs intermittently twitched, mirroring whatever dream she and Sarah were sharing.
; Richard gritted his teeth. He was responsible for whatever this Wolf had done to retarget Sarah’s dream conditioning. He was responsible for the casualties. Kayla Lawrence’s life. Madeline Temple’s mind. Whatever was happing to the twins’ mother. Whatever the Brotherhood would do next, if Richard couldn’t provide them a foolproof plan to resolve this disaster.
Movement on the video feed demanded his attention. Jarred’s body jerked. His arms locked around Madeline. Her heart rate dropped.
Richard had a recovery drug prepared, but he couldn’t risk dragging Keith away from the twins’ link. If he pulled the man’s mind out at the wrong time, he might lose each individual identity. Keith had to get Madeline out on his own. Then Temple had to remember the details of her links with Sarah. Enough to convince the Brotherhood that recovering the twins was preferable to terminating the threat they were becoming.
Help me here, Sarah.
Help Maddie save you.
Keith’s body jerked again, this time as he tried to sit. Tried to pull Madeline up with him, their eyes still closed. They collapsed back to the table. Still asleep, Keith wrapped his body tighter around Madeline’s, the same way Richard had wanted to hold Sarah every time he’d asked a little more from her mind.
“Prepare the injections,” he said into the hands-free com device wrapped around his ear. “But no one enters the suite until I give the all clear.”
He couldn’t allow anyone to interfere with the fragile connection Keith had built with the twins.
“Come on, man…” Richard’s fists clenched against a surge of powerlessness. “Break the link, damn it!”
Alarms drowned out his curse. The equipment monitoring Madeline’s stats squealed in a symphony of death.
“Get her out!” he shouted.
Keith’s body jerked again. The man’s head pulled away from Madeline. His eyes blinked open. Madeline’s eyes were open, too. Tears were streaming down her face. Then her muscles began to seize. Blood trickled from her nose and mouth.
Her heart rate flatlined.
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