Secret Legacy

by Anna DeStefano

  “Relax,” Richard’s mind said to hers. “You’re just getting started.”

  Their link was allowing him to circumvent the headset covering her ears back in the lab—the communication network that connected her to the rest of the team.

  “There’s nothing here,” she said. No programming painting the nightmare she’d never initiated before. “How much time do we have before the center discovers what I’m doing?”

  “Enough. You’ll have enough time. You’ll have everything you need. Focus on what’s there, not what’s missing. Build the matrix from your memories.”

  Bright colors suddenly infused the water, a welcome dazzle of beauty. They burst into a magical swirl, infusing Sarah with their essence. The amethyst streaks were Maddie. The turquoise touches, Jarred. Intertwined, their unbreakable link was a reflection of everything they’d found in each other. Everything they were putting on the line to help Sarah.

  Their bodies formed as near-solid images in the mist. Maddie’s emotions permeated the ocean dream, syncing with Sarah’s. Their connection fired Trinity’s screams to cruel life.

  The little girl’s pain sucked Sarah down, rocketing her into the ocean’s depths. Maddie sank with her, leaving Jarred’s image at the surface, where his job was to bridge Sarah and Maddie’s psychic link, augmenting it and communicating their status back to the lab.

  Sarah could feel her twin’s fear.

  “I can’t stop,” Maddie said.

  “Neither can I.” Sarah concentrated on the lure of Trinity’s call, growing louder the deeper they went. She tried to visualize the plan. They were supposed to wait until Jeff arrived and organized the team’s descent. But returning the dream to the surface was impossible, no matter how hard she tried to go back.

  “We knew plans would change once the dream began,” Richard assured her. “Leave your mind open to your team. They’ll track your energy. Focus on your connection with Trinity. See what you have to, to find her.”

  “We’re falling too fast,” Maddie said. “Where are we going?”

  “It’s okay. I just need . . .”

  Sarah closed her eyes and listened. She relaxed into the descent, letting it take her closer to the truth. The ocean’s voice was there with Trinity’s now, mumbling something Sarah couldn’t understand, intensifying the nightmare’s hold. It was terrifying, but this was what she’d come for.

  “I need to be deeper in the matrix to hear enough of Trinity to find her,” she said.

  She needed to feel more of the fear that had fed the projection the last time.

  “Stop,” Maddie insisted. “Jeff wanted us to wait—”

  “The team can’t do anything until I know where to take them.” Sarah grabbed her sister’s hand, pulling Maddie along with her. “Where are the colors? Can you see them? They’re supposed to be here. They led me to the door before, but I can’t see them yet. We have to go deeper.”

  “Five minutes,” Richard said through the team’s comm link. “Jeff and the rest of the team are going under now. They know you’re on the move. They’ll be no more than five minutes behind.”

  Sarah kicked into the currents that were really shadows, dragging her twin through the sea’s darkening blue. They were swimming without really swimming. The way what should be a struggle often feels effortless and surreal within a dream. The deeper they went, the stronger Sarah’s panicked memories became—the same emotions that had been her downfall in the last dream.

  “You’ll never make it,” the ocean chanted. “This is where you belong.”

  “Help me . . .” Trinity screamed.

  “Who said that?” Maddie asked. “Those voices. Are they—”

  “They’re the dream.” Sarah forced herself to remember that she belonged with her twin, not alone at the bottom of an empty sea. But her fear grew along with the memories of how close she’d come to dying and taking her sister with her last time. “The voices are what I heard coming for me as a little girl. When I was in the coma, too. Then in the nightmare.”

  “They were telling you that you were alone?” Compassion filled their link. Maddie was reliving each memory with her. “You were screaming for help in the coma before Richard found you. You thought no one would ever hear, and that you deserved it. Sarah . . . I’m so sorry. I never knew. Mom and Dad and I, we never knew.”

  Her twin’s understanding wrapped around Sarah, Maddie’s regret and her need to make the past right. Her love lit the bubbling water around them, warming them, shielding Sarah from the desperation of the voices dragging at them. They jerked to a stop, both of them breathing heavily. Sarah basked in the amethyst aura surrounding them and her sister’s calming presence. The dream’s madness swirled just beyond the light’s protective embrace.

  “Where are the other colors?” Maddie asked.

  “The voices are all I’ve found so far. I heard them as soon as you arrived.”

  “The ones that have been telling you to give up since you were a little girl? You can’t follow them, Sarah. Not without the colors Richard said you should trust. Not without the Watchers here to help.”

  “I didn’t exactly have a choice.” Sarah searched the empty water surrounding them. “Now even the voices have stopped. I don’t understand. Why is nothing happening?”

  “It’s not the same dream as before,” Richard said with his mind. “You’re different, and you’re initiating the matrix. Something’s holding the dream back. You have to dig the nightmare out of your Dream Weaver programming. You have to—”

  “I have to lose control.” The dynamic she’d feared most was the answer to starting her search again.

  “What?” Maddie asked.

  “Like I was when I was a little girl. Like in the coma, when there was no connection to anything. Like in the last nightmare, before you came. I’m closest to Trinity and the ocean’s command when there’s no one else to anchor me.”

  “When your emotions are free,” Richard agreed. “Even the destructive ones. Like they were when we sparred in the lab’s gym, and when I forced you to confront your bedroom in Lenox.”

  Sarah’s stomach churned. She glanced at her sister. Maddie had nearly died the last time Sarah let the dream’s madness too close. She closed her eyes and reached for the voices swirling beyond her twin’s aura.

  “Sarah . . .” Maddie said. “What are you doing?”

  “Welcome back,” the ocean gushed in a tone that was a ghastly combination of the wolf’s and Trinity’s voices.

  Sarah’s terror returned. She forced herself to feel it, to embrace the shadowy consciousness she could sense just beyond her grasp. Her mind dug for the madness within her programming until it was itching along her skin, up her spine, worming its way into her crumbling psyche.

  “What are you doing?” Maddie demanded.

  “I’m remembering. The ocean’s voice. The red that I saw when the dream sucked me under.”

  Sarah opened her eyes to see clouds of crimson and black forming around them.

  “Good girl,” Richard’s mind said.

  “How are you doing that?” Maddie asked.

  “I was scared then. I’m scared now. The colors are going to take us back to Trinity.”

  “Okay.” Maddie’s “okay” sounded as if she were staring down a rabid animal. She eyed the threatening haze churning in the water. “Good. But we need to wait here for Jeff and the team to catch up. They’ll know how to use what you’re doing safely.”

  Maddie’s healing energy reached for Sarah. Her amethyst aura rolled toward the crimson and black haze, swallowing it and Sarah’s fear until they dissipated into the ocean’s gloom.

  “No!” Sarah grappled for the terrifying emotions that had painted the path she needed.

  “We need to wait until the team gets here,” her sister insisted.

  Sarah shook her head. She shook off Maddie’s concern. She closed her eyes and swam several yards away, her mind reaching for the strength she needed from—

  “
From Metting?” Maddie’s image grabbed Sarah’s arm. Outside the dream, her hand clenched around Sarah’s wrist. “Richard’s mind is here with you? Is he telling you to do this? We have no backup yet, Sarah. You’re losing control. I can feel it.”

  “I’m—” Sarah tried to pull free. Maddie wouldn’t let go. “I’m doing what I have to.”

  “You’re exhausting yourself. Wait until we’re sure what we’re dealing with. Wait until the others are here too—”

  “I . . .” Sarah yanked away. Grabbed her head.

  “Help me!” Trinity and the wolf screamed together as soon as she and Maddie were separated.

  “The voices are together now,” Sarah said. What did that mean? “The wolf’s voice is too close to Trinity. The dream is telling me something. If I could just hear—”

  “Stop.” Maddie frowned when Sarah swam farther away. “It’s not safe.”

  But the voices were growing louder. The ocean’s shadows were feeding Sarah’s instability. The answers were reaching for her.

  “I can’t do this and be safe,” she said. “And I don’t know how long I can keep the nightmare from overwhelming me again. I have to go while I still can, without anyone holding me back.”

  “Go where? You’re not going anywhere without me.”

  Maddie’s bright, healing aura was fading. The amethyst of her control weakened as the voices grew louder in Sarah’s mind. Pockets of crimson-draped black reformed around them.

  “See?” Sarah said. “They’re waiting for me to follow. I have to trust what my mind is telling me.”

  “Is this your idea or Metting’s?”

  “He knows what he’s doing. He knows me.”

  “And I don’t? This is crazy, Sarah.”

  “This is me. Everything you’re seeing. Everything you’re hearing. It’s all me, remember? It’s crazy. I’ve always been crazy. But I can’t retrace my steps to the door we need to find without trusting the unstable emotions driving the colors. The dream’s matrix is wired into them.”

  “And you can’t fully connect with any of it”—Maddie stared across the distance Sarah had forced between them—“while I’m protecting you?”

  “No.” Sarah felt her sister’s tears, like tiny knives slicing through her heart. “I love you, Maddie. But I don’t think I can.”

  Crimson red rimmed the coal black shadows that rolled closer, creating a demented, blood-rimmed haze threatening to unleash a violent storm. A storm Sarah would let consume her if that’s what it took.

  “Help her do this,” Richard projected to Maddie, absorbing her into his and Sarah’s psychic link. “Help her get this done so she can come back to us. I’ll keep you two connected. We’ll protect her and stabilize her dream projection together. But this will only work if you let her become what the dream needs her to be, to lead us to the truth.”

  “And what she has to be is alone?” Maddie demanded.

  “No,” Sarah stared at the brooding, crimson-soaked clouds. They were twisting between her and her twin, tumbling downward into the ocean. “I have to be free. I have to follow my instincts, knowing that you’ll still be here when I’m done. I’m not running away this time. I’m trying to come back completely. No more nightmares.”

  “Open the door,” Trinity’s voice whispered from the haze, “and see what we’ve become . . .”

  “What happens if the darkness traps you and I’m not there?” Long-ago pain roughened Maddie’s voice. “Just like when we were teenagers, and I lost you for ten years.”

  “The darkness already has me.” Sarah accepted the bone-deep truth of what she was saying. “It’s always been a part of me. But I have a chance to break its hold now. I’m going to beat Ruebens’s programming. Use what I’ve learned against the center. Find Trinity and the truth about our legacy. Don’t ask me to hide from what has to come next. I’m finally ready to face it.”

  She could feel Richard’s trust flowing to her. Maddie could, too. Her twin could feel the courage Sarah had found in her connection with Richard and the acceptance of so much more than her need for him.

  “I love you, Maddie,” Sarah said into the dream. “I want you and Jarred and Richard in my life too much to let the madness win again. Please help me do this.”

  Maddie’s amethyst energy began to retract, swirling back to her, allowing the bloated crimson and black cloud to spread.

  “Come back to me,” Maddie said, repeating Richard’s parting words in the lab. “Do whatever you have to, Sarah. I’ll be right behind you. Just please, come back to your family.”

  Then her mind was letting go, and Sarah was falling, her consciousness merging with the menacing clouds she’d called into the matrix. The nightmare’s currents swarmed. They battered Sarah with Trinity’s brittle cries and the wolf’s deep laugh as she raced deeper into the dream.

  “Help me . . .” Trinity said from below.

  “Help me . . .” The words tumbled from Sarah’s mouth as she surrendered her mind to the nightmare’s mania.

  She could do this. She could accept the fear and keep dreaming. The people she trusted to protect her wouldn’t abandon her to the darkness. Her family would—

  “We’ll be there,” Richard promised. “Focus on finding Trinity’s door. I’ll make sure your team finds you.”

  Richard.

  Maddie.

  The Watchers.

  Her family was coming for her.

  Breathing was nearly impossible, Sarah was spiraling so fast. Her sight had dimmed to the point of being useless. Crimson and black were oozing everywhere. Outside her—consuming the water and racing ahead. Inside her—drilling deeper, searching for every weak, lonely place that the nightmare could still feed on. Until Sarah thought she’d go insane with it.

  “Make the colors guide you,” Richard said. Her Watcher. Her heart. “What are they telling you? Where is the maze you couldn’t solve before? Find it. Make the dream take you past it, to the door that was on the other side.”

  “Help me . . .” Trinity begged.

  “Hurry . . .” the wolf’s command said in the child’s voice.

  Sarah breathed in the sound of them, the colors swirling deeper, faster. She focused, pictured the door. Needed the door. She needed Trinity. She needed to know where the madness of her legacy had started and where it would end.

  Suddenly, the tunnel emerged around her, absent of water, absent of light. Except for Trinity’s crimson aura, which was barely visible and racing ahead. Sarah ran, her hands trailing along the walls, feeling for the door’s scarred surface. But there was nothing around the next turn, while the child’s screams poured over her, coming from every direction, sending Sarah to her knees, her hands covering her ears.

  “It’s your programming’s pain,” Richard said. “It’s meant to stop you. But you’ve been here before. You know there’s more beyond the tunnel. Find Trinity. Focus on her.”

  “She’s in danger.” Sarah could sense the black cloud’s menace. It was the wolf’s energy, she realized. It was consuming more and more of Trinity, who was the crimson. “I can’t let him hurt her.”

  Sarah opened her eyes, feeling what she couldn’t see—letting her inner voices drive the dream. Light flickered dimly ahead, casting everything in gray, tempting Sarah to run again. To never stop. Except . . .

  “The dream wants me to keep moving.” She could feel it. “It wants me crazy exhausted so I’ll quit before I find the truth. Just like last time.”

  “But you’re not quitting.” Richard’s confidence washed through her like oxygen filling her starving lungs.

  “No.” She wanted his beautiful forest back. She wanted both of them safe there, free of Dream Weaver’s hold. “I’m not giving up,” she yelled into the empty tunnel. “I won’t give up until I find the truth.”

  It was time to end this.

  Searching inside instead of moving deeper into the maze of tunnels, she retraced her steps in the last nightmare. She remembered the rushing water, sucking
her down winding corridors that led to nowhere. But why a tunnel? What fear, what memory, was Ruebens manipulating to create a maze she couldn’t escape?

  “Think,” she yelled into the dream as Trinity’s pain taunted her to find a door she’d never reach.

  She could remember another existence filled with emptiness. Failure. A no-win, endless reality where she had only shadows and loneliness for company. She’d been here before.

  “What happens if the darkness traps you and I’m not there?” Maddie had asked her. “Just like when we were teenagers, and I lost you for ten years.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  Sarah had been trapped in the same sea for ten years, knowing only the self-loathing and guilt and madness. She hadn’t saved her father. She hadn’t deserved to come back from her coma. It was the same overwhelming failure she’d felt in the last nightmare, when she hadn’t made it through the door to Trinity.

  Sarah braced herself on her hands and knees. Ruebens had re-created her coma. Her nightmare ocean, this endless maze of corridors—it was the bastard’s way of trapping her in the same hopelessness that Richard had first rescued her from at the center. Her programming had been designed to suck Sarah back, to strand her in the darkest place her mind had ever known.

  “A place you escaped,” Richard reminded her. “A reality that can no longer control you.”

  Sarah looked at the tunnel around her. Really looked, for the first time. It existed only in her mind. It represented a past she was done torturing herself with. She had a future to look forward to instead, where she and Maddie were free to explore their legacy with—

  “Trinity . . .” she said into the dream. “Trinity is all that’s real here. The rest can’t touch me now.”

  And as she released the last of her coma’s memories, the tunnel Ruebens had anchored them to disappeared and miles of harmless ocean stretched before her instead, empty, just like when she’d first reentered the ocean. A child’s heart-wrenching scream and the wolf’s soulless laugh jerked her around to see an intimidating door covered in crimson and black hanging in the gloom. It was the final barrier separating her from the truth.

  The colors were melting into one another on its surface: black consuming crimson, Ruebens’s dream wolf consuming Trinity’s innocence. What remained was a grotesque stain, the tint of dried blood. This was the moment when she’d given up in the last nightmare. But this time light shone through from the other side, around the edges of the door’s scarred surface. It was Trinity’s light, she somehow knew, waiting just beyond Sarah’s reach. Or maybe she’d find the lost little girl who’d been waiting for Sarah in her rotting, abandoned bedroom, so sure, so angry, that Sarah would never come.