Rebecca’s relief is so palpable it’s almost overwhelming. “Okay?” she echoes.
“Okay.” The woman looks at the driver, steeling herself. He’s the first loose end to tie up. Then there’s the body to hide. She rolls up her sleeves and gets out of the car. She approaches the man, kneels in front of him, and says something softly. She rests her hands on his shoulders. His eyes glaze over and he nods. He stands. As he lumbers back to his vehicle, the woman turns her attention to the little body still lying in the middle of the road.
Rebecca waits where she is, holding her knees in an effort to make herself small. It’s the only way to keep calm when there’s a moment to think. She watches the clock on the dashboard to distract herself. Six minutes … seven … ten …
“Rebecca.” The woman returns. She stands by the passenger window, gripping the car door with white knuckles. The power has already taken a toll on her; her countenance is gray and lined. Rebecca nods, unbuckling the seat belt, and follows the woman off the road, into the ditch.
Rebecca waits until they’re facing each other to say, “I want you to make a block so none of the Emotions can touch me.”
The woman hesitates. A crow swoops overhead. “First, I’m not sure I’m capable of doing that, and second, won’t it make the humans suspicious? It’ll complicate—”
“Just try it, okay?”
Pursing her lips, her companion nods. “You will forget everything,” she agrees. She holds out her hand, preparing for the biggest illusion of all. “Too bad you won’t be there on the other side to restore me,” she adds. There’s a note of uncertainty in her voice. Not the case with Rebecca. She stands there, waiting, thrumming for the moment when she’ll open her eyes and not remember a thing, not feel a thing. This constant shooting pain in her chest will be gone, the memory of blood on her hands, gone. Landon … Landon … No. Rebecca won’t think about it. Her insides twist and her fists clench at her sides. “Do it,” she breathes, eyes burning with a manic need.
But the woman can’t leave it at that. “I’ll give you ten years. The Element will be off your trail by then.”
“Fifteen,” Rebecca counters, need coiling like a snake within her.
The ambulance is almost there. Time for arguing is over. “Fine,” the woman replies shortly. Then, “I’m not going to say goodbye.” She closes her eyes. The man is sitting in his truck now, still blinking in dazed confusion, and the body is gone, hidden forever. Too late to go back now, and Nightmare will still be looking. This really is the best solution, the woman tells herself. She takes a breath, then twitches as her power flows toward Rebecca James.
The girl screams as it latches onto her. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! She drops to her knees. It’s like a fire licking over every inch of her skin. She tries to dig her fingers into the tar and her nails tear away, bleed. A vein bulges from the woman’s forehead as she concentrates, and there’s pity in her eyes. But the woman keeps her hand over the writhing girl. Feature by feature, piece by piece, the things that make Rebecca are wiped away. Brown curls turn to straight blond tresses. Long slender fingers shorten to a chubby child’s. Elegant legs become knobby knees. The woman focuses on the block, now that the illusion is complete. Nothingness. She says it over and over again in her head. Nothing. Rebecca feels nothing.
And then it’s done.
Spent, the woman sags against a tree. She struggles for breath. The ambulance is coming over the hill now, lights flashing. Before they can spot her and her car, she leaves the girl in the ditch, hating herself, hating Rebecca for asking her to do it. But she comforts herself by saying that it was the smartest thing to do. A necessity.
She’s driving away when it happens. When it begins. She doesn’t see it. But she feels it, feels the knowledge sealing itself inside her, not to be spoken of for fifteen years.
Elizabeth Caldwell opens her eyes.
“Elizabeth,” peeps in my ear. “Wake up, wake up! Please, please!”
My eyes flutter open. The illusion trembles, so close to being broken.
Moss has given me strength again. I can feel it whizzing through my muscles, brightness illuminating me from the inside. I see movement out of the corner of my eye, remember the Element, where I am. Nightmare dives at me, the knife I’d dropped catching the light in his hand. Reacting swiftly, I roll off the table, and the blade clatters behind me.
I scramble toward the door on all fours, panting, scraping my knees and the palms of my hands. Nightmare shoves the table out of his path—it lands against another wall and shatters a hole through it—and dives for me again. I don’t move fast enough, and his hand encircles my ankle. I scream and he laughs, yanking me back toward him. I jerk my leg, startling him, but the knife buries itself deep in my calf. I scream again, and the sound pierces the air so sharply that Moss covers her ears. Nightmare groans at the sound, wincing as he leans away. That’s when I see it. The smaller knife from earlier, the one he’d used to stab my hand, abandoned in the corner. Just inches away from my fingers.
It’s quick. It’s so quick that it seems surreal. I grab and raise the small knife, then shove it into the Element’s left eye without thinking.
I’ll never forget his cry. Half-man, half-beast, so frightening that my heart twists inside of me. He recoils, his back slamming into the wall closest to us. Dirt showers down on our heads. The blow doesn’t kill him instantly, as I’d hoped it would, so while he’s weakened and distracted, I yank the other knife out of my leg. Ignoring the shooting pain, I reach forward again, my hands slick with blood, and slit Nightmare’s throat.
He stares at me for an eternity. He touches the cut, and when he pulls his hand away he looks at the vibrant, scarlet blood on his fingers as if he can’t believe it. Then he falls. Doesn’t get back up again.
Once I’m certain he’s dead, I join him in darkness. For once there are no dreams. Just the peace of surrendering to oblivion.
Twenty-Three
I wake up on the ground. Above, the trees hover, shielding me from the bright glow of the moon like a protective mother. Nighttime. There’s only a portion of the sky visible, but somehow the fact that the stars have come out is comforting. A cool breeze stirs my sweat-drenched hair.
Remaining on my back, I look around. I’m in some kind of clearing, in woods I don’t recognize. It takes me a moment, but when I do remember everything that’s just happened, I wish I hadn’t. Landon, knives, Moss, Rebecca, the illusion, the woman who saved me, Nightmare—it all comes back. But the shack is nowhere to be seen. The Element is gone, dead, and I’m alone.
The same instant I realize this, I also comprehend that the pain is gone. All my cuts, bruises, the bullet holes in my back, the stab wounds in my calf and hand—they’re healed.
Is this because of the woman I’d been calling Rebecca? Because of Moss? Or just … me?
Now that I’ve thought of her, she actually appears, crouching beside me. For the first time, she isn’t hidden in layers of clothing. I recognize her face from the memory, and her hair as well—long and straight, the color of leaves after Summer has left. She’s dressed simply, in jeans and a long-sleeved green shirt. On her feet she’s wearing stylish, heeled boots. There are lines on her face that indicates she’s not as young as I’d originally assumed, though her eyes are bright and sharp.