Dead Silence

Jay’s hand went still, and he stiffened beside her.

“Jay . . .” Violet frowned, squeezing his fingers with hers. “I didn’t . . . you know what I meant.” She peeked up at him. She wasn’t the only one bothered by this subject. Jay still blamed himself for not getting to her house sooner, and her parents felt as if they never should have left her alone in the first place. “It wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t have known he was there. No one did.”

She thought of Rafe and Gemma and Krystal, even Sam. None of the members of her team, even with all their special abilities, had been able to predict that the killer was coming after her. None of them had been able to stop it from happening.

He dropped her hand and pulled her close, protectively. “I know,” he sighed. “It’s just . . . I’m sure they feel the same way I do, that they wish you hadn’t had to go through any of that. I’m sure they just want to make sure it never happens again, even if that means they’re a little overprotective.”

Violet decided she was tired of pretending that every nerve in her body wasn’t straining to be closer to him. She rolled on top of him, so that her chest was pressed against his. “And you know what I think?” she asked with a wicked smile as she stared at his lips, thinking how warm and soft they looked. How badly she wanted to taste them. “I think they just want to make sure we don’t do this.” She lowered herself then, letting her mouth softly graze over his as a tremor rocketed along her spine, making her flesh prickle. She drew back, just enough so she could speak. “I gotta say, though, I kinda want to.”

His breath gusted against her lips as he grinned back at her, pulling her down so she was no longer teasing, tempting him. When her mouth parted for him, her pulse exploded, and suddenly she was aware of nothing—not the music-box imprint or the creaking of the bedsprings or her looming curfew. All she cared about was Jay, and the fact that their hearts were beating in time, and she was kissing him. She just wanted to keep kissing him.

His lips were soft and salty and tasted like shelter from the storm that raged inside her. His unintelligible words, as he whispered them against her mouth, were like a melody all their own, drowning out all else.

She pressed herself closer . . . as close as she could get. In Jay’s arms, she felt alive. And free.

At peace.

Violet squinted against the sun that came in through her windshield as she reached the stop sign, and then she turned, if for no other reason than to avoid the glare. She knew the wrong turn would delay her arrival even more, but she didn’t care at the moment. She wasn’t lost or anything—she knew exactly where she was—yet she was in no hurry to get to her destination.

She was already late, there was no changing that fact now.

Still, she felt bad she wasn’t making more of an effort to meet them on time. It wasn’t their fault her head was ringing. Literally.

She continued to drive like that—with no real plan in mind—turning, and turning again, winding along side roads, and then back roads, until she could see glimpses of the lake between the houses lined up along the opposite side of the street. Turning up the radio, she was able to drown out the other song that was in the car with her, the one she wasn’t in the mood to listen to.

It wasn’t until she felt the familiar quivering beneath her skin that she realized she hadn’t been driving without a purpose after all. That at some point, her course had begun to mean something . . . at least to her.

She didn’t have to distinguish an echo to recognize its presence. And it didn’t take more than a second to realize it wasn’t the one she carried with her.

These vibrations reached into the center of her body and tugged at her, telling her there was a body out there . . . calling to her.

She came to a fork in the road, one she’d passed before—dozens, maybe hundreds of times—one she’d never even considered before this very moment. Normally, she would veer right, following the main road as it continued, eventually winding away from the lake and heading into town.

But this time she pulled her steering wheel in the other direction, to the left. It was just the slightest variation, requiring the barest touch, so it was strange to feel so much change all at once. That’s how she knew she was close.

Behind her eyes, colors began to pop and flash, becoming something vibrant and viral, closing in on the periphery of her vision, almost as if her windshield were cracking from the outside in, morphing into some sort of strange psychedelic optical illusion.

At the same time, she could smell coffee. Not warm and fresh brewed, like coffee should smell. But cold and bitter and stale, like old grounds that had been left sitting in the trash for too long.

She pulled to a stop in front of a closed gate that was set between two massive stone walls that stretched around the grounds of an impressive lakefront estate. Violet could see the house that stood beyond the wrought-iron spindles of the gate. It was large and imposing with an enormous circular driveway out front . . . everything you’d expect of a private, gated home.

Whatever, or whoever, had summoned her, lay beyond that gate, she was sure of it. Yet she had no idea what to do as she watched the firework-like display of colors bursting at the corners of her eyes, spreading and parting and then coming together again in entirely different formations.

Most visual echoes remained fixed—attached—to the body, making it impossible for Violet to recognize them until she was just steps away. It was unnerving the way this one behaved, less like a visual echo and more like a tactile one . . . becoming a part of her. Attaching to her from the inside out, making it seem as if she were looking at the world through a kaleidoscope.