I wasn’t sure if the shaking of our hands came from him or me.
“I think I’m lost now,” he whispered, his outline shifting and blinking. “It’s darker under the canopy than I thought, and my flashlight doesn’t carry as far as it did out in the open. I need to get back to the lookout.”
The genuine fear in his voice was hard to listen to. I wanted to pull him out of the recollection, to protect him from what was about to happen, but…
Charlie wanted to do this. He wanted to remember, to help.
I squeezed his hand tighter.
“Something’s there,” he said, voice a hushed warning. His head turned sharply to the left, and I felt him pulling on that connection more forcefully, now, like he struggled to remain in the present. “Someone’s running at me. I turn to get away, but…” he gasped. “I—tripped. I d—t have m—light. It’s sodark—can’t see.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered, taking his other hand in mine, too. “Stay here. Stay with me.”
He listened, and all of a sudden, I understood what Viola meant when she said our connection could be dangerous. My eyes grew heavy as he pulled energy from me, and my head throbbed. I wasn’t sure if my nausea was migraine-related or from the realization that Charliecouldtake too much.
“Do you see anyone, Charlie? Do you see their face?” Tate asked.
Charlie shook his head rapidly, eyes squeezed tight. “No. I can’t see anything. I just hear—behind me. Running. I can’t st—if they—catch me, and—AHH!”
He let out an inhuman scream and flinched, doubling over in pain. Tears rolled down his cheeks before disappearing completely, and nearly his entire body turned translucent.
I could feel how much of a struggle it was for him to hold on. He clung to me, both physically and through our shared connection, doing everything he could to stay.
“HELP!” He wailed. The knick-knacks on the table beside him shook and spun around, clinking against each other. “I can’t get up!”
“Charlie?” I called. The room tilted when I knelt in front of him and took him by the shoulders, shaking him. “Charlie! It’s okay. It’s just a memory. Please, baby, he can’t hurt you again. You’ve gotta let go of it. You can’t stay there anymore. We can’t stay there. Come back here, please.”
“I can’t,” he cried again, fighting me, fingers scrabbling at his lower body. His leg? Or his foot? “I—stuck—hurts.”
My heart broke. He was reliving the worst moments of his life, and I couldn’t help. I couldn’t stop it. No matter how hard I tugged, I couldn’t pull him back.
“H—lp! P—se! Wait—no—don’t!”
He inhaled sharply. His eyes flew open with a gasp, blinking rapidly and casting around the room until they landed on me. “R—ce,” he tried, words nearly inaudible, “you—n’t—go—ack. No—afe!”
Dread pooled in my gut at the stark terror and pain etched into his expression, but even more so at how pale he was. Barely there at all, wavering and patchy, nearly his entire lower half was gone.
“What happened?” Tate asked, voice urgent, probably sensing Charlie had seconds left before he let go. “Do you know who killed you?”
I didn’t want to know. I didn’t. As much as I longed for retribution, as desperately as I needed justice for what happened to him, the knowledge of how the man I loved had died would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Charlie gripped my hands tightly, truly hanging on by a thread, now. He’d become entirely see-through, a hazy, shimmering suggestion of a person, at most. Only the vague outline of the man I’d held in my arms and made love with remained, and I was so exhausted from keeping him in the present that I could barely hold my own body upright.
He shook his head again, frustration and fear yanking him from me.
“I—uck—ap!”
“What?” Tate asked. “I can’t understand you.”
Another lightbulb popped behind Charlie when he tried to speak, dimming the room further. I couldn’t hold onto him anymore, my grip falling right through the pieces that were still there.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. I could feel that he needed to let go. “It’s okay, Charlie.”
He gritted his teeth, sheer determination pushing his final words through with a shout. The baubles surrounding him flew into the air, and glass shattered all around us. “—BEAR TRAP!”
And then Charlie was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
