A Fractured Light (Beautiful Dark)

my knees.
    The rain swirled around me, so densely that soon it blocked everything out, and suddenly it was daytime and the rain had stopped and I was sitting on a rock overlooking the field on my favorite trail. I’d sat there so many times before. The last time I’d sat there had been with . . .
    I looked up, and Devin was sitting next to me.
    “Try it,” he said softly. His voice was gentle, so calming. As always. “You have this. Just focus.” I looked down at my hands. I was holding a small withered flower. Just a tiny, dead thing.
    “I am focusing,” I said.
    “Focus harder.” I closed my eyes. And when I opened them again, the flower that I held in my hands was purple, vibrant, and alive.
    “You did it,” he said, his voice quiet with awe. “I knew you could.”
    “Skye?”
    I opened my eyes. I was lying on the soaking wet ground, completely drenched. My teeth were chattering, and I coughed up a lungful of water.
    “Hey,” Asher said, kneeling next to me. He brushed his hand against my cheek. “What happened? Another vision?”
    I nodded.
    “Can you sit up?” he asked.
    “I think so.” He put his strong hand on my back and helped me to a sitting position.
    “Maybe things got a little intense,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I really thought you could handle it.”
    “I—I can handle it,” I said, blinking slowly.
    “I just thought . . .” He swallowed, and suddenly he looked nervous, vulnerable. Such a departure from his usual mask of confidence that, for a moment, I worried that something was really wrong. I reached my hand out and touched his cheek lightly.
    “What?” I asked.
    “I . . . hate that I can’t be close to you without something bursting into flames. I feel responsible, like it’s my fault.” He looked at the ground. “I thought if we worked on controlling it, we could . . .” He took a breath, and I realized his hands were trembling slightly. “I wanted us to be able . . . I mean, one day, you know, I was hoping . . .” He coughed, and a shadow of the old cocky smile returned. “Be together, you know?”
    “Asher,” I said, taking his face in both my hands and drawing his eyes up to mine. There were no witty retorts left in me. All I wanted was to be honest with him. “Me too. We’ll get there. It will happen.” I kissed him, a soft, tender kiss. “I promise.”
    “I love you,” he whispered.
    And all the snappy comebacks in the world couldn’t compare to that.
    Asher put my arm around his neck and helped me back down the trail. About ten yards from the house, I heard something snap behind us. When I whirled around, there was nothing there.
    “What was that?” I asked, trying not to let my voice give way to fear.
    “It was nothing,” he said, but his eyes grew dark. “Nothing.”

Chapter 18
    C assie had outdone herself. Love the Bean was decked out for the ME show—but not in her signature fairy-tale twinkle lights. It felt darker somehow. Everything had a kind of edge to it. There was a lot of black. “She’s still working through the accident,” Dan said as Asher and I walked up. “It’s some pretty dark stuff.”
    Ian had rigged a ramp to the stage, and Cassie hobbled to the microphone on her crutches. The Bean was filling up, and the Mysterious Ellipses began to warm up with an instrumental version of the theme song from Super Mario Brothers. It was secretly a little fun to see how Cassie worked her outfits around her cast. Tonight she wore a black, stretchy knit miniskirt with one cobalt-blue tight and her signature ankle bootie on one leg, the darker blue cast on the other. A few long drapey tank tops finished the look.
    Behind her, the band paused.
    Cassie grabbed the mic, and we cheered loudly.
    “Go, Cass!” I shouted.
    “Oh, thank you, thanks, guys,” she said with the fakest modesty I’d ever seen. Dan and I shared a look and laughed. “No, please, stop. Thank you for coming out tonight. We’ve been working on some new stuff, and it’s a little different than usual. I hope you like it.”
    “We already love it!” Dan shouted.
    “I hope those of you who aren’t my boyfriend like it.” Cassie grinned at the crowd. Trey, the ME drummer, counted off on his drumsticks, and then the band burst into their first song. The crowd fell to a hush. Cassie was mesmerizing to watch.
    Dan was right—the music was way darker than it ever had been before. A thumping bass line kept the rhythm, and Cassie’s