A Fractured Light (Beautiful Dark)

the sand, the blood. The shoe box. Those are all things that are waiting for me in my future?” I looked at him. He seemed to know what was coming next. “You and me, dancing.”
    Devin stood up abruptly. “I wondered that,” he said. “But it can’t happen. It’s more than just dangerous—it’s not right. You and Asher, and me and . . . Raven.”
    “I know.”
    He shook his head. “I don’t want you to think—”
    “Think what?” I spoke too quickly. I could tell from the look of concentration on his face that he was trying to come up with the best and most diplomatic way to phrase whatever he needed to say.
    “I guess I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.” Diplomatic, maybe, but it still stung. I tried to keep a blank expression.
    “Well, give me the right one.” I sat down next to him on the rock. My arm brushed against his, and we both moved away quickly.
    “I thought you were dead,” he said.
    “I know.”
    “Asher took you away, and Astaroth forced me back to River Springs. He left me here with no word of the outcome, no indication of the status of the mission. He simply told me that my fate was sealed and I had to await the consequences. And so I waited.”
    I pictured Devin waiting in his tiny, clean apartment. No word from his people. Nobody to wake up next to. How lonely he must have felt.
    “Okay,” I said.
    “And Raven came. She told me I couldn’t just waste my life waiting for you to come back. Even if you hadn’t died, you were with the Rebellion now. There was no way you would ever choose to join the Order knowing that they tried to kill you.” He took a breath. “Deep down I knew she was right. Even though our destinies were impossible to discern anymore, thanks to you, we always had been fated to be together. And so we were bonded.”
    “Well,” I said, “now I get it.” I looked away. He was watching me closely.
    “I thought you were dead,” he said again. “I didn’t think you would ever come back.”
    “Look.” We were veering onto dangerous territory. “I came here because I wanted to talk to you about my visions. That was it.”
    He stood up, rigid. As if one step out of line would cause his whole world to come crashing down around him. “I want to help you. But you can’t trust me with this information. I’m still under the Order’s control. I still have to report to the Gifted. I could turn on you at any second. Skye, I don’t trust them, and I definitely don’t trust myself.”
    “But—”
    “They made me a murderer, and I’ll have to live with that for eternity. Can you imagine what that feels like? Knowing I could have killed you and then continuing to live for centuries?” He turned to leave, then looked back at me. “If they find out about your visions . . .”
    “I’m not going to tell them,” I said. “Are you?”
    A long pause stretched out between us.
    Without a word, his wings unfurled from his back, huge and white as the clouds above. And he took off through the trees.
    I sat down on the rock and stared out at the field below me.
    The Sight. It was the very strongest of the powers of the light. Something only the Gifted possessed. So what did that mean?
     
    School that day was a waste.
    I didn’t absorb anything, which was bad, because I’d just finished all of my catch-up work and was starting to feel on top of things again. I wanted to throw myself anew into the college process, but my brain was everywhere all at once. To force myself to focus, I swung by the guidance counselor’s office between classes and signed up for an appointment later that week.
    At lunch, Cassie, Dan, and Ian laughed about something hilarious that I was too spaced out to hear. They recapped events from the party in the woods that I’d been too wrapped up in my own issues to have seen. I nibbled absently on my turkey sandwich, and nobody seemed to notice. During class, I practiced building up walls and breaking them down. So far, though, I was convinced that what Gideon had said was a lie. Devin wasn’t influencing me. I was sure of it.
    After school, I lost myself in ski practice, blocking out the taunts and jeers of the other girls. I focused instead on channeling the wind, making my descent to the finish smoother, sleeker. I held the clouds at bay.
    But I couldn’t push from my mind what Devin had said. The Sight. There wasn’t anything in my mother’s notebook about that. I’d read the lines so many times that I had the entire