Some Quiet Place

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.
    I lean up on my elbows, my lips trembling as I relive the whole ordeal. The woman brushes my hair off my shoulder, a tender, unusual gesture for her. We sit there like that, quiet. I should know her. Our pasts are intertwined. She saved my life. But even having possession of the truth doesn’t make me feel connected to any of it.
    “Looks like he found me after all,” I finally murmur. Because of Nightmare, I’ve been alone for thirteen years, empty and surrounded by a web of lies.
    She hops to her feet. “I’m sorry you went through all this,” she says abruptly. And I know she means it. She never intended for any of this