Page 25 of Whispers of Torment

Can you see me?

Yes, she immediately answered. Oh, God, he’s inside me. He is part of me. And I need him.

Through his eyes, she saw the bit of paper she had left for him on the train.

Thank you. His voice reverberated in her soul, a balm to her tremors.

I had to.

Are you alone?

No. Please go away.

Never. His mental voice low and passionate. I’m coming.

Horror filled her. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought with all her strength, Don’t. You can’t.

I’ll follow my star. His voice dissipated, falling away, leaving her empty and breathless.

The exchange was as blinding as the sun on the train to San Diego. It blocked all thought, memory, sense of time. She might have spoken with Nathan for seconds or days, she didn’t know.

When he said, I’m coming, her hair stood on end. As the sensation of Nathan’s voice engulfed her from all angles disappeared, Lillian’s heart plummeted. Oh, God, she thought. Make it quick.

Nathan made a hasty stop at the post office and barely caught the Amtrak bound for San Diego before it pulled away. He tunneled through car after car, feeling the thunder of tracks beneath his feet.

He had managed to secure the exact car where Lillian had ridden.

His chest burned with anticipation. What would he find here? He had just come from the beach, where Lillian’s physical footprints had still been fixed in the sand. He had dropped to his knees and traced the small, elegant shape, shocked at the physical manifestation of her at last.

For days he had kissed her immortal tattoo and caressed her golden skin in his Visions, even touched the objects she touched in her travels, but finding those footprints made her real in a way she hadn’t been before.

When he opened the door of the private train car, he inhaled sharply. The mood here was hard to interpret—a mix of fear and pain. In the corner of one bench, he could see the trace of Lillian, head buried in her hands.

But there was also a reckoning with John LeClair. They hadn’t shared their bodies here, but comforted one another and spoken soft words. Nathan saw John LeClair’s mouth pressed to the place where her hair curved away from her temple. His thumb had stroked the corner of her mouth. And she had curled on his lap like a small cat.

Nathan continued into the car. Something else was here. He felt it. She had left behind an item and it propelled him forward like a magnet.

No strand of hair or lost pearl had this pull.

Using two fingers, he retrieved the wedge of paper shoved between the crack of the seat and the wall of windows. Withdrawing it with shaking hands, he sank to the seat and simply stared at the folded paper. He rubbed it, caressing her fingerprints…

Feeling the ridges beneath his own.

With a gulp, he unfolded it. Please don’t let this be a Dear Nathan letter. The words loomed before him, written in an elegant script with her left hand. It was written in such a precise way, he suddenly realized it was a poem—a haiku.

Beneath the North Star I watched you weeping alone, and it shattered me.

Nathan read it five times, six times, before his mind registered what his heart knew. This poem sealed her promise to him. She was aware that her actions had hurt him, and she would try to keep from doing so again.

Again, he heard Maria’s advice. Talk to her from your soul, but speak her name.

He drew a deep, shuddering breath, his heart beats tripping over each other.

Lillian.

The force of the saying was a concussion. The heat of her presence struck him in the breastbone, and he was pinned to the seat. Her gasp of shock rippled through his mind, filling him with her sweet breath. Her arms crisscrossed her chest, squeezing.

Nathan was inside her.

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