Page 24 of A Touch of Darkness

For a brief, blissful moment, I think it’s part of the dream. But the sound is too real, too sharp, too loud. My heart lurches, a sick sense of dread curling low in my stomach. Something’s wrong. I can feel it.

I stumble out of bed, my feet fumbling against the cold floor as I try to peel my eyes open. The clock on my nightstand reads 3:14 a.m., the red numbers glaring at me like an accusation. Ibarely register it as I stagger toward the door, the knocking like a metronome of doom.

For the briefest of seconds, my mind allows a small sense of peace.

“Lara?” I croak, my voice hoarse from sleep. My hands blunder with the lock, trembling so badly I almost drop the chain. “Is that you?”

The hope in my voice is a fragile, desperate thing, clinging to the impossible. I wrench the door open, my heart leaping into my throat?—

—and it crashes back down when I see a Blackthorne security guard and police officers standing there.

My hand flies to my mouth to muffle a scream, because I know the inevitable is here. Everything in me goes still. My breath catches, frozen in my chest, as if my body knows what they’re going to say before they even open their mouths. The security guard stands still. Then there’s the two officers. There’s one man and one woman. Both wear the same grave expression and have the same careful posture, as if they’re afraid of breaking me with a single wrong move.

“Miss Rosenthal?” the security guard says, his voice too soft. Too careful.

“Yes.” The word barely escapes my lips, or at least I think it slips out. I’m unsure if I truly said it or if it was just in my mind.

“These officers would like to speak with you. They called the university and asked to gain entrance, and the situation seems very time-sensitive. I’ve verified their positions with Blackthorne P.D., and protocol insists I escort them to you. I’ll be right here outside to escort them away when they’ve finished talking to you.

I nod as I take in what the guard says and then thank him as he steps to the side like he’s guarding post outside of the dorm room.

The male officer glances at his partner before looking back at me. “May we come inside?”

I don’t move. Can’t move. My legs feel like they’ve turned to stone. My head shakes involuntarily, my mouth opening to say something, but nothing comes out.No. No, you can’t come in. No, you can’t say what I know you’re about to say. If I don’t let you in, I’ll never know the truth and maybe I can continue pretending the worst hasn’t happened—again.

I step aside anyway. They enter, and their presence feels like a hurricane rolling into my dorm, dark and oppressive. I move to my nightstand table and click on a small lamp to light the room a little without turning on the overhead fixture.

“I’m Officer Rivera,” the woman says, and then motions to her sidekick and continues, “and this is Officer Jacobs, my counterpart in the field.” Once we’re all inside of the too-small room, Officer Rivera closes the door behind her with a soft click that feels like the sealing of a coffin.

“Miss Rosenthal,” Rivera begins, and despite her gentle voice, the words slam into me like a wrecking ball. “I don’t want to waste your time with platitudes here. I want to get straight to the point.” She pauses, doing the exact opposite of what she’s just said she wants to do. Then, she continues with, “I’m very sorry to inform you that your sister, Lara, was found earlier tonight.”

The room tilts, then spins. My knees go weak, and I clutch the edge of my bed, the only thing keeping me upright. “Found,” I whisper, the word bitter and sour on my tongue, because for so long I couldn’t wait to hear that word. Couldn’t wait for someone to give a shit. To believe me. But not like this…Never like this. “What do you mean… found?”

Rivera’s gaze flickers down for a moment, looking at where the moonlight slices across the floor, adding another fraction of light to the room, her expression tightening. “She wasdiscovered in the woods near Blackthorne by a local hunter. We believe…” She hesitates, as if searching for the right words. “We believe she’s been deceased for a couple of days, but we will know more once the autopsy is completed.” Her words are like a bullet barreling into my psyche. I collapse into a heap on the floor, the bed that once held me up no longer a match for my agony.

“Deceased,” I repeat, the word foreign, alien. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit. Not with Lara. Not with the strongest person I’ve ever known. “No. No, that’s not—” My voice rises, sharp and panicked. “No, that’s not possible. You’re wrong.”

I heard her. I’m not crazy. I heard her the other day. She was soothing me, helping me, leading me closer to her.

My entire body trembles as a sob breaks through the deafening silence the officer’s words have left in their wake. It’s a guttural, unforgiving sound that I’ve never heard in my life, not even when Lara and I were informed of our parents’ deaths.

This is different.

This is a piece of me.

And now it’s slipped through my fingers.

“I wish we were wrong,” she says, her voice low. “I’m so sorry.”

“No.” The denial tears out of me, raw and broken. I take a step back, shaking my head furiously. “No. This isn’t… this can’t…” My voice falters, breaking under the weight of my own words. “She’s not… she’s not dead.”

Officer Jacobs steps forward. His presence is solid, potentially even grounding if not for this moment, but it only makes the reality of what they’re saying sink deeper into my bones. “We’ll need to ask you some questions at the station,” he says carefully. “But not tonight. Get some rest, and we’ll?—”

“Rest?” I cut him off, my voice cracking on the word before I break into howling laughter. “You want me to rest? My sister isdead, and you’re telling me to rest?” I cackle like a madwoman, shrieking in anguish and yanking at my hair to feel something other than this deep-seated pain and hatred for the two people in front of me that have the gall to deliver this news. I laugh, and scream, laugh and cry, laugh and pound my fists against the floor until they are so raw and red and swollen that I can’t feel my hands any longer.

“We’ll leave you alone, Miss Rosenthal,” Officer Jacobs says, although it sounds muffled and distant as I cradle my head in my hands. “Is there anyone we can call that can come sit with you?”

I shake my head, wanting them to get out.

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