Free Fragile Darkness by Ellie James Page A

still.
    Something was wrong, I knew. Really wrong. Pulling away, I staggered toward the door, knowing I had to get out of there, fast, back to fresh air and light, to reality and sanity, to Grace and Kendall …
    I fumbled with my phone, trying to text.
    Something wrong … need you.
    Stumbling, I made it into the hall, where the guy from the Greenwood party, the one with the “A” on his neck, leaned against the wall, watching.
    Lightning flashed, not from the dance floor, but the invisible kind. The kind that streaked like slivers of brilliant ice inside me, that only I saw.
    Only I felt.
    And at the end of the hall, something glowed, a single door, shimmering like a pearl lit from the inside out.
    The corridor wobbled, stretched, but drawn by the radiance, I made myself move toward it. Some people staggered away. Others stopped and stared. With the light from her phone angled up from beneath her chin, Amber danced by herself.
    Reaching the door, I grabbed the cool knob of sparkly cobalt and yanked as hard as I could.

 
    EIGHT
    I staggered through the darkness. Get away. That was all I could think. I had to get away from the theater.
    Someone was following me. They crashed through the brush behind me, footsteps fast, pounding, twigs and leaves crunching. The labored rasp of breathing closed in with each rip of the wind. But I knew better than to look.
    Trees surrounded me, their trunks running together in an endless, gnarled band, crowding closer. I tried to find an opening, a path, the faintest sliver of light.
    Dreaming, I realized. I was dreaming. This was all some bizarre nightmare or vision. That was why I couldn’t stop running.
    â€œTrinity.”
    Everywhere I turned, knobby roots jutted up from the carpet of shifting … spiders?
    I darted around them, but the vines slithered closer, reaching for me and coiling around my ankles.
    â€œNo!” I slapped at them, fighting forward to tear through the—
    I stopped and stared, blinked, but the snakes writhed closer, hundreds of them, long and sinuous with eyes of unblinking red and darting tongues.
    I backed away. Not snakes, I told myself. They’re just sticks, dead branches. None of this was real, I reminded myself. I tried to remember how I got here, or where here was. But answers refused to come, only the strange, disjointed scene that I couldn’t pull myself out of.
    Stumbling, I started to run again, but above me the stars exploded, raining down and splashing up, freezing into icicles in midair. Beneath them puddles of radiant silver formed, and for a heartbeat the swirl of eternity beckoned.
    â€œI don’t understand,” I whispered, going to my knees. I wanted to dip my hand into the glimmer and bring it back to me, baptizing myself in the promise of forever.
    â€œTrinity, no! Come back!”
    The voice was closer. Too close. But forever shimmered right in front of me, and it was beautiful.
    â€œWhere are you?”
    The urgent voice echoed around me.
    â€œDylan,” I murmured, recognizing this part of the dream. This was when he came. This was when he always came, at the exact right moment.
    The wind pushed and pulled. The moon started to bounce.
    Pulling back, I stood. Everything hurt. “Why can’t I see you?”
    â€œTell me where you are!”
    â€œRight here,” I said as footsteps pounded closer, and arms caught me. And then everything settled, the stars returning to the sky as the confusion of the nightmare gave way to the familiarity of a dream.
    *   *   *
    When I was a little girl, I used to wander off to a clearing in the mountains, where pine beetles had decimated the forest, allowing wildfire to turn the brittle remnants into kindling. My grandmother called it an ugly place, barren. But that’s not what I saw.
    Like a church with no walls, the stumpy remains of hundreds of trees ambled across the field. I could go there and be alone, spread out