Free Breaking Normal (Dream Weaver #3) by Su Williams

too?”
                  “Yes,” he said apologetically.
                  “Geez, everyone knew the truth but me. Go figure,” I ranted.
                  “Because you were so young, and we didn’t know if the condition would pass on to you, we all agreed to wait until you were older, to see if you would manifest as Caphar. And William and Thomas were a continuous hit and run issue. We knew they had to know about the anomaly in your father’s blood. They had to know that you also had the potential of becoming Caphar. As you got older, your dad started to worry. He saw a darkness creeping up inside you.” I remembered the depression that eked into my life like a crawling fog. How, despite the love and support I garnered at home, my heart ached for something—else. I remembered the magnetism of the desire to cut myself. But it wasn’t until after my parent’s deaths that the pressure within me boiled over and I submitted to the pull. “He worried for you. He worried that if the Rephaim got a hold of you and you were truly Caphar, that they’d influence you to the dark side.”
                  “The ‘dark side’? Seriously? Now who’s using movie analogies?” I scowled at him and he raised his hands in surrender.
                  “He asked me, made me swear to keep an eye on you if anything should happen to him. I loved Zecharias, and Jane too. I’d have done anything for them. I, we kept watch over them, in case the Wraith came calling. And then, they died in the crash—” I winced at his words. “Sorry.”
                  “It’s fine.” But I really wasn’t fine. Was life ever going to be ‘fine’ again?
                  “Anyway, I started watching over you from that day. I’d followed you before, found you at Felicia’s grave. It always amazed me that of the thousands of headstones in that cemetery, you found hers.”
                  “She just—called to me,” I said wistfully. “I know that sounds weird. Just—something about her reached out and grabbed me.”
                  “I was angry at first…”
                  “I remember.” The memories of suddenly cold, violent wind on a warm summer day filled my thoughts.
                  His eyes darted to the floor. “Here, your knuckles are bleeding, let me untape them.” I gave him my hands. “So the rest you pretty much know.”
                  Nick let the bloody tape fall in a pile on the floor as he unraveled my hands. The tinge of red flashed in my mind.
                  “I don’t understand something—about the fight with the Wraith. Why did William die? Why didn’t he just phase and come back?”
                  Nick cast a questioning glance at Sabre. “He didn’t want to,” Sabre answered brusquely.
                  “What? So if I died and didn’t want to come back, that’s it? I just don’t come back?”
                  Nick’s eyes shadowed with concern, as though I might be getting some self-destructive ideas. Like I need Sabre for that!
                  “Not exactly.” Sabre was quiet so long I wondered if he’d bother to continue. Finally, he said, “Each time a Caphar dies, it takes a piece of his soul—if you will. It’s like it makes us less human, more ethereal, each time. Sometimes, we get tired of being here.” That phantom of sadness floated across Sabre’s face. “If the corporeal body dies and is subsequently destroyed, we can’t come back. Sometimes, some of us choose not to come back.” Sabre returned to silence and tinkering.
                  “Hmm.” Choose not to come back? My mind lingered on the information.
                  Nick’s hand shot out and clutched my arm. “Emari. Don’t.”
                  I leered at his hand on my arm, then up