I had always believed it was my mother who had placed the charm on my bedroom to keep me from dream connecting with Savannah all these years. But it turned out that my dad was the one who had actually created and maintained the charms at Mom's request. And with his death, the last bit of his magic in the already weakened charm on my bedroom died, too.
I learned this when my subconscious reached out to Savannah's that night, connecting our minds in our sleep as easily as if we'd never stopped.
"Tristan!" She hurried across the dimly lit yard toward me. "What's going on?"
I was sitting in the grass of my backyard, with no energy or will to get up. I waited till she was standing right beside me before I told her. "My dad's dead."
She drew in a long breath through her nose then dropped to her knees beside me. "Oh my God. Tristan, I'm so sorry. What happened?"
"Someone killed him in the clearing." The clearing where so much had happened: where Savannah and I had pretended to play together in our connected dreams in the fourth grade, and again where we'd kissed and danced and talked for hours while dream connecting last year. And where her grandmother had died.
Now I understood how a real-life memory could poison even the dream version of a place. I would never be able to step into those woods, or even look at them, without remembering Dad's lifeless, cold body lying there on the path.
"He died alone, Sav. In the cold. In the dark. He didn't have a flashlight with him. He didn't even look like he fought back! Why wouldn't he fight back?" I was shouting, my fingers clawing up chunks of dirt and grass at either side of me. I had to get control of myself. I couldn't let Savannah see me go nuts like this.
"Shh," she whispered, wrapping her arms around me.
I couldn't hold her at first, scared if I reached out for her I would lose it. But then I found myself turning in her arms, holding on to her, and it was there in that moment that it finally, truly sank in.
I would never see my dad again, never talk to him or have the chance to ask him anything about how to lead or what to do. He would never be able to teach me anything new about magic or football or the best way to deal with my neurotic, controlling mother in any situation.
"He's gone, Sav. He's really gone." I buried my face in the curve where her neck and shoulder met, my arms around her waist, grateful for once that she was so strong and I didn't have to worry that I might break her. The rage and pain rose up, trying to drown me from the inside out, but she was my anchor, saving me, grounding me, holding me together, her hands stroking my back in soothing motions that gradually tugged me away from the darkness.
She knew how I felt right now. She'd gone through it, too, after her Nanna's death.
I hadn't known then, couldn't possibly relate. This level of pain and loss was something that had to be personally felt in order to be understood.
"I know," she murmured. "It feels like someone's ripped out your insides, doesn't it?"
I nodded, unsure I could even speak. I'd lost all control, even wet her shirt with childish tears. She was the last person I'd ever wanted to see me like this.
I dragged my sleeves over my face before leaning back to search her eyes, wondering if she thought I was weak. But all I saw was...love. It shone out of her gaze, warm, without judgment, telling me we were still the same. Vampire or witch, right or wrong in everyone else's eyes, when I looked at Savannah, I saw beyond the exterior to the person she was deep down, and I recognized the one person on this planet who made me more, who matched me so completely she left me breathless and lost in wonder. She didn't complete me, or fill some stupid, imaginary hole inside me. And it was way bigger and more important than our being two puzzle pieces made to fit together. It was something for which I had no words, only an undeniable feeling of everything being right when we were together and wrong when we were apart.
"I don't know who I am without you," I murmured, cupping her face, needing her to stay and hear me and not run away like she always seemed to be doing lately. "I don't like who I am without you in my life. Without you, everything is just wrong."
Tears shimmered in her eyes then slipped over the edges and fell down her cheeks. "I know."
I took a deep breath, hoping she would hear and believe me. "Things are going to be seriously bad for a while."
She nodded.
"No. I mean it, Sav. You've got to really hear me this time, okay? With Dad gone, the Clann's going to be leaderless until Saturday. That means there will be no one to stop any descendant from doing whatever they want. So you need to leave Jacksonville for a while."
She ignored that last point, setting my gut to churning with fear that she wasn't taking me seriously. "What happens on Saturday?"
"The Clann will elect a new leader after Dad's funeral."
"And that's when you'll officially become the leader." I could see her pulling away from me. The growing distance was there in her eyes.
"Not necessarily. Dylan's dad wants the job."
Her eyes widened. "Then you'd better get the majority vote. If you don't..."
"Yeah. We'll be dragged into another war for sure."
She swallowed hard, and though she didn't pull free from my hands where they still framed her face, she looked down at her lap.
"Then I guess I'd better wish you good luck for Saturday."
"I don't want to be Clann leader, Sav. But we need this."
"I know."
"Then what's wrong? What's going on inside that mind of yours?"
She bit her lower lip for a few torturous seconds then forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes as she looked up. "I'm sure you'll still be chosen. The Williams family is too annoying and unlikable to vote for. And once you're Clann leader, my dad and I will be safe, right?"
"Right. Once I'm leader, everything will be better. I'll make sure the peace treaty stays in place. And I think in time I can maybe even teach the descendants not to hate the vamps. Well, maybe. Some of their issues run pretty deep. But we'll work on it. In time, they'll come around."
"That would be nice."
But she was still holding back.
"What is it?" I sighed. "You know becoming more of a vamp hasn't made you any better at lying to me."
She shook her head and looked away, her pale fingers plucking up bits of grass to shred. "I'm happy for you, Tristan. Really, I am. You're going to do what your parents always dreamed for you. What you were born to do. And that's the important thing. So let's just leave it at that, okay?" She leaned forward, pressed a hand to one side of my face and slowly, gently kissed my cheek. It felt like a kiss goodbye. "You're going to be a great leader for the Clann. Your dad would be really proud of you. And I am, too. You need to do this. The descendants need a leader with a good heart like yours."
I caught her chin when she tried to look away again. "Then why does it sound more like you're begging me not to do it?"
"I'm not. I'm telling you that you should."
"Liar."
She shifted her feet under her like she was going to get up. But she'd forgotten, in our connected dreams she didn't have the physical upper hand. I moved faster, leaning forward until she was lying on her back in the grass and I half covered her.
"Stop running away," I growled, nuzzling the curve of her neck, testing her. If she had tensed up beneath me, if she had given me one sign that she didn't want to be close to me, I would have moved away again. Instead, her hands crept up to circle my waist.
Resting most of my upper body weight on my elbows at either side of her head, with our faces only inches apart, she had to know she couldn't possibly hide anything from me.
"Tell me you don't miss what we had," I whispered into her hair, daring her to try and lie to me now.
"I do."
"Tell me you don't think about us every day and regret breaking up with me."
Her hair fanned out in the grass around her head, begging to be touched. I buried my nose in it, filling my lungs with that warm lavender scent that I missed every waking second now.
My chest expanded with the deep breath, pressing against her, and she shivered.
"I do think about it. And I wish I hadn't had to break up with you."
"Tell me you don't love me." I stared into her eyes now, frustrated, hurting, missing her so much it formed its own kind of physical pain that burned my lungs and throat. "Because I've tried, Sav. I've really tried not to be in love with you, even to the point of hurting others along the way. But I can't make myself stop loving you. So if you've figured it out, if you've found some spell or something that will end my feelings for you, I'm all ears here."
She closed her eyes, covered her face with her hands and sobbed, her shoulders shaking. "I can't! I wish I could. I wish every day that I could find a way not to love you. But I still do. I-"
It was all I needed to hear. I covered her lips with mine, careful to also press a palm to the ground and draw energy.
Then I remembered. I'd fallen asleep indoors in my room tonight. There was no real ground beneath me to draw energy from.
So I kissed her cheeks instead, her nose, her wet eyelids, her throat, the ridge of her collarbone.
"It's going to be all right," I promised her over and over in between kisses. "I'll be Clann leader soon, and then no one can tell us that we can't be together."
Her hands froze in their journey from my hair to my shoulders.
Too caught up in the moment, it took several seconds for me to notice how tense she'd become beneath me.
"Sav?" I lifted my head to look at her.
Her expression was unreadable for a change. "Are you sleeping outside tonight?"
"No, I'm in my room-"
She twisted her head to look down at my right hand cupping her shoulder. My hand was shaking.
Suddenly she scooted up and away before I could stop her.
"Oh come on, Sav!" I sat back on my knees. "You're driving me nuts here."
"You don't get it! Nothing's changed between us. Learning how to do magic hasn't made me suddenly not a vampire anymore. I'm still draining you when we kiss, still psychically draining you with a kiss even in our dreams together. I haven't learned a single thing about how to turn it off. And you becoming Clann leader? That doesn't change anything, either. In fact, it just makes it more impossible for us to be together." She scrambled to her feet.
I stood up as well. "Fine. I won't become leader."
She rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. We've already covered all the reasons why you need to. You have to, Tristan. This isn't about you and me or what we want anymore. It's way, way bigger than that now."
I closed the distance between us. "We can make this work. We're good together."
She took a deep breath then looked up at me, letting me see the tears in her eyes. "How? Are we going to live in a tent with a hole in the floor so you can draw energy every time we kiss?"
"I'll find a way to make the vamp turning process work on me. Then we'll be the same again, two vamps who can't hurt each other."
Her jaw clenched. "And then the Clann will choose Dylan's dad to be their leader. And then what will our life be like together while all the descendants and vamps and innocent humans die in another pointless war?"
I opened my mouth to argue. She shut me up the only really effective way that she could.
"Goodbye, Tristan. And good luck on Saturday."
Then she kissed me, psychically draining me despite the physical distance separating our actual bodies, until I didn't have enough energy left to keep the dream connection going.
I woke up in my room. Yelling out a curse, I rolled over and punched the mattress beneath me.
