I immediately thought of Mia. She hadn't contacted me again either.
The woman swallowed before continuing.
“I'm sorry to inform you that your brother, Ezra Campbell, was found dead in the parking lot outside Lola's Diner at seven o'clock this morning.”
My heart skipped a beat, and a shiver ran down my spine.
“An animal fatally wounded him.”
Paralyzed by the woman's words, I stared into the front yard from where Mia's father was watching me.
Why didn't he say anything?
I looked at the woman, shaking my head.
“No, he…” I stumbled back. “It must be a misunderstanding.” I looked toward the stairs. “My brother's in his bed.”
I turned around and rushed up the stairs. Every step filled me with fear, and my heartbeat returned. It was literally hammering against my chest as if it wanted to go to Ezra.
I yanked open Ezra's bedroom door.
His bed was empty.
Why was his bed empty?
“No...” I sighed breathlessly.
Why was his bed empty?!
One tear and then another.
“No!”
I lunged forward and ripped the covers off. Nothing.
More tears.
And then I screamed, “Ezra!”
I searched for his cell phone, for his shoes, but they were gone, too.
He was gone! My brother. Gone!
“No!” I screamed even louder.
Something fragile inside me crashed to the floor, shattering into a thousand painful fragments. A pain I had never felt before in my life.
I wanted to scream, but no sound came out of my throat.
Then I slumped down on the bed, sobbing, and buried my face in his pillow.
“Please... Come home, Ezra...”
Epilogue
He stood in the kitchen of the old house, which had been completely renovated.
The last time he had been here, it had smelled of her freshly applied perfume, but also of her. He had picked her up for the winter ball. The last time he had seen her happy.
The memory of what had happened gave him mixed feelings. On the one hand, he longed for that time, for all the things he had been able to experience, for the project they all had striven for, but most of all, he longed for her.
On the other hand, he also wanted to forget. But you couldn't forget what your heart had been so deeply attached to.
“Why are you back here?” he asked instead, curious as to what had brought Diana back to Blairville. Why she had come back to a place where she had lost her best friend.
“Personal reasons,” she said quietly, and he could imagine it had something to do with the Circle.
When he'd walked in, he'd spotted her work ID in the key bowl on a dresser. She worked at the DeLoughrey Science Center. He wondered if she was still researching the same things. But he wouldn't ask her. Not now. Now, it was about something else.
“Why did you want to see me?”
He pulled his hands out of the pockets of his trousers and leaned against the kitchen counter. Just as he had done back then. This house made him feel young, even though there were almost twenty years between his current self and his old self.
“Why did you give my daughter this book?”
She turned to him questioningly. In her hand was the blue leather book with the golden dragonfly. But it wasn't just any dragonfly that she had let print on her cover back then. It had been their dragonfly, the dragonfly of all the members. Their common symbol.
He cleared his throat.
