Lara looked down: She was in a leotard and her knees were bloody. “I can’t stay with you,” she said. “You’re dead.” Something told her this vision was a trap or a choice. This scene had never happened between them, and to accept it as real would seal her doom. She saw something peek from behind a tree motioning for her to come. It was Mr. Tisdale. We are your destiny, he said, without speaking words, of course. She ran toward him anyway, away from Todd, never once looking back. Then someone was slapping her lightly and turning her over. She opened her eyes.

Do we know him?

“Lara. It’s Ben.” Ben Archer was crouched down next to her and his wonderful face was racked with worry, but that was impossible. Ben wasn’t in Paris. Oh, how she missed him. Then the chills began and everything clouded over.

Lara. Lara. Wake up.

Lara cracked open her eyes. Something was in her arm. She heard beeping. Gray walls with directions in French on how to safely lower the bed. Then nothing.

You have to stop fighting me or we’ll both die.

“I’m not fighting you.” She laughed at this. It was that voice again. The one that cared if they lived or died. “Poof,” said Lara.

Yes, poof. And poof is bad, trust me. We’ll both go poof.

A nurse came in and checked Lara’s IV bag and wiped something across her forehead that beeped. The chills had subsided for a while, but now they were coming on in waves again. The woman loaded another IV bag behind the nearly empty one. A violent chill rocked Lara and then she was drowsy again.

At the darkest point, when she felt herself swinging on the trapeze, then letting go, with no visible net beneath her, Lara was reassured by the familiar touch and voice of her mother. When she opened her eyes, she found Audrey’s warm hand on her face but nodded off only to wake later and find the room empty.

Chapter 28

At one point, Lara’s fever had spiked to 41.1 degrees Celsius. The doctors were looking for viruses, a brain bleed, sepsis, but found no cause. Nurses pushed IVs, cool baths, and dantrolene injections.

Ben was the first to spy Audrey coming out of Lara’s hospital room. From the grim look on Audrey’s face, he expected the worst possible news.

“Ben,” she said with a wan smile. He could see she had been crying.

“Audrey.” He was ready to offer to help, be useful, help make funeral arrangements. As he assembled these tasks in his mind, a hole began to form deep inside him. Lara couldn’t be gone, not before they’d ever started. He wasn’t prepared for this. The lack of sleep, lack of food, travel—everything from the last three days—compounded and he found himself wiping tears away.