Silver Shadows (Bloodlines #5)(38)
Author: Richelle Mead

“Nina—” I tried. But she was gone before I could say anything more, her exit punctuated with a loud slamming of the front door.

I sank down on my bed, feeling like crap both physically and mentally. I hadn’t meant to end things like that with her. I hadn’t meant for a lot of things to happen. And as the overwhelming state of my life threatened to swallow me, I had to fight the urge to go make a drink.

“No,” I said aloud. “I’m done with that.”

Then and there, I was stopping cold turkey. I’d been deluding myself (even more than usual) thinking that I could drink sporadically throughout the day if I checked for Sydney every once in a while. Speaking of which . . . when was the last time I’d actually checked for her at night—the human night? When she’d first been taken, I’d searched for her nonstop. But recently . . . well, it was usually some half-hearted attempt after I woke up hungover. By the time darkness rolled around—the most likely time she’d be asleep, if she truly was still in the United States—I was usually a few drinks into my first party. I’d let myself get sloppy, disheartened by my earlier failure and real-life distractions. I wouldn’t make that mistake again, though. I needed to keep myself sober and full of spirit, so that I could regularly check throughout the day. It didn’t matter how many times I’d failed. One day, one time, I’d catch her.

Despite my pounding headache, I shifted into the trance needed to embrace spirit and reach out to her. Nothing. That was okay, though. I slipped back to myself, vowing to try again later. I hopped in the shower and washed away last night’s party. When I got out, I found I could stomach food a little better than earlier and ate a leftover donut I’d brought home the previous day. Or maybe the day before that. It was stale, but it did the trick.

As I munched on it, I made a mental to-do list of things that didn’t include going to parties tonight. Apologies were first on my list. Along with Nina, I needed to fix things with Dimitri, after the ass**le way I’d walked out on him. I also needed to talk to my mother. Just because she’d given up on herself was no reason for me to. I’d start with her first, seeing as she was the one I hadn’t spoken to in the longest time. Before I did, though, I should probably stop by a feeder since I couldn’t recall my last blood. It would help clear my head.

I was almost at my front door when I decided to search for Sydney. Maybe hourly searching was excessive, but it would keep me in practice and sober. It was important that I get in the habit of these new patterns if I was going to change my life. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

Tendrils of spirit shot out from me across the world of dreams, reaching for Sydney as they so often did . . .

. . . and this time, they connected.

I was dumbfounded. It’d been so long since I’d formed a successful dream connection that I almost didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t even gone in with a preplanned setting because I’d simply been running on autopilot, making the effort without expecting results. As the world shimmered around us and I felt her materialize in the dream, I quickly summoned up our old meeting place: the Getty Villa in Malibu. Columns and gardens appeared around us, surrounding the museum’s focal point: an enormous pool and fountain. Sydney appeared on the other side of it. For several moments, I could only stare across the water at her, certain I was imagining this. Could I hallucinate in a dream I’d created? Surely this was too soon for any crazy alcohol-withdrawal symptoms.

“Adrian?”

Her voice was small, nearly lost in the dripping of water from the fountain. But the power it carried—and the effect it had on me—was monumental. I’d heard the expression “weak-kneed” before but had never lived it until now. My muscles didn’t feel as though they could sustain me, and there was a great swelling in my chest, the result of a tangle of emotions I couldn’t even begin to describe. Love. Joy. Relief. Disbelief. And mixed in with all of them were the emotions that I’d endured these last few months as well: despair, fear, sorrow. It spread out from my heart, and I felt tears form in my eyes. It wasn’t possible that one person could make you experience so many emotions at once, that one person could trigger a universe of feelings, simply with the sound of your name.

I also knew then that they were wrong—all of them. My mom. My dad. Nina. Anyone who thought love could simply be built on shared goals alone had never, ever experienced anything like what I had with Sydney. I couldn’t believe I’d almost lost this through my own ignorance. Until I looked into her eyes now, I didn’t truly realize what a hollow life I’d been living.

“Sydney . . .”

It would take too long to walk around the fountain. I jumped up on the edge and then into the pool, wading through the water toward her. I would’ve done it even if I wasn’t wearing dream clothes. No physical discomfort mattered. Only getting to her did. My entire world, my entire existence, became focused around her. The journey took seconds, but it felt as though I’d been traveling toward her for years. I reached the other side and stepped out, dripping water onto the sunlit stones. I hesitated only a moment and then wrapped my arms around her, half expecting her to vanish into thin air. But she was real. Real and solid (in that dream kind of way), and her whole body shuddered with a repressed sob as she buried her face against my chest.

“Oh, Adrian. Where have you been?”

It wasn’t a chastisement, simply an expression of her own longing and fear. She couldn’t have known about the demons I’d faced these last couple of weeks or how very close I’d come to missing this opportunity. I cupped her face in my hands and gazed into those brown eyes I loved so much, eyes that now glittered with unshed tears.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry. I looked for a long time . . . but I couldn’t reach you. And then I—I slacked off. I know I shouldn’t have. You wouldn’t have. God, Sydney, I’m so sorry. If I’d tried harder and sooner—”

“No, no,” she said softly, running her hand through my hair. “There was nothing you could have done—not until recently. They regulate our sleep here with some kind of gas. I’ve been too drugged for spirit to reach me.” She began to tremble. “I was so afraid I’d never reach you—so afraid I’d never find a way out—”

“Shh. You found me now. Everything’s going to be okay. Where are you?”