Chapter 22
Silas watched Rue carefully, alarmed by the sudden blank look on her face.
“Rue, is it your head again? Are you getting another migraine?”
I shook my head and tried to brush it off. “No, not that. I just… I saw something. Like flashes. But they were blurry. It looked like—like a wedding.”
Silas stiffened slightly. He must’ve been thinking the same thing I was—that the whole beachside wedding package, the one the vendor had pitched, could be triggering something buried deep inside me.
I turned to him. “I think we should go. Check it out.”
The vendor lady lit up the moment she saw our interest. “You’re in luck! There’s one happening tomorrow morning. You two can totally sit in and get a feel for it.”
Later that night back at the hotel, Silas was still visibly uneasy.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, brows drawn tight. “What if it’s too much for you?”
I grabbed the water bottle off the nightstand and took a long sip. “When the woman at the food stall mentioned the wedding earlier, I don’t know… it felt important. Like something I need to see for myself.”
He exhaled, clearly not thrilled but not stopping me either. “Just promise me—you’ll tell me the moment something feels off.”
I nodded. “I promise.”
The next day, we arrived just as the wedding ceremony was starting. The bride and groom were walking hand in hand down a makeshift aisle lined with palm fronds and folding chairs, the bride’s veil fluttering with the wind. The groom quickly leaned in to keep her skirt from blowing up, earning a round of good-natured laughter from the crowd.
I stood frozen, a sudden pounding starting behind my eyes.
“Are you here for the ceremony?” someone asked cheerfully, offering us two boutonnières. “It’s about to start—go ahead and grab a seat.”
Silas pinned one on me gently. “Do you want to sit?”
I shook my head and drifted toward the front, closer to the altar.
My eyes locked on the couple exchanging vows, but my mind was somewhere else entirely. Through the haze of the present, something else bled through—an echo from a different lifetime.
“Do you, take her, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, to love and to cherish forever?”
“I do.”
The groom’s deep voice overlapped with another, one I knew too damn well.
“I, Julian Carter, vow to love Isla Monroe, every day, every year, forever.”
“And if you break that vow?”
“Then I’ll lose her forever. And that will be the greatest punishment of all.”
The words hit me like a truck. My knees buckled slightly, cold sweat breaking down my spine.
“Rue!”
Silas rushed to my side, steadying me as I fought to stay upright.
“We need to go,” he insisted, his hand wrapped around mine, warm but tense. “We’re leaving now.”
“No—wait… just give me a second,” I gasped, gripping his arm tight. “It’s coming back. I just need a second.”
My vision tunneled, blurring around the edges. I stared at the altar—and then, something strange happened.
The beach ceremony melted away.
I was somewhere else entirely.
I saw myself—in a blood-red wedding gown, the kind no American bride wears. My veil was down, but tears slipped past, splashing onto the hands I had laced with someone else’s.
Julian leaned in, his voice teasing against my ear.
“It’s not like this is our first wedding. What are you so nervous about?”
The memory hit so hard I could barely breathe.
“Rue, hey—look at me,” Silas said urgently, both hands on my shoulders now. “You’re not okay. We’re getting out of here. Right now.”
Everything swam in and out of focus. I couldn’t tell what was real anymore.
But through the haze, I saw someone rushing toward me.
Julian.
And he looked terrified.
