The moment I woke in a pool of Ellie’s blood and chose to keep that information to myself.
The night I sank my teeth into Clarissa’s flesh.
I wasn’t supposed to be the villain.
But I wasn’t supposed to get my happy ending either, and I’m not exactly known for doing what I’m supposed to.
EPILOGUE
NOX
I am burning.
Fire erupts in my chest, and the air is thick and heavy, but it does nothing to stop the flames from spreading.
They spark in my lungs and lick through my veins until they burst out my eye sockets and singe the tips of my toes.
The air is too heavy, too thick to move, and though my lungs are screaming to let me breathe, the air does nothing to assuage the feeling that I’m suffocating.
I open my eyes to utter darkness.
Something yanks hard at my shoulders, and suddenly the air is thinner.
My face hits the ground, and gritty flecks fill the spaces between my teeth.
It’s then that I start retching.
Water, cold and salty, pours from my mouth in bursts as my chest spasms.
I’m not burning.
I’m drowning.
Or at least, I was.
The last several heaves are dry, like my body can’t quite believe it actually managed to purge me of the salt water.
Finally, when my muscles lose the energy to persist, I slump against the cool sand and feel it scrape against my cheek.
I flirt with consciousness long enough to realize I’m being dragged through the sand by my feet.
The next time I wake, I’m being dragged over jagged rocks instead. It hurts, but I’m too weak to even murmur as much.
When I wake again, it’s to a glow. One that’s warm and soothing and lights up the inside of my eyelids in an orangey hue, the kind that reminds me of the sunrise and makes my chest ache even more than it already is.
I want nothing more than to drift into the darkness once again, but that’s not possible, not unless I want to burn. Actually burn this time. The ground still feels jagged beneath me, so I’m likely still outside, which will mean a painful death when the sun rises.
So I open my eyes and examine my surroundings.
As it turns out, I’m not outside. Well, not really. I’m tucked into a cave, my back perched up against its back wall. I can only just start to see the deep indigo of the sky lining the mouth of the cave, but the cave itself seems deep enough that I’m likely safe for now.
The source of the glow that woke me crackles cheerfully, flames dancing and highlighting the stone’s smooth interior, the patchy earth beneath me. Moss creeps underneath the lip of the cave’s mouth and blankets the ceiling.
And then there’s the man.
He’s broad-shouldered and sandy-haired. He pokes at the fire with a stick, rolling burning branches into the swell of the flame, smashing the crisp edges as they wither into soft ash. His leather-wrapped feet tap methodically against the hard earth.
He’s foolish to leave his back turned to me like this, but he can’t be expected to know why. I’m sure to him I seem half-dead, and even though I feel half-dead, I know better. My body will heal itself of whatever damage the water wrought soon enough.
The salt water.
Something about that doesn’t seem right. I can still taste the remnants on my tongue, or perhaps I’m just scenting it on the coastal air.
But it’s not right. It’s not right at all, and I can’t for the life of me place why.
“I owe you my life,” I say. When I speak, I expect the man to jump, but he shows no signs of being startled.
“Good,” he says, his voice strangely familiar. Like something that triggers a memory, but the type you can’t tell from a dream. “I like the idea of you being indebted to me, Nox.”
I frown, raking my memories for recognition of this male, but I find none. “Do I know you?”
The male laughs, but the lack of humor in his voice chills my bones. “Don’t fret. It’ll come to you eventually. I was confused too, when I first woke. I doubt I’d have been as eager to rescue you otherwise. What do you say? I suppose there’s slim chance you’ll decide to drown yourself on purpose.”
I try to steel my expression. Clearly I’ve found myself at the mercy of a lunatic, and I’d rather not incite him.
Still. I don’t like that he knows me. Especially when I don’t know him.
“Where are we?” I ask, my motivations two-fold. I’m hoping if I can figure out where I am, maybe that will trigger the memory of how I ended up here. And then there’s the added benefit of distracting this stranger from talk of how he should have let me drown.
