Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 84072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
The best and most painful day of my life had happened years before I met her, then forgotten, replaced by this very moment in time.
Counted by these steps.
One, two, three…
The hospital stood in clear view.
People rushed in and out, cloth masks covered faces and the crying… there was always someone crying, someone losing, someone living while another died.
And then we were there, at the entrance of the ER.
She was fading.
The walk had taken too much out of her.
I pulled Addie into my arms, kissed her on the forehead, and whispered against it as the first tear I’d ever shed over her before walking away slid painfully like acid down my face. “You are it for me, Addie. I love you, and I’ll see you in the next life, I swear it.”
She held me as tight as her small arms could and coughed against my chest. “Promise me you will at least try, Ben. Love, after all, is what you were born to be. How selfish of me to expect you to save all of it for me when so many could benefit from who you are?”
“I don’t want their love.” I bit down on my lower lip. “I just want you to live.”
“We don’t always…” She sucked in a heavy breath. “…get what we want. But—” She coughed. “At least we had each other for as long as we were gifted.”
“Gifted,” I repeated, venom dripping from the word.
Gifted would have meant I could have saved her.
Gifted would have meant forever.
This wasn’t a gift.
It was a curse.
It was my punishment.
Our forever punishment for choosing love.
And it was the cruelest thing that could have possibly happened—to both of us.
“Sir!” A nurse saw me, then saw Addie and came running, her mask firmly over her mouth as she called for a gurney. “Is she infected?”
“Yes.” I kissed her pale cheek one last time. “She’s fading.”
“Step back, sir.” The nurse’s eyes were petrified; I could almost smell her fear. “You don’t have a mask on, and you’re already most likely going to get just as sick. I need to get her secure, don’t move. We’ll do everything we can for your—” She blinked over at Addy. “For your grandmother.” She and another nurse helped Addy onto the gurney. “You’re going to be okay, ma’am.”
Another lie.
“Sir, we’ll be right back. What’s your name?”
I had too many variances of my name to count. “Benjamin.”
“Okay, Benjamin, I need you to stay there. We’ll be right back with a mask and an update on your grandmother.”
No, they wouldn’t.
I knew it just like I knew in less than sixty seconds, my Addy would take her last breath.
The minute they disappeared indoors, I turned around and ran.
I ran as hard as I could past the house we had shared for over seventy years. I ran deeper into the woods until I reached the old mansion.
The one I’d refused to inhabit, years after banishing myself.
And as I stepped foot over the threshold, I heard her last breath fill the darkness as the entirety of my property froze into ice.
Spring, it seemed, had been obliterated by winter as the roses in her favorite garden froze in time.
Snow crunched beneath my shoes as I made my way up the thirteen stairs into the mansion our family had once called home.
I turned the key, and the door creaked as I stepped inside.
A fire roared in the distance, and everything was just as I’d left it, except one thing.
Me.
I was different.
My soul was missing.
My heart was gone.
And when I turned and looked at myself in the entry mirror, I looked exactly the same as when I had left this place over a hundred years ago.
I glared at my reflection.
Dark hair, deep green eyes that kept flashing to purple, and a cruel smile I’d too often thrown at those who didn’t deserve it.
I was back.
But I might as well be dead.
I gritted my teeth and spoke into the mirror. “One day, I’m going to come for you. I’m going to come for you all.”
And just as the last memory of Addy was pulled from my consciousness like a sharp sting between my temples, I heard a woman’s dark laugh, and then she rasped, “You’re welcome to try.”
Chapter One
Luna
Present Day
Oregon Coast
Mom gripped the steering wheel hard, turning her knuckles nearly white as our Jeep rolled into Orca Cove. The trip was supposed to be my birthday gift, even though I still had a month before I turned nineteen. There was a reason we had to drive into the town early, a reason that my mom looked pale and sickly despite her futile attempts to add artificial color to her cheeks with blush.
She was dying.
And nobody, not even the doctors, knew why. It wasn’t until she started having crazy dreams about soul-sucking demons, which had her waking up in a cold sweat, that I realized it was affecting not just her body but her mind.