Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 156392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 782(@200wpm)___ 626(@250wpm)___ 521(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 782(@200wpm)___ 626(@250wpm)___ 521(@300wpm)
“I need you to remain calm, miss. May I have your name?”
“Ava…Ava Nash.”
“Can I call you Ava?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you tell me where you are, Ava?”
“I don’t know exactly. Near the M25, hold on—” I steal a look at the GPS, and the next thing I hear is the loud, unbearable blaring of a lorry’s horn before its bright lights blind me.
I turn the steering wheel as hard as I can while hitting the brakes. My car swerves as I spin round and round and then a sickening crash resounds in my ears.
The last thing I see are the eyes that follow me everywhere.
Dark. Cold. Destructive.
3
AVA
Abitter taste sticks to the back of my dry throat.
I cough but choke, the sound leaving my lungs in long, torturous heaves.
Darkness materializes around me with depressing finality and I completely lose any sense of my physical body.
I don’t know where I am.
My surroundings dive into pitch-blackness.
My head follows suit as tendrils of shadowy hands grab hold of me.
A strangled sound gets trapped in my belly and the tight noose of a panic attack wraps around my throat.
No…
No…
No.
I blink my eyes open, and slowly, almost like a slow-motion true crime documentary, the grainy colors of reality engulf me.
The light condensation against the oxygen mask strapped to my face comes first, followed by bright-white walls.
Darkness recedes in my peripheral vision with a snake-like motion, and with it, my awareness trickles back in.
A beeping machine.
The smell of hospitals and mint essential oil.
The gradual return of my physical body to reality.
My name is Ava Nash. Twenty-one years old. I love classical music and reading scandalous bodice ripper novels. I watch cheesy rom-coms or true crime documentaries—nothing in between. I’m kind of obsessed with the color pink, can eat candy floss for days, can’t get enough of salted caramel popcorn, and can survive on smoothies as long as they have strawberries in them.
Like every time I get my episodes, I repeat the usual mantra I taught myself. It’s my attempt to prove my existence to the shadowy version of myself.
The version that seems to forget the entire world and succumbs to frightening numbness for extended periods of time.
I breathe steadily as the remnants of the fog clear and I wiggle my toes. It’s a habit I picked up to ensure I’m here. In the present.
My other self doesn’t have the capacity to wiggle my toes. I watched some security footage from our house once. I look robotic when I’m in that state, too stiff, too emotionless.
Too lost.
The feel of my body returns in small increments and that’s when I sense that my right hand is warm.
Too warm.
I try to crane my head to the side, and the rustling of the pillow fills the quiet space.
“Ava?”
Deep, rough notes penetrate my foggy brain, and I find it hard to remember to breathe properly.
Eli’s cradling my hand between both of his as he stares at me from the chair at my bedside.
I thought I already woke up.
Is this another episode—or, worse, a nightmare?
I swallow, but the ball constricts my throat. So I wiggle my toes again and, yup, still moving. This is real.
How…
I stare at Eli’s brutally handsome face as if it’ll explode with answers for his bizarre existence in my vicinity.
For some reason, he looks older than when I saw him earlier. Slight stubble covers his harsh jawline, and his hair is longer, disheveled, and finger-raked. He appears to be a bit tired as well, his lips absent of some of their color, as if he’s suffering from a cold.
Wait.
Can hair grow in the span of a few hours?
A day?
Two?
I narrow my eyes, trying to remember the last thing that happened. I was going to an after-party with Ollie, Raj, and the others, but then…I…
A car without headlights.
Calling 999.
Blinding lights.
A lorry.
A crash.
Stormy, harsh, soulless eyes.
The same eyes that are fixating on me right now.
“Ava? Can you hear me?”
The rough timbre of his voice nearly sends me into a second, more prominent panic attack. My heartbeat spikes and the machines go crazy. Crazier than the fake note of concern in his voice.
He curses under his breath and pushes something above my head as he strokes my face.
“Breathe, Ava. Fuck, come on, beautiful. Breathe.”
I actually stop panicking for a second because what…? What’s going on?
He called me ‘beautiful’ and he’s touching me. Matter of fact, he’s been touching me since I woke up.
Eli never touches me.
The longer I stare at his eyes, the more my breathing slows. They’re different. But how…? Why…?
“That’s it. Good girl.”
My heart trips over itself and my breathing stutters. The machines beep louder and my world tilts on its axes.
Did Eli just call me a good girl?
The Eli King?
Oh.
This must be a dream, after all. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a nightmare where he jams a spear into my chest and laughs like a maniac as my blood splatters on his precious shoes.