He’s focused on something—or someone—over her shoulder. The harmonious warbling of the rainforest morphs into organized disarray, as if a primitive maestro has thrown conducting to the wind and let Mother Nature take over. Birds trill a warning...
Refusing to listen to him any longer, Julian backs up. “Whenever you realize working together is in Summer’s best interest, come find me, Boy Scout. Until then, I’ll just pretend you don’t exist.” Then he walks away. Gage glares at Julian�...
Summer turns and marches away, fed up with being handled like a child. Like she’s a glass doll that might break at any minute. She hasn’t been a child since the day she was whipped into muteness. Anxiety might strangle her sometimes, but she’s ...
What’s with savage humans always wanting to cannibalize us?” Jaden asks as she runs past Summer to check for any more of the Tainted around the corner. “They want to suck your blood,” Rob says in a Romanian accent. Jaden snorts. Too bad humor...
Gage is waiting on the makeshift bed when she enters the room she’s been sleeping in. The small lantern in the corner barely lights his features. His shoulders are hunched, his hands clasped together before him, and when he looks up, his face is do...
She would rather remain silent, but her voice is no longer something to fear. It’s strong. Powerful. A weapon of emotions.
He holds her for an eternity. Time cascades into the void of the past. She inhales his scent. Full of man and strength and yearning. And she wonders why she ever doubted their relationship. Why she let Julian’s soothing touch coax her into loving h...
It hurts,” Summer cries, head shaking back and forth. “Please, make it stop.” Sweat beads on her forehead. “What hurts?” Cameron asks. “My eyes.” Summer’s eyes open. Everyone gasps. They’re no longer blue; they appear bionic, like a...
The aftermath of bearing shackles is an exquisite devastation, fraught with the ravages of survival. Even though one is no longer held captive—be that from a person, a government, or one’s inner self—the scars are deeply engraved into one’s p...
A layer of fine powder coats his skin. “My lungs are turning to concrete,” Rob wheezes, hacking and spitting. “So are my eyes. How do I always get roped into these things?” Avery coughs and pats Rob’s back in sympathy. A poof of dust billow...
She draws back, yet refuses to lose skin contact. Golden light flickers across his face. He is the night, the stars. His soul shines so brightly, she could pour it into a jar, and it’d be as bright as the sun.
Her mum is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, when Summer exits. “Gage left from here a few minutes ago,” she says, tone neutral. “His hair was ruffled.” She gestures with her hand above her head. The haze Gage left Summer in vanishes. S...
Time keeps ticking away, unaware of the suffering each second generates. Time doesn’t care, because if it did, it would’ve reversed.
Landon drops the bloody knife and stares at Summer like he doesn’t even know her anymore. The truth is, she’ll never be the girl she was seven months ago. Too much has happened. Too much has changed. “Why’d you do that?” Summer cries. “To...
Death and his scythe do not come. No sweeping black capes or ethereal escapes. There’s no pearly gate, no prisms of colors as his soul slips away. The stillness is cold steel. The silence is empty with no memory to mend it.
Her gaze travels back to the lie twisted in a tempest of mud and blood. She witnesses the culmination of her recklessness through a curved lens. Absorbed in life uncoiling, unaware of the world beyond this ridge. His light hair, darkened by rain. His...
Why aren’t you smiling?” Cameron asks. She picks up the Astropad and stops the video. “Because this is the beginning, not the end.
Time is a thief. A killer. Time is killing him.
