Page 1 of Secrets of Riverside

PROLOGUE

Blue Mountains, Christmas Day

This can’t be real, this isn’t happening. Wake up, Amelia, please, wake up!

Try as she might to claw her way out of what seemed like a terrifying nightmare, fifteen-year-old Amelia Price was already wide awake. Now seated out of harm’s way, with the kitten her mum and dad had gifted her only hours earlier cradled tightly in her arms, she felt paralysing fear hanging heavy in the air as the emergency crews hurried around her. Amid the mayhem, a familiar voice wavered into her hazy awareness, the woman trying to soothe her as a blanket was placed over her shoulders. Her kitten was gently lifted from her lap and into Mrs Strathmore’s arms as her neighbour and best friend, Ebony Strathmore, wriggled even closer to her.

With her vision blurring, she tried to blink the horrific images of smouldering rubble and coiling hoses. But she couldn’t. She rubbed at her stinging eyes with her fists. It was meant to be the happiest day of the year. She should be sitting at the dining table now, with her family, eating the roast turkey her mum had been slaving over since they’d finished opening their Christmas presents bright and early that morning.

But her family was gone forever.

And now she was forever alone.

This despairing thought pounded over and over in her dizzy head as she winced at the recollection of her little brother Zack’s desperate cries for help and her mother’s tortured shrieks. Just like theirs had been, her own heart-wrenching screams were now silenced, and although the flames had licked at the suffocating air like some ravenous fire-breathing demon as she’d frantically tried to reach her family, she couldn’t feel the pain of it any longer. She also couldn’t tell the police who the person was that had carried her to safety. Other than that it was a youngish guy, with strong arms and a calming voice.

What she was acutely aware of right now was Ebony’s supportive presence at her side, her own ragged breath, her swirling nauseated stomach, and the tears streaming down her cheeks, and yet, at the very same time, she felt oddly numb. It had been so suffocatingly dark within the fire’s wrath, and she’d truly believed she was going to die, but then someone had scooped her up and carried her to safety. Who would risk their life to save hers, only to disappear into thin air? The whole scene before her was whizzing by, but at the same time moving in such painfully slow motion. She wanted to look away, to squeeze her eyes shut.

But she couldn’t.

‘Why don’t you come inside, Millie?’ Ebony’s voice was soft, kind. ‘So my mum can take care of you.’

Biting her bottom lip, Amelia shook her head.

‘Okay then, I’ll stay here with you for as long as you need me to.’

Blinking back heavy tears, Amelia nodded, grateful for her one and only true friend.

As Ebony’s fingers interlaced with hers, she drew in a long, deep breath and watched the black smoke twisting and twirling upwards from what had once been her home, and into the dead of night. The sirens had long been silenced, but the blue and red spinning lights still flashed over the smouldering debris.

Only hours ago, her mother had hugged her close and kissed her cheek. Only hours ago, her father had lifted her from the floor and spun her in giggling circles. Only hours ago, she’d been playing with Zack, their laughter and Christmas music reverberating through the house. She wanted to believe her family had been as lucky as she had, that they’d been rescued too, and taken to someplace safe that she was yet to discover. But that wasn’t going to be the case. She knew that in her heart of hearts. She was alive. They were dead. Other than Ebony, she had nobody now. She was very alone. She was very scared. And she was terrified of what was going to happen to her. And with that very thought, she was pulled down in engulfing darkness, to a place that was filled with nothing but resonating emptiness.

CHAPTER

1

Sydney, fifteen years later

An electrical storm had cut all electricity to the Sydney suburb of Parramatta, leaving Amelia’s tiny bedroom hot and humid. It had been hard enough falling asleep at midnight, but now she couldn’t rouse herself from her torturous slumber. Her exhaustion from the aftermath of her persistent nightmares had become a burden too heavy to carry any longer. With her sweaty limbs thrashing beneath the sheets, she felt the constricting grip of the ghosts of her past closing in on her. Reaching for her, their clawed fingers pressed through her flesh and clenched her insides, squeezing her racing heart so tightly she could barely take a breath.

Wake up Millie, please, wake up!

With every bit of might she tried to heave herself from the horrors of her dream. But just like every other time, the looming shadows had her at their mercy, the faceless beings skilfully pulling her under. Terrified, she scratched and clawed at her unconsciousness, desperately trying to climb to the surface. She didn’t want to go through this anymore. But just like when her worst nightmare had become her reality all those years ago, she was stuck in a kind of hell, and it was dark, so damn dark, and scorching hot.

Helplessness consumed her and she slipped further into darkness. A strangled sound escaped her as everything spun in crazy circles. Then the fiery floor she was scrambling upon gave way, and she was tumbling defencelessly into an even blacker abyss. Thick grey smoke furled around her like a giant snake, asphyxiating her. Over her wheezing breaths, she could hear her father’s frantic roars, her mother’s bloodcurdling screams and somewhere in the fire-engulfed house her little brother, Zack, was crying out for help. Begging for her to save him. She tried to suck in a breath, and then another, so she could call out to him, so she could somehow soothe him, but there was no oxygen left. Her lungs burnt with the lack of it. She had to get to him. Or die trying.

On her hands and knees, she endeavoured to crawl beneath the flames devouring the walls, so she could get him, but there was nowhere left to go. There was no escape. She was trapped. Powerless. Dying. Backed into a corner where the red-hot flames stretched and reached from the walls, licking at her skin, scorching her, melting her flesh right through to the bone. The pain was excruciating. She wanted to die, so the hurt would stop. There was a loud boom, and the flames got closer, bigger, ravenously engulfing her world. Crying out, she tried to shield herself with her arms, hoping it would somehow help her survive the roaring fire that was swallowing her home, her family, and her breath.

‘Millie!’ Her name carried, echoed, bounced off the fire-consumed ceiling. ‘Millie, wake up!’

Over her laboured breath, Millie heard the flick of a switch and then an overhead light burned to blinding light, searing through her fastened eyelids and drawing her towards the beautiful, iridescent surface. She instinctively knew there was peace to be found there. But would she make it? Could she? Then hands were upon her, shaking her. Begging her.

‘Millie, you’re having another nightmare, please wake up.’

Ebony’s shrill voice grabbed her and quickly lifted her to the surface of reality.

Whimpering, she finally woke, and before she could form words in her dry mouth, Ebony’s arms were around her. ‘Shhh, Millie, I got you, hon,’ she cooed, rubbing her back. ‘It’s okay, you’re safe now.’

Her hands coming to rest on her flat, empty belly, Millie’s attention snapped to what had become her heartbreaking reality. A renewed rush of profound sorrow overcame her. Somehow, she’d rather be back in her nightmare than having to face the raw emotions over her miscarriage.

---