Page 28 of The Edge of Dawn

That had been… a trip.

A dark, evil, exhilarating trip.

She’d gotten a glimpse of what it was like to be…

Powerful.

As he’d slipped into her mind and taken control, she’d been forced to sit back like a spectator watching a horror movie.

How easily violence came to him. As naturally as breathing. And if not for her reservations—which she’d somehow managed to communicate to him—he would have done a lot more damage. Would have killed them without blinking an eye. Even using her untrained body, he was spectacularly effective.

And then there was that ability of his—that uncanny ability to see with his mind’s eye; to sense everything that was going on around them in microscopic detail, even through walls and beyond the lines of ordinary sight.

The magnitude of it hit her all of a sudden, and the glimmer of understanding in her mind widened into a crack. It was terrifying to think that any being could possess such an ability.

And if he hadn’t been constrained by her human body…

Good lord.

Was he even real? Now he was gone without a trace, and Jade wondered if he truly was just a figment of her fractured imagination; a manifestation of her subconscious desire to fight back against a frightening world that was trying to swallow her whole.

Damaged body, mind full of chaos.

She had to get out of there. So why was she staring at the walls, feeling weightless and completely devoid of pain?

Ah. I remember what happened.

After he’d left her, she’d made her way to the metal ladder that led to the exit. The sunlight streaming through the shaft above was a reassuring sight.

She remembered trying to climb up: hurting, scrambling, desperate to see the sunny blue skies outside. Claustrophobia had enveloped her, worse than she’d ever felt before. Considering she used to go down into these kinds of places all the time, it was uncharacteristic, but then again, she’d just gone through the most terrifying experience of her life.

Her heart had been pounding like crazy, so hard it almost hurt. Her palms were clammy and…

Oh.

Now she remembered.

She’d tried to grab the rusted metal railings of the ladder, but when she’d curled her fingers into a firm grip and tried to pull herself up, excruciating pain had shot through her left hand to the point where she lost her handhold all of a sudden.

She’d fallen.

And then, she’d blacked out.

Good one, Jade.

Deep down, she knew she was an idiot for asking Dragek to get out of her head. He was the only person who could effectively help her get out of this situation, and she’d chased him away.

Why?

Maybe because the feeling of having him inside her head was really fucking scary.

Anyway, in the end, his presence had disappeared in an instant, almost as if he’d been ripped away against his will.

So now she was in the space between wakefulness and oblivion, wondering how in the bloody Universe it was possible to exist like this—within her surroundings but apart.

As if there was a void between her conscious world and her dreams.

What if she got stuck here? Suspended in her thoughts, all alone… except for the occasional company of that platinum-skinned alien demon?

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