Page 1 of Fated

Prologue

Abruptly, something tugged me from the depths of sleep, my eyes snapping open to a veil of inky blackness. My heart was pounding heavily in my chest, an unwelcome sensation weighing in the pit of my stomach; it was an uneasiness I couldn’t quite place. A chill crept over my body as my hand reached for the blankets, only to find them bunched up near the bottom of the bed.

Gradually, I became aware of an uncomfortable wetness seeping into every inch of me, from the sodden sheets beneath me to the damp pajamas clinging to my body. Outside, the soft patter of raindrops was drumming against the roof. Had someone opened the window above the bed? Or maybe the roof was leaking. Yet deep down, something told me none of this was the case.

Sitting up in bed, I reached a hand to rub the sleep from my eyes, but before my fingers ever touched my skin, alarm bells went off, a sense of dread falling over me.

An unfamiliar dry and tacky residue was coating my fingertips, but it was the cloyingly sweet and metallic scent wafting from them that stopped me dead in my tracks. The stench of iron.

Frantically, I wiped my hands against my shirt, desperate to rid them of this foreign substance but they only smeared something thick and oily across my upper body. Adrenaline wascompelling me to move now, setting me fumbling for my phone on the nightstand before launching myself out of bed, nearly stumbling on the way to the door to flip on the light switch.

Brightness filling the room, the red print left on that switch commanded my attention.

I stared, utterly terrified, at a fingerprint created in blood.

Barely able to breathe, I lifted my hands in front of me, taking in the hue of my skin, catching sight of the bright cherry red staining it.

As I slowly turned my body to face the floor-length mirror, horror gripped me.

My heart thundered wildly, taking in the sight—the blood-soaked clothes, the blood-stained hair sticking to my face. Even my feet had been coated in that vile, slick redness.

Tremors tore through me, my eyes roaming all over my body, searching for an injury, the blood’s source. But there was no wound, not anywhere.

There was absolutely nothing indicating the blood all over me was even mine.

Whipping my head back toward the bed, a jolt of pure terror surged.

The once-white sheets were now stained with splotches of red and rusty brown. But something more concerning caught my gaze, and it felt as though the air in the room had turned too thick to breathe. There, in the center of the bed, a large silver knife lay gleaming in the light.

Instinctively, my hands flung to my mouth to stifle a scream, but it tore from my throat anyway, the moment the blood on my hands contacted my face.

A wave of nausea crashed over me, twisting my insides, making my gut writhe and squirm.

I wrapped my arms around my body, desperate to anchor myself against the rising tide of panic pulling me under. My gaze drifted to the floor, noticing vivid red footprints leading straight to the bed. Heart racing, I forced my eyes to follow the trail back toward the direction from which the steps came, until my eyes stopped right in front of the door.

Ice cold fear gripped me, and I couldn’t swallow, the lump in my throat swelling as if to the size of a mountain.

Mom.

Somehow, I forced my body to move.

“MOM!” I threw my door open, sprinting through the dark hallway toward her bedroom at the other end of the house. As I neared, I skidded to a stop and came to freeze at the sight of her slightly cracked bedroom door and the light leaking from it.

My breath hitched, fear closing in.

I blinked absently at the bloody footprints—the prints trailing from her bedroom toward my own. I stood paralyzed, trembling so violently that my teeth were chattering.

Everything inside was screaming for me to run, or to curl up and hide from whatever nightmare lay waiting on the other side of that door.

“Mom?” The word trembled from my lips.

Nobody answered.

My mom’s face flashed through my mind, and the thought of her being gravely hurt and alone propelled me forward, reaching the door and shoving it open so it banged hard against the wall.

No, God, no!

My heart began hammering against my ribs now, a frantic rhythm matching the terror coursing through my veins upon stumbling into the room.

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