Page 114 of Without a Trace
Not from my waking life, not really. But something in my spine, in my marrow, bent toward him like it had bowed before. He was tall, sharp-featured, dark eyes rimmed with something ancient. His voice came in through my blood, not my ears.
“It’s in you. It always was.”
He lifted a hand toward me, and on his wrist—a silver band, twin to my own. My heart kicked against my ribs.
I reached for it.
For him.
But my hand burned the moment it crossed the red line.
Pain lanced through me. Fire and static and memory all at once.
A girl running through trees with blood on her hands.
A voice screaming her name—Scarlett—just once, before silence swallowed it whole.
A boy in a circle of sand, saying nothing, but wanting everything.
A page ripped from a book. A blade in water. A kiss never taken. A vow never spoken.
I staggered.
The man’s eyes darkened.
“You are not safe. Not yet.”
The hooded figures began to hum. The air throbbed with something violent.
“What’s happening?” I asked—only it didn’t sound like me.
The man was fading. The courtyard began to split. The stone beneath my feet cracked, bleeding silver light.
“Find the truth before they do,” he said.
And then everything went red.
Scarlett
Iwoke up gasping. Sheets tangled around my legs. My tank clinging to damp skin. Heart thrashing in my chest.
The sun hadn’t quite set yet—warm orange light spilling through the curtains like the day was trying to flirt with me.
The air inside the villa was warm, thick with the scent of gardenia and something saltier—like the ocean had crept inside while I slept. My hair stuck to the back of my neck, skin dewy from the heat.
I rolled over, blindly reaching for my phone on the nightstand. Light filtered through the shutters, low and golden now. Opened a text:
From:
T
Dinner at 7. Meet us by the water.
No greeting. No emoji. Just that clipped command hidden beneath the single initial I hadn’t changed in years.
‘T.’
I stared at it for a second too long. Then set it down.
