Page 182 of Without a Trace
I was running.
Not with fear. Not away. Toward something.
The sky above me bled gold and black, stars flickering like embers about to go out. The forest rose up around me, tall and ancient, branches curling like fingers overhead.
I wasn’t alone.
Footsteps echoed mine. Steady. Familiar.
He was there. Whoever he was. Shadow and heat. The bond made shape. I couldn’t see his face, but I felt him—pulling me forward, deeper into the trees, into something older than language.
I knew this place.
Even if I’d never seen it before.
“You found me,” I whispered.
The voice that answered wasn’t quite Trace. Wasn’t quite Alden. But it was theirs. Woven together in a way that made my bones ache.
“I never stopped looking.”
I turned—and the trees were gone.
We were in a ruined hall of stone and ivy, moonlight spilling through a broken ceiling, illuminating the mark on his forearm. The same one I sometimes traced in my mind when I was alone.
The same one that burned.
“You’re not real,” I said.
He stepped closer anyway.
The floor cracked beneath us, but he didn’t stop.
“You were taken,” he said.
I pulsed. “I was forgotten.”
His hand brushed the side of my face, fingertips barely grazing skin. “No,” he said. “You were hidden.”
“And you didn’t find me in time.”
His thumb traced the edge of my mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to love you.”
“But you did.”
The bond surged between us—like a heartbeat, like a curse.
And then everything shattered.
Scarlett
Iwoke drenched in sweat. Sheets twisted tight around my calves. My skin damp. My pulse still racing from something that wasn’t a nightmare—but didn’t feel right either.
The room was still dark.
And I was alone.
The truth had been circling me for weeks. Hiding behind half-answers and haunted stares. I wasn’t going to wait for it anymore.
