Page 8 of Blood

“I think that Mason loves you more than anything in the universe,” Alex tells me curtly. “If anyone has reason to remain tethered to this world, it’s him. Trust your bond. Trust him. Mason will never, ever leave you. Not if he has anything to say about it.”

CHAPTER 3

BEANIE DUDE

I float.

Aimless.

Adrift.

Lost.

Who am I?

Where am I?

There’s something I need to remember...

Someone.

Now and then, images bombard me. I try to grasp on to them with all my might, but they slip through my fingers before I can get a firm hold on them. I see a woman with golden hair falling in gentle curls around her heart-shaped, cherubic face. Her blue eyes sparkle with wicked amusement. And don’t get me started on those sinful, pouty lips...

I want to taste them, taste her.

And I don’t even know who she is.

Darkness surrounds me. It’s all I can see, all I’m aware of, all that defines me. Is that what I am? Am I a being of this endless darkness? Did I somehow climb out of the abyss? But no...that doesn’t seem right.

Who am I?

I catch a glimpse of a gray beanie. Is that what I’m wearing? Am I just a nameless, faceless, beaning-wearing guy?

A goddamn beanie dude?

Voices call to me, urging me to leave this darkness and enter the world beyond. I imagine that world is bright and cheerful—though I suspect everything is bright and cheerful when compared to this cloying blackness.

But if I go to that strange world, I’d need to leave her.

Her.

The golden-haired girl.

What is her name?

It’s on the tip of my tongue...

So I float in the nothingness, in the space between the stars, in the one place that the light doesn’t manage to penetrate. I float, and I wait, and I think.

Who am I?

Who is she?

And how can I get to her?

CHAPTER 4

FRANKIE

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