Prologue
Fear stole my breath as I plummeted into frigid
water. I flailed my arms and legs, uselessly trying to swim against the
current. The haunting voice of a child sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” as I
sank deeper.
I fought my way to the surface only to be taken
again. The little girl droned, “And the rockets’ red glare,” as water
rushed into my lungs.
I wasn’t alone. A blurry figure struggled near me,
both of us sinking, drowning in red tinted water. Blood. It swirled with the
suffocating blue, an inescapable villain dragging us deeper and deeper.
We were two helpless bodies adrift in a world with
no air or hope, no chance of survival. The white lights glowing beneath us
looked welcoming and safe. The figure gave in. Its lifeless body sank towards
the lights as the little girl sang, “And the home of the brave.”
Chapter One
I woke up, pouring sweat, in Nathan’s bed.
With his eyes closed and mouth open, he rolled away
and yanked the blanket off of me, attending to my needs in his sleep. I
shrugged off the creepy dream of me drowning. Over the last three months, I’d
dreamed plenty of things that hadn’t happened. Nate had held me underwater in
the pool earlier. I was sure that moment had just followed me to sleep. The
odds of it being a vision were low.
It had been almost two months since I stopped
letting myself have them or use any of my powers. They were getting worse as I
used them openly for little things. I would try to move something, and it
wouldn’t just lift. It would slam into the wall before I felt it moving. I
didn’t know mental powers could grow, develop even more than they already were.
They were getting faster, stronger, and wilder, so I was back to suppressing
them like I had at St. Catalina. Life was simpler that way, normal. Or as
normal as living with three magical beings that should be extinct could get.
I closed my eyes to force myself back to sleep, and
an angry snore rattled Nate’s throat. I reached on his nightstand for my phone.
He wouldn’t be able to deny this one. Another series of snores ripped through
the silent pool house just as I pressed record. I laughed, and he opened his
eyes.
“Smile, baby,” I said. He groaned and reached for
the phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, nothing. Just collecting evidence.”
He wrestled my new phone from my hands and held it
out of my reach. “How do I stop the video?”
“Like I’d tell you.”
He grunted and threw the phone to the foot of his
bed. “That thing is too expensive to be so complicated,” he said.
“It’s not complicated. It’s probably just made for
humans and you’re-”
He grabbed me and wedged his fingers under my arms
before I could tease him about the side of him that barks. “I’m what? What am
I, Chris?” I squealed, flopping around in his arms like a dying fish.
“Handsome!” I offered, to end the tickle attack.
“Liar.”
“Smart. Kind. Loving. Sexy!” He relaxed his fingers
and slid them from my armpits to my back. “Which one did it?” I asked.
“Sexy,” he whispered and kissed me. And that was
really all it ever took to kick things off between us. Steamy kisses, roaming
hands.
That was how we’d spent most of our time during our
three-month-old relationship – in my bed, in his bed, in the common areas when
we had the house to ourselves. I kept waiting for this to get old, his lips on
mine, but every kiss felt like the first, and like I’d die if it were the last.
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