Chapter 3

Alex POV

The sharp tang of woodsmoke and dried herbs dragged me back to consciousness.

I wasn't dead. If this were hell, it wouldn't smell this earthy-it would smell of sulfur and regret.

I opened my eyes. Above me, wooden beams stretched across the ceiling, dark with age and soot. I was lying on a narrow cot, covered in a rough wool blanket that smelled of dust.

I tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness slammed into me, pushing me back down against the mattress.

"Easy," a voice said.

I turned my head, fighting the blur in my vision. A young man sat in a chair near a small, crackling fireplace. He looked to be in his early twenties, with dark, messy hair and eyes that seemed far too old for his face. A thick bandage was wrapped around his head, stained slightly with dried blood.

"Who are you?" I rasped. My voice sounded like shredded sandpaper.

"Aaron," he said, his tone hesitant. "I found you on the beach. You were... bad."

I looked down at myself. I was wearing an oversized flannel shirt that wasn't mine, the fabric swallowing my frame.

Then, the memories crashed into me. The cliff. The ocean. The searing pain in my stomach.

My hand flew to my abdomen. The swell was gone. It felt flat. Hollow.

Aaron looked away, staring into the fire as if the flames held the answers. "There was blood," he said softly. "A lot of it. I did what I could, but..."

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to.

A sob ripped through my chest, tearing at my throat. It was a raw, ugly sound. I curled onto my side, burying my face in the scratchy pillow to muffle the scream building inside me. I mourned the child I never got to hold. I mourned the woman I used to be.

Aaron didn't try to comfort me with empty words. He just sat there, a silent witness to my ruin.

Days passed in a gray blur. I learned that we were in a derelict hunting cabin, miles from the nearest town. Aaron had been hiking when he fell and hit his head. He remembered his first name, but nothing else. No last name. No family. No home.

We were two ghosts haunting a shack in the middle of nowhere.

My strength returned slowly, inch by painful inch. But as my body healed, my heart hardened. I stopped crying for Gavyn. I stopped crying for the baby. Tears were a luxury I couldn't afford.

I watched Aaron move around the small space. He was clumsy with his hands, often staring blankly at the walls as if trying to read invisible writing. He was vulnerable. Like a lost puppy.

One evening, a storm rattled the thin windows of the cabin, the wind howling like a dying animal. Aaron huddled in the corner, covering his ears, shaking violently.

I went to him. I sat beside him and wrapped the blanket around his trembling shoulders.

"It's okay," I whispered, my voice gaining a steadiness I didn't feel. "It's just noise."

He looked at me with wide, terrified eyes. "I don't know who I am," he said, his voice trembling. "I don't have anyone."

"You have me," I said. The words came out before I thought them through, but as soon as they hung in the air, I knew they were true.

I looked at this broken boy, and I felt a fierce, protective heat rise in my chest. Gavyn had treated me like a tool. Iliana had treated me like an obstacle.

I wouldn't be a victim anymore. And I wouldn't let this boy be one either.

"We need to leave," I told him the next morning, the sun barely cresting the horizon.

"Where?" he asked, blinking in confusion.

"Anywhere but here," I said. "I have money stashed away in accounts they don't know about. We can start over. I'll be your sister. I'll take care of you."

He nodded, trusting me blindly.

We packed what little we had. I found an old, rusted knife in the kitchen drawer and tucked it into my boot.

As we walked out of the forest and onto the main road, leaving the ocean and my past behind, I felt a shift in the universe.

Alex Dunlap died on that beach.

The woman walking down this road was someone else entirely. And she was ready to burn the world down if she had to.