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Prologue
“Let go of her!”
BANG.
“Dad!”
Infernal flames licked the sky, embers and ash spitting like fallen stars. Red seeped into the ground, drowning the jagged blades of grass. The cold nights air turning sour, now swarming with soot and ash that smeared across my face, and buried itself in my lungs. Suddenly, an arm hooked around my waist with an iron grip, dragging me from the house engulfed in flames. Screams being the only thing to escape it.
I begged for my dad but he didn’t move, I cried for my mother but she never came, nor did my brother.
“Get her in the car!” A gruff voice yelled.
“Mum!” I screamed.
“Put her with the rest!”
BANG.
BANG.
“Run!” Someone grabbed my arm.
Fear was the only thing running through my veins as the cold air bit at my skin.
“Argent!”
I shot up in bed, my breathing ragged as I clawed at my neck, the taste and stench that once consumed it now gone, replaced with nothing but softness and warmth. That night I’d been surrounded by people but now, I only had the soft patter of rain on the window for company.
I shakily slipped out of bed, finding comfort in the plush cushions on the window seat. The stars twinkling through the tears in the clouds, the full moon reigning atop.
My nightmares had been more vivid recently and unfortunately, not all of them were works of fiction. I was there the night of the Hale fire, I couldn’t remember how it started but whenever I thought about it, all I could see was flames and all I could hear, were screams.
Even though we fled a few weeks after it happened and the events themselves, happened years ago, I knew the loss of the Hale pack still haunted my parents. We’d moved to Red Rock to be with my mother’s family, but then moved back a few years later. I was never privy to the reason, I was too young, but I had a feeling it had something to do with my dad. He’d never forgotten, he couldn’t – he was Talia Hale’s Guardian after all.
