CHAPTER 3

The moment he touches my shoulder, pain explodes through me.

It's not like any pain I've felt before—it's sharp and burning and deep, like something is being carved into my flesh from the inside out. I cry out, stumbling backward, but his hand follows, his grip firm on my shoulder. Through the pain, I feel something else: a strange warmth spreading from where he touches me, and with it, flashes of... something. Memories? Dreams? I can't tell.

A younger version of myself, laughing. Trees rushing past. The feeling of running faster than should be possible. The moon, full and bright overhead. And him—this figure—younger too, smiling at me with a familiarity that makes my heart ache.

"You can't hide from what you are," he says, and his voice is gentle despite the pain he's causing. There's sadness in it, and longing, and something that might be regret. "I've tried to give you time. Tried to let you live a normal life. But they're getting closer, and you need to remember. You need to wake up."

"I don't understand," I gasp, tears streaming down my face from the pain. "Please, I don't—"

"I'll find you again," he says, and now I can see his eyes—dark and intense and filled with something that looks like both promise and threat. "In the waking world. I'll find you, and I'll make you remember. Even if you hate me for it."

The shadow roars behind me, and suddenly the figure releases my shoulder and shoves me backward. "Run!"

And I do.

I run through the circle of pillars, past the ruins, into the darkness beyond. The mist clutches at me like grasping hands, and I can hear the shadow pursuing, its terrible voice calling out words I can't understand. But I can also hear the other voice—his voice—calling my name.

How does he know my name?

"Ava! Ava, wake up!"

I'm running so fast my lungs burn, my legs pumping, my heart threatening to burst from my chest. The ground beneath me shifts and changes—stone to earth to something that feels like sand. I don't dare look back. I can feel them both behind me: the shadow that wants to devour me and the figure that wants... what? To save me? To capture me? I don't know, and the not knowing is almost worse than the fear.

My shoulder throbs with each step, the pain keeping rhythm with my heartbeat. The ruins blur past me, and I realize I'm running in circles, trapped in this place, unable to find a way out. The pillars keep appearing in front of me no matter which direction I turn.

"You can't run from yourself!" the shadow bellows.

"Ava, please!" the figure calls, closer now, so close I can almost feel his breath on the back of my neck.

I push harder, faster, my muscles screaming in protest. The mist grows thicker, and I can barely see three feet in front of me. I'm going to run into something. I'm going to fall. I'm going to—

His hand closes around my wrist.

The world stops. Everything—the shadow, the mist, the ruins, the fear—it all freezes in place. I'm suspended in this moment, his fingers wrapped around my wrist, his face finally, finally clear in front of me.

He's beautiful. The thought comes unbidden, inappropriate given the circumstances, but undeniable. And familiar. So achingly familiar that my chest tightens with a longing I don't understand.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "For all of it. But you need to wake up now. Wake up, Ava. Wake up before they find you here."

The shadow screams, a sound of pure rage, and lunges toward us.

I wake up tangled in the sheets, sweat clinging to my body, gasping for air. My throat is raw like I've been screaming. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my temples, in my fingertips, in every inch of my body. The darkness of my bedroom feels suffocating after the nightmare, and I fumble for my bedside lamp, needing light, needing something real and solid.

"It's just a nightmare," I whisper, trying to steady my breathing and rapid heart rate. My voice shakes. "Just a nightmare. Just a nightmare."

But it's not just a nightmare. It's the same one I've been having for weeks now, each time more vivid than the last, more detailed, more real. And each time, I wake up more exhausted than when I went to sleep, like I really have been running for my life through ancient ruins.

I press my hand to my chest, feeling my heart gradually slow. The relief of being awake, of being safe in my own bed, washes over me. It was just a dream. None of it was real. The pillars, the shadow, the figure—him—none of it was real.

But the relief doesn't last long.

As I shift in bed, trying to untangle myself from the sweat-soaked sheets, a sharp pain lances through my shoulder. The same shoulder he touched in the dream. I freeze, my breath catching, and slowly, reluctantly, I pull down the collar of my sleep shirt.

There, on my shoulder, is a bruise. Dark purple and roughly the size of a handprint, the edges already yellowing. It's exactly where he grabbed me. Exactly where the pain had been.

The nightmares were getting worse, more vivid, more real.

And now I had the bruise to prove it.