Gasps

Love can hit you when you least expect it. It could be a soft easy wind that caresses you and gets stronger over time till it absorbs into your body and heart. Other times it can hit you like a gale-force wind and take every breath you will ever have. Laken stole my breath. She was my gale-force wind, and I will gladly give her every breath I have just to keep her safe, alive, and mine. If I have to live without her then I don’t want my breath. I don’t want anything but her. I will go to hell and back to get her from the grips of death.

The first sign wasn’t the deaths. It was the air. When twenty-five-year-old ER doctor Naomi Sinclair notices healthy people collapsing for no medical reason, she expects to find a virus, a toxin, or something medicine can explain. Instead, every test points to the impossible. Her patients are breathing. Their blood carries oxygen. Yet their bodies are dying as if they never inhaled a single breath. As panic spreads across New York and all over the world, a powerful company called Aelion introduces a revolutionary device that seems to keep people alive when nothing else can. At the center of it is Aiden Vale, a calm, brilliant executive who always seems to arrive with exactly what the world needs. The more Naomi works beside him, the harder it becomes to ignore the connection growing between them and the questions she can’t stop asking. Then a scientist disappears after revealing a terrifying discovery on live television. Mysterious warnings begin appearing in Naomi’s life. Overnight, the impossible becomes ordinary, and she soon realizes the greatest threat may not be the people who are dying, but the reason they’re dying at all. As the air grows deadlier and the line between salvation and deception begins to blur, Naomi must decide who to trust before every breath becomes a luxury. But when the person holding the answers is also the man she’s falling in love with, how do you save the world without losing your heart… or your very last breath?

I had always been fragile, the kind of kid who could not handle a gust of wind without losing balance and who teared up over the smallest thing. The day my biological parents found me and took me back into their wealthy world, everything had already felt unreal. Then, things got worse. Out of nowhere, an old woman came sprinting down the street and dropped right in front of the Bentley, like she had timed it perfectly. I panicked and completely froze, so I did the only thing I could think of. I dropped down beside her and started crying. However, I overdid it. I cried so hard that blood started streaming from my eyes. The old woman jolted upright like she had seen something horrifying. She shoved 500 dollars into my hands, muttered a string of curses, and ran off without looking back. Just like that, I was back with the Snyder family. The house rose in front of me, all polished stone and perfectly kept lawns, like something out of a magazine. However, the closer I got, the more my nerves kicked in, and that familiar metallic taste crept up my throat again. The so-called heir walked over, smiling like we were supposed to be close. Then, he gave me a light shove. He leaned in, his voice low enough that only I could hear. "Stay in your place. Don't start wanting things that were never yours." Right there, in front of everyone, I leaned back and collapsed. I did not move at all. He froze. His face turned red as he grabbed my collar and shook me. "Quit pretending. Get up!" A few seconds passed, then a few more, before he slowly turned his head, his movements stiff. Tiny drops of blood speckled his clothes. His voice trembled. "Mom… Dad… I think…" He swallowed hard. "I think he stopped breathing."

I was born with a rare condition. My blood carried healing properties strong enough to neutralize any poison. When Garrett Frank, the young heir from Osbury, was bitten by a venomous snake, he was hanging by a thread. In that desperate moment, I slit my wrist and used my blood to cleanse the venom from his body. Only later did I find out that whoever saved Garrett's life would become the future Mrs. Frank. But after Garrett took over the family business, the first thing he did was drain every drop of blood from my body and have me chopped up and fed to his dogs. "At that time, Loretta had already brought the antidote," he had said coldly. "If you had just waited another five minutes, I could've married her openly and honorably. "But you had to interfere. You stole her place as Mrs. Frank, drove her into despair, and pushed her to take her own life. Since you claim your blood can cure any poison, let's see how much antidote it can make." They bled me dry and threw me into a cage for his dogs. I died there, torn apart and unrecognizable. Afterward, my parents went bankrupt because of the Franks. Both of them took poison and died together. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Garrett had been bitten by the snake. Michelle Frank, Garrett's mother, looked at me with desperate hope. "I heard you have that rare healing blood," she said. "Will you please save my son?" I quickly shook my head. "That's just a rumor, Mrs. Frank. And honestly, using blood as medicine sounds pretty unsanitary. Please don't worry. I heard Ms. Huber is on her way with a special antidote. Your son will be fine!" Still, a small part of me couldn't help looking forward to what would happen. If I didn't step in this time, Garrett wouldn't just fail to inherit the family business—he'd be lucky to live another month!

I become a firefighter after getting abandoned by my ex-wife, who's a domestic abuser. At first, I think my fiancee, the heroic Captain Cassadee Flack, will be my salvation. But at the blazing scene, the warehouse explodes for the second time due to the scorching temperature. What makes things worse is that the oxygen in my tank will deplete soon. I reach out to Cassadee for help, only to witness her passing the last spare oxygen tank to Colin Halfpenny, the teammate standing next to her. "This is Colin's first time entering a blazing scene. He's terrified, whereas you have enough experience under your belt to deal with this situation. You should hang on for a while longer." I'm choking on so much thick smoke to the point that I almost suffocate from it. Angered, I point at the blinking red light on the control panel. "If I keep suffering from the lack of oxygen, my brain will eventually die! This is the standard procedure of a rescue mission!" Cassadee wears an impatient look. "Why are you being this petty? I promised Colin's dad, who sacrificed himself for me, that I'd take good care of Colin! Can't you be more empathetic? "I thought you could endure pain the best! Back then, you didn't even let out a groan when your ex-wife broke your rib! How is it possible that you can't endure such a small difficulty in this mission? "I finally understand what kind of person you actually are! Someone who's grown up in nothing but pain and misery is bound to be selfish!" I no longer utter a single word to Cassadee. Instead, I use all of my strength to press the emergency SOS button on my helmet. "Command center, please send help immediately. The on-site commander has demonstrated severe misjudgment in handling the situation. I request compulsory intervention."

We felt abandoned and betrayed by the girl we grew up protecting alongside her twin brother, but he is gone. It's been almost four years and she has returned with a fire she did not possess before. She is back and she is ours. The best way to protect her from our enemies is to being her into C.H.A.O.S.