PROLOGUE
AMIRA
Friday
January 1, 2021
Solime Canyon
Ishouldn’t be here.
I should be in bed, sleeping peacefully next to the man I love, choosing to be ignorant of our situation while snuggling deeply into his core, willing the nightmares to go away.
But I’m not.
Instead, I’m standing in front of the bathroom mirror at two-thirty in the morning, staring at the reflection of a woman I hardly recognize.
The murky, yellow lights deepen the purple bags under my eyes, making them appear dull and sunken in their sockets, worsening the look of my clammy, olive skin.
My hair lies in brittle waves down my chest, curling with barely any life over my protruding rib cage.
Bruises and lesions no longer mar my skin, but I can still feel them. Every lump, bump, and scar that has been imprinted on my soul and burned into my bones, I feel every single one of them.
Gabriel’s death should have been liberating, and for a moment, it was.
For a second, I almost thought that Roman and I were going to have a happily ever after. Our demons aren’t entirely behind us, but they’re not right in our faces.
I felt at peace for about a week. Real, undiluted peace.
Breathing didn’t feel so forced, and laughing came easy.
And then his voice came back, whispering threatening words from beyond the grave, once again destroying everything.
I don’t know what to do.
Roman hates to see me cry, so I do my best to keep it from him, but how do I hide this?
How do I prevent him from seeing the chills that blister my skin whenever I sense Gabriel’s haunting presence somewhere near me?
What do I say when I constantly look over my shoulder and stare at a man who isn’t there?
I feel like I’m going fucking crazy, and there’s no one I can talk to about it.
‘You can talk to me.’
How does this even happen?
“You’re dead,” I say to the man in the mirror behind me.
He looks the same as the day he died, with beady black eyes that glare into the deepest parts of me.
His stare has always touched my soul and turned it black, and even in his death, as an apparition created by my own mind, the look in his gaze stirs the same fear I’ve always felt.
“You’re dead….” I repeat, slamming my eyes shut in the hopes that when I reopen them, everything will be as it should be. Gabriel will be gone, and I get to be happy.
“You’re dead,” I say one last time before opening my eyes.
Tears instantly fall from my face, burning my skin as the tracks scour wounds that never seem to close fully.
