I’m lying on a stretcher, but I don’t know where I am. I’m not in the medical tent the town fair provides—I’ve had the displeasure of meeting Mrs. Vincent there before. Everything’s fuzzy, and my eyes won’t focus.
Maybe I’m in a medical van?
It’s too nice to be an ambulance. It’s private. Professional. The kind of setup that screams money and preparation.
The kind of setup a stalker in one of my novels would have, but with more details than I could have dreamed up on my own.
Can I take pictures of this thing to refer back to later?
I bet Rip would?—
I search for Rip, my assigned bodyguard for the day, but even with blurry eyes, I can tell he’s nowhere to be found.
“What—” My voice comes out wrecked. Like the morning after hardcore drinking and not enough water. “What happened?”
And why won’t Valen look at me?
Madi shoves him aside and grips my shoulders. “Oh my God, you scared us to death.”
My lungs burn. They scream with the need for air.
“You fainted.” Elle appears next to Madi, her red hair wild and her face drawn tight into a frown. “We’re at the fair, remember? Near the food vendors? Everything was fine until you saw—” She glares at Valen, who’s backed himself against the side of the van like he’s afraid to get too close. “You saw him and just…dropped.”
Right. The town fair. Not my stalker.
The memories crash back in violent waves.
Music. Laughter. Hordes of fairgoers. The smell of fried dough. I’d been arguing with Greyson about something stupid—trying not to think about the new package Rip found on my back porch this morning. The one with the note that said,The Deadly Vow of the Haunted Angel.
The tiny heart monitor attached to me pings loudly as the next memory clobbers me upside the head.
Then there was Valen.
He walked toward us while scanning the crowd with the focused intensity of someone trained to spot threats.
Valen Stone.
Older. Broader. Like someone had taken the boy I knew and carved him into a man made from granite and shadows.
But it was his eyes that pushed me over the proverbial edge into literal unconsciousness.
They’re blue, like a cloudless summer sky. Those eyes used to watch me talk to bees while simultaneously absorbing my fears—it was the only time I felt safe.
Today, he looked right at me.
Right through me.
Like I was nothing.
And then—darkness.
Madi squeezes my hand. “He carried you over here.”
My gaze snaps to Valen. He’s inching away from us—from me, hands shoved deep into his pockets while his jaw works through whatever he’s unwilling to say.
He carried me.
Those hands—the ones that used to hold mine while we hid—lifted me when I fell.
