Into the Fading Twilight (Starlight Grove #2)

Prologue

Nova

EVERYTHING HURT. SO MUCH THAT I COULDN’T IDENTIFY all the places the pain had made a home in me. And maybe that was for the best. The agony had become more of a dull ache because it was so ever-present.

My stomach cramped as if to call me a liar. Hunger. I could still feel that. But the food the man had left me was long gone now. Days ago. And the water … Did I drink the last of that?

I thought I had, but it was too much effort to roll over and see. Some part of me knew I needed to fight. To harness that spirit within me—the one that had carried me through the days and nights of fear and torture. But it felt like a ghost now.

I rolled to my back on the forest floor, the chain clanging with the movement—the same chain I’d carried with me for countless days and nights.

They hadn’t started out immeasurable, though.

At first, I’d been meticulous about marking the moments, never losing sight of the time that had been stolen from me.

I’d memorized the tally of each dusk and dawn by the slivers of light around my prison door, the count branded on my bones.

But I’d stopped at some point. I thought it was at three hundred and twelve—the number that had beaten me.

Maybe because it was so close to a year, and that fact had been too difficult to bear.

We’d passed the year mark now, for sure. And my captor bringing me out to the woods and leaving me chained to a tree wasn’t exactly a good sign.

He’d left me before, but it was always in the underground cell. It was a hell of a mindfuck when you started wishing for the person who’d stolen everything from you to appear again—when the master of your pain was who you hoped to see.

Then he’d show up, and I’d swallow those words whole. His torment wasn’t always physical, though he did like to use his fists. But where he really shined was in the emotional. Letting me know all the ways everyone had moved on without me. My friends. My family—not that they’d ever cared.

His manipulations were his true weapons—the kind of manipulations that made you want to give up.

I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to force the memories from my mind. I thought about my best friend, Brae, and her son, who was like a nephew to me. I tried to imagine Owen a year older now. What teeth had he lost? What color were his new glasses?

I held the last images I had of them in my mind as my eyelids fluttered open. The light hurt after all my time in the dark, but I stared up through the tree branches. Little particles of light twinkled and danced in the twilight like they were floating on air.

Or were those snowflakes? Was it snowing?

My mind struggled to process that. It didn’t seem right. I was hot. My skin felt like it had been fried and burned. But those looked like snowflakes. All around. Like I was in a snow globe.

A sound pierced my ears, and I tried to lift my head but couldn’t quite make it happen. Everything was too heavy, which was probably a good thing. I didn’t want to see the man again. I didn’t want to hear his cruel words or feel his fingers tightening around my neck as he squeezed.

A twig snapped. I heard footsteps.

Maybe it was a bear. Part of me hoped it was, that this would all be over.

Snowflake lights danced around me. Beautiful. It would be a beautiful way to go.

A curse sounded, and the footsteps quickened. And then a face filled my vision. Not the man. Someone else.

This was a man, too. But breathtaking. He didn’t have hate in his dark-hazel eyes, even as they sparked with anger. His dark hair looked as if he’d run his fingers through it countless times. And his skin was the kind of golden color that spoke of many hours spent outdoors.

“Nova?”

The single word was deep. Gruff. Ragged.

And it was also my name. How long had it been since I’d heard it? The man didn’t call me by my name. Maybe because he didn’t consider me human.

But this man? He said my name. Said Nova. He knew who I was.

Another few curses slid from his mouth, but they somehow managed to be beautiful. Breathtaking, just like the man.

A backpack slid from his shoulders, and he pulled something from it. A device. He hit some buttons on it, then pressed it to his ear. A phone. But it had a long antenna, as if it were from the nineties or something.

A second later, he was barking orders. “I’ve got an injured female. Late twenties.”

He pressed two fingers into the side of my neck. I wanted to thrash. Not my neck. But the pain didn’t come. Just gentle pressure.

“Pulse is slow. She’s critical.” That dark-hazel gaze roamed over and past me. “Bring bolt cutters. She’s chained to a goddamned tree.”

He listed off a series of numbers, and my eyes started to flutter again. The snow that I knew wasn’t snow danced now, and it really was stunning.

“Nova!”

My name was a command, a demand for my presence.

My eyelids flipped open, and I took in the beauty above me.

“You stay with me, okay? Don’t go to sleep. Help’s on the way. You just stay with me.”

Everything was heavy now. It was all too much. “Let go.”

It was the first time I’d heard my voice in months. And the lack of use rang through in the two syllables. Like a door rusted closed now forced to open.

“What?” His voice was quieter. Softer.

“Let … me … go.” It was what I needed. To finally be released. To go with the snowflakes. They would carry me away, and I would finally feel peace.

A hand slid through mine. “Nova. You’re going to live, okay? You’re alive. You’re breathing. And you’re going to fight for that. You’ve got so much to live for.”

But I didn’t feel that. I didn’t feel it one bit. All I felt was pain. It was stronger now. And I couldn’t bear it anymore.

He squeezed my hand. “Brae’s been looking for you. She never gave up. Never stopped.”

My best friend’s name. The promise of her. The one person who’d stuck by me through thick and thin. It sparked something deep inside me.

The kind man gripped my hand even harder. “You’re alive. You’re breathing. Just keep breathing, Nova. Keep breathing.”

Something about the desperation in his voice, the pleading there, made me want to fight. But it was too little too late. I was too far gone.

I slid under, but the snowflakes met me there. And they carried me, just like I knew they would.