Free Awaken by Skye Malone Page B

sideways on the shelf caught my eye and, grinning, I
picked it up to put it in its proper place.
    A shadow moved at the corner of my eye. I
glanced toward it.
    Something slammed into my head.
    Red light and stars burst across my vision
and then the sharp-edged shelves hit me, sending heat rushing down
my face. The world tilted and the ground came next, and pain shot
through my shoulder as it took the brunt of the impact with the
thinly carpeted concrete.
    A shadow fell between me and the glaring
store lights, resolving into messy hair and brilliant blue eyes.
Meaty flesh clamped over my mouth, pressing down on my lips and
nose and choking out any chance of a scream. The other hand grabbed
me, wrenching me up from the floor, and then a tartan-clad arm
wrapped me, crushing my chest. I tried to break the grip, to move
my arms and grab at his face or tear at his hair, but nothing was
responding correctly and the blackened blur of my vision was
devouring everything.
    “Hey!”
    Baylie’s shout was followed by an agonized
scream, and suddenly the grip on me vanished. I plummeted down,
hitting the ground hard enough to make the darkness swirl.
Footsteps thudded past me, and more shouts came, while the ringing
in my ears tried to smother everything in a rush of pain and white
noise.
    “Chloe? Chloe!”
    Fabric pressed to the side of my face and
instinctively, I jerked away. The blackness went to gray, and
through the clouds, I saw Noah crouched beside me.
    “Chloe, can you hear me?”
    I opened my mouth to speak, and choked.
    “Baylie’s calling 911,” he said. “EMTs will
be here soon. Just stay still.”
    Noah looked up at something, and I tried to
follow his gaze. By the stockroom door, Maddox appeared, his face
flushed from running and his expression furious.
    “Got away,” he growled.
    For a moment, he met Noah’s eyes, saying
nothing and through the fog, I couldn’t read the exchange. But then
Noah blinked and looked back down at me.
    “Stay with me, okay?” he urged. “Just hang
on.”
    I shivered. The ringing in my ears was
getting louder, and blackness was creeping back across my gaze.
    And everything hurt. God help me, everything
hurt.
    Blackness swelled. Weights pulled at my
eyelids as the ringing grew louder, drowning the sound of Noah
calling my name and dragging me down till darkness took the pain
away.

Chapter Eight

Zeke

    It’d been a few days since I’d reached Santa
Lucina and I was bored.
    Really bored.
    And I couldn’t get that girl out of my
mind.
    For a while, I’d stayed near the ocean,
wandering between the beach and the water while waiting to see if
there was any change in the latter that would signal she’d
returned. Nothing much had come of it, though. The town was on edge
about something, and the tourists on the beach were less friendly
than usual. Most met any questions I asked with muttered responses
or suspicious replies, while a few had attempted to call the cops,
seeming to find the fact I was looking for an auburn-haired girl
something worth that level of alarm. After the third girl I’d tried
to talk to had been hustled off by her friends – with plenty of
wary glares in my direction – I’d given up and decided to head into
town, just on the off chance I’d see anything.
    Which was when I heard the ambulance.
    I’d been walking past the downtown shops,
enjoying the early morning and hoping to catch a glimpse of that
girl or anyone who might’ve been with her, when the howl of sirens
cut through the air. The sound drew closer and then an ambulance
shot past the intersection in front of me in a blur of white sides
and flashing lights. I followed, and found the vehicle pulling to a
stop only a few hundred yards down the street.
    I hung back, studying them from the corner.
People rushed from the ambulance and ran into the store, while
several others jogged to the back of the vehicle and threw open the
doors to retrieve supplies. My brow furrowed as I watched them race
in