Free Emerge: The Awakening by Melissa A. Craven

like this.
    “You’ve got to be kidding me, Alexis Ann! Do you do everything the hard way?” He scooped her up like a rag doll. “You need to trust me, hospitals aren’t going to help.” His face grew blurry and his voice distant.
    “Aidan, I—” Her words came out with a strangled choke. A spasm ripped through her body, stealing her breath.
    I have to get out of here! She needed fresh air. Needed to clear her head. To think. She struggled out of his arms and shakily rose to her feet. The room swirled as nausea threatened to overwhelm her. She stumbled for the door. The wind whipped her hair around her face. The sky was an eerie red with strange clouds. The ominous storm she’d dreaded was closing in on her.
    “Allie! Stay with me!” Aidan’s voice echoed weirdly. She felt the sting of his slap to her cheek. Then she was running, her heart pounding in her chest. Allie stumbled along the path through the woods—their favorite running trail, where they first met. The gusting wind stirred the trees, but did nothing to alleviate the burning fever blazing hot inside her core.
    It’s a nightmare. I’m back in Aidan’s warm bed having a scary dream. She tried convincing herself with a pinch. Nothing. She was still running. He pursued her, but she couldn’t control the anxiety rising within her. She feared what would happen when he caught her. She heard his voice. Naeemah’s too.
    “Allie!” She sounded faint. “I heard her scream. It’s started so early and with such a vengeance.”
    “She’s fallen into the trance already,” Aidan said.
    “I had hoped she would sleep through the beginning at least. I suppose it is fortunate she has fallen so soon. She will think she dreams. It will be a long day. Are you certain you can do this for her, son?”
    “I can handle it.”
    “She must let it happen, and then she must fight for control.”
    “I know.”
    Allie lifted her tear-streaked face to the sky but couldn’t feel the wind on her face. Gripped in terror, she couldn’t think, couldn’t react. She wasn’t alone. Someone chased her. The sensation was familiar. Just like the morning she met Aidan. He pursued her now, but this time she saw his face and it frightened her. He was a stranger. His friendly brown eyes were cold and hard, with a shifting golden light reflected in their depths. She heard a scream—possibly her own, but didn’t recall making the sound. She ran faster as the perversion of Aidan closed in on her. The lake at her right, and the dense forest at her left, she had no escape as the storm closed in on her.
    The spike of pain drove into her skull and she stumbled to the ground, spewing the contents of her stomach. Early morning fog swirled around her, hiding her from sight. Allie’s hands fisted in the rich soil. It called to her somehow. A burst of sunlight shone through the clouds and it lifted her soul. Her body churned and shifted, but the pain of it held her rooted where she crouched. Tilting her face to the sky, the sun warmed her and gave her the strength to face him. He would find her soon and she would be ready. The storm wouldn’t hold back much longer.
    She stood her ground, her face twisted in anguish, forever frozen in that moment of transformation, her body stiff and immobile, but still a raging tempest within. She saw Aidan now—his expression full of loss and regret. He did not catch her in time. Her metamorphosis complete, she had escaped him. Lifting her arms to the sky, she felt one moment of sweet relief and then the red clouds had her.  
    “Lex, I know you can hear me!” His voice came to her now, full of concern. This was her Aidan, not the monster that chased her. “Don’t resist me.” She felt his hands encircle hers, but she was lost in the darkness, no longer in the forest. She drifted.  
    The heat came first, then rage, as some intrusive force pressed against her mind. She recoiled from his touch.
    “Easy, Allie. I know it goes against the grain,