Free Emerge: The Awakening by Melissa A. Craven Page B

her. She broke away from Lily and ran, screaming with laughter toward two figures in the distance. She screamed for them, her laughter dying, replaced by tears.
    The shadows returned before she could reach them. The hot light preceded each vision and highlighted every significant event of Allie’s life. She revisited her home in Nigeria when she was a baby; she watched the expression on Lily’s face when a local woman took a special interest in Allie. They left for Egypt not long after. Then the Sudan. Joss left home for school in London. She didn’t see her big sister for several years after that. Whenever someone got just a little too close to the young Allie, they left. Seeing it now, it was obvious. They were running—running from those she connected with. Those like Aidan and his family.
    A sudden move to rural Scotland bought them some time when she began school. But one of her classmates made her cry with his strange stories. They left that night for Germany where they spent the next several years bouncing around Eastern Europe. She recalled these memories more easily. They spent a year in Amsterdam when she was only nine, but the new neighbors down the street threatened her family, so they ran again.
    They landed in the Philippines next. Allie fell in love with the ocean there. But they didn’t stay long. Brazil came after, then back to Egypt. Year after year, they stayed on the move, but someone always seemed to take notice of Allie.
    Finally, she saw the little beach house in New Zealand. They spent nearly two years there. Allie vividly remembered the day she and her father came home from a long kayaking trip to find one of Lily’s grad students leaving. She was tall, her dark hair pulled severely back from her perfect face. There was something familiar about the way she moved, graceful and fluid, like she was comfortable with her height and slender limbs. She was angry, afraid and confused all at once. She was searching for something and hadn’t found the answers she wanted.
    They left the next morning for Sydney where Navid became part of Allie’s daily life for the first time in years. He was like the others, but her parents trusted him. He was safe—at least until his last visit. They fled halfway across the world that night.  
    It was all related: the moving, the strange connection she shared with Aidan. His burned, but healed, hands. The things Allie just knew—those things she’d always attributed to her strong intuition. Her parents were aware enough to bring her here, to people she could trust, people who could help her, but she also understood that Aidan and his family didn’t need to know that. 
    This is real.
    Something strange and powerful awoke deep within her. It was both wonderful and frightening at the same time. She couldn’t deny what was happening was positively terrifying, but somehow it was also the most natural thing in the world.
    “Wake up, Lex. You have to fight for it now. You must gain control of that immense power stirring in your chest. You are strong. So much stronger than you know. You can do this!”
    Her body raged, but she still couldn’t speak. She didn’t know how to fight this. She only wanted to sleep.
    “Wake up!” She felt his slap, and her eyelids fluttered, but she couldn’t shake it off.
    “Too much,” she murmured.
    “No, it’s not. It is never more than you can bear. Everyone’s Awakening is different. Mine was violent and lasted twenty-two hours before I fought it off. If I can do it, you can do it.”
    Twenty-two hours! I’ll be nothing but ashes by then!
    “I know you hear me, you stubborn redhead! Come on, Allie, don’t lie down and give up now! That’s not you. Fight it. Take control and end this!”
    How? Whatever this was, it was winning. She fought just to take a breath. Her heart raced like it would beat right out of her chest.
    “Your power is raging inside you. You have to tame it, push it back. If you don’t you’ll never