Free Eternal Hope (The Hope Series) by Frankie Rose Page A

and light.
    Here, in this new place, there was only the cold and the dark and the stench. And a pair of eyes. They were reflective in the dark, like a cat’s eyes caught in headlights. They looked less startled than that, though. Almost expectant. Farley’s breath came fast and shallow, echoing off the walls. Bare, frigid stone met her fingertips when she fumbled behind her, trying to figure out if she could back away. She couldn’t. The room felt tiny, like a cell. No window, no external light. The cold seemed to pour out of the stone around her, frosting her breath. It wasn’t content with clawing at her skin. It forced its way down her throat, working its way into the very deepest parts of her. Her breathing grew quicker.
    “What do you want?” she croaked.
    The eyes dipped a few inches from where they hovered before rapidly moving forward. She couldn’t do anything but gasp. They paused in front of her, a deep, bottomless brown. Calculating. “Soul Child,” a voice hissed, inches from her skin. The words were liquid ice. They slipped out of the dark and found their way onto her skin, making every hair follicle on her body object and stand to attention.
    “ Sovereign Soul Child,” the voice repeated. The effect the words had were no more comforting the second time around.
    “Leave me alone.”
    The eyes, along with the body they were connected to, moved back a foot. Farley pressed herself back against the rough stone at her back, feeling its surface instantly freeze to her skin. It was as cold as a meat locker in the cell and much, much scarier.
    “I don’t know what you want, but I want to go. Now .” Nothing had ever been normal about these visions, or hallucinations as she’d always thought of them, but this whole experience was wrong. She felt something here in this hidden place that she’d never felt at any other time: she was in danger. Real, you’re in way over your head and going to die danger.
    She swallowed down the desperate urge to scream for help. Enough sense remained amongst all of the panic to know no one was going to hear her. This was the very oldest of places- she could tell. There was no one living down here in the very bowels of the earth’s forgotten basement. And she wouldn’t be if she stayed much longer. A terrified part of her demanded attention. She let it take control.
    “I’m leaving,” she said firmly, feeling each word form like an icicle in the air. The eyes narrowed like regular eyes would if they were attached to a smile. Yet something about their shift in shape made them look sinister and half mad.
    “For now,” the voice told her.
    “For always,” she shot back. There was no way she was ever coming back here. The thought was paralyzing, if only because the cold embrace of the walls called to her. Like she belonged here. “Just stay away from me.”
    A rush of cold air blasted her face, and Farley flinched away from the sudden movement in front of her. The eyes leveled with hers, so close they filled her vision. Surrounding them she made out a sick kind of sallow skin, not white but almost translucent, riddled with fibrous-looking blue veins.
    “I cannot.” The breath on her face stank worse than the lilies; it smelt like death itself. “We are one.”
    *******
     
    The sunlight was a brilliant torch shining straight into her eyes. Farley coughed so hard it felt like she might never breathe again. Her whole body was numb, ice cold.
    “Jeez, Farley… Farley. Look at me!” Daniel looked more afraid than she’d ever seen him before. His hands clawed at her shirt like she was made of sand and he was trying to stop her from crumbling away. She filled her lungs until they promised to burst.
    “Don’t ever, ever do that again. Ever,” he said, yanking her up from the ground where she lay on her back. She felt like a limp rag doll. Daniel crushed her to him, pinning her arms to her sides. She tried to pull back so she could collect herself but she caught sight