The Forsaken Saga Complete Box Set (Books 1-4)

by Sophia Sharp

  My eyes rolled to the back of my head and I convulsed uncontrollably. I wanted to pull away, but my body was no longer mine. Blood boiled in my skull, and an immense pressure built in my head. Heat seared the marrow of my bones as waves of fire crashed into me. I knew heat and darkness. My insides boiled with pure chaos. Pain ran through my bones, and it felt like they were being melted in the flesh. I wanted to scream, to run, to get away, but I could not. The fire was already within. I could not get away.

  My flesh burned. All my nerves fired with the purest agony. I knew heat, and nothing more. The flesh scorched off my arms, my face, my legs. A thousand needles pierced my skull in lurid flashes of red. I wanted to scream, to howl, to shriek against the pain that held me, but sound would not come. Jolts of agony raced up and down my arms, and I was helpless to stop it. I felt my soul slowly being turned to ash.

  I was on the edge of death. The heat. Oh, the heat! I could not breathe, as even the air turned to liquid fire in my throat. I was in the worst kind of peril. I opened my mouth to scream, but my lungs found only smoke. I was on the brink of a fiery embrace.

  The world turned to cruel black laced with the red of fire.

  Chapter Fifteen – A Shadowy Abyss

  My lungs worked desperately to gulp down air. Warm air came, and I sucked it in greedily through a raw throat. One last convulsion rocked my body, and I was still.

  I was on all fours. My head was filled with agony. My heart pounded thunderously in my chest, desperately trying to rip through the flesh. But every pulse was a victory. I had been to the edge and survived.

  Slowly, sensation returned to the rest of my body. A dull buzzing sounded in my ears. The pain from before was gone, but its memory remained. My body felt like it had been wrecked by a thousand switches. Every muscle was tender and soft. The buzzing in my ears began to retreat, replaced by odd commotion. I thought I heard… screaming… in the distance, but it was faint; an echo, a whisper. Not fully there.

  I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids did not immediately respond. Feeling came back to my hands first. The floor beneath me felt warm. Warm? A wave of heat slammed into my back, and I gasped. My eyes shot open. Vision brought to life the scene that was before me.

  Fire! There was fire everywhere. Flames engulfed everything around me. They licked the wood, danced over walls of the tiny room. Flames illuminated the entire chamber. There was smoke, too, and it stung my eyes. I tried to breathe, but the air was too thick, too full of smoke. I took it in anyway, and smoky soot filled my lungs. I coughed violently. Screams were coming from far away, but they were drowned out by the crackling of the flames around me. Waves of heat continued to assault my exposed skin. Arthur was nowhere to be found. I was alone, on the floor in the room where Arthur had brought me. I was in danger. I had to get out.

  I scrambled up into a crouch. My muscles felt like jelly. Every motion put me in danger of falling over. The tiny room was completely engulfed in flames. The papers on the desk were burning. The sheets on the bed were afire. The door was the only way out, but the whole frame was ablaze. Waves of heat from the flames slammed into me relentlessly. For a moment, I stood frozen in fear. But survival instinct kicked in, and I ran through the door, shielding my face.

  Outside, the entire hallway was in flames. The massive conflagration gave lots of light, but the smoke that had built up smothered most of it. There was ash and soot everywhere. I lifted my dress over my mouth to filter the air, but it didn’t help much. Panic-stricken, I fled forward.

  The hallway was not as straight as I remembered. Doorways lined the sides, and all were completely engulfed in flames. I ran straight, toward the screaming. That was where people were. I had to get to the lower levels.

  Heat beat at my face as I ran. I could barely keep my eyes open against it. The way I thought I had come in lay open. I raced and reeled toward it. I burst out the entrance, and found myself in the clubhouse. Nobody was there, but I recognized the charred remains of the couches along the walls. Flames danced wickedly above me, threatening at any moment to singe my hair, to consume me. I ran as fast as my legs would go. The main doors were open, thankfully, but the wooden stairway that led up here was engulfed in black smoke. I remembered the steps were made of wood. I could not see through the smoke. There was no way of knowing if they were still intact. I swung my head wildly, looking for another way out. There was none. The stairwell was my only choice.

  Keeping my eyes open would make no difference, so I closed them and, praying the steps wouldn’t collapse, sprinted down. Smoke was building up in my lungs. Every second I spent here it was becoming harder and harder to breathe. To my infinite relief, I made it down the stairs in one piece. But the conflagration was even worse down here.

  There were flames everywhere. Huge flames. Flames that danced well over my head. And the air was even hotter. If I didn’t get out soon, I didn’t know if I could make it. I had to find a path through the fire, but could not see one. Flames beat all around me menacingly, wickedly, threateningly.

  Suddenly I remembered the crystal around my neck. In the confusion, I had forgotten all about it. It could let me sense a way out! I grabbed it, and, as I had many times before, opened my mind to its power… and nothing happened. The crystal might as well have been a lead weight. Desperate, I tried again. Again, nothing happened. The link would not come.

  Smoke billowed around me, fueling my urgency. Screams continued from far away. Panic and fear swelled within me. I had to move, but I did not know which way. Direction was meaningless in the fire. Without the crystal, I may as well have been blind. I did not have time to lose. Soon, I would choke to death on the smoke. Standing still was the worst thing I could do.

  Picking at random, I began to weave through the flames. The air was growing hotter by the second. I did not think I would last long. There was nobody here, nobody to guide me. I was on my own. Dread and hopelessness started to mushroom inside me. If I couldn’t find a way out—

  A pillar crashed to the floor in front of me, and I screamed. If I had taken one more step I would have been right beneath it. My heart was pounding out of my chest. A gust of cold air swept in, giving welcome relief from the heat. The flames were hampered slightly, and for a split-second I thought I saw the way out. Joy overwhelmed me, but that joy lasted only a second as I realized what the gust of air meant. The roof was collapsing!

  I had to get out now. I heard sirens in the distance, but they were too far away to do me any good. I could not rely on anyone to come and save me. I had to save myself. I turned and ran the way I thought led to safety.

  Not twenty paces away, I slammed face-first into a solid brick wall. Disoriented and confused, I spun around – and all I saw was fire. Flames were everywhere. The building groaned, and I heard another pillar crash not far away. The heat was mounting. The flames were getting closer and closer. I took a step forward, to try to get away, and a particularly nasty flame gushed in toward my face. I screamed and fell back, narrowly avoiding being burned. The victory was short-lived as I came to the horrifying conclusion that I was trapped. The fire had circled around to trap me against the solid wall. There was no way out. Desperately, I tried the crystal again. And again, it would not come. I was too tired, too drained to muster the strength to use it. I sank uselessly to the floor. This was going to be it. There was no way out. Mere seconds from now, I would plunge into the fiery abyss of death. There’d be no returning after that. No coming back from that.

  I thought I would sob when it came time to die. But that was not what I felt. Instead, there was a strange… emptiness… inside. There was no fear, only a vague sort of apprehension about the manner of death. But after the pain I had experienced from the red crystal, even that wouldn’t be so bad. The only thing I regretted, I realized now, was that I never had a chance to discover my feelings for… Rob. He was who my thoughts went to now. I had always known there were feelings there, but I had suppressed them for one reason or another. I never had a chance to exp
lore them, to find out what they meant – if they meant anything at all. Rob sparked something within me, and in these last few days, that tiny seed had taken root in my soul and had begun to grow. Maybe it would have withered and died. Maybe it would have blossomed into something beautiful. Now, I would never know. That was the only sadness that came with death. I had never known true love. And whether Rob was the one to provide that or not, I’d never even had a chance…

  Smoke started to fill my lungs, and I found it harder and harder to breath. The flames that surrounded me didn’t seem to want to come any closer. It was almost as if they were taunting me with the inevitability of their embrace. But maybe suffocation was preferable to a burning death. Asphyxiation, all of a sudden, didn’t seem like such a bad way to go. I felt myself drift away. My eyes shuttered to a close. The sensation of heat against my skin began to fade. I slowly floated toward a shadowy abyss…

  Something slammed into me. I felt myself being picked up. Suddenly, I was being carried away. I tried to open my eyes, but they would not comply. I heard the thumping of footsteps, and the strain of labored breathing above me. Someone had me cradled in their arms. They were running. The roar of the fire continued unabated. But, I felt… safe… in those arms. For the first time in what seemed like ages, I could relax. All the troubles of the world faded away as I drifted for a blissful black.

  ***

  I came to with a gasp. Fresh air rushed to fill my lungs, and I gulped it down hungrily. Cool, fresh, clean air! It seemed a miracle.

  It took me a second to realize I was outside. I was lying on a firm surface. Stars twinkled in the clear night sky above me. My hands grasped at the ground. I felt blades of grass between my fingers. Grass! I never thought something so simple would leave me so thrilled. I was overjoyed. I was outside! I had survived! But… how? I thought back, but couldn’t remember much. The last thing I recalled was closing my eyes and accepting the inevitability of death…

  “Tracy! You’re awake!” My head jerked toward the voice. Rob was standing beside me. Relief shone on his face like a beacon. He fell to his knees, and his hands found my shoulders to help me sit up. Rob? What was he doing here?

  “What… happened?” I asked. I could remember… thinking… something about him in those last few moments before what seemed to be a certain death. What it was exactly? I could not recall! I looked around. We were on a dark grassy plain on the bank of a river. There was a road behind us. I could hear cars passing either way. I looked to my left, and saw a footbridge going across the river to the other side, and a second one farther away. We were shrouded in darkness. The only light came from the stars. Surprisingly, there was no one else here. It was just me and Rob in the night.

  “There was a fire,” Rob said gravely. “In the Owl. The whole building burned down. It started minutes after we got inside.”

  “I remember,” I said. I did, but my memory was unusually hazy. “How did I… get here?”

  “When we got out, none of us could find you anywhere. Liz was the last to see you, and she thought you might still be inside. When I heard that, I had no other choice. I ran in, and—”

  “You what?” I exclaimed.

  “I ran in,” he repeated calmly. “The fire was about to take the whole building, and I had to find you. The thing went up in flames so quickly it was like it was drenched in gas. In the commotion, in the confusion, anyone could have been left behind. And since you weren’t outside…” he shrugged. “Well, it’s not like I had a choice. When I ran back in, I just followed my instincts. It was as if… as if something led me to you. Almost as if fate intervened. I know it sounds crazy, but the moment I stepped foot into the building, I knew exactly where you were… and lucky for me, I found you.”

  I stared at him in stupefied awe. My mouth was hanging open. “You risked your life for me?” I couldn’t even find the words to describe what that meant. “You big idiot! Why would you do that?”

  “I care about you,” he admitted.

  “You do?”

  “You didn’t know that?” He sounded hurt. “Why else would I have come? Why else would I leave Oliver Academy? My parents are paying almost their entire yearly salary to keep me there. I’ve only known you for a few months, Tracy. But, ever since the day we met, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

  I gaped in surprise. This was a revelation. He was thinking about me? Me? Why? What was so special about me that deserved Rob’s attention? All the girls at Oliver Academy would give an arm and a leg to spend just one evening with him, and for some senseless reason he had decided to give me his attention?

  “But, Liz…” I began uncertainly. “I thought we were… you know… just friends?”

  “Just friends?” he chuckled. “Tracy, the way I feel about you isn’t an accident. The only reason I stayed friends is in the hopes that someday you might notice, and maybe… feel the same way about me back?”

  The way he said that was so sweet, so innocent, so sincere. I couldn’t restrain myself. I grabbed his hair and pulled him in for the greatest kiss of my life. Our lips met. All the repressed feelings I had for him exploded into being. I curled my fingers in his hair, sucked his breath in as mine. Our lips moved together in perfect synchronicity. Time seemed to stand still, and everything faded to the background of the moment. Nothing mattered except Rob’s lips on mine. There was no tenderness on his part, only raw and unbridled passion, unleashed for the first time. His hand went to the small of my back, and he pulled me close to him, closer and closer, until our bodies were so tight against each other I could barely breathe. And still he kissed me more, and I reciprocated in kind. All the carnal tension that had been building between us, the tension I didn’t even know existed, was suddenly unleashed like fireworks exploding in the night sky. I could climb all over him, press him to the ground and—

  He let me go, and I gasped for air. In the silence that followed, all I could hear was my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Rob looked at me, and his lips were curled in an amused smile. His eyes held the twinkle of a joke he wouldn’t share.

  “Wow,” I finally breathed. My heart was still fluttering like a hummingbird in my chest. “That was…”

  “Amazing?” Rob finished.

  “Yeah,” I sighed. Suddenly I remembered what my last thoughts had been when I thought I would die in the fire. They were about Rob, about the connection that I missed. There was no uncertainty about its existence now. Rob had pulled me out of the fire. He had given me a second lease on life. I would not make the mistake of keeping my feelings suppressed again. “Did you really mean what you said earlier?” I asked, as if the kiss hadn’t been proof enough. “About how you couldn’t stop thinking about me?”

  “I meant every word,” he laughed. He tenderly pushed aside a strand of my hair.

  “And you risked your life in the fire for me?”

  “I would rather die,” he answered quite matter-of-factly, “than lose you.”

  “You idiot,” I said. “You don’t even know me. How can you say that?”

  “Sometimes,” he answered, “there’s just no logic to our feelings.” He bent down to kiss me again.

  This time, there wasn’t quite the same passion, but it was still absolutely electric. The first kiss, well… that had been something. I wrapped my hands around his neck and clung onto him long after our lips had parted.

  For a while, we just sat there, staring into the night. I sighed contently. Rob had saved me twice, and risked his life doing so. He admitted his thoughts turned to me when he was alone. Why had I been so dumb that I couldn’t see it earlier? Now that I knew how he felt, everything made sense. Why he returned to my room after imprisoning the attacker, why he spent the night. Why he left Oliver Academy to come with us on this crazy journey – without even knowing what it was about! I cursed myself for being so stupid. How much had I missed by being too thick to see what was clearly in front of my eyes the entire time? How many blissful days could I have spent in Rob’s
arms, how many nights in his bed, had I not been so utterly blind? I promised myself never to make that mistake again. I promised to myself, here and now, that I would never let him go.

  It was only when my heart stopped beating as if I had run a marathon that my thoughts returned to the fire. The fire, the aftermath, the red crystal… all of it left questions in my mind. I hated to break the moment with Rob, but now that our feelings were out in the open, I was sure we would have plenty more time together. “Hey,” I asked softly, “what happened to the others after the fire?”

  “Hmm?” Rob seemed just as content in his own thoughts as I was in mine. He turned his head and looked down. “Oh. They’re all safe. All of them got out. The girls went back to the hotel to meet John. After I got you, the police arrived, and they started asking questions about the fire. Apparently, our group stood out from other people at the party, for whatever reason. They were asking questions directly about us, and we thought it was best… well, because of everything that’s happened… to avoid attracting attention. I brought you here, and the others slipped back to the room.”

  “And Arthur?” I asked. “Do you know what happened to him?”

  Rob frowned. “Was he there?”

  “He was,” I confirmed. I still remembered the terrifying way he looked at me, the way his eyes pierced into my skull. “I…uh… spoke to him, right before the fire started.”

  I felt Rob tense beside me. “You did?”

  “Nothing happened,” I said hastily. “Except… he knew about what I could do.”

  “You told him?”

  “No. He just knew, somehow. I didn’t say anything. He had another crystal. A red one. He took me to a back room and asked me what I could feel. I touched it, and… and the next thing I knew, I came to on the floor, with the fire raging around me.”

  “If he put you in any danger…” Rob started to say with deadly intensity.