Then I gasp in shock.
“What?” Ryan demands. “Is he okay?”
Trent walks onto the shore, pushes through the crowd patting him on the back, and makes his way directly to a girl—a tall girl with chestnut brown hair and a sweet smile.
Then he straight-up kisses her.
“What’s happening?!” Ryan shouts at me, getting annoyed.
“Trent kissed a girl!”
“Very funny. Is he okay?”
I turn to Ryan, laughing. “Come here. I know it hurts to stand, but you have to see this! Trent is kissing a girl!”
Ryan moves quick for a guy with a stab wound. He takes the binoculars from me, finds where I’m pointing, and nearly drops them into the water.
“Holy shit,” he mutters numbly.
“Right?”
“Who is that?”
“Amber.”
“Who’s Amber?”
“My friend from the kitchens in the Colony. Trent has met her like one time! Maybe two.”
“I guess he liked what he saw.”
I snatch the binoculars back. “Quit hogging them. I want to see this.”
“Pervert.”
“Yes,” I whisper happily.
I watch Trent bend Amber over backwards, dipping her until she’s nearly horizontal. The best part about it? She’s holding onto him tightly. She’s kissing him back.
“Joss.”
“What?”
When he doesn’t answer me I lower the binoculars.
His warm eyes are glowing with excitement. “Let’s do it.”
“Do what? Jump overboard?”
“No,” he laughs, “the woods. The park. Let’s really do it. Let’s live there. Together.”
The air is too thin. It pinches in my lungs, getting lost down in my stomach and making it bubble nervously.
“You don’t want that,” I protest weakly.
“Yes, I do,” he replies seriously. “I want that more than anything.”
Me too, I think.
So why can’t I say it?
“I’d make a crap roommate.”
He grins. “No worse than Trent.”
I take a step closer to him, my hand gliding along the metal railing toward his. “I can be a jerk.”
“I can handle it.”
I slide my hand closer. My fingertips brush against his. “I can’t cook.”
“I’d never ask you to.”
He slips his fingers between mine, weaving them together.
I blink rapidly. “I can’t live in Crenshaw’s house. I don’t think I can ever set foot in there again.”
“I’ll build you a new one,” he promises, tugging me toward him.
I go willingly, stepping into his space. “I’ll help.”
He smiles. “Is that a yes?”
I take a deep breath, pulling in the air, the sunshine, the water, his eyes. The world. I let it in and I let myself be in it.
I nod my head. I smile.
“Yes.”
He looks so ridiculously happy then, and my heart clenches with a strange joy knowing that I did that. I make him feel that. He looks relieved and light. He looks young, the way he’s supposed to be, the way we’re both supposed to be, and I feel it standing there smiling with him. I feel so many things I never thought I would or could.
I feel loved.
Free.
Wild.
Alive.
Thank you for reading the Survival Series!
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If you’d like to read more of my work, go to the next page for Chapter One of my highly rated Sci-Fi Romance novel, Sleepless.
Prologue
Nick
The first time I saw her, I was dead.
I was rolling down the river with two coins for the Ferryman, heading out onto the infinite, black sea. Worst of all, I was going without a fight.
How she found me is still a mystery or a miracle, depending on your perspective. Any way you slice it, I’m lucky she was there, though showing gratitude for it wouldn’t come easy for a long time after. How she put up with me for as long as she did is pure miracle, no mystery about it. She’s as close to an angel as I’ll ever get. Whenever I think of her, I always remember the way she looked there by the river; long auburn hair, glistening hazel eyes and a T-shirt that read Zombies Hate Fast Food.
When she reached out and took my hand, it shattered my world. Her eyes and the warm press of her skin against mine changed everything. Suddenly I was gasping for breath, fighting for life, and as she lowered her face to within inches of mine, I felt my heart slam painfully in my chest. She parted her lips, making me believe she would kiss me goodbye. If that had been the last sensation I experienced in this world I would have died a lucky man. Instead, she whispered one word against my mouth. One word that would press air into my lungs and pull me back from the void.
“Breathe.”
Then she was gone.
Chapter One
Alex
I wake with a start. My eyes immediately find the black sparrow decals flying across the white paint of the wall beside my bed, calming my racing heart. I trace one with my fingers, smiling at the familiar feel of its edges. This is what I always do. This is how they tell me that I’m home.
I actually hate birds. They’re too quick and erratic with their sharp claws and beaks. They’re like flying, disease carrying knives. But more than anything I hate them because they remind me of the Dragon.
“Are you here?” Cara calls.
“Present and accounted for.” I drop my hand from the bird just as my bedroom door swings open. My sister stands in the doorway. Watching.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“I’m glad you’re home.”
I chuckle quietly. It could go without saying but she says it every time. “Me too.”
“Where’d you go? Do I want to know?”
“Transylvania,” I lie.
“Okay, so I don’t want to know.”
I shake my head. No. She doesn’t want to know.
“I had the Dragon Dream,” I tell her, changing the subject. “It brought me home.”
“The Jabberwocky,” she corrects me quickly.
I roll my eyes. “It’s not the Jabberwocky.”
“I have shown you the pictures. It looks exactly as you described.”
“I know, but—“
“Is it or is it not the spitting image of the Jabberwocky?”
“It is,” I concede, “but how would I have started dreaming of the Jabberwocky when I was four years old? We never had the book.”
“You saw the movie.”
“We’ve talked about this,” I groan. “The Disney Alice doesn’t have the Jabberwocky in it. There’s no way. It’s not him, it’s just a dragon.”
“It’d be cool if you could dream about Pete’s Dragon.”
“Jesus, don’t put the idea in my head!”
“What? He’s friendly! And it’s not like you can Slip to Passamaquody.”
Slip is our word for what I do. For my tendency to fall asleep, dream of New York City and wake up in Times Square in my underwear. My parents called it sleep walking though it’s not at all accurate. It just made it sound normal, made it easier for them. I don’t stand up and walk out the door. When I Slip, I dream of a place then there I am. The base of the Eiffel Tower. The shore on the coast of Ireland. The third baseline at Wrigley Field. While it can take my mind a millisecond to raise familiar images of the Las Vegas strip, it will take me days to return my body home from it. I don’t understand how it happens. No one does. It’s mind over matter to the nth degree. It is unpredictable, terrifying, and most of all, annoying.