Falling Under (A Falling Under Novel, Band 1) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gwen Hayes lives in the Pacific Northwest with her real life hero and a pack of wild beasts (two of whom she gave birth to). She is a reader, writer, and lover of pop culture (which, other than yogurt, is the only culture she gets).

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER ONE

Everything changed the night I saw the burning man fall from the sky.

I'd been reading well past a reasonable hour, the white eyelet quilt tented over my iPhone to block any escaping light even though my father was already tucked away in bed dreaming of new ways to make me safer.

The cell phone was a compromise—I added extra music lessons to my scarce free time in exchange for a phone. It was win-win for Father; the few hours a day I wasn't with him or sheltered in the safety of my pink and ivory room, decorated by a prestigious designer to gild my cage, I was now instantly accessible. In addition, there were now even fewer hours in which I might find trouble. He didn't know I could read e-books on the phone; he didn't even know what e-books were. Father just thought he'd finally broken me of reading by flashlight.

It would never have occurred to him that I hadn't been broken—I'd graduated. Every night I went somewhere new and pretended to be someone else—someone interesting—on the device he'd purchased to control me more than he already did. A priceless freedom to a girl with a strange British accent living in the small town of Serendipity Falls, California, under her watchful father's thumb.

But the burning man falling from the sky pulled me from my faraway world. My gaze wandered to the window an instant before he appeared. And then, slowly, like a feather caught on a light breeze, he willowed past my window, turning his grotesque head towards me, his mouth open in a silent scream. He was more than on fire. He was fire.

Orange and red flames braided together in the shape of a man, but it was his eyes that caused me to suck in my breath and hold it as I ran to the window. His eyes, scared and imploring, told of a darkness and agony I couldn't begin to understand.

I leaned farther into the window, the glass surprisingly warm from his brush past it. Like I touched a trace of him. As he completed his unhurried, torturous descent to the lawn, he kept his gaze locked on mine. Beseeching me for something I couldn't give as the flames consumed him. So many things I should have felt, wondered, or worried about, yet I just watched, fascinated and compelled to see him to the end.

He landed in the yard, still burning alive. My father's pristine lawn would be scorched.

He'd be so disappointed.

Afraid to leave my perch, I was unsure what to do next. Surely what I was seeing was a figment of my overactive imagination. A dream caused by too much reading and not enough sleeping. But what if he suffered while I did nothing?

I turned and ran, as quietly as I could, through my room, down the stairs, and finally out the back door. The dew-covered grass beneath my feet reminded me of my state of undress. The nightgown felt thinner and more revealing than what my father had intended when he approved its purchase.

I shivered, not with cold but with nerves. The flames of the burning man sputtered and cooled, revealing charred bones and hunks of flesh. Yet he moved and groaned.

I sank to my knees, horrified that God would be so merciless as to let this poor human being endure such misery. The scent of cooked meat triggered my gag reflex. Strips of bumpy, burned flesh covered his bones here and there, but—his eyes—his eyes remained whole and lucid, giving him the garish appearance of a Halloween corpse.

The smell of sulfur stung my nose, making it hard to breathe. Yet the burning man continued to rasp and sputter.

How could he? His lungs had been incinerated.

For the first time, I noticed I still held the phone. Stupid girl. I should have dialed 911 a long time ago. I'd just pressed the 9 when he spoke.

"Don't bother."

I whimpered at the sound of his raspy, inhuman voice. "You need an ambulance."

The skeleton gurgled a bit, the sound grating and raw. "Too late. I don't have much time."

He shouldn't have had any time. I looked to the sky, but there was no sign of smoke or anything else falling. He groaned again.

"I…; I'm sorry." Lame, stupid girl. "I don't know what to do. I…; wish I could make you more comfortable."

"You must be so frightened." He whispered now, slowly yet with a carefully measured cadence. "I'm sorry you had to see this."

How could he worry about my comfort right now? "Do you want to…; um…; pray or something?"

"No."

His answer came too quickly, too vehemently.

"You'll stay?" he asked—no, implored. "I have no right to ask it of you, but…; I'm afraid to be alone right now. Will you stay…; until…;"

"Of course."

Moisture from the cold, wet grass seeped into the material of my nightgown, promising ugly stains in the virginal white shroud. I already felt the weight of yet another of Father's disappointments.

"Do you want me to ring anyone for you? To say good-bye?"

"There…; is…; no…; one." His whisper weakened with each word.

No one to mourn him? I forced myself to look him, death, in the eyes, and leaned closer, blocking out the revulsion of his grotesque appearance. His last vision should be of someone caring that he died. Someone mourning him. He raised his bony fingers as if to touch me and I steeled myself not to flinch as his hand, still smoldering, neared my face.

He rattled and spoke his last words. "Worth…; the…; fall."

His hand dropped, and the grass sizzled beneath it.

Then his body turned to dust, leaving only a blackened scorch mark on my father's lawn.

I rolled away from the sunlight streaming through my lace curtains and burrowed my head under the pillow. It was a dream. It must have been. Burning men don't fall from the sky. Skeletons don't speak one minute and turn to dust the next.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stared at the ceiling. I was going to have to look. Resigned, I walked the distance from my bed to the window, and it seemed to stretch farther and farther away, the way things do in nightmares. I touched the glass first—it was cool, of course. My fingers splayed on the window and I leaned into it, looking down, hoping to find the perfectly manicured lawn I'd known just yesterday. But the perfection was marred and the grass seared where he'd lain. The burning man.

My heartbeat sputtered and restarted, thumping wildly and faltering with its own rhythm. My mind raced to find an explanation that didn't include a fiery cadaver with scary eyes and a lonely soul.

What kind of…; people…; fell from the sky? Aliens? Fallen angels? Skydivers?

Maybe his plane crashed. But none of that explained his ability to talk with no lungs…; or skin, or organs, or…; No. I must have dreamt it. There was no other explanation. Best to put it out of my mind. Nightmares had no control over me and there was nothing to fear.

Besides, nothing happens in sleepy towns like Serendipity Falls. That's why Father bought a house here. His commute to the city wasn't bad, a half hour unless the fog blanketed us in. He did whatever it was barristers do in their offices all day and made it home for supper almost every evening.

He'd chosen this town precisely for its lack of drama, I reassured myself as I grabbed my pink robe off the hook. What devilry ever befell a girl in a counterfeitly cheerful Victorian house? Surely the heavy cornices and gingerbread trim were wards against all things evil.

It wasn't until I turned on the bathroom light that I remembered what day it was.

The familiar...