Ever Night Read Free Page A

hers—all she had to do was lean into him. . . .
    â€œThen you’ll be of no use to me when you return, just as I first assumed, and I’ll have to kill you.”
    This threat lacked heat and conviction, something the others had had in spades. She trembled.
Don’t lean. Don’t you dare lean.
Wait. When she returned, he’d said.
    â€œHow am I supposed to find them?” she squeaked out. She’d address his concern first, then hers.
    â€œI’m sure you’ll find a way. Also, you should know that you can return here anytime you’d like now. The gate will always be open for you, but you should also know that I will—”
    No, no, no.
“I don’t ever want to return.” She shook her head to emphasize her refusal.
    â€œSorry, darling, but you’ll return on your next birthday whether you wish to do so or not.” His thumb traced the lines in her palm. “You’ll return every birthday for the rest of your life. That’s just how the bond to this world works.”
    She had trouble focusing on his words. That touch . . . the intensified ache . . . She moaned.
More.
Discarding all common sense, she finally allowed herself to lean toward him.
    â€œAnother suggestion,” he whispered, stopping her. The space between their gazes crackled. “Use the next year to prepare. Learn how to fight, and fight dirty. With guns, blades, even your hands.” He placed a soft kiss on the hammering pulse in her wrist before at last releasing her and straightening. “Or don’t. Survival will be up to you.”

Chapter Two
    One year later . . .
    Exactly five minutes until midnight.
    Perched at the edge of her bed, Rose stared at the clock sitting on her desk. Dread coursed through her, as did anticipation. And fury—so much fury.
    Would she or wouldn’t she?
    Would
he
be there or not?
    In the twelve months since meeting Vasili, she’d had time to build him up and tear him down. Romanticize and vilify him. She’d had time to accept what had happened and rationalize what couldn’t possibly have happened.
    After his parting words, she must have slipped into a deep sleep, because the next thing she’d known, she’d woken up in the hospital, groggy and incoherent, her parents frantic. She hadn’t responded to their morning knock or subsequent shaking, so they’d called 911.
    The doctors claimed she’d suffered from a drug overdose, though they hadn’t been able to identify the drug. Clearly, Vasili had slipped something into the wine he’d forced her to drink.
Bastard.
    Four minutes.
    Something had happened to her that night. Something besides the drugging. In the weeks that followed, she’d tried to move on with her life. Tried to forget. Only, everything had changed. She’d been irritable, hungry, aching unbearably, unable to focus or sleep. Her parents had tried to talk to her, and at first, she resisted. But finally she’d broken down and hinted at what she’d seen. They told her she’d hallucinated. She insisted. They asked her if she was still using. She
really
insisted, giving them every single detail.
    They had her committed.
    Upon her release, she’d begun searching online for others like her, desperate to prove herself sane. What she found shocked her. There
were
others like her, and their experiences matched her own. Their description of the world—Nightmare, they called it—matched, too.
    Sometimes people “stepped over” and never returned, she’d been told, and the other Dimension Walkers suspected the monsters had butchered them. Which was why they were looking for ways to sever the “birthday bond.” So far, no luck.
    She’d spent so much time researching, she’d failed to enroll in college. She hadn’t gotten an apartment with Claire, either. And Hoyt . . . The first time he’d kissed