Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) Read Free Page B

Surprised, she quickly spun around to face him, wearing an expression that was both confused and annoyed. “I’m sorry, Ma’am,” Chase apologized. “I thought you were someone else.”
    “Perhaps you should be sure of someone’s identity in the future before you just reach out and grab them like that,” she said in a huff as she turned around and strode away.
    Defeated, Chase turned to head back to the tuxedo shop when the lights around him flickered again. Only this time, the flickering didn’t stop until the mall was fully engulfed in darkness. In the distance, screams echoed through the halls, matched by the sound of boots tramping on the linoleum floor. Frantically, Chase tried to find his way in the darkened hallway away from the approaching threat, but before he could get far, something struck him on the back of the head and knocked him to the ground.
    “Everybody to the ground,” an authoritative voice ordered anyone within earshot. “This is a raid.”

Chapter Two
Consciousness
    “I’ve never told you this before,” Chase said as we lay on the rooftop of my old apartment building, “but when I first saw you, time itself seemed to stop, except for you and I. It was as though the whole room was placed on pause, everyone frozen in their last moments, and I knew I had to get to you. I had to get you to notice me because that was the only way to make the world turn again.”
    I looked at him and smiled. This was yet again another dream—a hallucination, some may say. I’d had many of them over the past few hours. Or maybe it had been days? Weeks? Though I wasn’t sure of the amount of time that had passed since I’d last had a lucid thought, I knew, nonetheless, that I was dreaming. And this was turning out to be my favorite one so far.
    “I didn’t know that, tell me more,” I answered, baiting him. If I couldn’t be with him while I was awake, this was my next best option.
    “And when we were together, my world did turn. It spun so fast, it made me dizzy, but I didn’t care because I loved the euphoric feeling. Our love was love the way it was meant to be. The love you read about in fiction.” Chase fell silent as he stared up at the dark, starless sky.
    “You’re referring to our relationship in the past tense,” I said. This was a first. Every other dream had been in the present tense.
    “We need to let each other go, Celaine.” Chase glanced over at me and smiled, defeated. “It’s the only way we’re ever going to heal and move on with our lives.”
    I nodded at him with tears in my eyes. “I know.”
    “Now wake up. They need you.”
    Slowly and without taking his eyes away from mine, he faded away until there was nothing left around me but the starless night sky.
    *****
    “Is she awake?” Ian’s voice blew through my head like a warm breeze, so close, yet so far away.
    “Not yet. Soon, I think,” Kara’s voice answered him. Her voice was a footstep or two closer than Ian’s had been.
    “Something’s not right. She should have regained consciousness by now. Maybe someone should check her vitals.”
    “Simmer down, lover boy,” Kara interrupted him. “Celaine lost a lot of blood and has been kept pretty sedated. Five days really isn’t a long time considering the injury she sustained.” Even though she put on a calm and collected façade, there was a subtle nuance in her voice that betrayed her fear. Thankfully, Ian was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to notice it.
    “Celaine, wake up, please.” His voice came through clearer as though he’d opened the door and entered the same room as me. Close. Oh, so very close. “Please,” he whispered, and for the first time in days, I could feel touch. His skin was touching my skin, my forehead. Was it his hand? His lips? I couldn’t tell yet, but I could feel my body slowly surfacing from the depths of unconsciousness.
    “The color has returned to her cheeks. She’ll be back with us soon,” Kara reassured him.